NOW ON VIEW
“RENALDO KUHLER: ROCATERRANIA”
MAY 9 – JULY 3, 2019
Renaldo Kuhler (American, 1931-2013) was a visionary artist who worked in secret for sixty years, creating an imaginary country he named Rocaterrania—after Rockland County, New York, his childhood home. By day, Kuhler was employed as a scientific illustrator for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where he created thousands of meticulous illustrations of myriad natural history specimens-reptiles, fish, turtles, and the like, as well as the flora of the region. Although Kuhler’s self-designed uniform (a green sleeveless jacket with tight-fitting shorts, knee-high white socks, and a neckerchief with a handmade slide) instantly signaled his unique character, family, friends, and coworkers had no idea of his prodigious private art work begun in the late 1940s, when he was a teenager.
[Rocaterrania is Kuhler’s gallery debut]
NOTEWORTHY
Ken Grime’s work, currently on view at the deCordova Museum Biennial.
Ricco/Maresca’s Martín Ramírez wall in “The Doors of Perception” booth at Frieze NY.
ARTIST UNKNOWN
Untitled (Strong Man), 1915-20.
Tempera on cardboard
22″ x 17.5″
This work was found outside of Pittsburgh, PA, in its original frame. It’s reminiscent of John Kane’ famous self-portrait, dated 1929, in MoMA’s permanent collection.
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ROSIE CAMANGA
Rosie was thoroughly original. Humorous and tough-minded, he survived for decades in control of his own game in a volatile honky-tonk environment. A sense of sly humor helped keep him afloat—once he told a health inspector that the powdered charcoal used to apply stencils to the skin came from the barbecue. Rosie’s flash, from early examples (none of his work is signed or dated, but clues exist from dates or events depicted in the designs), segued from standardized versions of classic tattoo designs to eccentric and mysterious scenarios that were his alone.
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