Rosemary Mayer: Beware of All Definitions

Rosemary Mayer, an underrepresented post-minimalist and feminist artist who died in 2014, is the focus of this small survey. Beware of All Definitions is chiefly an investigation into Mayer’s practice from 1966 to 1973, a rich period in her career in which she moved from making geometric paintings on shaped canvases to drawings to sculptural works featuring dyed and draped fabrics. The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue, will chart a development of consistent change, showing Mayer’s output as continual process, one that involved research and experimentation in a developing arc.

Rosemary Mayer was born and raised in Ridgewood, Brooklyn. She took courses at School of Visual Arts and the Brooklyn Museum Art School, worked on the production of 0 TO 9 (1967-1969), the poetry magazine founded by Mayer’s then-husband Vito Acconci and her sister Bernadette, and wrote exhibition reviews for Arts Magazine from 1972 - 1974. She was a founding member of A.I.R. gallery in 1972 and her sculpture and drawings appeared at A.I.R. (1973), the Clocktower Gallery (1974), 112 Greene Street (1975), PS1 (1977), the Renaissance Society, Chicago (1981), “The Times Square Show” (1981), and Sculpture Center, NY (1986), among other venues. Her work has recently appeared at Bridget Donahue (2016), Murray Guy (2016), and SouthFirst (2016).