FORD BECKMAN: Pop Targets
February 25 - April 14, 2012
Opening reception: Saturday, February 25, 6-8 PM
Maloney Fine Art is pleased to present Pop Targets,
an exhibition of new paintings by artist Ford Beckman.
For the past two decades Ford Beckman has made art via multiple approaches and in a variety of styles, nearly simultaneously creating minimalistic "Black Wall Paintings" and explosive "Pop Paintings."
When Ford Beckman is paying homage to one of his artist-heros, whether it be Malevich, Pollock, Johns or Warhol, he distills that artist's style to its essentials and then reinvigorates whatever image he's chosen with an adroit use of color and of industrial materials.
"Pop Targets" is an ongoing investigation of the hybridization of minimal and pop aesthetics. Mechanical or gestural, explosive or contemplative, abstract or geometric, Beckman's Neo-Suprematist/Neo-Spiritual/Neo-Pop paintings expand and continue a modernist discourse.
Whether it is the reinterpretation of the square, the ultimate modernist pursuit, or the reinvention of the target, the need to re-think and rework the iconic is a constant pursuit for this painter.
"Beckman's painting is a response to the spiritual crisis of modernity. With Beckman, painting renews its spiritual intention, becomes a spiritual sanctuary, achieves, once again, a spiritual aura, if in a very different, indeed worsening spiritual climate." Donald Kuspit
Beckman's work has been exhibited internationally and is included in such notable public collections as Panza Collection, Italy; Saatchi Collection, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Israeli Museum, Jerusalem; Essl Collection, Vienna; the Denver Art Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
