Zürcher Gallery NY presents their fifth solo exhibition of works by Regina Bogat (b. 1928) in New York. This exhibition centers on the artist’s “Star Series” of paintings made between 2005 and 2008. The “stars” fall into three categories: Ogdoadics, Heptadics, and Decagons.
The exhibition also features a continuous screening of Regina B (2017), a documentary portrait by Frances Barth chronicling Regina Bogat’s experiences in the downtown art scene of the 1950s and 60s. The film was an official selection at the Marfa Film Festival 2017 nominated for best International Short Documentary at the New Renaissance Amsterdam Festival 2018.
Zürcher Gallery has also published a catalog covering Bogat’s works from 2000-2010 to accompany this exhibition. Excerpt from Regina Bogat’s artist statement, “2000-2010: Recollection and Ascension” (published in the exhibition catalog):
"My studies of ancient spiritual symbols introduced me to different star forms as I was experimenting with various ways of painting and drawing. First I worked with simple five-pointed stars and then became fascinated by the variety of star shapes, each having significance and distinct ways to draw them. The Star Series (2005-2008) is comprised of three different star types: the decagon has ten rays, the ogdoadic has eight rays, and the heptadic has seven rays...
...There’s no linear perspective in the star paintings. Instead, layers of opaque and transparent paint contribute to the surface and depth. Employing a full range of color, I honed techniques I had developed in the 1990s. Stars are drawn on the canvas in ink. The basic ink drawing is often obscured and then revealed through spilling, rubbing, my own frottage, layering, pastel and brushstrokes. The spaces between the star shapes also become significant. The stars move in space, some more deeply than others. The paintings are capricious and take advantage of chance and random laying down of color.
The star paintings lend themselves to thoughts of cosmic explosions, space dust, black holes and the birth of galaxies. Astrophysics, outer space, has been an ongoing interest of mine. Indeed, my lifelong focus on art commenced in childhood the moment my WPA art teacher showed a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) to my grade school class. This theme also appears in some of my earlier work: Aster (1967), Stardate (c. 1969), Constellation (1969) and Galaxy (1970). However, my focus then was on the use of unconventional materials rather than the star form."
Regina Bogat, 2019
Regina Bogat (b. 1928, lives and works in New Jersey). A part of the 10th Street art scene, Regina Bogat was the only woman artist working in the Bowery Studio building with Mark Rothko, James Brooks, Ray Parker and other Abstract Expressionists. A friend of Ad Reinhardt and Eva Hesse, Regina subsequently married the painter Alfred Jensen and has continuously painted throughout her life.
Bogat has exhibited across the United States and in Europe and her work is included in prominent collections. She was included in the 1973 exhibition, Women choose Women curated by Lucy Lippard at the New York Cultural Center. In 2014, the Blanton Museum (Austin, TX) acquired a major work Cord Painting 14, 1977. In 2015, Regina Bogat was shown by Zürcher Gallery in a solo show at Frieze New York (Spotlight Section curated by Adriano Pedrosa). Zürcher Gallery was one of the 5 shortlisted galleries for the Pommery Stand Prize at Frieze NY, highly commended for its presentation of Regina’s works from 1967-77. In 2015, Regina Bogat was invited by Sarah Cain to be part of her solo exhibition, SARAH CAIN Blue in your Body, Red when it hits the Air, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA. In 2017, Karen Wright invited Regina Bogat to participate in Entangled: Threads & Making at the Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK). In 2017, Kelly Baum, the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY) included Regina in the major exhibition, Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason, 1950 – 1980 at the Met Breuer with Cord Painting 15, 1977, a work which had just been acquired by The Metropolitan Museum. In 2017, her work The Phoenix and The Mountain no. 2,1980, was acquired by the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Her work is currently in the historical exhibition, Postwar Women, curated by William Corwin at the Art Students League of NY (through December 1, 2019). This year, Bogat was elected as a member of The National Academy of Design.

Opening Reception: November 6, from 6 - 8 PM

mpefm USA art press release