Jonathan Lasker biography

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jonathan lasker

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey 1948
Lives and works in New York City
Studied at School of Visual Arts, New York (1975-77) and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1977)

Artist's Statement:
A critic once wrote that my work asked the same question of its viewer that John Q. Public would ask when looking at an abstract painting. The question being, “What is that supposed to be?”
What the critic, Stephen Westfall, meant was that although my forms are abstract, my paintings give viewers suggestions to help them perceive pictorial images in my paintings. Suggestion, of course, being the only way one sees images in a painting, even if the painting is supposedly “realistic.”
In the case of this series of lithographs, which I call “Ball Figures,” round knots of scrawly black lines form ball shapes which are abutted next to one another to make forms which have human, animal, or plant associations. Also, in the backgrounds of these prints there are circles in alternating colors. These circles make patterns which partially fill the page ending in boundaries in the middle of the page forming horizon lines. In spots, groupings of circles are ringed-in by black lines which create subdominant figures in relation to the more pronounced “ball figures.”
The picture which forms is arrived at by the viewer interpretively rather than literally.

Selected Recent Exhibitions
2003	Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; travels to: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldrof, Germany
2001	Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, Sweden New paintings, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, Florida American Art from the Goetz Collection, Munich, The Centre of Contemporary Art, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague Between Language and Form, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
2000	Jonathan Lasker: Oeuvres Récentes, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
	Universal Abstraction 2000, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, Paisajes de la colección en Málaga. Colección de Arte Contemporaneo, Fundacion la Caixa, Sala de Exposiciones del Palacio Episcopal, Málaga, Spain Arte Americana; Ultimo Decennio, Museo d'Arte della Citta di Ravenna, Ravenna small abstract paintings and sculpture, Eugene Binder, New York Painting, I Love, Michael Hue-Williams Fine Art, London Post Pop, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Lasker, Marcaccio, Usle, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery, San Francisco, California Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
1999	Jonathan Lasker: Selective Identity, Paintings from the 1990s, The Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri; The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Massachusetts; Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama Sperone Westwater, New York Peinture, démarches actuelles, Villa du Parc, Annemasse Mixed Bag: Summer Group Show, Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, Missouri In Site: Constructing the JCC Collection, Johnson County College, Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kansas
1998	Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, England ART C. association art contemporain, Ville d'Issoire, France
	Sensation der Farbe, Mark Müller, Zurich, Switzerland, Pop/Abstraction, Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sid Sachs, Curator Raise the Roof: Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York Painting Objectives, Gallerie Evelyne Canus, La Colle-Sur-Loup, France, Shirley Kaneda, Curator "Connections and Contradictions: Modern and Contemporary Art from Atlanta Collections, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, Genevieve Arnold, Curator

Selected public collections

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Birmingham Museum of Art, AL
The British Library, London
Casino Luxembourg, Forum for Contemporary Art, Luxembourg
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
De Peter Stuyvesant Stichting, Amsterdam
Eli Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
Fond National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
La Fondación Caja de Pensiones, Madrid
High Museum, Atlanta, GA
Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
MIT-List Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge, MA
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain
Museum Ludwig
New York Public Library, New York
Wacoal Art Center, Tokyo
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Witchita Art Museum, KS