Jimbo Blachly (b. 1961) is an artist living in New York City, his installations, performances and objects have been exhibited at the Drawing Center, Franklin Furnace, The New Museum, P.S.1 MOMA, The SculptureCenter in N.Y.C. and Catherine Clark gallery in San Francisco. Blachly participated in The Drawing Center’s Open Sessions program 2014-2016 cycle. In 2011 he had an exhibition of his paintings at Winkleman Gallery in New York.
Between 2004 and 2014 he was co-editor of The Chadwick Family Papers with the poet Lytle Shaw. They presented their work in exhibitions at ICA and Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia; Wavehill in the Bronx; N.Y. P.S.1 MOMA; Museum of Art And Design NY; MCA, Denver; The Tate Gallery, London; Kunsthall KadE, Amersfoort, Netherlands; and, Winkleman Gallery in NYC.
Lytle and Jimbo’s book: The Chadwick Family Papers (a Brief public Glimpse) was published in 2009 from Periscope Press. Selected Shipwrecks was published in 2012 from Southern Exposure, SF/ Bookhorse, Zurich, Switzerland.
His work is included the Collections of: Beinecke Library, Yale University; Butler Library, Columbia University; Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library; Fine Arts Library, Harvard University; Newberry Library, Chicago; Special Collections, Amherst College Library
A limited edition book of his drawings was published in 2021.
In 2024 he had a solo exhibition at Cairn Gallery in Pittenweem, Scotland.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Over the past several years Blachly has focused on responding to the “natural” world in the parks near his home in upper Manhattan as well as during hiking trips in the Hudson Valley, Maine, New Hampshire and recently, Scotland. His paintings, notebooks, watercolors and small objects reflect his ongoing exploration of the genre of landscape and examines a variety of approaches to notions of representation and abstraction. Some works are made exclusively while traveling, walking and camping in the landscape, sitting on a rock or in a train; others are reworked in the studio over time. Additional bodies of work are made in the studio, drawing on memory, photographs and drawings executed in the landscape.
“I am continually searching for an intimate correspondence between the landscape and myself. There is an attempt to record both a sense of time and an aspect of space. A desire to create a marker, memento or token of an experience of a particular place/situation that also opens out to a generalized experience in this ecologically fraught time.”
In addition to direct visual observation, auditory information, time of day (or night), weather, etc… art history, music theory and contemporary poetics also function as prompts for Blachly’s process.
Solo Exhibitions
2024 • Unknown Lochan Cairn Gallery, Pittenweem, Scotland
2023 • Hills, Trees and Others Furnace Art on Paper, Falls Village, CT
2011 • Lanquidity Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
• Furling the Spanker: Highlights from the Chadwicks’ Nautical Collection
• (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
2008 • Genretron (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
2007 • Rear view of cottage with protective roof and attached well, Sawhill Gallery, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
2002 • About 86 Springs SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY
Group Exhibitions
2024 • Zendo Exhibition Organized by Fran Shalom, Ordinary Mind Zendo, New York, NY
2023 • Alive and Frisky Curated by Fran Shalom, Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY
2022 • Summer Selections Furnace Art on Paper, Falls Village, Connecticut
• Blur Curated by Kate Teale, Platform Project Space, Brooklyn, NY
2020 • Unrelated Park Place Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 • Intimate Immensity AC Institute, New York, NY
2017 • In Shape Kimmel Windows, Skirbal Center, NYU, New York, NY
• Defining Fields The Parlour Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
2015 • Name It by Trying to Name It: Open Sessions 2014-2015 Drawing Center, New York, NY
2013 • Postscript, writing after conceptual art(In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) MCA Denver, CO., The Powerplant, Toronto, Canada
• Tandem Pursuits, Armor & Ichthyology (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
• Send me the JPEG (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
2012 • Selected Shipwrecks(In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA.
