Izhar Patkin the Making of the Black Paintings

Izhar Patkin: The Making of The Black Paintings is an exhibition catalog that explores three early bodies of work by artist Izhar Patkin: "The Blacking Paintings" (1985-86), "The Meta Bride" (1982-83), and "Norman: The Average American Male" (1981). Patkin's virtuosic "The Black Paintings," a painterly adaption of a play by Jean Genet, is one of the most significant and inventive works to come out of the East Village in the 80s. An immersive room-size piece painted on black...
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Izhar Patkin: The Making of The Black Paintings is an exhibition catalog that explores three early bodies of work by artist Izhar Patkin: "The Blacking Paintings" (1985-86), "The Meta Bride" (1982-83), and "Norman: The Average American Male" (1981). Patkin's virtuosic "The Black Paintings," a painterly adaption of a play by Jean Genet, is one of the most significant and inventive works to come out of the East Village in the 80s. An immersive room-size piece painted on black neoprene-rubber curtains, it expands upon the conventions of painting itself and also upon narrative, metaphor, installation art, and theatricality. The catalog concentrates on the development of Patkin's visual vocabulary culminating in the painting. The Museum of Modern Art acquired The Black Paintings in 1988, and they were shown at the Whitney Biennial in 1987 and last exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in 1990.