Westbeth Gallery: ROBERT LUDWIG A Retrospective Nov 2 – 17, 2013

The retrospective explores over fifty years of paintings and drawings by this New York artist.

Robert Ludwig grew up in Washington, DC. His father was a botanist, and thus his first exposure was to science. His first formal training was in mathematics and physics. He received a BS in Physics from The George Washington University and went on to do graduate work at Princeton University. After a couple of years he interrupted his graduate work to study art. He received a BA in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Minnesota and also studied drawing at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Soon after he moved to New York where he has lived ever since.

He arrived in New York in time to participate in the Tenth Street scene, steeped as it was in the idea of abstract expressionism. He is an abstract painter but was never an abstract expressionist. His work is geometrical but not based on a grid or on any other preconceived mathematical scheme. Nor is he a minimalist. Rather, he is concerned with eliminating extraneous elements, not all possible elements, from a work. His objective is clarity and simplicity.

Ludwig’s conception of color and space has evolved over time. During the seventies, for example, he limited his palette, often using only black and white or black and white and one or two other colors. The surface was flat and hard-edged. Over time the color-space relationships became more complex. In most of his work from the last decade, for example, divisions of space are limited to a few horizontals and verticals. Moreover, color and various degrees of texture, over-painting, glazing and the like, establish ambiguities between flatness and the appearance of depth, stasis and the illusion of incipient motion, and conscious design and chance. This organized restlessness has become a hallmark of Ludwig’s work. The strength of these paintings lies in the subtlety and precision of the color–space relationships.

The artist has exhibited widely in group shows including the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the School of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, March Gallery, Phoenix Gallery, the Staten Island Museum, The Drawing Center, Nicholas Davies and Company, The College of Staten Island (CUNY), Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Studio 18, Gallery Onetwentyeight, the Westbeth Gallery and Gallery 307(now Carter Burden). He has had one-man shows at the Phoenix Gallery (1963, 1966, 1969), Staten Island Community College (1970), Gallery 307 [now Carter Burden Gallery] (2012), and the Westbeth Gallery (2008).

Robert Ludwig’s drawings have appeared in the Unbearable Assembly Magazine #6(1997), Unbearables Magazine, Issue 3(1995), and Public Illumination Magazine: Numbers 42(1993), 43(1994), and 44(1996). A painting is reproduced in Appearances, Number 23(1996).

His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art News, Arts Magazine, The Village Voice, and other publications. Below are links to recent online reviews:

http://theartpoint.blogspot.com/2012/06/guest-reviewer-peter-neofotis.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LY_5e_QcNc

http://www.thegrandassembly.com/robert

He is a member of the faculty at The College of Staten Island/ CUNY.

He is represented by the Carter Burden Gallery in Chelsea (www.carterburden.com).