Gallery Talk: Michael Auping, Phong Bui, and Joan Jonas on Susan Rothenberg

On the occasion of Susan Rothenberg: On Both Sides of My Line, Gray hosts distinguished curator Michael Auping, and artist Joan Jonas for a live dialogue moderated by Phong Bui, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail. In their live-streamed conversation, Auping, Jonas, and Bui discuss Rothenberg’s seminal profile horse paintings—the subject of the exhibition—and their significance to her wider practice.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
On Both Sides of My Line celebrates the life and work of renowned American painter Susan Rothenberg (1945 – 2020) through key examples of her most iconic series: the profile horse paintings. Organized with curator Michael Auping, and with loans from private collections and institutions, On Both Sides of My Line brings renewed focus to the artist’s celebrated series. Created between 1974 and 1977, Rothenberg’s profile horse paintings exemplify a shift in the artist’s approach to abstraction through the introduction and exploration of figuration. Moving away from the influence of Abstract Expressionism, Rothenberg began this seminal series in response to the contemporary zeitgeist of the 1970s. With Color Field painting, Minimalism, performance, and neo-primitivism at the forefront, Rothenberg employed tactics from various schools to define her own pictorial language. Susan Rothenberg: On Both Sides of My Line opens at Gray New York on October 29, and will be on view through December 10, 2021.


ABOUT MICHAEL AUPING
Michael Auping has curated several solo exhibitions of Susan Rothenberg’s work, including her first museum exhibition in 1979 at the University Art Museum, Berkeley, and a touring retrospective which originated at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, in 1992. Subsequently, as Chief Curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, he oversaw the acquisition of numerous paintings by Rothenberg, creating one of the finest collections of the artist’s work in public or private hands. Auping has also organized major exhibitions of the work of Jenny Holzer, Anselm Kiefer, and Frank Stella.

ABOUT PHONG BUI
Phong H. Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and former curatorial advisor at MoMA PS1 (2007-10). He is also the Co-Founder, Publisher, and Artistic Director of the monthly journal the Brooklyn Rail and its imprint, Rail Editions. He was the Host and Producer of Off the Rail on Art International Radio (2010-15). He is a board trustee of the Third Rail of the Twin Cities, the Miami Rail, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, the International Association of Art Critics (from 2007-20), Anthology Film Archives, Studio in a School, Second Shift Studio Space of St. Paul, Monira Foundation, Fountain House, and Denniston Hill, among others. He was a senior critic at Yale MFA, Columbia University MFA, and University of Pennsylvania MFA, (2012-15). He has taught graduate seminars in MFA Writing and Criticism and MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts (2012-16).


ABOUT JOAN JONAS
Joan Jonas is an American visual artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Jonas’s experiments and productions in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968, her practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas has exhibited, screened, and performed her work at museums, galleries, and in large scale group exhibitions throughout the world. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at Hangar Bicocca, Milan; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore; the United States Pavilion for the 56th edition of the Venice Biennial; Tate Modern, London; TBA21 Ocean Space at the San Lorenzo Church, Venice; and Serralves Museum, Porto. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize, presented to those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of mankind.

Video © Gray, Chicago/New York. Artwork © 2021 The Estate of Susan Rothenberg / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.