Volume 7 Numbers 1 & 2 Spring-Summer 1988 DETROIT FOCUS QUARTERLY

A Visual Arts Publication

Ed Levine in his studio, 1988 P h o to: John T. Luke Detroit Focus Quarterly Detroit Focus Editor’s Note A Visual Arts Publication 743 Beaubien Detroit, Ml 48226 The inspiration for this special double 962-9025 issue of theDetroit Focus Quarterly was tw o ­ Wed .-Sat. 12-6 fold and practical. First, we simply had twice Staff the number of articles available to us, which Publisher Gere Baskin would have meant chosing among several Woody Miller valuable pieces for this issue. And secondly, Editor Sandra Yolles for some time we have been motivated to put Design Editor Gigi Boldon-Anderson the Detroit Focus Quarterly back on Advertising Design schedule. (We have been running almost Manager Nelson Smith one issue late.) We came up with the idea for Editorial Board Doug Aikenhead Allie McGhee a special double Spring-Summer issue that James Kirchner Gretchen Wilbert would serve both practical purposes: pre­ MaryAnne Wilkinson sent the full range of material available to us Sales Manager Jeanne Poulet and also bring us up to date with our Bookkeeper Edee Sands publication schedule. Typesetting & Printing Grigg Graphic Services The double issue also affords us the op­ portunity to give theQuarterly a new look and to experiment with a bigger issue that covers more of the Metropolitan Detroit art Detroit Focus Quarterly is published four times scene, including more feature stories and per year (March, June, September, and December) by Detroit Focus, 743 more reviews. Beaubien, Detroit, Michigan 48226. Copyright © 1988 by Detroit Focus. Contents in whole or part may not be reproduced without written permission. We have interviews in this issue with the The opinions expressed are those of the writers and not necessarily those of painters Ed Levine (cover story) by Henrietta the gallery. Address all correspondence to Detroit Focus Quarterly, c/o Epstein, Aris Koutroulis by Harry Smallen­ Detroit Focus Gallery, 743 Beaubien (third floor), Detroit, Ml 48226. burg and Peter Williams by Roberta Litwin Manuscripts must be typed double spaced, and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Ad salespeople receive 20% commission. and Sandra Yolles. There is the continuation of an article begun in the Winter issue of the Quarterly with interviews by James Gilbert of participating artists in the Artcite (Windsor) exhibit “ Feminists Understanding Carnal Knowledge.” In this issue Connie Samaras and Kathy Constantinides discuss their in­ Contents In this issue stallations in that exhibition, in which five ar­ tists addressed perspectives on the institu­ Interview: Edward Levine 3 Contributing authors: tions, values and expectations relevant to by Henrietta Epstein Vincent Carducci women in society. (Interviews with Pi Benio, Interview: Aris Koutroulis 6 Bruce Checefsky Marilyn Zimmerman, and Carol Jacobsen ap­ by Harry Smallenburg Robert Cruise, Jr. peared in the last issue.) Interview: Peter Williams 8 Henrietta Epstein All in all, we have a kind ofInterview by Roberta Litwin and James R. Gilbert magazine approach for theDetroit Focus Sandra Yolles Roberta Litwin Quarterly’s Spring-Summer issue. An article The Artist as Subject 11 Robert Marsh by Vince Carducci, entitled “ The Artist as by Vincent Carducci Dolores Slowinski Subject,” rounds out the picture by ad­ Feminists Understanding Carnal Knowledge Harry Smallenburg dressing the significance of the concepts of Interviews by James Gilbert Charlotte Stokes ego and self-realization to artists in the Kathy Constantinides 13 Barbara Siwula postmodern era. Connie Samaras 15 Reviews cover exhibits from Windsor, Reviews: 17 Contributing photographers Cranbrook, Dearborn, Detroit and Walled Nine Afro-American Printmakers 18 D. James Dee Lake. Although there are twice the number Tried and True: Sculpture John T. Luke of reviews in this issue, they cover perhaps and Drawing 18 Carol Jacobsen half of the shows in our area within this time Michael Hall 20 Joe Sopkowicz period which are significant. Al Loving 21 Gary Zych Signs, Times, Writings from the Wall 22 Fields of Fire 23 Under Construction: New Sandra Yolles Photomontage 24 Editor Deborah Frazee Carlson John Hubbard 25 Curtiss Brock/William Morris 26 INTERVIEW

EDWARD LEVINE

BY HENRIETTA EPSTEIN

Interview with Edward Levine at his studio in Royal Oak, Michigan on March 17, 1988, by Henrietta Epstein.

