Black and White Gallery

___José Pierre, Paris, March, 1985 Some men are so made that for them women provide a constant spectacle. Shimon Okshteyn is such a man. And so it is that those women who contrive to reinforce their powers of seduction would inevitably attract the attention of a man who watches women and who is an artist! Besides, how can an artist worthy of that name not observe women? Have they not been since the beginning of time as much a lesson in the art of inciting the look of another,... be it that of their own rivals, as in the art of using forms and colors. Thus Shimon Okshteyn looks at women. He looks at THESE women, but considers them not only as masters of the art of behavior about which so much has been said these past few years, or of the art of painting their faces, but as quite monstrous creatures who, in the theater of sexual attraction, unrelentingly play out the comedy of losing souls their own and those of the ill-fated men or women who fall into their nets. Besides, do they merely play this comedy, or are they their first victims? https://www.okshteyn.com See more

Gregory Perkel: Savonarola Suite Online Series - CLIP 40, 2017 (1977-2017) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ During an unordinary time that calls for reflection and perspective we will be sharing with our friends, followers and loyal supporters a new online series of short video clips selected from the large-scale video diptych Savonarola Suite by Gregory Perkel, first presented in full length by Black & White Gallery/Project Space at Pulse Art Fair 2...019. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/archive-2019 Savonarola Suite Online Series consists of 40 short clips, 8-10 mins each. Released weekly by Black & White Gallery/Project Space on the gallery Instagram IGTV, Facebook and website page, each video clip includes selected excerpts from both segments of the original video diptych - Investigation & Incineration. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/current INVESTIGATION video segment retraces four decades of the recent art market history of exhibitions, art fairs, biennials, etc. through monthly print issues of Art in America and Art News magazines, a total of some 700 volumes, from 1977, when the artist first arrived to New York City from Moscow, until 2017 a time when the Internet had already reshaped every aspect of our lives. Paging through each magazine’s monthly issue chronicles compelling art market events that resonate poignantly with art market participants directly affected by its movements and the social relations it creates. Investigation video provides a unique opportunity to engage audience in exploration of the complex and sometimes paradoxical evolution of the recent art market and contemplate the wide-ranging effects of information in those pages prior to their destruction by fire. INCINERATION video segment documents the staged real-life destruction of all 700 monthly issues of Art in America and ArtNews magazines by fire to mark the end of an era they reflected. As the incineration of the magazines begins, it becomes evident that the act of burning, by the very nature of fire, is giving birth to a new form of visual reality. CLIP FORTY features Investigation and Incineration of Art in America, December, 2017 and ArtNews, January, 2017 printed issues. #artnewsmagazine #artinamericamagazine #contenporaryarthistory Video Gregory Perkel

___Edouard Roditi, Shimon Okshteyn: An Innocent in America, Los Angeles 1987 (excerpt) https://www.okshteyn.com/about When I first spoke to Shimon Okshteyn about how I planned to discuss his art, I happened to mention, if only as an opening gambit, that I had already known of a number of other artists or writers of talent who came originally from his native city of Chernovitz or from other cities of the formally Austro-Hungarian provinces of Bukovina and Galicia which after... World War I, were Romanian or Polish before ultimately becoming parts of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. Very modestly, Okshteyn answered me by remarking that the general public in the world’s major intellectual and artistic centers, such as New York, Moscow, Paris or London, generally assumes that no art or literature of real significance can be produced by those who hail from the more distant provincial centers that gravitate around them like the many satellites around some great planet. I then remonstrated that Ezra Pound was but one of the many major American writers who, like Mark Twain too, came originally from the Mississippi Valley or even more distant Idaho and whose works display little influence of Manhattan. This led me to add that I have personally known at least two outstanding writers who happen also to have been born in Chernovitz, though in the years when it was still the capital of one of the Romania’s northenmost and more recently acquired provinces: Paul Celan, who is now widely claimed to have been German literature’s greatest postwar poet and Ahron Appelfeld, the equally remarkable Hebrew novelist and story-writer.

Launching new website www.okshteyn.com

Okshteyn’s paintings are dreams into which we fall as though into a dangerous wishing well. Okshteyn’s paintings are dreams, in which reality is charged with hope as well as despair charged with emotional depth and complexity we never truly experience except when we dream. It is the turbulent dreamy surface of Okshteyn’s paintings that show how much this battered object belongs to painful memory. ___ Donald Kuspit, NYArts, 2001

Southampton Art Center EAST END COLLECTED6 Conceived and Curated by Paton Miller ON VIEW JANUARY 30-APRIL 11, 2021 Presenting Sponsor: Ingrid Arneberg and Will Marin... This year we pay tribute to two East End Collected alums we lost in 2020, David Geiser (EEC1) and Shimon Okshteyn (EEC4). https://southamptonartscenter.org/event/east-end-collected6/

