Exhibit: Blinky Palermo at Dia Beacon

 Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City (Part XII), 1976.
Dia Art Foundation. Photo: Bill Jacobson.

 

 Blinky Palermo, Coney Island II, 1975. Acrylic on aluminum, four
parts: 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches (26.7 x 21 cm), each; 10 1/2 x 57 7/8 inches
(26.7 x 147 cm) overall. Collection Ströher, Darmstadt, Germany. Photo:
Jens Ziehe, Berlin.

Here's a show I'd love to fly to NYC and take the train for an hour to the Hudson River Vallery to see: the first North American retrospective of German artist Blinky Palermo (neé Peter Schwarze, b.1943, d. 1977). The works on paper and metal sculptures in Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964–1977 will be stunning, I'm sure, in the wide expanses of Dia: Beacon.

From the PR: The exhibition provides a fresh and in-depth examination of the evolution of Palermo’s aesthetic, illustrating the significance of his contributions to the field of postwar painting. Surveying the four major types of work over his career, the retrospective comprises: objects he created shortly after he graduated from Joseph Beuys’s class at the Dusseldorf Art Academy in 1964; "Cloth Pictures (Stoffbilder)" ; documentation of in situ Wall Paintings and Drawings; and examples of his late "Metal Pictures". The majority of the works will be on loan from private and public lenders in Germany.

I spent a fun afternoon a few summers ago with old college friends Matt and Nick, journeying out of the hot city into the wilderness, only to find Dia: Beacon closed when we arrived.  I've always wanted the chance to return. The retrospective is co-organized by CSS Bard, which would be a dream visit, too.

Ah, missed opportunities.

If you're on the easterly side of things, be sure to direct your travels Beacon-ward.

 We didn't get in, and we were the only folks around, but we sure had a grand time of it.

 We ate terrible food at the only restaurant open in the tiny town.

We drank too much bad coffee, talked about music and carpentry, and jumped off of precipices.