Patterns, Installation view Luhring Augustine Chelsea, New York
Pictured from left: Ryan Mrozowski, Kim MacConnell, Tauba Auerbach (floor), Loretta Pettway Bennett, Philip Taaffe
It’s not easy to make an artwork colorful, appealing and substantial, let alone a whole exhibition. “Patterns,” a group show of bold, mostly nonfigurative paintings and textiles by 24 artists that stretches across Luhring Augustine’s two locations, does borrow some of its depth from the hard-won prestige of abstract painting in the 20th century and the vicious critical battles that accompanied its ascent.
A 20-foot-long shaped-canvas Frank Stella piece, “Hiraqla Variation II,” facing off against Kim MacConnel’s painted cotton piece “Koka Kola,” with a Gee’s Bend quilt by Qunnie Pettway to one side and one by Loretta Pettway Bennett to the other, invokes all sorts of arguments about art versus craft, the definition of abstraction, and the art world’s history of sexism and racism. That invocation is subtle enough, though, that the dominant impression remains the visual pleasure those pieces have in common.
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