On View

In 1962, Joseph E. Yoakum had a dream that told him to make drawings. 
He was 71 then, a retired veteran and one-time circus hand living in Chicago. He had no experience making art. But for the next decade of his life—his last, it would turn out—drawing was what he did, churning out some 2,000 wondrous pieces in the process. 
Most came in the form of dreamy landscapes, tethered equally to the natural world and the artist’s own fantastical one: scalloped mountains and pristine pools of water, forests that look like heads of romanesco, and winding roads that disappear into the horizon line. A sense of yearning pervades it all.
The old adage about the Velvet Underground—that only 10,000 people bought their first album, but that every one of them started a band—also applies to Yoakum. Not many people saw his drawings, but those who did came away as immediate and lifelong fans.  
That was certainly the case with Roger Brown, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Karl Wirsum, and Ray Yoshida—all members of the influential group of Chicago Imagists, the Hairy Who, who were among Yoakum’s most ardent admirers since meeting the self-taught artist in 1968. (Brown would later compare their discovery of Yoakum to Picasso’s discovery of Henri Rousseau.)
Now, thanks in large part to significant loans from that group, others will get the chance to fall in love with Yoakum’s work, too. A major survey of the late artist’s output—the largest ever mounted—is on view now at the Art Institute of Chicago, with subsequent stops at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Menil Collection in Houston planned for October of 2021 and April of 2022, respectively.  
Joseph E. Yoakum, Waianae Mtn Range Entrance to Pearl Harbor and Honolulu Oahu of Hawaiian Islands (1968). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“Jim [Nutt] once told me, “The only reason I can figure that Yoakum doesn’t have greater visibility is that he doesn’t have a weird backstory,’” recalled Mark Pascale, curator of prints and drawings at the Art institute and an organizer of the show.   
“Yoakum,” Pascale explained, “was just a regular person.” 
Well, sort of. The artist may have lived a rather regular life, but that’s not how he told it. Yoakum had a habit of fabricating stories about who he was and where he’d been. He was a full-blooded Native American, he told some (or a “Nava-joe” Indian, as he put it); he had a dozen brothers and sisters, he told others.   
What we do know is that Yoakum, an African American, was born in Ash Grove, Missouri in 1891. He left home at nine to join the circus, and spent the next 10 years of his life traveling throughout the United States and, eventually, Asia, with various acts. In 1918, he enlisted in the army, through which he was stationed in Canada and then Europe.
Roughly 40 years later, after multiple failed marriages, he settled in a storefront apartment on Chicago’s South Side. It was there that he first began showing his work, hanging drawings in the window. And it quickly became clear that all the travels of his youth had a demonstrable influence.
Joseph E. Yoakum, American Zeppolin Flight from New York City to Paris France in Year 1939 (1969). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Yoakum’s drawings were almost always captioned with specific (and often playfully misspelled) names—so specific that you’d assume they were based on places he’d actually been to.
“Mt Baykal of Yablonvy Mtn Range near Ulan-Ude near Lake Baykal of Lower Siberia Russia E Asia,” reads one.
“The Open Gate to the West in Rockey Mtn Range near Pueblo Colorado,” says another.
Whether the artist had ever been to these places is unknown, and because of his penchant for stretching the truth, we may never know. But when it comes to his work, that may not be relevant. 
By his own assertion, Yoakum accessed these places through a process that he called “spiritual enfoldment.” The phrase was drawn from the literature of Christian Science (Yoakum was a devout believer) and was used by the artist to describe how he used art to locate memory.  
“He’d make the drawing, he’d have a spiritual enfoldment, he would recognize where the place was, and then he would label it,” Pascale said.
Joseph E. Yoakum, Mt Baykal of Yablonvy Mtn Range near Ulan-Ude near Lake Baykal of Lower Siberia Russia E Asia (1969). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
There’s a common misconception, given the Imagist’s interest in Yoakum, that he had a great deal of influence on their work. And it’s not hard to draw a line between their brand of representation and his own. But that’s not quite right, explained Pascale. Nutt, Nilsson, and the other Imagists were almost fully formed as artists by the time they discovered Yoakum in the late 1960s. 
