SOLO SHOWS
2011 Crowells Fine Art, New Bedford, MA
2007 The Old Schoolhouse Gallery, NYC
1995 The Painting Center, NYC
1990 Bowery Gallery, NYC
1988 University Press Books, NYC
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2010 New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA
2010 EAST MEETS MIDWEST
Andrews Gallery, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Westbeth Gallery, NYC
Hoffman LaChancer contemporary, St. Louis, MO
The Beverly Arts Center, Chicago, IL
2010 The Painting Center, NYC
2010 Prince Street Gallery, NYC
2007 CONTEMPORARY FIGURATION, Westbeth Galley, NYC
2007 Lori Bookstein Gallery, NYC
2002 FOUR PAINTERS, Lori Bookstein Gallery, NYC
2002 - 2007 Trainstation Gallery, West Stockbridge, MA
2000 WATERCOLORS, Lori Bookstein Gallery, NYC
2000 175th Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, NYC
1999 GROUP SHOW, The Painting Center, NYC
1988 GROUP SHOW, Ute Stebich Gallery, Lenox, MA
1988 THE PERSISTENCE of PLACE, Dallas, PA
1997 LANDSCAPE, VISION and SPIRIT, LIU, NYC
1997 LANDSCAPE, The Painting Center, NYC
1996 PAINTING, The National Arts Club, NYC
1995 MINDSCAPES, Marine Midland Bank, NYC
1994 GROUP SHOW, Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, NY
1994 RECENT WORK, Mark LaRiviere & Riley Brewster, The Painting Center, NYC
1994 DRAWINGS & PRINTS, Parsons School of Design, NYC
1993 PREVIEW SHOW, The Painting Center, NYC
1993 GROUP SHOW, Bill Bace Gallery, NYC
1993 A-Z, 0-9, E S Vandam Gallery, NYC
1992 167th Annual Exhibition, Nation Academy of Design, NYC
1991 FOUR ARTISTS, Bill Bace Gallery, NYC
1990 TEN YEARS LATER, Parsons School of Design, NYC
REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS
1996 PAINTINGS, by Martica Sawin
1995 MINDSCAPES, by Peter Pinchbeck
1995 FORM AS MEANING, The Paintings of Mark LaRiviere, by Peter Pinchbeck
1993 ALEA Number 3, A Portfolio of five woodcuts
1990 COVER, May issue, Review by Tom Savage
1988 ARTnews, April issue, Review by Gerrit Henry
FORM AS MEANING, The Paintings of Mark LaRiviere
by Peter Pinchbeck
Mark LaRiviere's new paintings are swirling compositions of light and color that bears an unashamed debt to Impressionism. The differences, however, are as pertinent as the similarities; Mark has taken the Impressionist brushstroke and magnified it, giving greater volume and presence to a technique designed to catch momentary effects of light.
For Cézanne, as is well documented, the problem with Impressionism was its dissolution, or dematerialization, of form; he wanted to make of Impressionism "something solid and lasting." Mark has not only found a way of giving greater structure to Impressionism but by the process of abstraction has removed its dependence on a specific temporal situation. Originally a figurative painter, Mark has moved progressively toward the abstract, the removal of literal reference.
Like many of his contemporaries, he is grappling with an issue that also beset Cézanne: how to give form, rather than the mere representation of form (the object, figure or landscape). Abstract Expressionism brought the gesture to a painterly surface, but the particular structures of Pollock and de Kooning were not directed toward the issues of volume and depth. As the critic Adam Gopnik aptly put it, "Abstraction can only genuflect to de Kooning: it can't build on him." Gesture itself does not constitute a vocabulary of form.
As the work of Mark and other abstractionists decisively indicates, painting must reexamine past modes of expression in order to explore their potential for abstract imagery. The Cubist movement offers one example of how such a return to the past can be accomplished in the way it reverted to traditional modeling and somber color (in contrast to Fauvism). Likewise, contemporary abstraction with its openness to the past and its freedom from the restrictions of a specific program or agenda has the ability to infinitely absorb a variety of modes. The only truly dead ends, where closure manifests itself are the minimal (the reduction to blankness and objectness) and the decorative (the reduction to pleasing or beautiful effects).
Paintings like Mark's evoke the "intoxication of form" (Nietzsche) while denying the constrictions of formalism and by this feat disclaims those critics who never cease to fantasize the death of painting. As for abstraction being in a state of crisis, it will always be in a state of crisis: it goes with the turf. If it were trying to do something simplistic, there would be no crisis; nor can it conform to the beauraucratic edict that art should provide socially useful commentary. On the contrary, it desires to point away from what T.S. Eliot called the "panorama of chaos and futility of modern life." It seeks otherness, to create a window onto what has no obvious face, no literal vista, no repressed identity. Like the proverbial prophet in the wilderness, it searches for visions beyond the known, and visions are, after all, the very stuff of which paintings are made
Peter Pinchbeck February 1995
Paintings
National Arts Club February, 1996, Martica Sawin
"Huddled presences seem to body forth out of LaRiviere's Guston-like manipulation of paint, asserting themselves in clear hues against surroundings of subdued tones. These presences hover on the edge of existence, on the verge of being reabsorbed into the richly worked surface, enigmas quietly provoking insoluble questions.
No painting is as pure as purists would have it, but my idea of "pure" painting is when it says things that can only or best be said in paint and when it reaches the mind through the delectation of the eye."
Martica Sawin 1995
Mark LaRiviere Bowery Gallery Show, May 1990
by Tom Savage
Said Willem DeKooning, "I think that if an artist can always title his works, that mean he is not always clear." The paintings of Mark LaRiviere are usually untitled and clear. LaRiviere's paintings are composed of numbers and large blocks of colors. Sometimes the blocks are wider than they are long.
Abstract paintings always ask me whether or not I have the right to see in them forms recognizable to me. In one very abstract painting, I see the Manhattan skyline with one of the two rivers attached to it and one boat. Paintings are like rivers, except that they don't move.
Because they move the paintings of Mark LaRiviere are not at all like mirrors. Each time you look in a mirrors you see approximately the same thing. Thus abstract paintings move without moving. For as long as your cerebral and optical neurons keep pulsing, you can see something completely different each time you look at an abstract painting.
Some people think abstract painting is very cold- that is, unmoving. They should be locked in a room with the paintings of Guido Reni if they want "cold." This is Mark LaRiviere's first show at the Bowery Gallery I was very moved.
Tom Savage, Cover Magazine May 1990
Paint and Possibilities
Public Securities Association Art Showcase VI, January 1996
by Meredith Bergman
In LaRiviere's oils, brilliant colors are wedged together into turbulent, fuzzy patchwork between more blended or muted areas, suggesting masses of blazing autumn foliage between earth and sky. In some, his sketchy, urgent strokes take on a windblown diagonal rhythm, yet his paintings are clearly under his control. He seems to be drawing a lovely analogy between the deliberately constructed shimmer of a pieced-glass mosaic and the glistening tossing of an autumnal hillside, animated by an energy that seams to have its own intent.
Meredith Bergman
Mark LaRiviere Individuals Gallery, March 1988
by Gerrit Henry
"Mark LaRiviere showed six paintings, abstractions based on New York City, but certainly not limited to it. His color recalled both the Fauves and the Abstract Expressionists; his brushstroke was broad and generous, making for watery fiery representations of the city as refined and revived through one artists sensibilities."
Gerrit Henry ARTnews April 1988