• Painting is History (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY
2011 • Marklin World(In collaboration with Lytle Shaw)
• Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort, Netherlands
• Otherworldly: Artist Dioramas and small spectacles (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Museum of Art and Design, New York NY
2010 • Seven Miami, Winkleman Gallery
• EV + A (Annual Exhibition) (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Hunt Museum, Limerick, Ireland
• Companion (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) EFA Space, New York, NY
2009 • Sloth, (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) David Nolan Gallery, New York, NY
• Anthropology: Revisited, Reinvented, Reinterpreted (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Central Booking, Brooklyn, NY
2008 • Gramophones, films, typewriters Tate Modern, London, England
2006 • Archicule Makor Gallery, Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y, New York, NY
• Soft Sites (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Institute of Contemporary Art/Bartram’s Garden, Philadelphia, PA
• Garden Improvement (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
• Another Place, NURTUREart Gallery(at Supreme Trading), Brooklyn, NY
2005 • Strange Architecture Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• Odd Lots, White Columns, New York, NY
• “Wandering Plots” a tour/performance (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw), Queens Museum of Art, Queens NY
2004 • Romantic Detachment (In collaboration with Lytle Shaw) P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY
• Happy Medium Clementine Gallery, New York, NY
• Sprawl Hudson Clearing, New York, NY
• Trunk Show King House, Boyle, Country Roscommon, Ireland
2003 • Confabulations Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, New York, NY
2002 • Artists to Artist (in collaboration with Lytle Shaw) Ace Gallery, New York, NY
• The Force Gale Gates, Brooklyn, NY
2001 • Another Cusp Colgate University, Hamilton, NY
2000 • Greater New York P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY
• Brooklyn Zoo Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
• Musee d’Art Moderne de Saint Etienne, France
• Five Sculptors Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, Brooklyn, NY
1999 • A Fine Line Between The Gallery on the Hudson, Irvington, NY
• Drawn to Nature Georges, Los Angeles, CA
• No. 1 Gartner Santa Monica, CA
• American Art from the Big Apple Gallery Campo and Campo, Antwerp, Belgium
• Up and Coming Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, NY
1998 • Summer Show Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, NY
1997 • Current Undercurrent: Working in Brooklyn Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
1996 • Crest Hardware Brooklyn, NY
• R Town Brooklyn, NY
1995 • Point Now Black and Greenberg New York, NY
• Temporarily Possessed: The Semi-Permanent Collection
• New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
1993 • The Return of the Cadavre Exquis The Drawing Center, New York, NY
Awards
2024 Cairn Gallery Residency, Cove Park, Scotland, UK
2014 Open sessions, Drawing Center, New York, NY
2005 Farpath Fellowship, Dijon France
2003 Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Fellowship
2002 SculptureCenter Prize
1998 Yaddo Fellowship
Rotunda Gallery/Brooklyn Community Access Televison Multi-Media Residency
1997 MacDowell Colony Fellowship
1996 Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Grant
1993 Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation: Studio Program Fellowship
Publications
2021 • Inwood arms and Henri Cervantes Books: Blachly Notebook, No. 81
2012 • Southern Exposure, SF./ Bookhorse, Zurich, Switzerland: Selected Shipwrecks
2008 • Bownes Library: The Chadwick Family Papers (A Brief Public Glimpse) Jimbo Blachly & Lytle Shaw
2005 • Cabinet Books: “Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta Clark’s Fake Estates”
2004 • Fence: “Artist Project,” Vol. 6 #2 Fall/Winter pp.33-45
2003 • SculptureCenter Inc: “Jimbo Blachly: 2002 SculptureCenter Prize”
• Cabinet: “Artist Project: odd lots #3”, #10 “Property” Spring p. 109
Reviews
2011 Ellen Harvey, “The Chadwicks,” BOMB Magazine, Fall
Mathew Hassell, “Furling the Spanker: Masterworks from the Chadwicks’ Nautical Collection” NYArts, July 7
Margaret Knowles, “The Chadwicks,” Artforum, June 30
Charlie Schultz, “Back Back Story,” ArtSlant, June 26
Charlie Finch, 'New Art : A Day at the Races," Artnet.com, April 7, 2011
Franklin Einspruch, "An Excavation of Quiet Ambience," New York Sun, March 25, 2011
2008 Jane Harris, The Chadwicks, “The Genretron” Time Out New York, no. 683, p. 108
2006 Johnson, Ken, “Two Odes to Nature, Grand and Demure” ” The New York Times, July 24
Newhall, Edith,” Traveling show finds a world of influences” Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 12th
2003 Johnson, Ken, “Sprawl” The New York Times, January 23
Stern, Steven, “Jimbo Blachly, About 86 Springs,”
Time Out New York, no. 387, p. 65
Pollack, Barbara, “Jimbo Blachly, SculptureCenter,” ARTnews, March, p. 116
Princenthal, Nancy, “Jimbo Blachly at the Sculpture Center,” Art in America, May, p.138
2002 Cotter, Holland, “Prospecting for Clear Springs in The Grittiest Urban Settings,”
The New York Times, December 13, pp. E39, 42
Rosenberg, Karen, “Water Bearer-Going to the Spring with Jimbo Blachly,”
The Village Voice, December 25-31, p. 5
2000 Saltz, Jerry, “Greater Expectations-Greater New York,”
The Village Voice, March 14, p.67
Smith, Roberta,Stretching Definitions of Outdoor Sculpture,”
The New York Times, July 28, pp. E29
Kino, Carol, “Surveying The Scene II: The Emergent Factor,” Art in America, July, p. 46
Mahoney, Robert, “Five Sculptors,” Time Out New York, no. 260, p. 108