Linda Besemer
Biography
Linda BESEMER
1957 Born in South Bend, IN
Lives and works in Santa-Barbara, CA
Education
1983 MFA, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA
1981 BFA, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowegan
Yale University Summer Program, New Haven, CT
Solo Exhibitions
2014 Angles Gallery, Los Angles, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Sine Language, Nevada Museum of Art, NV
2009 Slabs + Sines, Galerie Richard, Paris, France
2008 Sine, Sine Everywhere a Sine, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2005 Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Cohan & Leslie, New York, NY
2002 Cohan Leslie + Browne, New York, NY
2001 Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1999 Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1998 Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1996 Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1995 Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA
Group Exhibitions
2016 Painting Into Three Dimensions, Galerie Richard, New York, NY
2014 25 years, Galerie Richard, Paris
2013 Hors Frontières – Abstrations, Galerie Richard, Paris
2011 Creating the New Century: Contemporary Art from the Dicke Collection, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton Ohio
2010 Permissions, Highways Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2009 In Bed Together, Royal T, Los Angeles, California
Small is Beautiful, June Lee Contemporary Art, Seomi & Tuss Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
Synthetics, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
PULSE Miami, Galerie Richard, Paris
2008 Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
California Video ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2007 La vida privada: Coleccion Josep Civit, Centro de Arte y Naturaleza, Fundacion Beulas, Huesca
Proteus Gowanus Gallery ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg) Brooklyn, NY
Festival Miden ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg), Kalamata, Greece
Experimental Film and Video Festival (EXiS) ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg), Seoul Art Cinema & Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea
Renderyard Film Festival, ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg), Roxy Theatre, The Escape Gallery, London, UK
18th Festival internacional de curtas-metragens de Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Compass of Resistance International Film Festival: Radical Reels: Five Minutes of Mayhem! ("Strip" with Erika Suderberg),
Cube Microplex, Bristol, UK
Video Art Start From Zero, Festival Miden, Alekton Artspace, Athens, Greece
Lines, Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
Summer Stock, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2006 SouthwestNET: Painting, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
Hotel California, The Glendale College Art Gallery, Glendale, California
2005 Pardners, Domestic Setting, Los Angeles, CA
New Works on Paper, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Extreme Abstraction, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Op…ish; An Attempt at hyper-extension of the pure visual experience, Sampson Projects, Boston, MA
Projects, Boston, MA
In the Abstract, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
L.A, Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York, NY
2004 New Geometries, The San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
2003 One Word : Plastic, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
2002 Annual Exhibition, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy
Sight Mapping, APT Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Vignettes : Modern and Contemporary Art from Colorado Collections, Colorado University Art Gallery, Boulder, CO
Sight Mapping, Konsthallen-Bohuslans Museum, Udevalla, Sweden Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland
Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain
The Corcoran Biennial, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
ColorLove, Johnson County Community College, Kansas City, KS
prima facie: New Abstract Painting, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
New In Town, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Summer 2002, Cohan Leslie and Browne, New York, NY
2001 furur scribendi: Works on Paper, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
MCA Chicago Benefit Art Auction, Chicago, IL
The Dreams That Stuff is Made Of, Selections Show, Frankfurt International Art Fair, curated by David Pagel, Frankfurt, Germany
Works on Paper, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2000 Glee, The Alrdrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
The Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach, FL
Inventional, Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Works on Paper from California, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston , MA
Luminous, IKON, ITD./ Kay Richards Contemporary Art, Santa Monica, CA
The Next Wave : New Painting in Southern California, Escondido Center for the Arts, Escondido, CA
Muscle : Power of the View, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
CAART, Creative Artists Agency, Beverly Hills, CA
1999 Millennium Madness, Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Pasadena Adjacent, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Hot Spots : Los Angeles, Houston and Miami, The Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensboro, NC
The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA
Postmark: An Abstract Effect, Site Santa Fe, NM
Local Color, The Harris Art Gallery, The University of La Verne, La Verne, CA
1998 Polysemy, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Color Fields, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State L.A., Los Angeles, CA
10 x 20, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
8.1-29.98, Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
6130, Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Salvo, White Box Gallery, New York, NY
1997 The Box, Marcia Mateyka Gallery, Washington, DC
Push, Miller Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Sex Industry, Stux Gallery, New York, NY
1996 On and Off the Wall, The Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman College, Orange County, CA
Red, Newspace Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
After, Post Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1994 Constructed Views, Woodbury University Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Flow, Cerritos College Fine Arts Gallery, Cerritos, CA
1993 10 x 10, Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York City, NY
1991 Save the Penis, New Langton Arts Center,San Francisco, CA
Paper Trail, Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
The Central Image, Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
Paintings, Opus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Bibliography
2012 Decade: Contemporary Collecting 2002-2012, Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (illustrated).
Extreme Abstraction, 2.0 . Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (illustrated).
