Poet and critic John Yau will discuss the work of Chicago-based painter Judy Ledgerwood in conjunction with the current exhibition Chromatic Patterns for the Graham Foundation.

Interested in the interplay between the visual and linguistic, Yau has explored questions of representation and identity throughout his essays, poetry, and art criticism, attending particularly to the question of the materiality of language and painting. Writing about Judy Ledgerwood’s paintings in 2011, Yau states:

When I was looking at the painting “Spiritualized” (2011), which is brown- violet, magenta, and gold, I was initially reminded of a lavish, oversized box of Godiva chocolates and of church vestments, before other associations began to surface, mostly having to do with the erotic. Such links are as abundant as these paintings are optically and viscerally sumptuous. A carefully considered synthesis of opulence and structure, excess and restraint, is at the heart of Ledgerwood’s work as well as a starting point for speculation.

On April 5, Yau will continue his speculation into Ledgerwood’s work, asking how Ledgerwood’s recent installation for the Graham Foundation asks new questions of the limitations and possibilities of painting as it intersects with and aspires to the conditions of architecture.

John Yau is an American poet, critic, and curator who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. Yau has published many books of poetry, artists' books, fiction, and art criticism, including Corpse and Mirror (Holt Rinehart, 1983), A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (D.A.P., 2008), Borrowed Love Poems (Penguin, 2002), The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2006), and most recently Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). His reviews have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Art News, Bookforum, New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Times. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2006-2011), and in January 2012, he started the online magazine, Hyperallergic Weekend, with three other writers. Yau has received numerous awards including the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the American Poetry Review Jerome Shestack Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Award and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.

Image: View of “Judy Ledgerwood: Chromatic Patterns for the Graham Foundation,” 2014, Graham Foundation, Chicago. Photo Thomas Rossiter.

For more information on the exhibition, Chromatic Patterns for the Graham Foundation, click here.