Air: 24 Hours : Jennifer Bartlett - Hardcover

Eisenberg, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810931281 ISBN 13: 9780810931282

Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc, 1994

Synopsis

In Air: 24 Hours, Jennifer Bartlett creates her most personal paintings, all made between 1991 and 1992. Here, in each work, the unflinching presence of time is carefully, conspicuously monitored by a clock - light gray for day, dark gray for night. But motifs, color combinations, even certain images variously recur throughout the 24 paintings, shaking us up, causing us to realize that even the most seemingly casual, intimate scenes (a child's bedroom, a bathroom, the garden fish pond) are the trappings of much larger concerns. Familiar hallmarks of Jennifer Bartlett's earlier work - the relationship between parts and the whole, geometric structures and mathematically precise grids, a painterly sensuality and an almost obsessive fascination with repetition - take on new meaning in the 24 Hour series. Now they are employed to tell a story, to drive the narrative on, to take us deeper and deeper into some dark place.
Fiction writer and playwright Deborah Eisenberg situates these paintings in the most unexpected and provocative ways. Commentaries on each of the plates become the springboard for an extensive conversation with the artist. A visual reference guide to each of the paintings further expands their discussion.

About this title

Review:

Acclaimed contemporary painter Jennifer Bartlett presents a cycle of paintings that are portraits of each hour of a 24-hour day. Beginning with Midnight, each intriguing painting contains somewhere in it the image of a clock indicating the hour. Throughout this series, Bartlett draws upon the formal themes and motifs that have fascinated her for years: precise grids, geometric structures, decorative patterns, and painterly sensuousness, encouraging viewers to contemplate the relationship of each painting to the whole series. The book includes commentaries for each of the 24 plates by fiction writer Deborah Eisenberg, her interview with the artist, and a detailed visual reference guide to every image in the series. Taken together, this volume offers to take viewers on a mysterious tour through day and night, and presents a moving meditation on the passage of time.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0810931281
• ISBN 13: 9780810931282
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168