"Understanding without full access to what we have understood."
Glenn Goldberg (b. 1953, Bronx, NY; lives/works: Queens, NY) occupies a singular position within the discourse of contemporary painting. Though Goldberg emerged in the early 1980s in proximity to the artists associated with both the Minimalist and New Image movements, such as Susan Rothenberg and Jennifer Bartlett, his practice diverged significantly in its orientation and tone. Developed alongside a more contemplative axis, grounded in questions of representation, limits of perception and the status of images, Goldberg’s labour-intensive work is a rigorous commitment to being personal and handmade.
Glenn Goldberg (b. 1953, Bronx, NY; lives/works: Queens, NY) occupies a singular position within the discourse of contemporary painting. Though Goldberg emerged in the early 1980s in proximity to the artists associated with both the Minimalist and New Image movements, such as Susan Rothenberg and Jennifer Bartlett, his practice diverged significantly in its orientation and tone. Developed alongside a more contemplative axis, grounded in questions of representation, limits of perception and the status of images, Goldberg’s labour-intensive work is a rigorous commitment to being personal and handmade. Goldberg’s practice carries recurring motifs, yet the work remains fundamentally resistant to narrative. Elusive and dreamlike sequences are held tight to the picture plane, as references to natural forms and grids intersect, create a sense of structure, order, and intervals. “There are no birds in my work,” Goldberg says of his recent paintings, which prominently feature the silhouette of a bird. This paradox is telling: while the avian form recurs, it operates less as subject and more as structure—a compositional armature upon which his meditative practice unfolds. Through this idiosyncratic visual language that sheds the representational burden of the image, Goldberg maintains a deliberate, stitch-like method of mark-making, the surfaces evoke a wide range of visual traditions rooted in devotional craft; remaining precise yet organic.
Many recent works bear the title An Other Place, a phrase that underscores the liminal, unlocatable nature of the images themselves. Neither entirely abstract nor representational, they function as portals to An Other space. Grounded in soft, subtly modulated colour fields, rendered in pale blues and earthy ochres that privilege attentiveness over immediacy, these vulnerable, honest, and quiet choices in Goldberg’s colour theory bring to mind late modernist painters, such as Morris Louis and Agnes Martin.
Goldberg has held numerous academic appoints throughout his career, including Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture Faculty, Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design M.F.A. Program Part Time Faculty, Cooper Union Part Time Faculty, Queens College CUNY Assistant Professor Full Time Faculty among others. Goldberg holds an MFA from Queens College, NY. Significant exhibitions include Knoedler & Co, NY; Pace, NY; Luhring Augustine, NY and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. His work is represented by major public collections include by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, CA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Bronx Museum, The Bronx, NY; Museum of National Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA among others. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painter & Sculptor Award.