Eliana Willis

Artist Jason Martin’s work has long captured the attention of viewers for the almost sculptural effect produced by the painter’s thick strokes of impasto. Each of his horizontal bands, which mimic the effect of canyon striations, challenge one’s perception of dimensionality by appearing to reach beyond the plane of the work itself. 
While Martin, who studied at Goldsmith’s College in London in the early 1990s, has in past exhibitions adhered to more neutral color palettes in order to emphasize his work’s textural scapes, he is exploring bold new territory now, as illustrated in his latest show, “Space, Light, Time” at Lisson Gallery Shanghai, which opened earlier this month and is on view through late August.
The work marks an exciting new chapter for the artist, who sought to return to the fundamentals of painting while in his studio in Portugal during much of 2020. It consists of a series of bold new shapes and bolder colors, partly inspired by Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana—two artists who played a key role in this shift for the artist.
In the space, Martin’s round works in oriental blue and cobalt violet assume center stage on the gallery’s first and second walls, while further back in the later rooms, one can see an ultramarine blue tondo followed by a series of neon pink and scarlet canvases. The works, the gallery notes, “illustrate the core of Martin’s practice, yet [also] depict the ever-evolving pursuit of an artist exploring new and unique ways to handle the medium and the scenes that emerge.”
In many ways, Martin’s hypnotic, colorful forms emit a more energetic, joyful sense of aliveness than his previous work, employing for the first time, too, mirrored surfaces using metallics like gold, silver, copper, and nickel in some of the works. All are meant to inspire, according to the gallery, “a desire to escape the melancholy and start anew.”
To view Martin’s works, check out images of the show below and on the gallery’s website. 
Installation view of Jason Martin’s “Space, Light, Time” at Lisson Gallery. Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Installation view of Jason Martin’s “Space, Light, Time” at Lisson Gallery Shanghai. Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
James Martin, Untitled (Quinacridone scarlet) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Installation view of Jason Martin’s Untitled (Fluorescent pink / Titanium white) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
A closeup of Jason Martin’s Untitled (Fluorescent flame red / Rosso laccato) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Jason Martin, Untitled (Ultramarine blue) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Jason Martin, Untitled (Ultramarine blue) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Jason Martin, Untitled (Cobalt violet) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Jason Martin, Untitled (Permanent red) (2021). Photo courtesy Lisson Gallery.
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Last week, as the streets of Chelsea were bathed in the golden light of early evening, a line wrapped around the block as creative types queued up to be admitted to the night’s hottest event. It wasn’t a restaurant or club, it was the opening of “Social Works,” a group exhibition at Gagosian’s West 24th Street gallery.
Curated by writer and newly appointed Gagosian director Antwaun Sargent, “Social Works” features art by Kenturah Davis, Theaster Gates, Titus Kaphar, Rick Lowe, Carrie Mae Weems, and others, all of whom in some way reflect on Black communities and social engagement.
“Given the last year of the pandemic and protest and the history in which Black artists operate, the work does more than just sit quietly on the wall,” Sargent told the New York Times.
Christie Neptune, Untitled (2021).© Christie Neptune. Courtesy of the artist and Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, Maine, and Gagosian.
Linda Goode Bryant, founder of the gallery Just Above Midtown and Project EATS, an urban farming organization, grew vegetables in the gallery and a video made in collaboration with architect Elizabeth Diller titled Are we really that different? (2021).
Theaster Gates, meanwhile, pays homage to DJ Frankie Knuckles, the “Godfather of house music” and an icon of the Black and queer music scenes of the 1980s. Rick Lowe, founder of the Project Row Houses organization in Texas, presents a new series of works documenting the Tulsa Race Massacre.
See more images of the show below.
“Social Works,” installation view, 2021. Artworks © artists. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
Alexandria Smith, Iterations of a galaxy beyond the pedestal, (2021). © Alexandria Smith. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian.
“Social Works,” installation view, 2021. Artworks © artists. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
Carrie Mae Weems, The British Museum (2006–). © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Gagosian.
Rick Lowe, Black Wall Street Journey #5 (2021). © Rick Lowe Studio. Photo: Thomas Dubrock. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian.
“Social Works,” installation view, 2021. Artworks © artists. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
Lauren Halsey, black history wall of respect (II) (2021). © Lauren Halsey. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, and Gagosian.
Kenturah Davis, the bodily effect of a color (sam) (2021). © Kenturah Davis. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio. Courtesy of the artist, Matthew Brown Los Angeles, and Gagosian.
Theaster Gates, A Song for Frankie (2017–21). © Theaster Gates. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gaosian.
“Social Works,” installation view, 2021. Artworks © artists. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
“Social Works” is on view through August 13 at Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street. 
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In 1883, Vincent Van Gogh gave a friend a book about French peasants. More than 135 years later, researchers discovered that the novel contained another present, too: a handmade bookmark, featuring a series of early sketches by the Dutch artist. 
Made when the artist was still in his late 20s, the three drawings are laid out on a single strip of paper. Each depicts a single figure—perhaps peasants inspired by those in the book.
Now, for the first time, the drawings are on public view in “Here to Stay,” an exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam that’s comprised of artworks and other artifacts that have entered the institution’s collection over the past decade. 
“Relatively very few drawings from Van Gogh’s early period survive, although we know he must have made hundreds,” Teio Meedendorp, a senior researcher at the museum, said in a statement. “Small informal sketches like these—they are really tiny—are even more scarce, and practically limited to letter sketches.”
Meedendorp added that the drawings were likely completed at the end of 1881 when the artist was living in his parents’ village, Etten. The strip, the researcher went on, “gives an idea of Van Gogh’s quick scribbling capacities, and the item as such is a rare tangible witness of his reading habits: a personalized bookmarker.”
Three recently-discovered sketches made by Vincent Van Gogh circa 1881. Courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum.
The drawings were found in a copy of Histoire d’un Paysan, an illustrated novel about the French Revolution told through the perspective of a peasant, according to Martin Bailey, a Van Gogh specialist who first reported the news in The Art Newspaper. Van Gogh gave the book to fellow Dutch artist Anthon van Rappard in 1883.
“I do think you’ll find the Erckmann-Chatrian beautiful,” Van Gogh wrote in a missive to van Rappard that same year, referring to the book’s authors, Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian.
After van Rappard died in 1892, the book was passed on to his wife. It stayed with her family for generations, until 2019, when it was sold to the Van Gogh Museum.
“The drawings date from the early months of Van Gogh’s serious efforts to become an artist,”  Bailey told Artnet News in an email. “They are sketchy and slightly crude works, but are nevertheless highly revealing. They emphasize his interest in depicting the human figure and his interest in the lives of the peasants in the village where his parents were living.”
Shortly after Van Gogh mailed the book, van Rappard visited him in the Dutch town of Nuenen. There, Van Gogh sketched a portrait of his friend—the largest such drawing he’s believed to have made. 
However, the duo’s friendship dissolved shortly thereafter, when van Rappard criticized Van Gogh’s 1885 lithograph of The Potato Eaters. Angered by the perceived betrayal, Van Gogh sliced the portrait he had made of van Rappard in half. Today, only the top register of the drawing remains. 
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