If there was one thing that the movement’s members found in Yoakum’s work, though, it’s an interior picture. 
“[The Imagists] were all trying to find their way as artists,” said Pascale. “They were looking for this place inside of themselves that was unique. With Yoakum, there it was—this guy found it.”
In a sense, it was the only thing Yoakum had. By the time he made his drawings, he was estranged from his children and had outlived all his ex-wives. He was alone.
Joseph E. Yoakum, Mt Cloubelle Jamaca of West India (1969). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“My takeaway, from all the years I’ve spent thinking about it, is that the landscape drawings that Yoakum made are a picture story of his life,” said Pascale.
“They are his self-portrait, his autobiography. It’s like 10 years at the end of his life spent making a visual diary of where he was, where he had been, and where he had hoped to go, where he felt most excited and comfortable, and where he felt he lived the most.” 
“Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw” is on view now through October 18, 2021 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
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As we wrote last week, the Clark Institute’s outdoor show “Ground/work” is one of summer’s more exciting events, offering visitors the chance to engage with bold public artworks outdoors, at the institution’s sprawling Berkshires campus. 
And one of the show’s most fun and resonant works is that of Iranian-German artist Nairy Baghramian, whose installation Knee and Elbow (2020) represents the feeling many of us in the last year can share. In the piece, two abstracted forms of two of the body’s primary joints—carved from marble and steel—face off and work together at the same time, suggesting the dual modes of strength and fragility that people around the world have had to endure throughout the pandemic.
The blocks of marble are “heavily veined and pitted on their surface, suggesting, in the artist’s words, ‘possible collapse,’” according to the show’s notes. At the same time, their power—the ability of knees and elbows to hold the body up—is also emphasized through the work’s dynamic, humorous nature, suggesting themes of hope, possibility, and change. Furthermore, the artist sought to shift the joints from their usual orientation so they could “rest and recover from the stress and impact of daily use.” 
The Clark also notes that Baghramian—who has long dealt with issues of vulnerability, power, and authority through her careful deconstructions of the human form—sought to build the artwork near the top of Stone Hill’s open meadow, to which visitors must hike. The sculpture’s vantage point, the show notes, “encourages viewers to find a moment of contemplation and pause as the panorama of the landscape unfolds below.”   
See images of the work below.
Nairy Baghramian’s “Knee and Elbow” (2020). Photo courtesy the Clark Institute.
Nairy Baghramian’s “Knee and Elbow” (2020). Photo courtesy the Clark Institute.

The artist on a site visit to the sculpture. Photo courtesy the Clark Institute.
Behind the scenes into the making of the sculpture. Photo courtesy the Clark Institute.
A portrait of the artist. Photo courtesy the Clark Institute.
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Alex Harsley’s new exhibition, a survey of his more than six-decade photography career at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works, is a big deal. In terms of scope, it’s likely the biggest of his life. And yet, the octogenarian artist isn’t exactly taking a victory lap. 
“I’ve moved far beyond that stuff,” he says, referring to the retrospective nature of the show, which includes New York street photos, arty portraits, and experiments in video from the 1950s through to today. “I’m into a whole different area [in terms of] exhibiting now.”
We‘re sitting inside the 4th Street Photo Gallery, a cramped storefront space in the East Village overstuffed with old cameras, darkroom gear, and prints—thousands of prints, all lining the walls and stacked in piles of indeterminate age (they might be load-bearing at this point). Harsley has occupied the space for 48 years. 
“This,” he says, gesturing to the space around him, “this is like an installation.”
Indeed, 4th Street is like a living, breathing artwork. What has historically been an exhibition space for up-and-coming photographers is, today, more like Harsley’s personal office or studio. At almost all waking hours of the day you can find him in there working—scanning slides, editing photos, hanging and rehanging his work. At 83, his days of roaming the streets of New York with a camera in hand are mostly over, but he has scores of archives still to work through. 