2006 Colpitt, Frances. Linda Besemer, ArtUS , March/April 2006, Issue 12, p.4-5
2005 Miles, Christopher. Optical Illsusions to bulge the eyes, LA Weekly. 2005 November : E28
Hirsch, Faye. Abstract Generations, Art in America. October : 123
Baron, Joan Boykoff and Reuben M. Baron. Doors and Floors, War and More : Reflections on the Armory Show
’05, artcritical.com, March (illustrated)
Stein Greben, Deidre. Return of the Blob, ARTnews, Vol. 104, No. 4, April: 102-103 (illustrated)
Orden, Abraham. Circus with a tent, Artnet.com (illustrated)
Binstock, Jonathan. Sam Gilliam: Retrospective, Washington, DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art and The University of California Press (illustration)
2004 Johnson, Ken. Art in Review: Linda Besemer, The New York Times, 2004, 3rd December.
2003 Millett, Ann. Greensboro, North Carolina, Art Papers, March/April 2003
Patterson, Tom. Giving Plastic a Chance, Winston-Salem Journal, 16 November. One Word Plastic, Art Reviews, Dwell, October: 34. (illustrated)
Colman, David. Getting in Line, Elle Décor, August/September: 56-60, (illustrated)
Patterson, Tom. The Word: Once again it’s ‘plastics,’ this time in the gallery, Winston-Salem Journal, 14 September: F3
Doll, Nancy M. One Word: Plastic, One Word: Plastic, Greensboro, NC, Weatherspoon Art Museum, exhibition catalogue “One
Word: Plastic.” articles, Greensboro, NC: Weatherspoon Art Museum
Rubinstein, Raphael. A Quiet Crisis, Art in America, March: 39-45
2002 O’Sullivan, Michael. The Corcoran Biennial: Dramatic License, The Washington Post, 27 Dec. 2002 LB.
‘Site Mapping’ Konstallen-Bohuslans Museum, Modern Painters Winter
Bick, Andrew, et al. Sight Mapping. Konstallen-Bohuslans Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden (exhibition cat.)
Thorson, Alice. “Shifting Colors: ‘ColorLove’ presents a gallery of ideas in abstraction,” The Kansas City Star, 29.10: K-1, K-10
Knight, Christopher. “Surface and Color in Abstract Group Show.” Los Angeles Times, 9 August 2002: F28-F29
Valdez, Sarah. “Linda Besemer.” Time Out New York, Issue 348, 30 May - 6 June (illustrated) "Peeled Paintings."
New York Magazine, 3 June: 110 (illustrated)
Smith, Roberta. “A Profusion of Painting, Very Much Alive.” The New York Times, May 10, 2002: B31 Linda Besemer.
Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA and Cohan, Leslie and Browne, New York, NY.
Essays by John Yau and David Batchelor (catalogue), The Armory Show: Sex, Violence, And Yes, Beauty, Too, Antiques and the
Arts Weekly, March 16 2002: 60-63
Ollman, Leah. Scribes of Precision and Obsession, Los Angeles Times, 11 January, 2002: F29, F30
Row, D.K. Two Hands Clapping: Exhibits at PICA and PAM Complement Each Other, The Oregonian, 12 April