HE: The paintings in your present series atThe first successful pictures were in Santa feeling the area, the surface of your skin, the Xochipili Gallery in Birmingham are all from Monica, the westernmost burb; those obvi­air. So we kept going back, even while I was southern California. ous elements, the ocean, and the sky; thepainting other subjects here. In a conscious EL: Yes, they’ re from the Los Angeles areashit that goes with that stuff. The most in­effort to differentiate the work technically, I . . . Malibu, Santa Monica, the urban areastriguing things to me were not the light or therevved up the colors in the California work. around it. sky or the color; it was the way the land My whole palette became almost completely HE: You’re well known for painting urbanmoved, the intersection of planes moving inartificial, which I would tone down if neces­ scenes around Detroit. Is it a great contrast,all directions. You know, everything here issary. If I wanted to deal with an unbelievable as a painter, to be in the Los Angeles area,flat; you don’t realize how flat it is here untilaqua, it was there! I had it. Around Decem­ and if it is, can you tell me how these paint­you go to a city that is build in the middle ofber I started two large paintings, one of ing differ from the city-scapes of freeways, intersecting mountain ranges. Things arewhich became the poster for the show, houses, broken-away buildings that you’verolling up and rolling down and going leftM -tel, The Shroud of Alvarado Street. painted from around here? and right. If you don’t like one vantageHE: Was the 0 actually missing from the EL: Painting Detroit is like painting in a point, you go a block over and you’ve gotmotel sign? studio. Detroit is my studio. I’m painting theanother. There are places in Los AngelesEL: No. When I decided to take the 0 out of real image. The studio can be anywhere I go.where I could do thirty paintings of the samethe painting the picture was almost com­ The first thing is to feel at home, at ease, sosubject and each painting woud be dra­plete. I decided something was missing . . . that I know enough about that area to do maticallythe different. “ missing” is a paradoxical term, some­ right picture, to satisfy whatever it is I think I HE: Initially you weren’t satisfied with your times. It was the complete painting which see in that place. I’ve been painting Losearly efforts in Los Angeles. When did youwas wanting. Angeles for four or five years. The first time I finally decide you were able to deal with thisHE: Was it strictly a formal consideration went there I was nineteen years old andsubject? I that caused you to remove the 0, or did a haven’t missed going back ever since. I wasEL: In August 1986 I came inland. Therenarrative value enter into the decision? hesitant to paint Los Angeles. Essentially was I a great wind called the Santa Ana, offEL: I am essentially a narrative painter. like to work out of some kind of compulsionthe desert. . . everything gets hot and dry,HE: So you don’t mind when people read and at first that was missing. It started to tempers flare, people get nasty; it starts tostories into your pictures? If someone says, build up for me about five years ago, but myfeel a lot like Detroit. Then I saw that the “ this is a shabby motel in the dregs of early efforts to paint Los Angeles were terri­core of L.A., like the core of every city in town.” . . . Do you invite that kind of re­ ble; but that’s the way it goes. I wasn’t North America, is like the core of Detroit. action? disappointed; we all have our bad paintings. . . Three or four months into the earlyEL: I don’t mind at all. I want a reason to to get past. paintings, things began to succeed for me.paint a picture and a reason to do the next HE: Did you have to fight through the mythsMy wife and I started taking quick trips intopicture. I don't care if someone sees a story of California before you found what you couldLos Angeles to help me retain my visualor not; the idea is to get yourself moving. If truly see? memories. I’d use slides and photographsit’s going to be a narrative position, if its go­ EL: No, I liked that. The myths were fun. and do drawings, but there’s nothing likeing to be a technical consideration, about 3 Edward Levine,The Angel of Alvaro Street, oil on canvas, 34 "x30 ", from the Los Angeles series, 1988 color or form, that’s fine too. I need a veryhold students back. You know, Hopper wasstaying here in Detroit, by not moving to New powerful reason to remain isolated in myconsidered a reactionary painter when I wasYork or the West Coast. But had you thought studio away from friends and family, andgoing to school at Wayne, because heof moving at one point? when I have this sense of narrative openingwouldn’t deal with Cubism. He was rejectedEL: Yeah, but I never got around to it. I’m up, I know there’s going to be a nextin the late forties by the people who taughtnot sorry. I think that oblivion is the best picture. art here. I had a lot of trouble with thatbreeding ground for talent. HE: You grew up in Detroit and studieddepartment. HE: Remember the last lines in Yeats’ poem, painting here as a youngster, but then youHE: When was the Hopper show at the DIA; “ To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to gave it up completely for fifteen years. Whatwas it in the fifties? Nothing:” Be secret and exult/Of all things brought you back to doing art? EL: Yes, there was a Hopper show here. It that is most difficult. EL: In the sixties, I became interested in thewas earlier. That’s when I became aware ofEL: Exactly. That’s what I’m talking about. I work of a young Black painter, Bob Thomp­some of those attitudes in the schools. It washad a very comfortable oblivion to work in son, and I became aware of that kind ofstartling to me, because Hopper was one ofhere in Detroit and I took full advantage of it. realism that was going on on the West Coastmy gods even then, and I still think of him asHE: Are there uncomfortable oblivions, in and the expressionism in New York of Lestera great American painter. which one is dissatisfied with obscurity? Johnson, Jay Milder and Red Grooms. HE: I What do you see for American paintingEL: Yes! That’s the oblivion you enter after started