| CATHERINE LEE: ‘THE MARK PAINTINGS 1977-79’ at Galerie Lelong |
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CATHERINE LEE: ‘THE MARK PAINTINGS 1977-79’ It is not often that a gallery presents a body of work that an artist created 30 years ago, especially when much of it was never shown. It is even rarer that the artist agrees to the show. But that is what Galerie Lelong has unveiled for the holiday season: a survey of drawings and paintings by the Minimalist Catherine Lee produced in New York from 1977 to 1979. Back then artists weren’t trying to earn a million dollars in their first year out of art school, or flirting at Art Basel Miami Beach with the next Whitney Biennial curatorial team. They were busy reducing art to its essences, to words, spaces, lines and marks. Ms. Lee was among them, producing tightly pared-back, serial paintings using obsessive and repetitive markings laid down in a strict grid structure, never deviating from the mission or allowing her imagination or emotion to enter the creative process (left, a detail of “Painting #3,” 1978). The concentration required to produce the two dozen works here was phenomenal, though the images themselves can at times look a little monotonous. The best of Ms. Lee’s paintings, however, deserve recognition in the pantheon of early Minimalism, among them “Red. Black. Calligraphic Painting” (1978), a picture of such nuance and beauty that it genuinely deserves to be called a masterpiece. It is not only how it is made that impresses but also what it does, shimmering on the wall like a pixelated television screen. This is the past, but somewhere in there is an intimation of the future. (Through Jan. 26, Galerie Lelong, 528 West 26th Street, Chelsea, 212-315-0470, galerielelong.com.) BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO |
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