Current Exhibits

About the Virtual Exhibits

Andy Warhol: A Life Well Drawn | Andy Warhol’s hand was undoubtedly skilled. That skill transformed commercial art, fine art, and the art world in ways well beyond one exhibit’s ability to communicate. In this exhibition, larger-scale drawings from Warhol’s last decade serve not only to illustrate his skill but to provide insight into the last decade of his life.

This exhibition of fifteen large-scale drawings from the 1980s takes place in Long-Sharp Gallery Indianapolis and LSG | Virtual. The selected works highlight various facets of Warhol’s life and career, including how Warhol shared his gifts with charities and the arts; how he merged commercial advertising and fine art; the ways Warhol both championed causes and published books over the decades; how he used his studies to create gifts for friends and colleagues; how fashion permeated Warhol’s career from the 1950s to 1980s; how his body of work found relevance throughout four decades of printmaking; and finally how religion impacted and inspired Warhol’s life and work.

Through these drawings from his last decade, we explore Andy Warhol – the man and the artist. Enjoy this exhibit from wherever you are.

Please contact info@longsharpgallery.com for an e-catalog or printed exhibition catalog.

In the Abstract | Through a selection of 21 works by 11 artists, In the Abstract explores the abstraction movement’s spectrum, from geometric abstraction to abstract expressionism. It includes works by masters in this genre: Anni Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, and Bridget Riley; alongside established and emerging artists: Fiona Grady, Julia Ibbini, Tamar Kander, Amy Kirchner, Sabina Klein, Spiller + Cameron, Cha Jong Rye, and Wendy Taylor.

Please contact info@longsharpgallery.com for an e-catalog.

About the Virtual Exhibits

David Spiller: Small Works. Big Magic. | This exhibit contains twenty small-scale works that span three decades of the artist’s career. Each provides insight into a different facet of the artist’s process and unique style. In these works, Spiller explores and combines floating color dots, (cartoon) portraiture, and scribbled song lyrics and text – some of the techniques that would later become synonymous with the name David Spiller.

Please contact info@longsharpgallery.com for an e-catalog or printed exhibition catalog.

Amy Kirchner: Visual Poetry | Twenty works by Indianapolis-based abstract painter Amy Kirchner debut in her first solo exhibit in Long-Sharp Gallery | Virtual. Part of Long-Sharp Gallery’s immersive educational efforts, these paintings include a multi-sensory component - each is accompanied by a recording of Kirchner sharing inspirations and insights about the unique pieces.

Works by the artist will be exhibited simultaneously on the second floor of Conrad Indianapolis, and will also feature a QR code connected to the artist’s audio.

About the Virtual Exhibits

Andy Warhol: Andy Warhol: A Survey of Portrait and Figurative Drawings from the Mid-1950s includes two dozen hand-drawn works from the artist’s estate. Enjoy an audio tour of the space and works.

David Kramer: This exhibit proffers the best of Kramer’s wit and satire, featuring the artist's hook rugs alongside paintings on both paper and canvas. The virtual exhibition will be accompanied by a physical micro-exhibit within Conrad Indianapolis, showcasing a few of Kramer's signature works.

About the Virtual Exhibit

Spell It Out: Language-based conceptual artwork is the subject of the newest exhibit in Long-Sharp Gallery’s virtual exhibition space. Spell It Out features works by seven artists working with text, including Kay Rosen, Edward Ruscha, Mel Bochner, Ann Hamilton, Robert Indiana, Christopher Wool, and Miriam Londoño. Long-Sharp Gallery presents Rosen’s work in association with her representative, Krakow Witkin Gallery (Boston). Spell it Out opens in Long-Sharp Gallery | Virtual on February 25, 2021, and includes a visual and audio tour. Please contact us to view the e-catalogue.

Driven to Abstraction: Opening concurrently in Long-Sharp Gallery’s virtual exhibition space on February 25th. The exhibition includes works by some of the most notable names in contemporary abstraction including Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Sam Gilliam. Established abstract artists such as New York’s Sabina Klein and Indiana’s Tamar Kander, along with emerging artists Samuel E. Vázquez, Amy Kirchner, Destiny Palmer, and Kamiesha Garbadawala are also featured. From action painters to contemporary expressionists, the exhibit celebrates the continued driving force of this once-radical art and controversial movement. The virtual exhibit has an audio component that includes commentary by many of the established and emerging artists. Please contact us to view the e-catalogue.

About the Virtual Exhibit

David Spiller: There are Places I Remember Twenty landscape paintings by the late British Pop artist David Spiller are featured in the artist’s solo exhibit, There Are Places I Remember. The paintings were created during the artist’s 60th year (2003) and have not been exhibited in well over a decade. The exhibit will take place in Long-Sharp Gallery – Virtual (LSG’s newest extension), which features high resolution viewing in virtual reality, audio tours, and video components. A catalog for the exhibition (in printed and digital form) will be available. The foreword to that catalogue is written by American art critic and curator Lilly Wei. To view the e-catalogue (including Lilly Wei's text), please contact us.
 
