Charles Hinman

September 5 - October 5, 2012

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, September 5th, 6 - 8 PM

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We warmly invite you to our opening of a solo exhibition of Charles Hinman.
Since the 1960s his shaped canvases have garnered critical acclaim. We are
proud to show his most recent work, produced over the past two years.
Please join us for a delightful evening to celebrate the artist's continued
achievements and to inaugurate the gallery's second season on September 5th,
from 6 - 8 pm.

An American pioneer of hard-edged shaped canvases, Charles Hinmanʼs work
received immediate global acclaim in 1964 – 5, with work at Sidney Janis Gallery
and a one-person exhibition at Richard Feigen Gallery. Major works found
permanent homes at MoMA, the Albright-Knox Gallery, and the Rockefeller
Collection. He was included in the landmark show Young America at the Whitney
Museum in 1965. Also in that year, Henry Geldzahler and Frank Stella included
Hinman in the seminal exhibition, Shape and Structure, paired with Donald Judd,
Robert Morris, Carl Andre, and Larry Bell.

Hinmanʼs work foreshadowed and influenced an important generation of artists.
There have been numerous museum shows in the years since, including at the
Everson Museum and three at the Butler Institute of American Art. He has received
many awards, including from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and is a current
recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Made from canvas and wood, these are paintings, but they are contradictory to the
stiff, rectangular picture plane. Frank Stellaʼs journey towards more detailed wall
reliefs (which he famously always referred to as paintings) are presaged by Hinman.

His array of sculpted canvases energizes the space on surrounding walls. Various
facets of his new white-primed rhomboids and diamonds are painted behind, or in
front, in bright, saturated hues creating a fascinating play between literal and
illusionistic depth. In some “Gems”, colors are reflected off the wall, thus allowing for
the wall and the interstices to be reconsidered as foreground and ground. In others
works, “Twists”, bands of bent colors are best viewed from the sides. As we move
we perceive the work differently: new colors, new facets, new forms, new shadows,
as the work is constantly reinvented.

As with all too many artists of his generation, there is less public recognition of his
important work at the moment. This exhibition includes work from the past two years.
They are testaments to persistence, hard work, and an unflagging curiosity. These
are arguably his finest works and are pertinent and timely. Hinmanʼs formal language
persists but the work is even more joyous and unabashedly beautiful.

MARC STRAUS opens its second season with Charles Hinman, who will turn 80 this
year. The gallery is in a three-story Lower East Side building that had been a
tenement and then home to various immigrant trades. The program consists of 15
artists from 9 countries, most young, and many of whom have not shown in the US
before.