Birgir Andrésson and Poul Gernes, "Bolt Out of the Blue"

This show offers an opportunity for New Yorkers to acquaint themselves with two Nordic artists who worked in the Conceptualist and Minimalist vernaculars. Born in Iceland, Andrésson (1955–2007) was the son of blind parents and actually spent his childhood in a home for the blind. This biography may account for the text-based nature of his work, which eschewed pictorial devices for descriptive narratives—as in a series of portraits where the subjects were "painted" in words. These were usually done on monochromatic backgrounds, employing a color system of the artist's own device—rather like Pantone, except based on hues found in Iceland's environment. Meanwhile, Gernes (1925–1996), who hailed from Denmark, created reductively geometric abstractions (stripes, dots) with enamel paint on Masonite.