Spiller, who passed away in 2018, was a student of Frank Auerbach. He is perhaps best known for his text-based paintings and depictions of cartoon figures, but landscapes were always close to his heart. Initially inspired by Van Gogh (“as an artist, one is merely a link in a chain”), Spiller contemplated how Van Gogh’s art would differ if created in modern times, with modern freedoms. When painting his landscapes – on canvases the same size as his own studio windows – Spiller wanted to make a pure and perfect surface, removing brushstrokes so that his signature “dots” floated magically on the surface of the canvas. According to the London Times, the famed artist “had solo exhibitions in more than ten countries; his pieces are in public and private collections across the world.”

Lavett Ballard: When She Roars Creating what she describes as “reimagined visual narratives of people of African descent”, Lavett Ballard's current body of work uses collaged photos adorned with paint, oil pastels, and metallic foils, deconstructed and layered on reclaimed wooden fences. Named by Black Art in America as one of the Top 10 Female Emerging Artists to Collect, Ballard has placed works in the private collections of the African American Museum of Philadelphia, the Colored Girls Museum, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection, among others. Long-Sharp, who has been following Ballard since 2018, is “delighted to join forces with the inimitable Myrtis Bedolla to shine a light on Ballard’s work”. According to Bedolla, ”Long-Sharp Gallery has an exemplary reputation in the fine art world. I am honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with Rhonda to advance Lavett’s career. She is an artist of such great promise.” The gallery has published a printed catalogue as well as an e-catalogue to commemorate Ballard’s first exhibition; please contact us to view the e-catalogue.

David Spiller: Christmas Land Take a winter stroll in Virtual Reality with music, holiday lights, a snowman, and presents under the tree. Please join us in Christmas Land, a magical exhibit of monumental holiday paintings by David Spiller.

About the Virtual Exhibit

Long-Sharp Gallery’s new virtual two-wing, 6000-square-foot space was designed and built by London-based Emperia Ltd. LSG | V opened August 3 with a pair of solo exhibits.

Pablo Picasso: A selection of rare early prints (Gallery A, 11 works, prices ranging from $18,000 - $2.5m.). Exploring Picasso’s printmaking from Le Frugal Repas, Picasso’s first major print etched in a used zinc plate in 1904, to a pair of works created first in intaglio and then in lithography from 1942-1945, this exhibit focuses on the master’s printmaking through some of his rarest early prints. Because of the “zoom” capabilities in the new virtual space, one is able to see the intimate details in the prints.

Spiller + Cameron: Virtually Going Places (Gallery B, 15 works, prices ranging from $3,600 – 9,900). Surveying works from the first three generations of the artists’ “rag paintings”, this exhibit presents an experience that is “as real as it gets”. One can view the paintings with a 360-degree view. This is important because each of the works is comprised of nine separate panels that are sewn together. This is difficult to discern at first glance - but may be understood clearly from an examination of the back of the painting. One can also hear both artists speak about the paintings when selecting the “audio” button on the tag for each work. Long-Sharp Gallery is delighted to exclusively represent this London-based mother and son duo in the US.

The Virtual Space:
Gallery owner Rhonda Long-Sharp says establishing a virtual platform and a stronger online presence has been in the works for several years. “Our virtual exhibits started in 2018 using the services of New Zealand company Exhibbit. Their platform allows artwork to be uploaded into four stock virtual galleries. We saw Emperia’s custom capabilities in the summer of 2019 and committed instantly.”

Emperia founder Olga Dogadkina describes their process this way:

We create gallery spaces and shows in virtual reality. Every show is created digitally using 3D technologies. The reason building the space digitally benefits the work is that every painting is recreated in 3D, put in manually and the lighting is custom-built for each work. It allows you to preserve all the details and maintain the highest resolution for each artwork, which is not possible with a 360-degree photograph. Taking it one step further, each painting is interactive so you can click on the painting and find whatever information is chosen; the zoom capability is 500%, such that you can see every single detail.

Long-Sharp was impressed with the ease with which one could move through the spaces created by Emperia. According to Dogadkina: We wanted to create something that anyone could easily use without the need for any technical knowledge or special equipment. When we developed the movement through the space, we wanted to make it as effortless as possible on any device.

Both exhibits are enhanced by an audio tour. The Spiller + Cameron exhibit features paintings hung from the virtual ceiling, allowing visitors to view the front and back of the paintings.

The exhibits are on view through October 1, 2020.