back at Cass Tech at night school,in the future? the comfortable oblivion, when you think studying drawing. Then I met CharlesEL: The future of American painting . . . you’ re ready and nobody agrees with you. Schmidt, who was teaching at the Aha!, an interesting subject. It wasn’t sup­That’s the other side of the coin: that Detroit Birmingham-Bloomfield Art Association. He posed to endure. We were going to get whal­is not an art center and that this is not a is a wonderful painter in the East today, anded away with photography, technology,community that is going to support a number he encouraged me a great deal. technique, all that stuff was going to elimi­of artists. It’s extremely difficult to survive HE: If someone walked casually into a roomnate us and now painting is back . . . biggeronly as an artist in the City of Detroit. full of your work, the obvious qualities heand better than ever. We don’t have Ameri­HE: In that case is there danger that the ar­ would observe would be the painterlinesscan of painting any more; we have internationaltist with another job, especially the teacher your pieces, how rich the color is and howpainting. Guys like Anselm Keifer, Lucian of art, will sink into the comfort of a nice of­ beautifully it is applied. But your work doesFreud. Freud is right out of the tradition. Andfice and a safe studio, away from the gritty not appear to be in the main stream. Keifer is too, in his own way. He’s enorm­ life of Detroit or San Francisco or Chicago, EL: Which main stream? There are twenty ously ambitious and successful and I thinkand lose the necessary passion or vitality to main streams. The method I use, which ishe’s under forty. There are a number ofcreate forceful work? derived from Impressionism, is returning toAmericans who are significant in an interna­EL: I think those consequences are secon­ fashion. I’ve always painted that way andtional I way. One of the most interesting figur­dary. The real fear, the destroyer, is not in probably will continue. Sometimes thisative painters is Eric Fischel . . . very dar­ having other occupations . . . it’s having method is referred to as “ direct” paint asing, off the wall. He appears to be largelynothing beyond, in not being able to summon opposed to that of the Renaissance painters,self-taught; he seems to learn from paintingthe imagination and the energy to continue. I where figures were first executed in blackto painting how to do the next one better.don’t blame that on academia. Certainly and white and colors were glazed in. I loveHE: Do you do any teaching at all? there are terrific painters who teach and who the paintings of deKooning; they reinforceEL: No, and I wouldn’t want to be a teachercontinue to produce dynamite work. In the approach to direct painting. It’s nottoday. How do you deal with students to getDetroit, teaching doesn’t seem to have got­ figurative painting per se, but the methodthem to take a tradition seriously? Whatten in Mel Rosas’ way, or Bradley Jones’s. of putting down paint is akin to what I’ mmost of them want to know is how to make Painters I admire around here have not been doing. I like the elan, the dash; I like thethe right connections. It’s unusual todayadversely affected at all by teaching. I think spontaniety. . . . when a student wants to talk to you aboutthose dangers are imagined and maybe I like activity, turgid, whipped up; I thinkpainting, instead of “ how do you get they’ a re used as a cop out, as an excuse. I’m it fits me, it’s who I am, it’s my signature, I dealer?” or “ how do you start marketing?”old enough now where I’m not looking for would have thin paintings, if I could get Years it ago there was an element missing inexcuses. I’m just looking for time. At sixty right! I can’t get it right the first time, so I’ve American art; that element wasmoney . . . those issues seem secondary, so trivial. got to change it. nobody had any. Now that money is an es­What is important is that the painter set HE: And you’ re willing to let some of thesential part of the scene, it’s changed every­aside sufficient studio time and stick to it, work show. thing. The dealer has become more signifi­and to arrive at that point when painting is an EL: Probably, I don’t think about it. I mightcant, the review has become more signifi­obsession. For me painting is almost intui­ start with a picture of a guy robbing a storecant. Art historians are not recording arttive. Things happen that you don’t under­ . . . that might get me going. But once history, I they’re making it. They’re qualify­stand until you look at the finished picture a start painting, the issue is, can I pull thising this or that one’s work . . . it’s a whole month, a year later. You’re a visual person, painting off? Can I construct it so that theschtick. making visual decisions, and there is no colors will relate properly to one another?HE: Do you think the preoccupation withlanguage, no language at all; the experience . . . that the dynamics of form are going tomoney and sales can hurt the new genera­is visual and physical and until the phone work so that the people in the picture willtion of artists; does it have an adverse effectrings, or you change the tape player, hours look alive. These issues come in and theon the artist’s imagination or energy? later, not a word has crossed your mind. It's original inspiration moves over to the sideEL: Yes. It is an enormous diversion andvery strange. That’s the stage you want to somewhere. I don’t think that there is “ ayes, a drain of their energies. It keeps onework for . . . those skills that allow you, way to paint.” Unfortunately in a lot of insti­from relying on his own signature, thatalmost unconsciously, to make the correct tutions, one is taught that there is “ a way towhich is natural about the way he usesdecisions after lots and lots of hard work. paint,” and the paintings all come out look­media, and pushes him to pursue what he Henrietta Epstein is a poet, President of the Poetry ing alike, like in the late forties when I was aperceives is a marketable commodity. Resource Center of Michigan, and a freelance kid going to school. That attitude was sure HE:to Perhaps you have avoided the pitfall bywriter on the arts of longstanding. r a \

