Four Artists to Know Now At White Columns, Including an Instagram Discovery
Six months ago, Matthew Higgs, the director of the alternative New York art space White Columns, decided to join Instagram. A week in, he stumbled upon the work of an artist named Pam Glick. He’d never heard of her, but quickly learned that two friends—a designer in London and an artist in Los Angeles—had, in fact, purchased paintings from her via Instagram. Higgs quickly arranged a studio visit with Glick, who is based in Buffalo, and offered her a show at White Columns. It opens tonight. “I hadn’t anticipated having such a visceral encounter with an artist’s work on a platform like Instagram,” Higgs said of Glick, who had a prominent career in the 80’s and 90’s (Mike Kelley was a fan) but had effectively fallen off the map after moving to Vermont and then Buffalo. Until she began posting her work on social media, that is. Joining Glick for their own solo outings at White Columns through July 16 are Annie Pearlman, Alyson Vega, and Adrianne Rubenstein, a director of Canada gallery. The artists are from different generations and have distinctive voices. What ties them together is simply the place that is presenting them: White Columns focuses on art that hasn’t yet found a wider audience or critical, curatorial, or commercial support. “The lack of consensus is liberating,” said Higgs. Here, he gives us the curator’s tour.
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Pam Glick Pam’s work is often rooted in abstracted images of Niagara Falls (near her native Buffalo), imagery that is occasionally juxtaposed with written/biographical narratives.
Pam Glick, “Reclining,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
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Pam Glick,”Life Starts Now – A Page from Marilyn Monroe’s Diary,” 2015. Courtesy White Columns.
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Annie Pearlman Annie’s work is a form of hallucinatory urban landscape painting. Based in Brooklyn, her work is informed, influenced, and inspired by the everyday chaos of the urban milieu.
Annie Pearlman, “Making Room,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
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Annie Pearlman, “The Layout,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
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Adrianne Rubenstein Adrianne makes paintings that unashamedly appropriate a kind of pictorial story-telling. Gestural and painterly, her work collapses an aesthetic realm and sensibility perhaps more typically associated with children’s book illustration.
Adrianne Rubenstein, “Family Crest,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
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Adrianne Rubenstein, “Hollywood,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
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Alyson Vega Alyson is affiliated with Fountain House Gallery and Healing Arts Initiative (which, sadly, recently closed), organizations that support artists with mental and developmental disabilities. Alyson came to art independently (after an unsuccessful operation for a brain tumor). Her art—typically fabric and fiber based—is complex, formally innovative, accessible, and often very moving.
Alyson Vega, “Wired #3,” 2016.
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Alyson Vega, “Caravan Train Man,” 2016. Courtesy White Columns.
