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In: Art articles, Stand Up To Be Discontinued
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The Collected Paintings of Don Van Vliet, the once (and future?) Captian Beefheart A reporter from New York Rocker once asked poet, painter and composer Don Van Vliet – better known to many as the influential enigma of electrified clamor, Captain Beefheart – how he produced his scrawling, free-form saxophone solos. “I just paint through it,” came the Captain’s bristly, elusive reply. The first full-scale reminder of Van Vliet’s existence since his musical retirement in 1982, Stand Up to Be Discontinued (Cantz/136 pages/$40, $60 with special edition CD) further expresses that unkempt synaesthesia. Smeary and blurt-like, these jagged panels of frenzied eye music – seenRead More →

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In: Art articles, New Work 1988-89
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Living on a cliff overlooking the Pacific since the early eighties amid the redwood forests and wildlife, Don Van Vliet has embraced painting with the same controlled passion that made him, as the avant-garde rock composer and performer Captain Beefheart, a cult figure of conspicuous influence and one of the genuine musical geniuses of the past twenty years. Self-trained as a painter and knowing relatively little about the history of art or the current scene, he is a modernist primitive but also an artist whose remarkable intuitive gifts and love of nature have combined to create highly charged paintings that are at once jolting asRead More →

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In: Paintings From The 80s 2001
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The inside image from the rather beautiful exhibition invitation. [simple_box] Paintings from the Eighties was a solo exhibition which ran from 12th July – 8th September 2001 Presented at: Michael Werner Gallery 4 East 77 New York [/simple_box] View the paintings featured at this exhibition. The exhibition also include “A Bride for Wallah” (1986, oil on canvas, 83.75 x 48 inches) which we don’t have a copy of. Can you help? Front of the exhibition invitation. Many thanks to Brainpang for very kindly sending this along.Read More →

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In: Lowe Gallery 2000
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The front of the exhibition’s promotional postcard featuring “Bat Day in the Night”, 1993. [simple_box] The Lowe Gallery\’s 2001 exhibition was a solo exhibition which ran from 7th – 20th January 2001 Presented at: The Lowe Gallery 75 Bennett Street, Space A-2, Atlanta, Georgia, 30309 [/simple_box] Exhibition features: A few items relating to the 2001 DVV exhibition at The Lowe Gallery: The Lowe Gallery’s online catalogue for the exhibition. Information from the Lowe Gallery’s exhibition postcard. Listing from the arts page of 8th January 2001’s Creative Loafing.Read More →

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In: Art articles, New Work 1998
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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 →

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In: New Work 1998
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Living on a cliff overlooking the Pacific since the early eighties amid the redwood forests and wildlife, Don Van Vliet has embraced painting with the same controlled passion that made him, as the avant-garde rock composer and performer Captain Beefheart, a cult figure of conspicuous influence and one of the genuine musical geniuses of the past twenty years. Self-trained as a painter and knowing relatively little about the history of art or the current scene, he is a modernist primitive but also an artist whose remarkable intuitive gifts and love of nature have combined to create highly charged paintings that are at once jolting asRead More →

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In: New Work 1998
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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

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In: New Work 1998
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[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 →

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In: Evergreen Galleries 1976
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One of the earliest and little known of Don’s exhibitions. This time it’s shared with Cal Schenkel, Frank Zappa’s ‘art engineer’, who also worked for other artists represented by Herb Cohen, including Tom Waits, Tim Buckley and Captain Beefheart. Perhaps one of Cal’s best-known album covers is Trout Mask Replica. Don exhibited 22 drawings and 6 paintings. The venue was an art gallery at the school which Matt Groening was attending at the time: Evergreen Galleries at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Matt Groening’s interest in Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band is well known. A review of the exhibition was written by oneRead More →

Don Van Vliet Works On Paper

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In: Art, Works On Paper 2007
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An exhibition entitled ‘Don Van Vliet Works On Paper‘ runs 27 October 2007 – 1 December 2007 at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Michael Werner Gallery and includes Van Vliet works from the mid-1980s to the early 90s. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, October 27th from 6 to 9 pm. Further information can be found at David Kordansky Gallery’s website. David Kordansky Gallery, 510 Bernard Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90012 Tel. 323-222-1482 Fax. 323-227-7933Read More →

Anton Kern Gallery, NY

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A new exhibition of 15 of Don Van Vliet’s paintings opens today and runs until 6 July at the Anton Kern Gallery in New York. There is a catalogue of the exhibition and it includes a preface by Polly Harvey. More information, a press release and nine paintings from the exhibition can be viewed at the Anton Kern Gallery website along with a press release. How I would love to attend – if you make it to the exhibition please do let us all know by posting a report to this blog.Read More →