Ellerston, Karin. New in Town, Reviews, The Portland Mercury, April 25, 2002
2001 Pence, Elizabeth. Everyone’s a Critic: Linda Besemer @ Angles Gallery, Coagula Art Journal, November.2001: 32.
Miles, Christopher. Linda Besemer, Artforum.com Critics’ Picks/Los Angeles, October (illustrated)
Frank, Peter. Linda Besemer, Raymond Saunders, LA Weekly, Art Picks of the Week, 12-18 Oct. C116
Solomon, Deborah. Tastemaker, New in Town, Dives into a Caldron, The New York Times, 2 May: 1 - 9
Dambrot, Shana Nys. Inventional at Angles, d’ART International, Winter 2001, Vol ; 4, Number 1: 38-39
2000 Dailey, Meagan. Glee: Painting Now, ARTFORUM, December
Tumler, Jan. 90’s Art in Los Angeles, Art + Text, Volume 71: 42-51
Zimmer, William. Serious Abstract Paintings with a Non-Serious Message, The New York Times, 31 Dec ZOO 06, August.
Purple House Ltd., London: 166-167 (illustrated)
Pagel, David. Pushing Paint: Luminous, Los Angeles Times, 28 July
Rubinstein, Raphael. America’s Best, Art in America, July: 39 - 40
Gamblin, Noriko. The Next Wave: Painting in Southern California, Escondido
 Center for the Arts, Escondido, California
(exhibition brochure)
Knight, Christopher. Catching the Next Wave of Painters, Los Angeles Times, 20 June
Pincus, Robert L. Next Wave Shows the Versatility and Talent of Southern California, San Diego Union-Tribune, June
Fark, Bill. The Next Wave, North County Times, 2 June
California Artists Show Diversity in Museum Show, North County Times, 9 June
Anderson, Maxwell, Michael Auping, Valerie Cassel, Hugh Davies, Jane Farver, Andrea Miller-Keller, and Lawrence
Rinder. Whitney Biennial (2000) .Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (exhibition catalogue).
Siegel, Katy. Biennial 2000: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Artforum, XXXVIII, No 9, May: 171-173
Thorson, Alice. Wit and Whitney: Having Some Fun With Mediums And Materials at the 2000 Biennial Exhibit, Kansas City Star, 9 April
Muchnic, Suzanne. CAA Unveils Revamped Art Collection With Emphasis on Works by Local Artists, Los Angeles Times, 19 April
Kimmelman, Michael. A New Whitney Team Makes Its Biennial Pitch, The New York Times, 24 March: B29-B31
Siegal, Katy. The Max Factor: Whitney Biennial 2000, Artforum, March: 110- 117
Knight, Christopher. Not Enough Reasons to Celebrate, Los Angeles Times, 26 March
Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America. Rizzoli Press
Richard, Paul. Whitney Sampler: For Browsers, Biennial 2000 Goes Down Easy, Leaves No Aftertaste, The Washington Post, 31 March
Pagel, David. CAART: Themes Out of School, The CAA Foundation, Creative Artists Agency, Beverly Hills, CA (exhibition cat.)
Duncan, Michael. Linda Besemer at Angles, Art in America, March: 138-139
Iannaconne, Carmine. Linda Besemer, frieze, Vol. 51, March
Gilbert-Rolfe, Jeremy. Beauty and The Contemporary Sublime (Aesthetics Today). Allworth Press, Feb.
Cotter, Holland. With a Nervy Sense of Today, The New York Times, 25 Feb.
Gluckstern, J. Muscle, Friday Magazine, 2000: 11-12
Siegel, Katy. The Long List, Artforum, January
Hickey, Dave and David Pagel. Ultra Lounge / Color Fields, ARTPIX, CD Rom, Houston, Texas
1999 Ferguson, Bruce. Five Continents and One City: New Paintings from Asia, Europe, North, Central and South America. Palacio
de Los Condes de Santiago de Calimaya, Museum of Mexico City, Mexico City, Mexico (exhibition catalogue)
Wright, Leslie. RE-Structure, Grinnell College Art Gallery, Bucksbaum Center of the Arts, Dec. (exhibition catalogue)
Vogel, Carol. Choosing a Palette of Biennial Artists, The New York Times, 8 December.
Pagel, David. Deep Inconsistency, Los Angeles Times, 3 December: F28 - F29
Hickey, Dave. Best of 90s, Artforum, December
Thomas, Mary. “Imaginations Burn in Hot Spots.” Pittsburg Post-Gazette, August 14
Shearin, Graham. New Academic Geography: Three Cities Surveyed in the Center for the Arts, Ticket, 22 July
Grachos, Louis, Bruce Ferguson and David Pagel. Postmark, Santa Fe, NM (exhibition catalogue.)