NEW RELEASE: Gregory Perkel: Savonarola Suite Online Series - CLIP 39, 2016 During an unordinary time that calls for reflection and perspective we will be sharing with our friends, followers and loyal supporters a new online series of short video clips selected from the large-scale video diptych Savonarola Suite by Gregory Perkel, first presented in full length by Black & White Gallery/Project Space at Pulse Art Fair 2019. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/archive-2019 S...avonarola Suite Online Series consists of 40 short clips, 8-10 mins each. Released weekly by Black & White Gallery/Project Space on the gallery Instagram IGTV, Facebook and website page, each video clip includes selected excerpts from both segments of the original video diptych - Investigation & Incineration. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/current INVESTIGATION video segment retraces four decades of the recent art market history of exhibitions, art fairs, biennials, etc. through monthly print issues of Art in America and Art News magazines, a total of some 700 volumes, from 1977, when the artist first arrived to New York City from Moscow, until 2017 a time when the Internet had already reshaped every aspect of our lives. Paging through each magazine’s monthly issue chronicles compelling art market events that resonate poignantly with art market participants directly affected by its movements and the social relations it creates. Investigation video provides a unique opportunity to engage audience in exploration of the complex and sometimes paradoxical evolution of the recent art market and contemplate the wide-ranging effects of information in those pages prior to their destruction by fire. INCINERATION video segment documents the staged real-life destruction of all 700 monthly issues of Art in America and ArtNews magazines by fire to mark the end of an era they reflected. As the incineration of the magazines begins, it becomes evident that the act of burning, by the very nature of fire, is giving birth to a new form of visual reality. CLIP THIRTY NINE features Investigation and Incineration of Art in America, December, 2016 and ArtNews, January, 2016 printed issues. #artnewsmagazine #artinamericamagazine #contenporaryarthistory Video Gregory Perkel

NEW RELEASE: Gregory Perkel: Savonarola Suite Online Series - CLIP 38, 2015 During an unordinary time that calls for reflection and perspective we will be sharing with our friends, followers and loyal supporters a new online series of short video clips selected from the large-scale video diptych Savonarola Suite by Gregory Perkel, first presented in full length by Black & White Gallery/Project Space at Pulse Art Fair 2019. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/archive-2019 S...avonarola Suite Online Series consists of 40 short clips, 8-10 mins each. Released weekly by Black & White Gallery/Project Space on the gallery Instagram IGTV, Facebook and website page, each video clip includes selected excerpts from both segments of the original video diptych - Investigation & Incineration. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/current INVESTIGATION video segment retraces four decades of the recent art market history of exhibitions, art fairs, biennials, etc. through monthly print issues of Art in America and Art News magazines, a total of some 700 volumes, from 1977, when the artist first arrived to New York City from Moscow, until 2017 a time when the Internet had already reshaped every aspect of our lives. Paging through each magazine’s monthly issue chronicles compelling art market events that resonate poignantly with art market participants directly affected by its movements and the social relations it creates. Investigation video provides a unique opportunity to engage audience in exploration of the complex and sometimes paradoxical evolution of the recent art market and contemplate the wide-ranging effects of information in those pages prior to their destruction by fire. INCINERATION video segment documents the staged real-life destruction of all 700 monthly issues of Art in America and ArtNews magazines by fire to mark the end of an era they reflected. As the incineration of the magazines begins, it becomes evident that the act of burning, by the very nature of fire, is giving birth to a new form of visual reality. CLIP THIRTY EIGHT features Investigation and Incineration of Art in America, December, 2015 and ArtNews, January, 2015 printed issues. #artnewsmagazine #artinamericamagazine #contenporaryarthistory Video Gregory Perkel

The final, 41st Clip of the Savonarola Suite Online Series by Gregory Perkel concludes the panoramic project presented weekly on our site since March 25, 2020. All 40 clips can be viewed at: https://www.blackandwhiteprojectspace.org/nowonview

NEW RELEASE: Gregory Perkel: Savonarola Suite Online Series - CLIP 37, 2014 During an unordinary time that calls for reflection and perspective we will be sharing with our friends, followers and loyal supporters a new online series of short video clips selected from the large-scale video diptych Savonarola Suite by Gregory Perkel, first presented in full length by Black & White Gallery/Project Space at Pulse Art Fair 2019. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/archive-2019 S...avonarola Suite Online Series consists of 40 short clips, 8-10 mins each. Released weekly by Black & White Gallery/Project Space on the gallery Instagram IGTV, Facebook and website page, each video clip includes selected excerpts from both segments of the original video diptych - Investigation & Incineration. http://www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com/current INVESTIGATION video segment retraces four decades of the recent art market history of exhibitions, art fairs, biennials, etc. through monthly print issues of Art in America and Art News magazines, a total of some 700 volumes, from 1977, when the artist first arrived to New York City from Moscow, until 2017 a time when the Internet had already reshaped every aspect of our lives. Paging through each magazine’s monthly issue chronicles compelling art market events that resonate poignantly with art market participants directly affected by its movements and the social relations it creates. Investigation video provides a unique opportunity to engage audience in exploration of the complex and sometimes paradoxical evolution of the recent art market and contemplate the wide-ranging effects of information in those pages prior to their destruction by fire. INCINERATION video segment documents the staged real-life destruction of all 700 monthly issues of Art in America and ArtNews magazines by fire to mark the end of an era they reflected. As the incineration of the magazines begins, it becomes evident that the act of burning, by the very nature of fire, is giving birth to a new form of visual reality. CLIP THIRTY SEVEN features Investigation and Incineration of Art in America, December, 2014 and ArtNews, January, 2014 printed issues. #artnewsmagazine #artinamericamagazine #contenporaryarthistory Video Gregory Perkel