■ Evy

A R I S KOUTROULIS

BY HARRY SMALLENBURG

From an Interview with Aris Koutroulis, paintings now have an incredible amountpaper of and put them face down in a big box December, 1987, conducted by Harry presence to them. They don’t “ die”and climb up a ladder — I would put all Smallenburg. because they don’t depend on illusions. I thesein­ pieces of color on the floor, face down, Aris Koutroulis, Chairman of the Finesist on keeping the traditional elements of artmillions of colors, without looking at them. Arts Department at the Center for Creative — canvas, flatness, pigments, two-dimen­Every time I would raise them and put them Studies, obtained his M.F.A. from Cran- sionality — but I’ve made painting real with­against the wall, I’d get this huge mass of brook Academy of Art and began teaching out at all that excess stuff — without trying to colors, and they all worked. Always. I was Wayne State University in 1966. In 1973, bring about three-dimensionality, or anytrying to take away the conditioning that col­ keeping his teaching position in Detroit, hekind of object illusion. The image comesor is supposed to “ mean” something. Not moved to New York to develop his career asfrom the action of the way the form is just pure color, but any color goes together. a professional artist. In 1976, he began created, not from any kind of preconceivedI don’t make judgments about them. I used teaching at the Center for Creative Studies, feelings or ideas. to pick blind bottles. I didn’t even know where he became Chairman of Fine Arts in To me, now, the work is pure energy. I what color I was picking up. Now, with the 1981. Active in the Detroit Cass Corridor artthink people respond to the paintings as thecontinuing development of the image — and scene of the late sixties, his work has gonereal vibration of energy that exists inside ofit’s not totally gestural, with those connota­ into many collections, including the Detroitus, that makes us who we are. Geologiststions — your mind kind of relates to your Institute of Arts. He exhibits regularly insee layers of strata, musicians see music, hand what to do. Whether it’s just pure New York and this year had a major show indoctors see heartbeats. But in general, peo­energy, aggressive energy, gentle energy, Athens, Greece, in April and May. ple see optimism. It proves the fact that whether it’senergy — it’s just a matter of H S: Aris, has there been a dominating con­energy is energy, and you can see it any waythings gushing out, not gestures. cern in your work that has led to the paint­you want — there’s no such thing asH S: I heard someone describe your paint­ ings you’ve been doing for the past severalpositive or negative. ings as “ constructivist.” I guess because years? H S: When I first saw the paintings, eight oryou construct them with glued strips of can­ A K: I think all my life I have been trying tonine years ago, the drip patterns were muchvas. But from what you say, it sounds like get rid of conditioning, like the conditionsless colorful, much more contained. Nowthere is a lot of what might be called “ ac­ that made me who I am sort of thing. In fact,they’re more extravagant, more playful.tion” painting in them, or something like the as early as I can remember, I was trying toWhat’s caused the change? abstract expressionists. make an image entirely without thinkingAK: Well, at the beginning of this idea, I wasAK: Well, there’s a difference between emo­ about it. I used to make drawings with theso enthralled by being able to make that linetions and energy. Abstract expressionism, I paper face down so that it was almost likethat I only used one color — it was verythink, has to do with trying to identify certain line drawing — when I was at Cranbrook. monochromatic. I I did not want to take awayfeelings, like anger, or depression — some­ think the work has progressed from that timefrom the initial idea of what I had discovered.thing like that. My work is about the total on to what I'm doing now, and it has a lot Now,to the idea of energy, and the idea of theunidentification of feeling. It’s that thing we do with the line. The line is the only elementpresence of doing the painting, have becomedon’t put labels on, pure energy without the in art that is not real. Every other element —more interesting to me than the line. Some­label. I think Ivan (Ivan Karp, owner of the like texture, or color — exists in nature, butone asked me once, Why was I still paintingO.K. Harris gallery) sometimes, for lack of there’s no such thing as a line. So it became— I’d made my discovery. My answer was, better words, calls the work “ action” paint­ an intriguing thing for me to take somethingBecause I was born yesterday, does thating, but it’s not that. The closest I could totally nonexistent and make it real. Thatmean I can’t live tomorrow? My painting come to a word for describing it was “ actu­ was the discovery that took place in 1973,isn’t just an intellectual thing about line, oral.” “ Actualizing” something inside — not and it coincided with taking away the condi­issues of the art world. Now it’s become grief, not anger, not ambition. It's pushing tioned illusions about what we are. I waspurely the pleasure of what comes out. further and further to the center of your be­ mentally pretty wrecked from growing upH S: How do you feel about the wild col­ing to where it’s just energy that’s connect­ with the German occupation — seeing peo­laboration of colors you get into the work?ed with the universe, and it's like a real con­ ple killed and brutalized and all that — butAK: That was another discovery. Once I hadnection that binds us all. This is what I’m with this discovery of the line, I felt like I discovered how to make the line “ real,” identifying I with. Because, Harry, the work brought everything into the present, a shim­discovered that you don’t have to put valuegets a response from an incredible number mering present that we constantly live in,judgments on color. When I first moved toof people — and what they respond to is the without the past or future. And I think theNew York, I used to cut out strips of color optimism. They feel happy, they feel almost Photo: D. James Dee l aot raiiy nt bu dpeso — depression about not creativity, about all tivism , action painting, abstract expression. expression. abstract painting, action , tivism I expanding. always becoming, always ’s it is universe the in nature of creation the like too, people like that — not the anguished anguished the not — that like people too, a was there but why, know even didn’t I And construc­ about isn’t just the of work art the My kill to past. trying m I’ like feel never work comes from that direction — Mondrian, Mondrian, — direction that from comes work youth. my in him I with love instance. in for was Klee, I Paul line, mean, like the more ’s continuing it as but myself feel always I except — the child being born probably probably born being child the — except basic identification. I would rather say my my say rather would I identification. basic And then through the years you have to get get to have you years the conditioning. ’s through it then Again, And up. piled gets stuff : K A expressionists. hat” Te motne f r, s a a I m I’ as far as art, of importance The t.” a th become You child. realized” “ a but child, sociological the Then everything. knows neo­ the — : today S H like — of mentality elzd Ta’ bcue cid ut s — is just child a because That’s a realized. being like is artist an Being that. all of rid concerned, is making the unknown known known unknown I’m the or making this is m I’ concerned, “ saying always not he's — making the unknown reality that exists in­ exists that reality unknown the making — That’s it. What is the childlike quality quality childlike the is What it. That’s le a ta cidie quality. childlike that has Klee ht t’ te ae hn Im akn aot — about talking I’m thing same the ’s it that on the ground, and then your consciousness consciousness your then and feet your have ground, you the on like Ifeel together. things you. describe to use could about. all is work the think I what right That’s everybody, that energy basic this to buy this painting.” The regular person person regular The painting.” want I this now and buy to painting, this see to wanted and up me by called have than People public world. the art by the more accepted tually catch Because eventually will humanity. think, I for probably ill consciousness, w true it really be is basically, that eventually if And yourself, out. for it true bring yourself to you try with and identify to have you where A K : : K A may not know anything about art, but the the but art, about anything know not may I and I and on, gallery, brakes my put this I by and thing, driving this saw was I “ said, something it’s mean, I out. come us of side s las u epoig oehr, u in but somewhere, exploding out always is put I though collaging, really not ’s it — ply people language critical art usual the beyond : S H feel. to able be — afraid were not or they if honest, — really must sleep to go they before paintings hit this core, and I’ m convinced convinced m I’ and core, this hit paintings ac­ m I’ know, you And, somehow. it with up That's it exactly. None of the names ap­ names the of None exactly. it That's It’ s almost as though you’ve gotten gotten you’ve though as almost s It’ orey f .. ars ok o At Nw York. New Art, of Works Harris , lis O.K. u of tro Courtesy u o K ris A eis 1987 Series # 12, hog is. through articles on the arts — in addition to teaching teaching studies to ry a lin iscip addition rd te in in and — literature arts in the courses on articles balloon. the break to bound ’s it that there S tudies in D etroit; he w rite s fictio n and freelance freelance and n fictio s rite w he etroit; D in tudies S the want always We level. another into you concentrated being energy much so There’s S tudies Departm ent at the Center fo r Creative Creative r fo Center the at General the of ent an Departm hairm C is tudies S allenburg m S arry H Dr. break­ the what that's and breakthrough, : K A negative “ there’s if know, you — exist didn’t try­ still I was 1969, feel in I Like, too, history. art own know, you And, pigment. and rfud Whts h nx step? next the hat’s W profound. out. energy soaring a ’s this it letting of otherwise, but matter tradition, to link that ing that's something be must there then positive space,” and negative that out figure to ing her or his through goes artist serious every visi­ become to consciousness your for order But you understand something, and it kicks kicks it and something, understand you But rebirth. of sort a to forward looking m I’ up. H S : : S H keep­ on insist I So, what? But positive.” “ now, and I’ ll have this Greek show coming coming show Greek this have ll I’ and now, ble, you have your body. So, there’s canvas canvas there’s So, body. your have you ble, acrylic, cotton and linen, 4 8 " x 6 0 " , 1987. 1987. , " 0 6 x " 8 4 linen, and cotton acrylic, Actually, you know, I’ m almost fifty fifty almost m I’ know, you Actually, So, you've reached something pretty pretty something reached you've So, PETER WILLIAMS

