{"id":4203,"date":"2026-04-13T22:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=4203"},"modified":"2026-04-14T13:52:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:52:55","slug":"murray-hochman-dissolution-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=4203","title":{"rendered":"Murray Hochman: Dissolution \/ Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by John Mendelsohn<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing about Murray Hochman\u2019s paintings is, for me, an act of time travel. I am in the present, in his current exhibition of very large, visually mysteriously canvases that have a raw, open spirit. There is my memory of Murray, many decades ago when I first met him, a daunting guy in a dim loft in Lower Manhattan, full of his art and saturated with the odor of spray paint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Murray
Murray Hochman,\u00a0<\/strong>Silver and Copper Abstraction<\/em>, 2004, aerosol paint on canvas, 54 x 88.5 in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And there is the man himself now, whose journey of 91 years has been a constant painter\u2019s progress, with all the satisfactions and vagaries that that implies. Lately, Murray\u2019s work has received well-deserved recognition in group shows and in solo exhibitions at KinoSaito and the current one at Gallery AP Space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Murray
Murray Hochman, <\/strong>Large Polychrome<\/em> No. 2<\/em>, 2005, aerosol paint on canvas, 120 x 96 in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In writing about painting, I usually focus exclusively on the work \u2013 what it does to me, and all that it might suggest \u2013 hoping to speak for art that speaks for itself. But here I want to see how the painter\u2019s story and and the paintings merge in my thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murray is half a generation older than me, having grown up on New York\u2019s Lower East Side in the 1930s and 1940s. He served in the military in the aftermath of the Korean War. His deployment was in Germany, permitting him to travel in Europe, and work in ceramics in an army base crafts class. The GI bill allowed him to earn a degree in art history from New York University, and an MFA in ceramics from Alfred University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to New York in the mid-1960s, Murray\u2019s early work drew collectors and exhibition opportunities in the burgeoning downtown scene. The influences that Murray was drawn to included Abstract Expressionism, minimalist music, and Japanese culture. Buddhism became a life-long practice for him, whose presence in his paintings is implicit in a kind of acceptance of what is, and how that can manifest itself in a kind of hard-won spaciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Murray
Murray Hochman<\/strong>, Large Polychrome No. 6<\/em>, 2004, aerosol paint on canvas, 78 x 96 in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All writing about the essence of paintings is speculative, but Murray\u2019s move with his spouse Lois to the Berkshires in Massachusetts two decades ago seems central to the work in the exhibition. In this rural setting, the painter has a barn to work in, and the chance to produce large-scale canvasses, some of which are 10 feet in height. But beyond size, the Large Polychrome<\/em> paintings have an expansiveness, toughness, and lyricism in which I intuit the presence of the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sense in the painting Silver and Copper Abstraction, that that the metallic surface seems to evoke an iced-over pond, with a calligraphy of whipping, inscribed lines. In Stormy Polychrome<\/em>, we feel the presence of gathering clouds and dying, persisting light. In Large Polychrome No. 6<\/em>, the golden illumination of dawn or dusk fills the canvas, marked allover with a rapid sgrafitto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Murray
Murray Hochman<\/strong>, Large Polychrome No 5<\/em>, 2002, aerosol paint on canvas, 96 x 84 in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a number of paintings, we are in a watery realm, with thinned-out pigment becoming rivulets in a broken field. Here the exhibition\u2019s title, Dissolution \/ Resolution<\/em> comes into play most evidently. Murray uses solvents to open up stained or sprayed paint, resulting in droplets or flows in the shifting atmosphere. Large Polychrome No. 2<\/em> is a prime example of this painterly process almost creating the painting by itself. In contrast is the more vividly colored Large Polychrome No. 5<\/em>, with its zones of red, yellow, aqua, white, black, and tan, animated by airborne, graffiti-like sprays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the gallery\u2019s lower level is Murray\u2019s Inner Spaces<\/em> series, small-scale works on paper, elegantly mounted on silver grounds. These intimate works show the artist exploring a range of flows where pigment and solvents mix in surprisingly expressive ways. Also, on the lower level is a single sculpture, Camo Tower<\/em>, representing a whole other body of Murray\u2019s work. Found detritus from consumer culture is assembled into a cubic form, painted in a range of moody greens. In concert with this work is Murray Hochman, A Labyrinth<\/em>, a sound piece by Fior Daniela, with an original score and Murray\u2019s spoken reflections on his
work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Murray
Murray Hochman<\/strong>, Large Polychrome No 5, 2002, Aerosol paint on canvas, 96 x 84 in<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Murray\u2019s work is resolutely abstract, but full of emotion, turmoil, light, and hints of transcendence. Constructive and destructive forces are both always present, playing out the performance of an existential drama. The painter allows paint to become a practice and path, a way of losing and finding oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murray Hochman Dissolution \/ Resolution<\/strong> at Gallery AP Space, New York, April 2 \u2013 May 10, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Mendelsohn Writing about Murray Hochman\u2019s paintings is, for me, an act of time travel. I am in the present, in his current exhibition of very large, visually mysteriously canvases that have a raw, open spirit. There is my memory of Murray, many decades ago when I first met him, a daunting guy in … <\/p>\n

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