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David
Bierk at Nancy Hoffman Gallery
December 6, 2000 - January 6, 2001
Welcome to David
Bierk's first solo show at Nancy Hoffman Gallery. David Bierk's work is
also currently on view at The Montgomery Museum, Alabama, in a solo show:
"after HISTORY, The Paintings of David Bierk." "after HISTORY" will travel
to four other museum venues. The exhibition is accompanied by a book entitled
"Putting the Old Masters to Contemporary Use: David Bierk's Conceptual Painting"
with an essay by Donald Kuspit, which is available at Nancy Hoffman Gallery.
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David Bierk,
After History, Evening Sky, 2000, oil on canvas, rusted iron on board, 51
x 43 inches |
David Bierk,
An Allegory of Balance, after History, to Vermeer, 2000, oil on canvas, 52 x 85 inches |
For
the first time, Bierk adds the element of fashion to his vocabulary and
repertoire of images. In his diptych, An Allegory of Balance after
HISTORY to Vermeer, he juxtaposes Vermeer's Young Woman
with a Water Pitcher, standing at the window, gazing left, with
a seated Fendi model. |
| Both
women are dressed in the characteristic garb of their era, both glowing
in warm golds. Vermeer's woman is bathed in sunlight from the window of
her home, while the Fendi model is bathed in the artificial light of a store,
a commercial arena. She becomes an object on display in the sleek, architectural
contemporary environment. |
David Bierk,
An Allegory of Life, to van der Weyden, 2000, oil on canvas, 64 x 93 inches |
David Bierk,
After History, 2000, oil on canvas, steel, 64 x 102 inches |
Like
the iconic image of the Fendi model, Bierk finds icons in the profiles of
magazine perfect male models. He enlarges these portrait heads in scale
to six feet in height, paints them in oil in black and white, and juxtaposes
them with romantic moonlit landscapes surrounded by steel. These heroic
heads recall the grand scale of Roman and Greek sculpture in their unembellished
honesty. |
| Also
new for Bierk, is the juxtaposition of a black and white lusciously painted
panel with one that is created in layers of color. The starkness of the
contemporary image next to the voluptuousness of the landscape poses questions
for the viewer and like all of Bierk's work, provokes reflection. |
David Bierk,
A Eulogy to Light and Life, to Caravaggio and Fantin-Latour,
2000, oil on canvas, steel, 63 x 120 inches |
David Bierk,
An Allegory of Beauty, to Corot and Fantin-Latour , 2000,
oil on canvas, 35 x 51 inches |
David
Bierk's paintings explore four distinct areas in depth and intensity: landscapes,
portraits, still lifes and what the artist calls "history paintings." These
paths run parallel, interweaving on a regular basis. The still lifes are
most often flowers, based on works by Edouard Manet, Fantin-Latour, or the
Dutch masters. |
| They
often include traditional symbols: fruit, vegetables, goblets, the stuff
of voluptuous table coverings. While Bierk pays homage to masters throughout
art history, a signature aspect of his work, he always paints the image
in his own style filled with gusto, bold strokes and vibrant color. |
David Bierk, After History, from Bierstadt, 2000,
oil on canvas, 63 x 97 inches |
David Bierk, A Eulogy to Life and Art, after Eakins and Fantin-Latour,
2000, oil on canvas, 60 x 93 inches |
His
landscapes are invented, never specific places. They are infused with the
ambiance of painters he loves, from the 19th century and before. Among his
favorites are Constable, Keith, Inness and Church. Bierk has traveled far
and wide in this country and Canada, always returning to home base with
photographs of evening skies and cloud filled vistas. Bierk's history paintings
are an on-going dialogue, often diptychs, sometimes triptychs. |
| The
diptychs usually juxtapose a slice of romantic Bierk landscape on one side
with an homage to master the other. At times the "master" image is a fragment
of a still life, at others a figure or portrait. By creating two sides equal
intensity, artist has eliminated pre-modern concept central focus and created
duet focal points. |
David Bierk, After History, to Petrus Christus and Fantin-Latour,
2000, oil on canvas, 31 x 50 inches |
David Bierk, After History, to Vermeer and Manet, 2000, oil on canvas,
35 x 51 inches |
Each
side can or could stand on its own merits, but together the diptychs pose
questions about history, art history, contemporary painting, pictorial space,
paint as subject, frame as window and more. Of his juxtapositions, Bierk
says, "I arrange and re-arrange these elements to create a series of visual
and intellectual collisions, bringing into relief the complex interchanges
and precarious co-existence of their parts." |
| The
artist's approach to historical images is not simply curatorial, but conceptual.
The work he creates "after" the masters is never a straight copy. It is
altered in scale and in palette. It is always contemporized and re-contextualized
by adding a word with many layers of meaning, or framing an "old master"-looking
painting in a steel or rusted-iron surround (a material of contemporary
times with contemporary connotations). |
David Bierk, After History, to Petrus Christus and Fantin-Latour,
2000, oil on canvas, concrete, 58 x 93 inches |
David Bierk, An Allegory of Beauty, to Fantin-Latour and Sargent,
2000, oil on canvas, 35 x 54 inches |
Bierk's
paintings after the masters are done in the spirit of praise, celebration,
and as an homage to the act of painting. As the artist says "my quest to
resolve the polarities of past and present, of life and death, of preservation
and destruction, delivers a series of images and ideas that converge and
resist, that vacillate between the reciprocal and the parasitic, that speak
to my personal and universal concerns, to explore the boundaries and relationships
between art, culture and humanity." |
| David
Bierk was born in Appleton, Minnesota in 1944. He received both a B.A. and
an M.A. from Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. He also attended
California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. |
David Bierk, A Eulogy to Light and Life, to de Chirico and Bierstadt,
2000, oil on canvas, concrete, 60 x 93 inches |
David Bierk, After History, After Vermeer, 2000,
oil on canvas, rusted iron on board, 51 x 43 inches |
David
Bierk's work has been widely shown throughout the United States and Canada
at public institutions including The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,
Ridgefield, Connecticut; Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New
York; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Dayton Art Institute,
Ohio; Evansville Museum of Arts & Science, Indiana; Flint Institute of the
Arts, Michigan; Samuel P. Harm Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville;
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Katonah Museum of
Art, Katonah, New York; Las Vegas Art Museum, Nevada; London Regional Art
and Historical Museum, London, Ontario; University of Massachusetts, Amherst;
Memorial Art Museum, Rochester, New York; MoMA extension at Pfizer, New
York, New York; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; New York Academy
of Sciences, New York, New York; Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia,
as well as many corporate and private venues. |
His
work is included in many public collections, among them Art Gallery of Greater
Victoria, British Columbia; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art Gallery
of Peterborough, Ontario, Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario; Canadian Museum
of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Canadian Postal Museum, Ottawa; The
Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Indiana;
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville; London
Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa;
City of Peterborough, Ontario; as well as many corporate and private collections.
The artist has been named Artist-in-Residence by the Canada Council, St.
Catherines, and the Canada Council, North Bay, Ontario. He has also received
three grant awards from the Canada Council. David Bierk resides in Petersborough,
Ontario.
Bierk's Biography
More Info on Bierk |
David BIerk, After History, to Fantin-Latour, 2000,
oil on canvas, 51 x 49 inches |
David Bierk, An Allegory of Balance, after History, to Life, 2000,
oil on canvas, steel, 72 x 180 inches |
