Robert Thiele: 30
November 29 - December 31, 2009
Drawing from the artist's studios in Brooklyn and Miami, 30 surveys the work of Robert Thiele from 1979 forward. The exhibition presents the first broad selection of the artist's work, including sculpture, paintings and works on paper. The exhibition will occupy Dorsch Gallery's entire 5,000 square foot space in the heart of Miami's Wynwood Arts District during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009. Thiele "has been at the center of the Miami art scene, as well as a participant in prestigious national and international exhibitions, for decades," writes critic Helen Kohen.
In the east gallery, the exhibition 30 will show, for the first time since the 1980s, Thiele's monumental concrete column sculptures, some of which are over 10 feet tall. The exhibition pairs these haunting structures with a 1990s frieze of 20 white paintings, each between 2 and 3 feet tall and five inches deep. Most of his paintings are assertive; they project off the wall. In sculptural explorations in the 1970s the artist also wrapped glass-fronted constructions with canvas. Versions of these constructions can also be seen embedded in some of the concrete column sculptures.
Selected paintings from the 1990s and 2000s will be in the west gallery, showing Thiele's unique blend of painting and three-dimensional form, plexi-fronted constructions, opaque planes of color, figure and organic abstraction. The oscillation between sculpture and painting - and between other dichotomies - are themes. Concealment arises as another. Material and methods associated with the picture plane are obscured in order to conceal. Text and numbers do not coalesce into words or sentences. Shapes may reference primitive forms or figuration, but the abstraction is extreme, so the connection remains a glimmer, rather than a certainty.
This exhibition has four related components: the exhibition itself at Dorsch Gallery in Miami's Wynwood Arts District, a printed newspaper, a hyperlinked electronic version of the newspaper, and a fully illustrated catalog with installation shots from the exhibition. Essays by Peter Boswell, curator at Miami Art Museum, and Helen Kohen, former art critic for the Miami Herald and current art historian in charge of the Vasari Project, an archive of Miami's art history, appear in full in the newspaper and catalog.
The essays in the newspaper and catalog consider Thiele's importance to a community's art history and also offer a serious address to his work. Boswell provides an art historian's detailed analysis of the work. For Boswell, Thiele's works alternately bring to mind totemic sculptures and works by Clyfford Still, Susan Rothenberg and Christian Boltanski. Despite these similarities, Thiele's works are difficult to explain. Boswell's is a model methodology for considering an artist whose work is keenly felt and experienced but is hard to articulate.
Kohen situates Thiele in the broader development of the visual art scene in Miami from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Thiele came to Miami in the 1960s, after earning a Bachelors and Masters in Art from Kent State University in Ohio, playing professional football, and being drafted into the armed services during the Vietnam War. He came to Miami at the request of Patrick DeLong to teach art at Miami Dade College. Over the next thirty years, he took part in Miami's art scene as a practicing artist. As an educator, he shaped the perspectives of countless art students, some of whom are now well-known, including William Cordova and Gean Moreno. Thiele was instrumental in forming the beginnings of the College's art collection, acquiring works by the likes of Joseph Beuys before most had caught on to that artist's importance. The acquisition was fortuitous for the college, certainly; it also shows the nature of the ideas he brought to Miami at that time, and continues to bring to this day.
Kohen situates Thiele in the broader development of the visual art scene in Miami from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Thiele came to Miami in the 1960s, after earning a Bachelors and Masters in Art from Kent State University in Ohio, playing professional football, and being drafted into the armed services during the Vietnam War. He came to Miami at the request of Patrick DeLong to teach art at Miami Dade College. Over the next thirty years, he took part in Miami's art scene as a practicing artist. As an educator, he shaped the perspectives of countless art students, some of whom are now well-known, including William Cordova and Gean Moreno. Thiele was instrumental in forming the beginnings of the College's art collection, acquiring works by the likes of Joseph Beuys before most had caught on to that artist's importance. The acquisition was fortuitous for the college, certainly; it also shows the nature of the ideas he brought to Miami at that time, and continues to bring to this day.
Thiele began exhibiting in the early 1970s. He participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial Exhibition in 1975. He and Salvatore La Rosa were the first South Florida artists to be included in this national biennial exhibition. He has been awarded Florida's Individual Artist Fellowship three times. His numerous solo and group exhibitions include many in public institutions. Among these are the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL; Musee Cantini, Marseilles, France; Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Sculpture Center, NY. The distinguished critics and curators who have written essays on his work include Peter Frank, Paula Harper, Michael Kimmelman, Mark Ormond, Carter Ratcliff, and Robert J. Sindelir. Thiele divides his time between studios in Miami, Florida and New York since moving into the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood DUMBO in 1990.
Image:
Robert Thiele
M-355-6, 2008
Wood, laminated canvas, etched acrylic sheet, mixed media
19.5" x 12" x 5"
Courtesy of Dorsch Gallery, Miami
Courtesy of Dorsch Gallery, Miami
Dorsch Gallery
151 NW 24 St
Miami, FL 33127
+1 3055761278
12-5pm Tuesday-Saturday
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