Collins, Tom. Look Ma’ No Hands!, Geronimo, March
Lopez, Ruth. Material Witness, Perspective, March / April
Rinder, Larry. twistfoldlayerflake, January (exhibition brochure)
Roche, Harry. twistfoldlayerflake, Artweek, March
Narwocki, James. twistfoldlayerflake, New Art Examiner, May
Scheer, Apollinaire. Prying Our Minds Open: TwistfoldLayerflake, Express, February 1999: 19
Duncan, Michael. Testing the Fabric of the Color Field, D'Art International, Winter.
Brown, Elizabeth. HOT SPOTS: Los Angeles, Houston, Miami , The Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensboro, NC (exhibition brochure)
1998 Gilbert-Rolfe, Jeremy. Notes on Being Framed By A Surface, ART + TEXT, Summer: 42 - 45
Gilbert-Rolfe, Jeremy. Linda Besemer, ART PAPERS, Fall: 29
Milavanovich, Marco. Linda Besemer, Art Press International, Fall.
Pagel, David. Linda Besemer, Art issues, Summer.
Frank, Peter. Pick of the Week: Color Fields, LA Weekly, 8 January
Linton, Meg. Polysemy, Artweek, December.
Pagel, David. Color Them Retro, Los Angeles Times, 16 August
1997 Pagel, David. Spot Making Sense, Grand Arts, Kansas City, MI (exhibition catalogue)
Fleming, Jeff. Examining the Feminine in Contemporary Painting, South East Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC (exhibition cat.).
Howell, George. A Box, ART PAPERS, November - December
Nichols, Jonathan. A Picture of Insecurity, Broadsheet (Australia), Vol. 2, No. 3, Spring
Twardy, Chuck. Daughters of the Revolution: Contemporary Feminist Painting Reweaves the Old Themes in New Images, News & Observer, July
Paterson, Tom. The Ways of Women, Winston-Salem Journal, 27 July.
Thornson, Alice. Grand Arts Show Brings Sense and Style to the Summer, Kansas City Star, 4 July
1996 Cutajar, Mario. Linda Besemer, ART + TEXT, Vol. 54, Summer: 77 - 78
Pagel, David. Wet Paint, Los Angeles Times, 29 February: F12
Frank, Peter. Pick of the Week, L.A. Weekly, 14 March
Curtis, Cathy. Vertical Inclinations, Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, 24 September
Blaschy, Barbara D. Geek Love: Flowers Bloom On and Off the Wall, O.C. Weekly, 20 - 26 September
Yassein, Edward. Vision: The William Small Jr. Collection, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ (exh. cat.)
Gomez, Pat. Detachable Stroke #14, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA (exhibition cat.) "Action Station: Linda
Besemer, Sally Elesby. Zingmagazine, Fall
How We Talk About Abstraction Now: Linda Besemer, David DiMichele and Jonmarc Edwards, ARTWEEK, September
Anderson, Michael. A Carafe that is a Blind Glass, Art Issues, Summer
Jones, Amelia. A Carafe that is a Blind Glass, Weingart Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (exhibition catalogue)
Pagel, David. Smart and Sensuous, Los Angeles Times, 12 February
Awards and Honors
2004 The Graham L. Sterling Award, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
2002-03 The Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome, Italy
2001-02 The George A. and Eliza Howard Foundation Fellowship in Painting
1999 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Emerging Artist Award Nominee, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York
American Express, New York City, New York
Creative Artists Agency, Beverly Hills, California
Progressive Corporation, New York City, New York
Panza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, North Carolina
Prudential-Bache Securities, New York City, New York
Chase Manhattan, New York City, New York
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
The University of Arizona Museum, Tempe, Arizona
Selected Public Collections
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
American Express, New York, NY
Creative Artists Agency, Beverly Hills, CA
Progressive Corporation, New York, NY
Panza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC
Prudential-Bache Securities, New York, NY
Chase Manhattan, New York, NY
Sony Corporation, San Francisco, CA
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
The University of Arizona Museum, Tempe, AZ