Anita Thacher
DETOURS
January 17 – February 24, 2015
Opening Reception Friday January 17, 6-9pm

We are extremely pleased to present DETOURS, the first solo exhibition of paintings by Anita Thacher. The New York-based artist is most widely known for her work with film, video, light installation and public art, having first gained attention with her early film works – including “Back Track”, a 1969 collaboration with Dennis Oppenheim, and the 1975 “Homage to Magritte” – that were premiered at the Museum of Modern Art. Since then her works have continued to show regularly at major institutions both in the US and abroad.

DETOURS marks Thacher’s first exhibit dedicated exclusively to painting, a practice she has most strongly emphasized during the past several years, featuring a selection of acrylic on wood works from recent, related series. A constant for Thacher, across all mediums, is an obsession with the investigation of spatial relationships through the line – here also considered specifically as manifestation of movement – and a search for deviations from conventional routes. Playful mystery, sense of elusiveness, and shifting perspectives are also central.

“I draw with a variety of mediums – light, string, tape, paper shreds, film and paint as well as pencil… . At the core of my process is a desire for discovery and surprise … building something while being completely open … and allowing mistakes and blind alleys to lead me on.” – AT

Of the works on view in DETOURS, Thacher’s approach is most visually direct in her 12 x 12 inch “Crossings” (2010), a series that extends over several works distinguished by changes of hue and texture. The titles of each reference a specific time of day, adding an unexpected level of associations with daily activities and their corresponding emotion. In the 2011 “Red Studio” series of three 19 ½ inch square acrylic and pencil works, Thacher offers red-, blue- and green-based variations of interlocking geometric shapes across which pencil outlines evoke the artistic endeavor, the planning involved, works in progress or the left undone. Additional works include two 24 x 18 inch pieces from 2012, both “Untitled”. The chromatic juxtaposition and the dialogue between the lines, dots and shapes are suggestive of other series, but now appear to have been more spontaneously assembled or subjected to chance.

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Anita Thacher is a New York-based artist working in multiple mediums including painting, film, video, public art, light, architectural and sculptural installation. Her most recent exhibition was the site-specific light installation “Leeway” at Mixed Greens, New York in 2011/2012. She has previously exhibited at institutions including The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, MoMA P.S.1, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Jeu de Paume, Paris among many others. Thacher’s films screen regularly in the US and internationally and are in the public collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Berlin Arsenal, and the French Film Archives among others.

Anita Thacher’s work has appeared in publications including Art in America, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Artforum, Village Voice, Washington Post, Le Monde among others. Grants and awards include those from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, Ford Foundation, American Film Institute, French Minister of Culture to name a few.

For additional information or preview of works please contact the gallery at 347.925.1433 or by email at info@microscopegallery.com

DETOURS runs from January 17 through February 24, 2014. Opening Reception Friday January 17, 6-9pm.

Left: “Crossings at Midnight (#2)”, acrylic on maple wood, 12 x 12 inches (2010)
Right: “Crossings at Midnight (#4)”, acrylic on maple wood, 12 x 12 inches (2010)