PYTHAGOREAN TRAVELER An exhibition by Patti Smith/
LAZY NOVA An exhibition by Glen Rubsamen    Dec 1 - Jan 13, 2007

December 1, 2006 through January 13, 2007
Reception for the artist, Friday, December 1, 6 to 8 pm

Robert Miller Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Patti Smith. Entitled A Pythagorean Traveler, the show includes recent photographs as well as an installation piece, a composite of objects, drawings, and a bed draped with a vintage linen cloth that has been inscribed with poetry by the artist. Patti Smith has exhibited her drawings with Robert Miller Gallery since the late seventies. This is the gallery’s second exhibition featuring her photographs.

Patti Smith is known most widely as a musical artist and a poet but her creative energies are not limited to these genres. Smith began as a visual artist and has been making drawings and taking photographs since her days as an art student in the late 1960’s. After the events of September 11, 2001, Smith worked on an extensive series of drawings in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center. At the conclusion of that project she found herself drawn to photography with a new concentration. Her camera of choice is a Polaroid Land 250. She has mastered the limitations of this camera to produce results of intimate beauty. From the original Polaroid, gelatin silver prints are made. The recent photographs have been taken during her many travels. The images often pay tribute to and celebrate renowned artists who have been inspirational to her work.

In 2002 a retrospective exhibition Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith, was curated by John Smith, and organized by The Andy Warhol Museum. The exhibition traveled to venues including The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Museum Boijsman Van Beuningen, Rotterdam through 2005. Patti Smith’s most recent book of poetry Auguries of Innocence, was published by Ecco press in 2005. She was presented with the prestigious insignia of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters, one of the highest French cultural honors in July 2005. A retrospective of her work is planned for the Cartier Foundation in 2008.

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LAZY NOVA
An exhibition by Glen Rubsamen

December 1, 2006 through January 13, 2007
Reception for the artist, Friday, December 1, 6 to 8 pm

The Robert Miller Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Glen Rubsamen. This is the artist’s first exhibition at the Robert Miller Gallery. In this exhibition Rubsamen has created large diptychs that depict shifting moments in a landscape, the beginning of the day and the end, or the creation of the world and its final moments. The paintings portray a battle between organic elements and manmade ones but the conflict seems to be one that is contextualized by artificial forces. Silhouettes of trees, lamp posts and buildings recur in Rubsamen’s paintings, which see the artist experimenting with the idea of photographic simulation whilst providing a shifting view point and an underlying sense of mystery and uncertainty. Rubsamen contravenes the existing treaties of the landscape genre, applying the strict rules of atmospheric classicism in alternative ways; shadow is used to create depth, and luminosity flatness.

Glen Rubsamen was born in Los Angeles, California and studied at U.C.L.A. where he received his MFA. He lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. In recent years his work has been shown at the Kunstverein Munich, the Musee d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg and the Taipei Biennial. He has exhibited with Galerie Michael Cosar, Düsseldorf, Germany; Witte de With, Rotterdam and De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Holland; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; AnneMarie Verna and Mai 36, Zurich, Switzerland; and Meyer Riegger Gallery, Karlsruhe, Germany, Galeria Pepe Cobo in Seville, Spain.