Benjamin Butler, an American painter now based in Vienna, and Bastian Muhr, a German artist with a studio in Leipzig, are friends and have discussed their shared predilection for a mostly abstract idiom–a joint interest that has led to this very good show. Butler makes paintings that are an acid green; they exist in sets of four panels, and are made more complex by the thin black lines that can be seen as slender trees ever so slightly disrupting the verdigris monochrome that compels our gaze. Muhr works differently, making smallish abstract works in a matte black; these images may be characterized by masses with rounded protrusions, which, when joined together, result in a multi-paneled effort (as seen in the exhibition space) that looks like a compendium/dictionary of organic forms. Together, the two artists have set up a dialogue about current possibilities in image-making, with Butler harkening back to American minimalist roots (even though his works must be considered abstracted landscapes), and Muhr working up a non-objective vocabulary, one apparently engaged in pushing ahead the possibilities of abstract rounded-edge form–both in an individual and a composite sense. Read More