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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nL-R: Ron Shuebrook, Untitled (Contested Territories Series#2<\/em>), Towards the Light<\/em> and Black Mountain, Blue Monkeyrope<\/em>, both 2021, \u00a084 x 48 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be hard to find a living artist with more of a pedigree that aligns with the modern.toronto\u2019s mission. Born in Virginia Shuebrook studied visual arts and then for an M.Ed in art education at Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, through scholarships and a teaching assistanceship, he came into contact with many luminaries at the time, including Leon Golub, R.B. Kitaj, Robert Motherwell, Myron Stout and Fritz Bultman.<\/p>\n\n\n Ron Shuebrook, Untitled<\/em>, 2021, 84 x 48 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shuebrook\u2019s accomplishments, in terms of where he has taught since moving to Canada and the number of public and private collections that have his work, are too numerous to list here. But what of his paintings themselves? The works on display were done in 2021, bar two works dating from 2015 and 2019 \u2013 distinguishable by their slightly smaller scale. Most are large, measuring seven feet high and four feet across. They are acrylic on canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n L-R: Ron Shuebrook, Tower<\/em>, Untitled<\/em> and Untitled<\/em>, both 2021, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 48 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n While all the paintings betray Shuebrook\u2019s preoccupation with the formal qualities, with their emphasis on the division of the picture plane and colour, some appear to possess a narrative element. For example, his Tower<\/em> (2021) suggests the tragedy of 9\/11. Indeed, Shuebrook speaks of being influenced in another painting, for instance, by his reading of Melville\u2019s Moby Dick. These large paintings, predominantly in blue and black, are compositionally complex and remind me in this respect of some of Richard Diebenkorn\u2019s abstracted landscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n Ron Shuebrook, Tower<\/em>, 2021, 84 x 48 inches <\/p>\n\n\n\n The tightest and most accomplished works in the show are his three grid paintings. Parsimonious in their palette, the edges become integral to their composition. In this regard, they are entirely self-contained. The combination of geometry and gestural brushwork is masterful. To the extent they are purely abstract they are paradigms of non-objective painting in the way originally championed by Wassily Kandinsky in the early twentieth century. Kandinsky saw reality as divided into two \u2013 the external material world and the spiritual inner world. In his theories and through his paintings he aimed to \u2018paint music\u2019, which he saw as the epitome of a spiritual artform. What I see in Shuebrook\u2019s work is an attempt to paint, if not consciously or intentionally, music reminiscent of that of minimalists like Philip Glass and Steve Reich, who coincidentally are Americans of the same generation as Shuebrook. The grid paintings are repetitive, restrained and enchanting in the manner of Glass\u2019s and Reich\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n Ron Shuebrook, Untitled (black, grey, red, yellow)<\/em>, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel, 40 x 30 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kandinsky\u2019s division between objective and non-objective art has been stressed in particular by American art theorist and critic Donald Kuspit, who indeed has written a brief endorsement of the modern.toronto and its mission, that appears at the bottom of its website\u2019s homepage. Kuspit lays out his thesis in detail in his book The End of Art<\/em>. There he essentially argues that commercialism and the growth of the entertainment industry have turned what we call \u2018art\u2019 into a consumer product \u2013 one that is devoid of spirituality, of any quality that transcends the banal material world. Further, non-objective art is by nature spiritual, and so is a genre that resists what Kuspit sees as the emptying of art, which is now best decribed as \u2018postart\u2019. The modern.toronto\u2019s owner, Ben Woolfitt, in agreement with Kuspit, holds that there is an obligation to champion non-objective art, as the works of this genre still have genuine intrinsic worth, independent of any financial considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n