October 11th: Mitra Abbaspour in Conversation with Robert Storr
Presented by 192 Books and Paula Cooper Gallery, Mitra Abbaspour and Robert Storr will discuss the new book on the artist Stephen Antonakos.
This event will take place live at 192 Books at 192 10th Avenue, between 21st and 22nd avenue, on Wednesday, October 11th at 7:00 PM ET. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry — Text by David Ebony, designed by Henk van Assen (Published by Rizzoli Electa, 2023)
This comprehensive book comprises Antonakos’s diverse range from neon panels, canvases, and walls, to indoor and outdoor architectural installations of many scales. His large Public Works can be seen across the US, in Europe, and Japan. Throughout, the work reflects a concern with light, space, and geometry. From the mid-1970s forward, the work is all, in his words, “real things in real spaces. No illusions.” The work’s spirituality became more evident in the 1980s with his Chapels and his dedications to Greek Orthodox saints and sites. Drawings and collages were lifetime occupations. There are prints, artist’s books, and the conceptual Packages. His decades of Travel Collages contain finds from his travels in Greece, Europe, Japan, and the US. The late cut or crumpled Gold Works reflect the changing light of the sites across the hours and the viewer's perspectives.
Author David Ebony provides research on Antonakos as a central figure in the international avant-garde of the 1960s and ’70s. He also discusses the artist’s Greek heritage and legacy, as well as the spiritual and mystical aspects of his later works.
Henk van Assen has composed images of 60 years of diverse work into one rhythmic narrative flow.
Mitra Abbaspour is the new Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard University Art Museums. In her recent post as Haskell Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Princeton University Art Museum, the scope of her work encompassed an international approach to art of the last century. She has built the collections and programming to develop areas of strength in Indigenous North American art, Latin American art, Asian and Asian American art, and art from the eastern Mediterranean, among others. At Princeton, she has curated or co-curated at the Museum include Helen Frankenthaler Prints: Seven Types of Ambiguity (2019), Frank Stella Unbound: Literature and Printmaking (2018), and a collaborative commission and exhibition with Titus Kaphar titled Making History Visible: Of American Myths and National Heroes (2017).
Prior to Princeton, Mitra was an Associate Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, an Assistant Curator at the California Museum of Photography, and a guest curator for a number of exhibitions at various institutions. At MoMA, she led the curatorial branch of an interdisciplinary research initiative that resulted in the print and digital publications.
Robert Storr is a curator, critic, and painter. He was curator and then senior curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York from 1990 to 2002, where he organized thematic exhibitions such as Dislocations and Modern Art Despite Modernism as well as monographic shows on Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Max Beckmann, Tony Smith, and Robert Ryman. Mr. Storr has also taught at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies as well as the Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, New York Studio School, and Harvard University, and has been a frequent lecturer in this country and abroad. He has been a contributing editor at Art in America since 1981 and writes frequently for Artforum, Parkett, Art Press (Paris), Frieze (London), and Corriere della Sera (Milan). He has also written numerous catalogs, articles, and books, including Philip Guston (Abbeville, 1986), Chuck Close (with Lisa Lyons, Rizzoli, 1987), and Intimate Geometries: The Work and Life of Louise Bourgeois (2016), and Philip Guston. A Life Spent Painting (2020).