Solitaire - Lee Lozano, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Joan Semmel February 2, 2008

Solitaire brings together three artists who came of age aesthetically in New York in the 1960s and engaged in representational painting even while the art world seemed to turn its back on that kind of art-making.

Lee Lozano (1930–1999) rendered everyday objects—watches, hammers, razor blades, screw drivers—in an expressionistic, anthropomorphic style. Sylvia Plimack Mangold (b. 1938) paints the boundaries of her studio and home: the intersecting edges of floorboards, walls, and mirrors; the overlapping forms of trees outside her window. Joan Semmel (b. 1932) reinvents the nude in radically cropped images of single female figures (often herself) or couples caught in heterosexual encounters. On the surface, the artists’ work suggests few commonalities, yet that very disparateness offers a fresh look at the categories of “realism” and “feminism” in contemporary painting. It’s like three small-scale solo exhibitions that illuminate one another.

Note: Solitaire is intended for mature audiences.

Official Website: http://www.wexarts.org/ex/index.php?eventid=2447