Judy Rifka

Judy Rifka

Rifka at the 2010 launch of John Reed's Tales of Woe
Born September 25, 1945 (1945-09-25) (age 66)
New York City
Nationality American
Field Painting
Training New York Studio School

Judy Rifka, (born 1945) an American artist, first emerged in the 1970s [1] as a painter and video artist, and is associated with Colab,[2] Tribeca, the Lower East Side [3][4] arts scene of that period, and such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard,[5] John Ahearn, Richard Mock, Ron Gorchov, Becky Howland, Keith Haring, Matthew Geller, Joseph Nechvatal, Bruce Nauman, Elizabeth Murray, Jenny Holzer, Cookie Mueller, Richard Prince, Kiki Smith, Lynne Tillman, David Wojnarowicz and Ruth Root.[6][7] Rifka was part of a movement of the Lower East Side of Manhattan that redefined downtown and no wave.[8][9]

Contents

Art and Context

Rifka took part in the 1980 Times Square Show, two Whitney Museum Biennials (1975, 1983), Documenta 7, Just Another Asshole (1981), curated by Carlo McCormick and received the cover of Art in America in 1984 for her series, "Architecture," which employed the three-dimensional stretchers that she adopted in exhibitions dating to 1982; in a 1985 review in the New York Times, Vivien Raynor noted Rifka's shift to large paintings of the female nude, which also employed the three-dimensional stretchers.[10] In a 1985 episode of Miami Vice, Bianca Jagger played a character attacked in front of Rifka's three-dimensional nude still-life, "Bacchanaal", which was on display at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.

Judy Rifka's pop figuration is noted for its nervous line and frenetic pace. Joseph Masheck described Rifka in his 1993 book, Modernities (see excerpt below).

“Rifka’s wit, which luckily keeps up with her anxious agitation, entails putting high care into a ‘careless’ look. And in a world charged with contending impersonal forces, this is like advertising in reverse, ‘pushing’ the individual consciousness in all its brave fragility.”

In the January 1998 issue of Art in America, Vincent Carducci echoed Masheck, “Rifka reworks the neo-classical and the pop, setting all sources in quotation for today’s art-world cognoscenti.” [11] Rifka, along with artists like David Wojnarowicz, helped to take Pop sensibility into a milieu that incorporated politics and high art into Postmodernism; Robert Pincus-Witten stated in his 1988 essay, Corinthian Crackerjacks & Passing Go:

“Rifka’s commitment to process and discovery, doctrine with Abstract Expressionist practice, is of paramount concern though there is nothing dogmatic or pious about Rifka’s use of method. Playful rapidity and delight in discovery is everywhere evident in her painting.”

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

References

  1. ^ [1], New York Times, Sunday, February 3, 1974
  2. ^ [2], New York Times Frank Emblen, Sunday, August 23, 1987
  3. ^ [3], Gray Art Gallery at NYU, "Sublime Time"
  4. ^ [4], New York Times, Michael Brenson, January 25, 1985
  5. ^ [5], Art Forum, Rene Ricard, "Radiant Child," December 1981
  6. ^ [6], Art Forum, December, 2001
  7. ^ [7] No Wave anthology books listed in the collection of the NYU Library
  8. ^ David Little, Colab Takes a Piece, History Takes It Back: Collectivity and New York Alternative Spaces, Art Journal Vol.66, No. 1, Spring 2007, College Art Association, New York, pp. 60-74
  9. ^ Carlo McCormick, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006
  10. ^ [8], New York Times Vivien Raynor, Friday, October 18, 1985
  11. ^ [9], Art in America, Vincent Carducci, January, 1998

External links

There is also a painting by Judy Rifka in the Boca Raton Art Museum(Florida,USA).

Additional References