len bellinger painting notes May 11, June 3, 2018 DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary

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3 len bellinger painting notes May 11, June 3, 2018 DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary

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5 Painting Notes The Work of Len Bellinger I can t believe it s been almost five years since I ve added to my painting practice to also become a curator and gallerist. One of my most cherished experiences in those 5 years is the strange and wonderful case of my studio visit with Len Bellinger. I first encountered Len and his amazing wife Denise Sfraga, an artist herself, when we opened Life On Mars. I came to know Len as a voracious collector and supporter of artists. Denise also generously photographed and shared on social media almost every opening in the Bushwick scene. They bought work from almost every artist in Bushwick they could afford and asked for nothing in return. I would often refer to them as the Vogels. For those too young to get the reference, Herb and Dorothy Vogel were a seemingly ordinary couple who filled their humble one-bedroom New York apartment with more than 4,000 works of art over a 45-year period. Despite their modest income, the Vogels began acquiring work that was undiscovered or unappreciated in the early 1960s, primarily minimalist and conceptual art by such visionaries as Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Donald Judd, Richard Tuttle, Sol LeWitt, Christo, Lynda Benglis and many others. By the early 1990s, the Vogels collection filled every corner of their living space, from the bathroom to the kitchen, floor to ceiling. If you re ever invited to Denise and Len s home, you ll see the Vogels collection ten times over. After Denise and Len bought about their tenth Todd Bienvenu work, I thought I would ask if I could see their collection. I also asked Len, what do you do? He told me he was a painter. Never once over the first two years did he ask me for a studio visit or try to leverage buying work from me to come see his work. So I went to his studio. When I arrived in Queens, Len was outside dressed in his usual all black to show me the way in. To get into his studio, one has to step down into what could best be described lovingly as a Hobbit Hole. His 300 sq ft space is filled from floor to ceiling with over four decades of unseen, uncompromising, bad-ass, intelligent and passionate work. Len spent close to eleven years living in that space. They ve endured winters with no heat. All they needed was painting and each other. We started going through the work and I could not believe what I was seeing. He had been in that studio since 1979, and there was decades of amazing work that Len had created and decided not to show. He didn t show because all he wanted to do was work and didn t want to waste his time with the art business. Amazingly, he chose not to show despite having lots of early success with a studio at PS-1 from , representation and exhibitions with Kathryn Markel 1983 and 1985 and a great review in The New York Times by Grace Glueck.

6 Over the next forty years, Len taught high school. He was a one-person art department and a beloved teacher. He d drive a cab during the summer in the early years and then go to the studio every day and paint, paint, paint. Despite the demands of his schedule, he always found the time to look at, admire, and champion the work of his contemporaries. Len Bellinger is the ultimate Outsider/Insider artist: part Thornton Dial, part Goya, part Schnabel, part Bill Nye the Science Guy. But in the end, he s entirely original. And yet, these stories would mean nothing if the work wasn t as astounding as it is. He had a show in the Project Room at DSC alongside one of the world s most powerful painters in the main room, Brenda Goodman. Len s work was incredibly well-received and held its own with Brenda s. In fact, the two bodies of work created a rich, powerful dialogue when side-byside. Why do I and so many others find Bellinger s work so powerful? Well, it s the intelligence, the love of art history, science and his relentless curiosity that results in the amazingly complex and rich surfaces with imagery all his own. There s an extreme, almost obscenely perverse beautiful materiality that is the evidence and guts of his practice. It s the residue of a total uncompromising commitment to find truths through the transformative act of painting. Len came up with the name for this exhibition, Painting Notes Over the years Len has filled notebooks with studies and notations about his work. Len envisioned this exhibition as almost a musical notation of the experience of the studio: where one could perform and inhabit the experience of his studio over the last thirty-five years, from the earliest piece in the exhibition, Plague, started in 1986 and finished in 1993, to the most recent piece Thug, There is no game in these works. Some paintings he works over and over for decades, such as Horizontal Hold, He obsessively reworks the surfaces until they set for him in a way that feels specific and resolved. Len uses everything and the kitchen sink: staples, wood, metal, collage, paint and God knows what else. It lets the viewer join in on this transformative glorious mess, without knowing exactly how he or she arrived there. I believe that the greater the degree the painter is transformed by their practice and process, the greater the painting and more expansive a record of that transformation is left for the viewer to inhabit. While the viewer may not understand what the painter exactly meant, or what the experience of the painter was, they can feel the rhythm, the micro adjustments, and the commitment of the painter. They thereby become part of something bigger than themselves, making sense of what is felt but cannot be fully understood, actualizing a secular spirituality, making real what we can feel and know in our hearts but never fully understand. It is my honor to share the transformative experience I first had going Len s studio with you. At long last, you can see the decades of powerful work that now feels more timely and fresh than ever. Michael David Painter Curator Artistic Director David &Schweitzer Contemporary May 1, 2018

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10 plague 36 x 32 oil on canvas

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12 guardian 11 x 9.5 x 3.75 oil, wax, acrylic, medals, glue on cardboard

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14 harmful or fatal if swallowed 7.5 x 6.25 oil, etching ink, acrylic on cardboard

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16 ltl bklyn 7 x 5 oil, acrylic, staples on cardboard

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18 pdf 13.5 x 7.5 oil, etching ink, acrylic on wood

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20 pagan 72 x 48 oil, canvas, staples, religious medals, repro on canvas

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22 sg.tmd 66 x 42 oil, acrylic wash, canvas, glue on paper 1994

