By Who & By What Is One Enlightened Or Deceived? Is it possible to judge with an uncritical eye as if Captain Beefheart never existed? Don Van Vliet – New Work 11th November – 5th December, 1998 Knoedler & Company In association with Michael Werner Gallery 19 East 70 Street New York, New York 10021 USA Don Van Vliet – Works On Paper 28th January – 26th March 1999 Michael Werner Gallery 21 East 67 New York, New York 10021 USA Captain Beefheart combed out his showbiz mane and became, after 20 plus years on the stage, Don Van Vliet: citizen of the respectable andRead More →

Don Van Vliet; poet, musician, composer, anti-rockstar, aka the legendary Captain Beefheart, has been off in the wilderness making pictures since the early seventies. Exhibiting his paintings under his own name since the early eighties, his most recent work was shown this winter at Knoedler & Company, in association with the Michael Werner Gallery. What has been said in the past about his work as a musician and poet, namely that it is visionary and apocalyptic, is also true about his work as painter. Poet John Yau writes “In this time [where] it falls to artists, writers, and musicians to reveal the myriad ways inRead More →

As unlikely as it may once have seemed, Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) has a one man show of his recent paintings at the Knoedler & Company gallery on New York’s fashionable upper eastside. The show opened on November 11, 1998 (Veterans Day, for those that still believe in cosmic coincidence… see Capt. Beefheart’s tune-veterans day poppy) and will run until December 5, 1998. The 27 works date from 1993 through (as recently as) October 1998, with the majority being done in the last two years. The exhibition can be broken down as follows: 12 large oil on canvas 4 smaller oil on canvasRead More →

Don Van Vliet Knoedler & Company 19 East 70th Street Through Dec. 5 Known in an earlier incarnation as the rock musician Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet left the music world in the late 1970s to concentrate on painting. Self-taught, he works in a primitive style, deploying crude animal and more abstract shapes in black and various colours on snowy white grounds. For a rock musician, he knows how to keep his decibels down, using white space like musical rests. In his best work, the shapes establish lyrical relationships that make for catchy compositions. In “Dreams in the Daytime Colored With Sunshine” (1995-96), a black,Read More →

The Knoedler & Company press release: Don Van Vliet Recent Paintings November 11 – December 5, 1998 One senses that Van Vliet doesn’t see these images so much as receive them. They rise up in him, like dreams which seem to arrive from some remote and mysterious place, and they emerge on the canvas. – John Yau (1) Knoedler & Company, in association with Michael Werner Gallery of New York and Cologne, is pleased to present an exhibition of the recent work of Don Van Vliet. Don Van Vliet (b. California 1941) was a critically recognized underground composer, rock musician and author in the mid-1960s,Read More →

New Work 1998 catalogue

[simple_box] New Work was an exhibition which ran from 11th November – 5th December 1998 Presented at: Knoedler & Company -Established 1846- 19 East 70th Street New York, NY 10021 In association with Michael Werner Gallery [/simple_box] The paintings Official press release Catalogue notes ArtNews advertisement Piece from New York Times American Primitive on Madison Avenue – report from NeatoRead More →