Modern nature

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

By Victoria Plasse

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The title for Wolf Kahn’s upcoming show at Tayloe Piggott Gallery takes its lead from the “passing, profound moments in the natural world,” gallery owner Tayloe Piggott said.

“Refractions of Light” brings Kahn’s chromatic landscapes to Wyoming for the first time, and the result of a second collaboration between Camille Obering Art Advisory and the gallery. Their 2009 collaboration, “Influences of Nature on Abstraction,” brought works by Milton Avery, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell.

Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1927, Kahn arrived in England with a group of refugee children at the outset of World War II. At age 12, he emigrated to the United States to rejoin his family. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Kahn studied under painter Hans Hofmann before attending the University of Chicago where he received his bachelor’s in 1951.

Hofmann instilled in Kahn a love and reverence of nature, encouraging Kahn’s evocation of structural color and his way of handling spatial theories. He uses basic defined lines as the foundation for whimsical brush strokes.

Today, Kahn divides his time between Manhattan and Brattleboro, Vermont and much like his work, it’s a balance between sophistication and simplicity. He appreciates the intellectual resources and appreciation found in select rural areas
“Kahn is a great fit [for the Jackson community],” Tayloe Piggott said.
Camille Obering added, “He is as visceral as the backcountry.”  
 
“Up in Vermont, they understand that there’s such a thing as culture—not just agriculture,” Kahn once remarked in an interview. Jackson residents will identify with his highly channeled expressionism and genuine affection for the natural world.

Kahn will create a dialogue through works that fuse color theory and modernism while intersecting with abstraction and representation. This is obvious in such pieces as “Orange/Yellow Interchange,” an oil on canvas landscape painting that resonates a movement more so than a static extract of trees turning with the season.

Obering and Piggott share the same convictions for art in the Tetons. Their mission is to enrich a cultural dialogue while furthering the appreciation and acquisition of exceptional works of art. Their partnership’s foundation is a shared point of view.
“It’s about lifestyle,” Piggott said. She enjoys that people can stop by in waders or covered in mud from the garden to visit with a piece that’s just shown at the Whitney.

And yet, both Obering and Piggott agree that despite people wanting to leave the whole of the metropolis behind when they arrive in Jackson, contemporary art has a place here. They are expounding on the community’s latent appreciation, Obering explained, “to see wonderful things in a first class gallery,” and have plans for future shows. JHW

Wolf Kahn’s “Refractions of Light” hangs today until Oct. 24 at Tayloe Piggott Gallery with a reception during the Fall Arts Festival. www.tayloepiggottgallery.com.

COURTESY TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY

PERMALINK:
Modern nature | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

Leave a Comment