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(Articolo disponibile solo in lingua inglese, por Jill Conner)

Painting has followed a dramatic, evolutionary path since its inception, ranging from the figurative to the nakedly abstract.  After the success of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, American artists continues to embrace this genre even after its star had faded from the New York art scene.  However the postmodern movement of Deconstructivism lampooned a new crop of artists such as Robert Ryman, Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer who each combined empirical investigations of artistic media with time-based materials such as the resonance of natural and artificial light, the malleable surface of the earth and the visual effects of handmade, negative space.  Contemporary abstract artist, Edward Shalala, has continued on a similar multi-dimensional course that underscores the structure of painting. 
 

Edward Shalala untitled: bias date:2008 medium: single-fill canvas on stretcher frame size: 7"x7"

With a strong focus on painting as an object, Shalala presents an array of canvas types, either adding color to a few threads or cutting them apart. During the Summer, Shalala presented canvas thread and a small number of black-and-white photographs depicting thread strewn across nature within the M’Finda Kalunga Community Garden of the Lower East Side.  The artist’s solo show at Cleveland’s Brokebridge Gallery commenced shortly after and featured four "raw canvas" paintings along with a different selection of four images.  "untitled: bias," (2008) for instance, is a fragment of single-fill canvas stretched over a 7-inch square frame.   The weave and weft run diagonally rather than vertically, while a bundle of thread bursts from the center. 
 

 

 

Edward Shalala untitled: canvas thread in nature date: 2008 medium: photo documentation size: 11"x14"

 

Although paintings are typically square canvas colored with either acrylic or oil pigment, Shalala bleaches or washes the canvas in order to isolate color within the material itself, creating a more subdued rather than empty effect.  However "empty" is what the artist aims to highlight, which is his response to the historically frequent appearance of raw canvas within paintings made by the Analytic Cubists and even Cezanne.  It also became a primary characteristic of "end game" painting that surfaced in American art throughout the 1950s.  Another piece titled, "untitled: canvas, threads removed," (2008) consists of canvas thread was woven and then later dissected into the 7-inch square surface.  Shalala’s art clearly maintains a provocative yet performative characteristic.  Aside from collaborating with weavers and tailors on specific pieces, the artist also extends a spool of thread throughout grass, trees and bushes found in areas such as the Catskill Mountains and Martha’s Vinyard, preserving each piece in photo documentation. 
 

Edward Shalala untitled: canvas thread in nature date: 2008 medium: photo documentation size: 11"x14"

Robert Rauschenberg once stated that his goal was to put everything possible into a painting, as made evident in his "Combines."  Edward Shalala, however, continues to take everything out, challenging the foundation of painting.  Having spent nearly thirty years working in the shadows of the mainstream art establishment, Shalala offers subtle satire.   In 2005 he pulled wove 600-feet of canvas thread into a slender, three-dimensional box, adding a price tag of $30,000 since part of the materials were pulled through a runnel of red paint.  Most recently one of his new pieces appeared in the "183rd Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art," at the National Academy as well as "American Abstract Artists:  Tribute to Esphyr Slobodkina."  In October, PS 1 will include more new work in a group show titled, "Minus Space," curated by Phong Bui and Matthew Deleget.  The New Museum also lists Edward Shalala in its Bowery Artist Tribute, featured exclusively online.