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24 sg.leper 66 x 42 oil, acrylic wash, canvas, braille, glue on paper 1994

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26 untitled bosch 24 x 18 oil, acrylic, gesso, glue, canvas on repro 1994

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28 pox populi 71.5 x 48 oil, staples, formica, canvas on canvas

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30 kogupuk 71.5 x 50.5 oil, rope on canvas /97

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32 measu 74 x 62.5 oil, staples, rags, canvas on canvas

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34 hopper.shu 46 x 24 oil, acrylic, canvas, glue on wood panel

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36 hopper 46 x 24 oil, acrylic, canvas, glue on wood panel 1995

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38 untitled 24 x 18 oil, acrylic, canvas on canvas

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40 stand 48 x 38 oil, acrylic, etching ink, glue on wood panel 1996

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42 ed 89 x 51 oil, acrylic, silkscreen fabric, canvas, glue on paper

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44 attic 78 x 42 oil, acrylic, glue, fabric mounted on wood panel

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46 attic 48 x 36 gesso, etching ink, fabric mounted on wood panel 1999

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48 OXll 81 x 62.5 oil, acrylic, etching ink, silicone, staples, plastic, metal, vinyl, leather. glue on canvas

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50 kkp 81 x 62 oil, acrylic, etching ink, pastel, metal, found materials on canvas

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52 ttm.marga 79 x 62.5 oil, acrylic, gold leaf, etching ink, plaster, fabric on canvas

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54 kkp 24 x 14.5 oil on canvas 2005

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57 recent work

58 moby 5.5 x 3.5 oil, etching ink, acrylic, staples on cardboard

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60 ttm.marga 20 x 16 oil, staples, canvas on canvas

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62 ttm.marga 18" x 15.5 oil, gesso on canvas 2016

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64 ttm.marga 24" x 20 oil, acrylic, gesso on canvas

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66 runt 18.5 by 14 oil, acrylic, charcoal, staples, canvas on canvas

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68 runt 15.5" x 13 oil, acrylic, gesso, staples, etching ink on canvas 2016

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70 thug 61" x 54" oil, staples, canvas on canvas

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72 upnatm 64" x 51" oil on canvas

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74 kkp.jj 27" x 21.5" x 2.75 oil, acrylic, glue, gesso, repros on homasote

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76 horizontal hold oil, metal on canvas mounted on wood panel 26.25" x 19"

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78 reader 10.75" x 8.5 acrylic, watercolor, china marker on repro 2018

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80 tmd 10.75" x 7.5 acrylic, gesso, watercolor, china marker on repro 2018

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82 thrace 10.75" x 8.25 china marker on repro 2018

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84 fur traders 10.5" x 8.25 acrylic, watercolor, gesso, china marker on repro 2018

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86 auspicious cranes 8.5" x 6.25 acrylic, gesso, china marker on repro 2018

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88 saxon 6.5" x 5 acrylic, china marker on repro 2018

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90 noc 10.5" x 8 acrylic, gesso, china marker on repro 2018

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95 selected exhibitions 2018 len bellinger: painting notes david & schweitzer contemporary brooklyn, ny among friends dumbo open studios brooklyn, ny Sculpture56: Painting into Sculpture m.david studio/dsc annex brooklyn, ny odds and sods m.david studio/dsc annex brooklyn, ny the greatest show on earth: sideshow 7 sideshow gallery brooklyn, ny 2017 len bellinger: thugs, miscreants and recent extractions david & schweitzer contemporary brooklyn, ny the yellow chair extravaganza david & schweitzer contemporary brooklyn, ny summer invitational david & schweitzer contemporary brooklyn, ny the flatfiles, dsc annex brooklyn, ny thru the rabbit hole 2 sideshow gallery brooklyn, ny 2016 seeking space david & schweitzer contemporary 56 bogart brooklyn, ny reality is wrong, dreams are for real dsc annex brooklyn, ny an occasional dream life on mars gallery brooklyn, ny thru the rabbit hole sideshow gallery brooklyn, ny new morning space 776 brooklyn, ny 2015 summer invitational: portraits life on mars gallery brooklyn, ny mixtape 2 m. david studio brooklyn, ny verge 2012 new york, ny text 440 gallery brooklyn, ny stripped orbital gallery london, UK 25th anniversary exhibition the drawing center new york, ny new drawing in america the drawing center new york, ny len bellinger/kit kuen kan kathryn markel gallery new york, ny new work/gallery artists kathryn markel gallery new york, ny gallery artists/navy pier art show kathryn markel gallery chicago, ill annual the queens museum queens, ny len bellinger/new paintings the alternative museum new york, ny uptown/downtown city gallery new york, ny paperworks the hudson river museum yonkers, ny religion into art pratt institute gallery (traveling exhibition) new york, ny rituals: sacred/secular the citicorp building/st. peter s church new york, ny selections/paperwork the drawing center new york, ny len bellinger/open studios p.s.1 (MoMA) queens, ny len bellinger/paintings and reproduction drawings p.s.1 (MoMA) queens, ny queens artists p.s.1 (MoMA) queens, ny four directions american indian community house gallery new york, ny invitational 55 mercer new york, ny 14 painters lehman gallery the bronx, ny permanent collection: recent acquisitions the alternative museum new york, ny the international drawing biennial camden art center london, UK let there be light alternative center for international art new york, ny the detective show gorman park queens, ny agresti/bellinger lehman gallery the bronx, ny

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