“Alex is really unsentimental about his own work,” said Vivian Chui, Pioneer Works’s director of exhibitions who co-curated the show with Harsley’s daughter, Kendra Krueger. “He really just wants to make images. He’s not thinking about his legacy, he’s not thinking about where his work was. He’s always much more focused on where his work is going.”
Alex Harsley, Nite Meetings. Courtesy of the artist.
Harsley was born outside of Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1938, and grew up on a rural cotton farm. Only one or twice a month did he see a car or electricity, he recalled. That is, until age 10, when he moved with his mother to New York. 
Following a stint in the army in his late teens, Harsley moved back to the city, bought his first camera, and learned his way around the darkroom while working as a staff photographer at the district attorney’s office. Then the young photographer was off: churning out 35mm pictures of New York’s faces and places; capturing activists, athletes, and musicians in action.
In 1971—half a century ago this year—Harsley founded Minority Photographers Inc., an artist-run non-profit based in his apartment that showed the work of up-and-coming image-makers. Two years later came the group’s headquarters: a derelict street-level space offered by the city on the cheap, thanks to Minority Photographers’ 501c3 status. That was the birth of 4th Street Photo. It’s the same space Harsely’s sitting in today. 
Alex Harsley, Playing In Chinatown (1970). Courtesy of the artist.
So out of place in the now hyper-gentrified neighborhood is 4th Street that it’s easy to walk past the spot and not even see it, the way you would a travel agency or a phone booth or other neighborhood vestige. And yet, Harsley still gets his fair share of walk-ins coming to look at his work; many even buy it. During our interview, a mother dressed in athleisure came in to pick up a couple of prints for her college-age daughter, who had just moved to the neighborhood. I asked if they’d seen the show at Pioneer Works. They said they had no idea how to get to Brooklyn.  
For Harsley, an artist largely ignored by museums and galleries in his career, passersby looking to purchase a piece of New York history are his clients. And he’s okay with that. “It’s not about me and my name,” he said. “It’s about the content. So I like to stay behind the [work].”
But that’s not to say the photographer doesn’t have fans in the art world. If off-the-street visitors are one-half of Harsley’s collector base, then the other half is fellow artists, many of whom were affiliated at some point with 4th Street Photo or Minority Photographers.
Alex Harsley, Cousins (1980). Courtesy of the artist.
For generations of up-and-coming photographers in the 1970s through the turn of the century, 4th Street was a site of community, mentorship, and—perhaps most importantly—wall space. Among those who have shown in the gallery are Dawoud Bey, David Hammons, Eli Reed, and Andres Serrano, while others known to have frequented the space include Robert Frank, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Cynthia MacAdams. 
Harsley, for his part, has stories about all of them—and he’d surely be happy to share them should you stop by. (Bey was a “serious hustler,” he said with admiration; Frank “sold his soul to the devil.”) But listen in and you may detect a latent tinge of bitterness, too. It’s the chip on the shoulder speaking: success never came to Harsley the way it did those heavyweights, even though he considered himself a mentor to many of them. 
“When I started Minority Photographers, I had to leave myself behind. I worked very hard at helping other people become successful,” he said. “But in the course of all of that I had to sacrifice my own interests.”
The mood hung heavy for a second, before Harsley lit it up with a joke: “If I had known I was going to be in the same place [50 years later], I would’ve said, ‘Let’s do something else!’” 
Alex Harsley, Fashion Shoot (1972). Courtesy of the artist.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Chui said when I recalled this comment to her. It’s not that Harsley forfeited a great legacy in the name of 4th Street and Minority Photographers; those projects are his legacy. “The nonprofit and the gallery were so special,” she said, “it’s hard to imagine him having not done that.”
“Alex Harsley: The First Light From Darkness” is on view now through August 22, 2021 at Pioneer Works.
