BY STEPHANIE BUHMANN | This exhibition features a selection of Forge’s paintings and works on paper from 1990 to the time of his death in 2002.
In addition to being a distinguished painter, Forge was a prominent and influential teacher and critic. In fact, he is best known for his writings on Klee, Degas, Monet, Manet, Giacometti and Rauschenberg.
Born in 1923 in England, he moved from London to the States in the early 1970s, where he quickly met John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns (Rauschenberg’s work, in particular, had a strong impact on him).
Though Forge never felt that his painting resembled Rauschenberg’s, he admitted to being very interested in how Rauschenberg juxtaposed radically different pieces on his canvas.
Explaining that it was his ambition to construct a painting whose surface would feel alive and in which each mark carried meaning, Forge created pointillist paintings that are made of countless dots. “My sense of being in the world starts with a physical relationship with my surroundings, their weight, texture, density and transparency,” Forge once wrote — and one is tempted to view each dot as his momentary evaluation of exactly this relationship.
Through Aug. 14 at Betty Cuningham Gallery (15 Rivington St., btw. Bowery and Chrystie St.). Hours: Tues.–Fri. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Call 212-242-2772 or visit bettycuninghamgallery.com.