BY ROBERTA LITWIN 8t SANDRA YOLLES

Photo: Joe Sopkowicz Peter W illiams in his studio. Peter Williams is visiting lecturer in the country — but on a different level, they There is a show at George N’ Namdi of painting at Wayne State University. The con­didn’t exist because the historical contextHowardina Pindell. Again I see the surface versation from which the following excerpts had been wiped out for Black people outconclusion, representing itself in the way the were taken was recorded at the Broadway West. That started me thinking about thematerials are handled: a certain kind of sen­ Gallery in 1987 at a group show in which nature of how we perceive things. Does itsibility in terms of the scale of the work, the Williams was represented with several large have to do with our political associations, ourkind of pieces and parts that go together. paintings and works on paper (Oct. 16-Nov. cultural background? Does it have to do withThere is a certain kind of methodical involve­ 2). A t the time, he had been in Detroit, some kind of perceptual issue basically in­ment. I think it’s almost spiritual. I don’t teaching at Wayne State for six weeks. herent in the world? mean spiritual in the sense of God, but so Briefly, the interview introduces Peter Because of the interruption of my workmuch more in terms of the spirituality of the Williams, telling us who he is, where he — spending time in the hospital — I did a lotartist. comes from, what his work is about, and of reading. That was the first time I read In one sense I put holes in these objects something about his theories on art. Duchamp. I started thinking about theseto objectify the experience — so it wasn’t Q: Where are you from originally? issues: how art should function, what kindjust quite so literal visual narrative. You P W : I’ m from New York originally — a place of stafement it should make, what kinds ofmight come up to the painting and deal with called Nyack. I grew up in a small town, the things it can or can’t tell us about ourselves.the event itself. Thinking about the literal­ home of Joseph Cornell and Edward Hopper, I got more involved in that search, andness of the surface, the objectification of it about twenty miles north of the city. It was when I went to Minnesota, I found myselfas it began to move away from the wall itself, always a very artsy community . . . Richard dealing with ideas for the first time. and talking about the whole environment of Pouissant-Dart lives in the area, there are a I started to think about art instead of justthe gallery. The projections that I might have lot of actors, actresses, writers . . . Ben making images. I had to deal with the under­on an image might push us back into the Hecht, Carson McCullers, Helen Hayes lives lying meaning behind the images I was mak­theater of the gallery, or whatever space it in Nyack. ing. Out of the changes in my life, havingmight be shown in. Or it might be a much Q: On the Hudson? lost my leg, I sort of gained . . . I had to more internal theater that the piece might P W : Yes. It’s right across from Westchester. think a little deeper about art, about itstalk about. Maybe there would be a separa­ Because of its proximity to NYC they openedsources. I began to believe that the task oftion between the canvas and the wall itself a lot of out-of-town plays at a playhousethe artist, that my task, was one of having to— by building a structure that brought it off there. It had an active community. Pete be responsible to my cultural background asthe wall. By the shadows that would repre­ Seeger would come down in the summer, ata Black person. I had to deal with the factsent themselves on the insides of the the docks there, and do political stuff. that I was interested in making imagery thatcutouts. They might be active. As you move Q: Where did you study? would carry some meaning for mankind.around the picture, you might see shadows P W : I went to the Art Student’s League for a That wouldn’t be just a self-indulgent kind ofthat you didn’t see directly when you look year, and then to the University of New Mex­involvement. . . . That’s not to say that upstraight on into the picture; you’d see them ico at Albequerque — primarily because to I that point I was making indulgentfrom the side. All of that stuff I think has, to was interested in printmaking and Tamerandwork. . . . a certain degree, a kind of cultural bias — in Institute was affiliated with it. I got into a car Q: Can you speak more specifically about thethat idea of movement, involvement. accident there . . . and that’s where I lostpaintings here? When I come downtown, I know I’ m in my leg. P W : I’ m really concerned with depth in thesethe Black community by the kind of rhythm, I spent a year in the hospital there — I paintings, that they have some kind of visualthe music, the sense of smell, sights and was in Albequerque from 1970-1973. Thendepth I to them. That they are not just all onsounds, not necessarily just Black, but the went back to Minneapolis (College of Art andthe surface. Up close, you can see a tex-fact that it is not so urbanized in a much Design) because they came up with the mosttured quality. I want the source of themore cosmopolitan sense. money to go to school for my last two years. artist’s hand on it. I think that could be a Some of those perceptual issues show (Williams returned to the East Coast in Third World kind of sensibility. And its themselves up in direct reference some­ 1985-87 to take his M.F.A. at the Mount something that I think is a real credible dif­times, in the kind of imagery I choose, but Royal College of Art, Maryland Art Institute ference. In most Western painting, there isthey also show up in the way I handle the in Baltimore —Ed.) the idea of removing the hand from the work.process of it — in cutting the holes out. Q: About the work, then . . . If you look at a Susan Rothenberg, theAgain, it is the idea of what would happen if, P W : My work has always been grounded in agreat shock is realizing that they are quiteas Africans in the New World, we continue kind of Black aesthetic. It’s also about a literally flat. There is no real quality to thethe process of making African imagery. search, so its quite literally gone through allsurface — that’s very much illusion. I look at Could these be masks? Could these holes be kinds of forms and manners. When I was insomeone like Frank Stella and I don’t relateportals? Eye holes? that we might hold this New Mexico, I started a series on Blacks in that kind of surface involvement. There ismask up to our faces and see out. And that the West. I realized that my grandfather hadless of an emotional impact when I see awhole idea that this could be an object that been in the Calvary. I started getting moreFrank Stella in the raw than when I see awould have some kind of spirit inside of it. information and finding out about BlackSam Gillian. I feel a greater sense of Not again on a literal level, but just on a level cowboys, Black explorers, etc. connectedness to the work in part becauseof interest. That these ideas might stimulate As I started to research this information, of the choice of materials and how they’rethe viewer to look at this as an investigation: find documents, photographs, etc., I had handled. a looking through something, seeing it, get­ very hard time because a lot of people could That’s not to say that Stella does not giveting involved with it. That you might have to not accept the idea that Black people livedsome credence to the surface manipulation.look below the surface in order to find the out West. They had a John Wayne vision.But I don’t think he articulates out of anyclues to what’s going on on that surface. That was the first time I had to deal with a kind of emotional reference to the work. His My interest is in modernism. I’ m inter­ sort of perceptual crisis — that on the oneconclusions are much more formal and thereested in the formal characteristics of a paint­ hand Black people existed out West, func­is much more interest in the formal condi­ing. But my spirit, emotional side is interest­ tioning, performing, in terms of opening uptions of the piece than in the content. ed in the kind of cultural bias and where it comes from. The times I’m most involved world? How do I make these paintings, what they’re about, what the community has with my work are when I’m aware of my cul­ these images that I choose to make, haveto offer. And that the artist has a task to in­ tural background and I’m dealing with it pri­some kind of task, some kind of involvement volve him/herself with humanity. marily as a source. But not just a literal that all of us can talk to. I think that though search. I might start out investigating Blacks modernism that aim can be reached. in the West, but come up to: How do we see I believe very strongly in art’s ability to Roberta Litwinis a Detroit area painter.S a n d r a ourselves? How do I participate in the give people some sense of who theyY oare, llesis editor of theDetroit Focus Quarterly.

