Bob Thompson, An Allegory (1964), via 52 Walker
Marking its seventh exhibition downtown, 52 Walker has opened So let us all be citizens, an exhibition devoted to the short but fruitful career of Bob Thompson. Spotlighting the artist’s jazz-influenced style and consideration for color, line, and figuration—developed during a period when abstraction was the dominant trend in American art—this intimate exhibition pays homage to the friction Thompson generated between his proximity to and deviation from cited and canonical sources.
Bob Thompson, So let us all be citizens (Installation View), via 52 Walker
The show’s title is taken from a speech that Thompson gave at a church as a teenager, “Building through Citizenship.†Forecasting the artist’s passion for the tenets of freedom and expression, the phrase “So let us all be citizens†encapsulates the power of Thompson’s work to widen the scope of what is imaginable in contemporary painting and for whom. His works are luminary presentations of bodies full of kinetic and emotional energy. Taking cues from the exploratory and improvisatory music with which he was engrossed, the artist painted spirited, colorful compositions that considered the interplay of bodies, allegories, and natural landscapes while reconfiguring European masterworks. Including paintings from important public and private collections, this solo presentation at 52 Walker will be one of the first in New York City devoted to Thompson since his retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1998.
Bob Thompson, So let us all be citizens (Installation View), via 52 Walker
Though his career as a painter spanned only a brief eight-year period, from 1958 through his untimely death at age twenty-eight in 1966, Thompson left behind a singular and influential body of figurative work that remains vitally resonant. The show makes much of that here. Great whorls of color and twisting bodies dart across the canvases, calling references in from a range of art historical touchstones and symbols drawn from both Thompson’s life, his study, and his own time spent in the studio. These are works that both level the body as a site of accessibility and consideration, using it as an expressive mode that carries as much fervent, powerful gesture as any abstract canvas.
The show closes July 8th.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
Bob Thompson at 52 Walker [Exhibition Site]
