Tag: Jeffrey Grunthaner

Group Shows

Ceramic alchemy at Peter Freeman, Inc

Contributed by Jeffrey Grunthaner / Properly curated, summer group exhibitions can open novel avenues between disparate artists and particular creative practices. “Made in Cologne,” currently up at Peter Freeman, Inc., decidedly accomplishes this. The conceit of the show is simple: the 15 featured artists have all made ceramic works at the atelier of Niels Dietrich in Cologne, Germany. Founded in 1984, Dietrich’s studio specializes in ceramics and showcases how plastic this medium can be. The expressive character of the exhibition derives in part from the variety of styles and attitudes on display. But all embrace the unique nature of ceramics in one way or the other. 

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Solo Shows

Rita Ackermann’s alternative dimension

Contributed by Jeffrey Grunthaner / Currently on view at MASI Lugano in Lugano, Switzerland, Rita Ackermann’s solo show, “Hidden,” offers a rare melding of museum-oriented historicism with gallery-style directness. Occupying two cavernous rooms in the museum’s bottom floor, the exhibition comprises four bodies of work, ranging from early sketchbook collages prefiguring Ackermann’s iconic “nymph” paintings of the 1990s to more visceral canvases that explore erasure and disappearance. It culminates in three monumental paintings from Ackermann’s most recent series, War Drawings, which recall murals while also resembling magnified pages of an exploded notebook. 

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