Peter W illiamCinema, s, 7 'h' x59". Courtesy of Broadway Gallery.

10 RTIST AS SUBECT

by Vincent Carducci

The scope of this essay is to examine The transcendental ego is given expres­avant garde and the kitsch. If the individual certain aspects of modern art as an ideologi­sion in the social systems of political is in fact originary, then its expression must cal system, particularly as it relates to what economy as the concept of the entrepreneur.transcend consumer culture. Art that em­ we provisionally term the postmodern. I will The entrepreneur creates new sources ofbodies the transcendental ego must serve as proceed from a considerationstructural of value by developing heretofore neglecteda mirror for subjectivity and, therefore, must allegories — that the system of signifiers market opportunities. The artist-as-individ-reflect the mode of contemplation. In this which posits modernism as an ideology is aual tracks the role of the entrepreneur inscenario, the “ value” of a work of art is its fiction of order through which we inhabit that, in modernism, art is created on “ uselessness.” In fact, the work of art does bourgeois social roles. I do not considerspeculation. That is, the work of art is a pro­have use-value to an intellectual elite by vir­ what I do to be art history. My method is duct of labor that is developed in anticipationtue of its mythological function as the Other synchronic not diachronic, about process of market demand. The artist “ prospects” of the commodity system. As “ fine” art it rather than procession, concerned withan expression of originality that ultimatelystands in contradistinction to mass consum­ structure not origin. This does not excludevalidates the experience of the transcenden­ables available to the underclasses which meaning, for in this endeavor, formis tal ego. In order to continue this pattern ofare traditionally without access to “ fine” content. speculation, the artist (entrepreneur) mustanything. The constructs of the modernist ideologi­constantly strive to discover an ever-chang­ The commodity being sold in fine art is cal system include the dogma of “ origi­ ing “ new .” (“ To boldly go where no manthe ideology of the creative self. It asserts art nality,” “ creativity,” and “ expression.” [sic] has gone before.” ) as an interior experience distinct from These constructs, along with others, are ar­ The continual quest-for-the-new-frontiernature. Again, it is an ideological construc­ ticulations of the transcendental ego. Theas a pattern of social behavior is signified bytion which posits the “ natural” as the world transcendental ego, which is at the center ofthe myth of the avant garde. Levi-Straussoutside the self and which denies a multitude modernist ideology, is the “ true self” which has stated that the function of myth is to holdof selves as being contained within nature. exists outside cultural influence, history, contradiction in structural abeyance. FromIn addition, the transcendental ego must be and the impelling forces of nature. the position of mythological functionality, thedemonstrated anew in order to distance it Philosophically, the transcendental ego isopposition of the avant garde and the bour­from the cultural/societal nexus. grounded in Cartesian ontologycogito — geoisie is a necessary fiction. Rather than The assertion of the creative self is the ergo sum (“ I think, therefore I am” ). It is a being antithetical, the avant garde is posi­basis for the modernist conception of “ ex­ metaphysical ground-zero which establishestioned in accord with bourgeois history in itspressionism.” An expression is the original interior experience — what Heidigger termedstriving to discover the new (the role of theutterance of the transcendental ego (the “ the field of being” or what is also known “ culture scout” ). As part of the capitalist “ real M e” ). Expression, however, is alle­ as “ subject-centered reason” — as the onlysystem, the creation of surplus value is ar­gorical. That is, the communication of an ex­ valid plane of reference, the first source ofticulated through works of art which becomepression is confined by the codes through knowledge. In modern art, the transcenden­commoditized. The “ antithesis” of the which it is delivered. The system of repre­ tal ego is articulated as the artist-as- avant garde is adeferral, that is, an sentation (the “ language” ) posits express­ thinking/creating-being who must journeyagonistic futurism; a denial of fulfillm ent in ion as such, theidea of the interior experi­ within (“ find yourself” ) in order to discover the present in order to secure greater rewardence, rather than the experience itself. The the unique terms by which individual ex­in the future. The avant garde is a bourgeoiswork of art is the trace, the ruin of being not perience may be expressed. This has oftenutopia which exists beyond the fetish of theits embodiment. In its positing of the trans­ been played out as the “ rejection of thecommodity. The contradiction lies in that to­cendental ego above all, modernist art is Academy,” which must be repudiated in day’s “ pure expression” is tomorrow’s solipsistic. It isolates one from activity in the order to posit originality as value and deny“ valued treasure.” world. “ Freedom” over form and the effect of received system (“ existence This is also expressed in an opposition of“ freedom” of self-discovery are bought at preceeds essence” ). “ high culture” and “ low culture” or thethe expense of the intersubjective. One must 12

