An important American contemporary artist, Bill Beckley is associated with various
recent art movements, such as STORY ART, CONCEPTUALISM and PHOTO-NARRATIVE ART.
He uses large photographic images and text in a more accessible and amusing context
than his conceptual counterparts who are more concerned with the philosophical
use of language and image. Beckley has succeeded by making his personal iconography
both interesting and mysterious. Bill Beckley's magic is in this dreamy maze of
fact and fantasy. His inquiry into romanticism turn our senses to a higher sphere
of thought and feeling. Beckley´s artworks include a highly acute sensitivity
that allows the viewer to penetrate and uncover the inverted sensual references,
distortions and fallacies that are a synthesis and a barometer for our notions
of romance. Using this magical osmosis, Beckley can charge these rather subtle
pieces with an electric current of psychic energy. He can convey the whisper of
a dream, a scrap of a letter, a recollection of an incomplete poem that vaporizes
into the recesses of the senses. Art has always been a testing ground for new
ideas and the most renowned artists have always been those who by resolving current
contemporary visual problems successfully have developed new references in art.
Beckley understands art history and knows that all problems relating to space,
color and form have been resolved. He has combined new and old vocabulary references
to create an art form which is peculiarly his own. His work has the magnetic
majesty that can split open the secrets of a suspended moment in time. One always
comes away from a Beckley painting bewildered, enriched and a little wiser.
Bill Beckley's work has been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art
1979 Biennial, an invitational survey of the most important and provocative
American paintings done over the past two years.
A selected list of his EXHIBITIONS is as follows:
1979:
- Nigel Greenwood, London, England
Hans Mayer, Denise Rene, Dusseldorf, Germany
- 1978:
- Gallery 67, Bologna, Italy
- Hans Mayer, Denise Rene Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
- Art in Progress, Munich Museum of Modern Art, Germany
Verd Munru, Hamburg, Germany
- · 1977
- Lucio Ameho, Naples, Italy
Daniel Templon, Paris, France
- · 1976:
- D'Alessandro-Ferranti, Rome, Italy
John Gibson Gallery, New York
- · 1975:
- Yvon Lambert, Paris, France
- Patrick Verselst/Marc Poitier dit Caulier, Antwerp, Belgium
- Performance, Steinway Hall, NY
Francoise Lambert, Milan, Italy
- · 1973:
- John Gibson Gallery, New York
Konrad Risher, Dusseldorf, Germany
- · 1979:
- Whitney Museum Biennial, NY
- "Acquisition of the 70's", Whitney Museum, New York
- Story Art, Bonn, Germany
Story Art, Heidelberg, Germany
- · 1977:
- "Documenta", Kassel, Germany
- "Photographic Works", Gallery Nancy Gillespie, Elizabeth deLaage,
Paris, France
- "Three Artists Using the Photograph", Alberta College of Art Gallery,
Calgary, Canada
- "American Art in Belgium", Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels
- "Narrative Art", organized by Paul Schimmel, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Houston
- "The Dada/Surrealist Heritage", Clark Art Institute, Williamstown,
Massachusetts
"New Art for Jimmy Carter", Georgia Art Museum, Athens, GA
- His art can also be found at the following PUBLIC COLLECTIONS and MUSEUMS:
· Museum of Modern Art, NY
· Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
· Kunst Museum, Basel, Switzerland
· Kreifeld Museum, Dusseldorf, Germany Victoria & Albert Museum,
London, England
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