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One of the best parts about summer art exhibitions is that many offer opportunities to spend time outdoors.
One of the season’s most exciting shows for this kind of escape—to take in beautiful artwork in an even more beautiful setting—is the Clark Institute’s “Ground/work,” which welcomes visitors to the sprawling grounds of the Berkshires-based museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
The show, the museum notes, highlights “a reverence for nature and a desire to further enliven the surrounding trails, pastures, and woods” of the property, and brings together bold, colorful installations from six contemporary female artists: Kelly Akashi, Nairy Baghramian, Jennie C. Jones, Analia Saban, Haegue Yang, and Eva LeWitt. All of the artists planned their works in response to sites they chose by hand, each of which are scattered about the Clark’s massive 140-acre campus. The works were also planned with the changing landscape—and visitors hoping to escape into the bucolic wilds of the Berkshires—in mind.
“Ground/work,” according to the museum, “highlights the balance between fragility and resilience that both nature and the passage of time reveal, while offering fresh experiences with every visit.” The works were conceived in part as a way to help visitors re-enter the world again, following a long year of isolation, and gently encourages them to re-engage with themes like the comforts of nature and community.
One of the most striking works in the show is perhaps Eva LeWitt’s Resin Towers (2020), which were assembled by the New York-based artist from tall pieces of colorful plastic in hues like fluorescent orange, yellow, and light aqua, and cast in layers of transparent resin. Together, the pieces create a pattern of expanding and contracting spheres as the viewer approaches the works or moves further away, depending on where they stand. The work was also planned to interact with particular elements of the landscape (including the sky, woods, grass, and light) and time of day, morphing as time passes, and seems to twirl more and more quickly as viewers approach it as if to “call them down the hill and beckon visitors to their site.”
The works, which in many ways celebrate the “purity of hue against an ever-shifting landscape,” according to the museum, will be on view until October 17. See images of the show below.
Eva LeWitt, “Resin Towers” (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
A closeup of one of LeWitt’s “Resin Towers” (2020. Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
LeWitt with her artwork. Photo courtesy Eva Lewitt.
A closeup of one of LeWitt’s “Resin Towers” (2020. Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
One of LeWitt’s “Resin Towers” (2020. Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
Eva LeWitt, “Resin Towers” (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
Eva LeWitt, “Resin Towers” (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Thomas Clark.
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It’s hard to think of an artist whose work is more visually pleasing than that of British artist Bridget Riley. The Op Art painter is known for her eye-catching canvases featuring geometric patterns, lines, and color arrangements that collectively pay homage to her favorite artist, the Pointillist Georges Seurat.
“The eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. It should feel caressed and soothed, experience frictions and ruptures, glide and drift,” she once said of her work. “One moment, there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual events.”
Bianca Jagger at “Bridget Riley: Past Into Present” at David Zwirner. Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
In one of summer’s boldest exhibitions, David Zwirner has presented “Past Into Present,” an exhibition of paintings by Riley that features works from the past two years. Together, they reference “the work of the past, both in her own practice and in the art of painting itself,” according to the gallery.
The exhibition features, among other works, an an extension of Riley’s “Measure for Measure” series, which includes the addition of a fourth color (turquoise), as well as a series of new “Measure for Measure Dark” paintings, which emphasizes deeper tones. The artworks are intended to “enrich the viewer’s enjoyment,” notes the gallery, “giving them something more to look at.”
The exhibition is on view now at David Zwirner’s Grafton Street gallery in London, and online here.
Bridget Riley, Intervals 12 (2021). Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
A close up of Bridget Riley, Intervals 12 (2021). Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
Installation view of Bridget Riley’s Measure for Measure Dark 2 and 3 (2019). Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
An installation view of Riley’s exhibition “Past into Present” at David Zwirner in London. Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
An installation view of Riley’s exhibition “Past into Present” at David Zwirner in London. Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
An installation view of Riley’s exhibition “Past into Present” at David Zwirner in London. Photo courtesy David Zwirner.
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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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