Courtesy of Robert Freidus Gallery osdr ht hs reo” i as ideo­ also is freedom” “ this that consider cendental ego as an explanation of reality. reality. of explanation an as ego cendental which order of fiction a a has inhabit artist to The role social commodity. a is Art logical. h sbet Tee w gas ae been have originary the goals of two deconstruction a by These achieved subject. the of retrieval the is Another, viewer.) the ex­ of originator emphasis of the of shift a is, consideration That from subject.” the oen r. t s n hs isr ta post­ that fissure emerged. this has in is modernism It art. modern trans­ the of system metaphysical the poses rtc a be t pae yef n h rl of role the in myself place to been has critic Herein constitutes the crisis of legitimacy for for legitimacy of crisis the constitutes Herein n hs en emd h “d-etrn of de-centering “ the termed been has One meaning runs contrary to the modernist modernist the to contrary runs the meaning terms Owens Craig what or meaning, a as functions to my come of have one (I that receiver. understand the to pression It operates through a number of strategies. strategies. of number a through operates It “ Allegorical Impulse.” The retrieval of of retrieval The Impulse.” Allegorical “ “ objectivization” of that which is Other to to Other is which that of objectivization” “ Postmodernism is a retrieval of the Other. Other. the of retrieval a is Postmodernism R o b e rt F ic h te r , , r te h ic F rt e b o R pc Heater, Space edna eo s srcua allegory. structural a as ego ex­ cendental thereby systems sign other and codes purity of intention of purity modernism’s — positivism of reversal aporistic the an is originality of denial The post­ sense, this In signification. of system operation primary Its dialectical. is modern trans­ the of position ideological the posing linguistic of analysis an through utterance rit tl cets ok o at n specula­ on art of works creates still artist politi­ for obsession an in resulted has now This is imperative The implo­ subjectivity. an of is — sion exterior the of objectivization addition, In anxiety individual. the of performance cult the of within indicative gesture garde. avant the of next the progression as the in functions step ironically modernist modernism the of unseating obvious the is rxs e- tuy eofgrd Te ie fine” “ The reconfigured? bec-n truly praxis interpretation. cal/psychoanalytic now be posed is: Has the structure of artistic artistic of structure the Has is: posed be now The relationship of postmodernism to the the to postmodernism of relationship The 9, 93 Fo “Udr osrcin Nw htmnae rve o pg 24). page on (review Photomontage” New Construction: Under “ From 1983, 29", x " 3 2 In light of this, the question which must must which question the this, of light In rather than than rather purity of form. of purity

