Judy Glantzman
Dates: Thursday, April 20 – Friday, May 26, 2006
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 20, 2006, 6 – 8 pm
Hours of Operation: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm
On Thursday, April 20, 2006, Betty Cuningham Gallery will open an exhibition of the recent paintings and sculpture of Judy Glantzman. Glantzman is a native New Yorker and a 1978 graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. Shown in New York since 1983, Glantzman is distinguished particularly by her early shows in the East Village with Gracie Mansion and subsequently at BlumHelman and Hirschl & Adler Modern.
On exhibit will be approximately twelve recent oil paintings dating from 2004 to 2006 accompanied by thirty small figurative sculptures dating from 1990 to the present. While these paintings, which range from small, intimate pieces, to larger, wall dominating works, represent Glantzman’s most recent creations in oil on canvas, this will be the first time her sculptures are exhibited. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Susan Harris accompanies this exhibition
Glantzman’s current paintings, as described by Harris, are “intense, frenetic and visionary portrayals of her/our world.” Glantzman creates vividly highlighted canvases of faces, hands, and feet captured in an individual moments of emotional expression or action. The imagery, built up in thick layers of oil paint through a process of addition and subtraction, elicits the emotional response of Bosch and Picabia. “A cacophony of voices desired to be heard, these paintings can be seen as the inside of my head made visible,” Glantzman explains in her artist’s statement. She continues later, “The paintings are worked over a long period of time. The repetition and repainting allows me freedom to form each figure without judgment …I choose to reveal myself but what is revealed can be scary. I try to be unafraid of my work.”
Glantzman’s interest in psychology, physiognomy, and the multiplicity of personality is further revealed in the small sculptures on show in the gallery. Made of the polymer based child’s play clay, Super Sculpey, these figures, which are exercises in movement and emotion, laugh, smile, cry, and frown; some have multiple heads and amputated limbs. The sculptures, like the paintings, reveal every emotion.
In addition to numerous solo shows, Glantzman’s paintings have been included in several group exhibitions. Most recently these exhibitions include East Village USA at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2004, and Site and Insight at P.S.1, Long Island City, 2003. She has received several awards, among which are: the Silver Medal from the Royal Society of the Arts, London, United Kingdom, awarded to outstanding graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, 1978; the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, 1992; the Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation Grant,1997, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 2001.
Click below for full press release.
A CONVERSATION: JUDY GLANTZMAN by New American Paintings
May 15, 2013, 8:30 am
Filed under: Interview | Tags: A Conversation, Arthur Pena, Judy Glantzman
To know Judy, a wonderful and generous artist and teacher, one has to reconcile her kind spirit with her absolutely gruesome work. Body parts, heads (so many heads!) and objects of destruction are rife throughout her recent solo show at Betty Cunningham Gallery. Glantzman’s raw imagery, what Peter Plagens of the Wall Street Journal called “studenty” (a term Glantzman enjoys) is tough to deal with. Addressing her personal relationship to the idea of war while pulling from the works of Goya and Picasso, Glantzman “orchestrated” over 200 pieces for the viewer to work through, a feat for both sides. After mounting her show and while commuting between Providence and New York, Glantzman and I had a conversation. - Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor
I love it when established artists start something new. After seeing Pablo Picasso's Guernica for the first time three years ago, Judy Glantzman began moving away from the introspective self-portraits she had been making for many years toward a less self-engaged exploration of the devastation caused by war. Determined that she was done with psychological self examination, Glantzman set out to develop a new, more outward-looking visual language. Here are images of a sprawling, roughly hung exhibition at Betty Cuningham in which Glantzman presents powerful work from her ongoing series.
