Joe Goode
Nighttime Series 1977-1978
September 17 – October 29, 2011
The Michael Kohn Gallery presents its first exhibition in conjunction with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, the Nighttime, 1977-78 series by Southern California Light/Space and Conceptual artist, Joe Goode. This is an important and historical body of work not seen in over twenty years.
Exercising a prescient Post-modern sensibility, Joe Goode painted his Nighttime series by effectively merging together qualities of Minimal, Ab-Ex, and Conceptual art in these beautiful and meditative paintings. Following his Sky and Torn Sky/Cloud series from the early 1970s, Goode turned towards what can be seen as an existential inquiry into Minimalist painting, color, and the reification of the painting as an object.
As museums and collectors explore the rich history of American art produced during the last quarter of the 20th Century, they are discovering a period of intense creativity on the West Coast, from “Light and Space” to pioneering Conceptual works of art. For Joe Goode, these nearly metaphysical, black paintings also contain violent slashes through the canvas that brings attention to the surface of the painting while adding a sense of painterly depth as the shadow cast behind the canvas becomes blacker than the painting itself.
Joe Goode’s work is widely collected by museums, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles will be including their painting from the Nighttime series in their upcoming exhibition, “California Art in the Age of Pluralism: 1974-1980,” also part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.