ty. After all, Freud is Freud and not Lacan. Lacan. not and Freud is Freud all, After ty. peetos t' . k rtf'c a pretentious a Westfall, Warren to According the that is artist-as-creator/God. however, suggest, do I What must this ego, transcendental the of validity practice of art be freed from the myth of the the of myth the from freed be art of practice subject-centered of mode a still therefore, would I them To ideology. modernist of tion to theory poststructuralist of assumption the argue that this recoding is idealist and, and, idealist is recoding this that argue dissolu­ the denotes — discourse aesthetic material delivered still the are Although system. commodity objects the through These tion. o b ae t ma ta I ey individuali­ deny I that mean to taken be not xoe ad nlzd tee a be no been has there analyzed, been and have exposed processes these of contingencies reason, the problematic of which is still still is which issue. of at philosophically problematic the reason, — signifiers in change the that averred have While I have argued here against the the against here argued have I While change in structure. Many critics critics Many structure. in change V in c e n t C a rd u c c i i c c u rd a C t n e c in V is eminists Kathy Constantinides derstanding^Jarnal J G : Kathy, which would be a better word forThey were both very intelligent women who lowledge Part il you, with regard to your art piece “ Customsreally had no other options in life. My Declaration” — a self-contained room ormother-in-law’s brother got to go to secon­ interviews by James R. Gilbert space? dary school, which the family had to pay for. K C : I thought of it as an enigma: a houseGirls weren’t considered worthy of higher Artcite Gallery in Windsor, Ontario, and/or the space in a photograph; customseducation. This brother goofed-off and showed the work of five feminist artists from house/room. played hooky — and she always resented Michigan on October 3 through November 1, J G : Inside the container is a bed with a satinthis. She was very bright and didn’t have 1987, under the title “ Feminists Under­ cover and a statement on the wall above thethis opportunity. So there is much conflict standing Carnal Knowledge.” The work, headboard, with a veil and blue lace garterand contradiction wrapped up in the kinds of some controversial, expressed views of how hung from the bedpost. On each of the sidethings women were allowed to do, that they women are perceived in our society. windows that view into the contained spacewere given respect for doing. These things Interviews with three of the artists, Pi are a reference to a wedding ceremony or arean very beautiful and add to our lives, yet Benio, Marilyn Zimmerman, and Carol explanation of a woman’s experience of thatthey also symbolize a very specific role for Jacobsen appeared in the Winter issue of the ceremony, possibly reflecting upon thethat person. Detroit Focus Quarterly. Each artist talked Customs Declaration statment. Can you ex­J G : You’ve been married for twenty-nine about her work and the issues it raised in a plain this? years, do you find that the nurturing of your range of feminist experience from the per­ K C : I have been thinking a long time aboutmarriage has helped you as a feminist see sonal to the political. In the two concluding where gender inequalities stem from. Mar­yourself in a better role because you have an interviews, Kathy Constantinides and Connie riage is a major event in the lives of womenunderstanding mate? Samaras discuss their installationsCustoms who marry; many of the other institutions inK C : Oh yes. There have been a lot of Declaration by Kathy Constantinides and our culture stem from the way women arestresses in the marriage; in any relationship Women’s Films: Lover Come Back by Connie perceived and handled in the marital ritual.of two people there are stresses. As I began Samaras respectively. That is, they are dealt with as property,to think in feminist terms I focused much of James R. Gilbert is a Detroit area artist. men’s property. We have the historical ex­my anxiety and resentment on my husband. I ample of the dowry and the bartering, in think a that that is pretty typical. It took a lot of sense, of the bride in an arranged marriagework and thoughtfulness on both sides to be — how much she was bringing with her inable to renegotiate our roles and move terms of valuable property. Of course, therebeyond that. I began to see that there is a is also the idea that you have to control herdominant male system that’s in place in sexuality, and the double standard thatsociety and we are simply individuals living arose from that. What it means even to be in a that system. Then it becomes important to mother. That control of a woman’s life question the system, and that’s what this through her reproduction and sexuality. Sopiece does. It’s coming back to part of the the statements I composed are writtensystem that’s so taken for granted and en­ because I look at the traditions of a weddingshrined as a major transition for many peo­ ceremony and they are very symbolic andple. It has many rich associations and rituals moving; most people become very moved atsurrounding it. Because of that emphasis, weddings. But this is partially due to the factit’s important to explore what the implica­ that we are succumbing to subliminal mean­tions are for people. ings that we aren’t aware of or may notJ G : Would you define two words — in your subscribe to, if we really stop and look atown feelings and thoughts: “ carnal” and them. So the statements are about what“ knowledge,” which are both in the title. things the bride wears and does and howK C : “ Carnal” comes from the Latin word people treat her in the wedding service. for meat, came. It simply means to me a J G : We are also indoctrinated, or trained, todirect concrete experience of the flesh. I view the ceremony as a tradition. From earlythink of “ knowledge” as a process of look­ childhood, people witness this event anding for balance, not so much a body of facts always go back to this, not rationalizingthat you accumulate as a way to process in­ what you are witnessing, as much as enjoy­formation. Knowledge means awareness, ing the ceremony. something comes into your field of percep­ K C : That's true. And many things in the tion or approaches your intellect. ceremony are beautiful. I try to address thatJ G : Much like art does? in the piece, because I use some of theKC : Yes. Then you digest it and you fabrics which I find very beautiful and someassimilate it and it becomes a part of of the kinds of handiwork which areeverything else that you perceive. I do come associated with lavish clothing that is inback to the word “ balance.” I think of preparation for ritual. There is also theknowledge as always developing, balancing aspects of a conflict in my own experience,what you think your understanding is. Put­ since I come from traditions where handi­ting the two together for this exhibit calls up work was very important for women to the negative history of the phrase; we find it learn and to do. My mother and my mother-in legalese, in having carnal knowledge of in-law both have done exquisite handiwork.someone. But here we are examining it in terms of what female sexuality can mean. window overlooking the bed and a gold sur­JG: During the opening reception of the The phrase is so overburdened by the domi­rounding form for the window, much like ashow, there happened to be in the same nant male culture — in many ways women picture frame. The gold symbolism and thebuilding a wedding reception. People atten­ haven’t explored what their own sexuality is.shape of it is intended to be just that, a pic­ding the wedding came walking through the It is defined for them and then it is controll­ture frame, or are there other meanings? show as viewers. Did you get any personal ed. For instance, as much as I know that KC: A picture frame, because we have seenresponse from those people? much of pornography depicts violencean interminable number of bridal couples inKC: Yes. There was a woman who wanted against women, I have trouble with the anti­photographs, and often with gilt or silverto know what the piece was about, even pornography movement because it meansframes to signify the high value in which thisthough there is so much text in the piece and people are trying to close the door again,event is held by the culture. I am sabotagingit seems obvious in many ways. So I realized before women have had a chance to explorethat. I’ m developing a space behind thethat she was distressed by it, and as we their own pornography or erotica, and otherglass, but the viewer when looking in thetalked she, in fact, admited that. . . . Her sexual possibilities. It’s important now to space is confronted with the Customs protestations were pretty strong, as if move pornography further, in a more positiveDeclaration and a bed rather than a bride andsomething was bothering her that she direction or a newer arena of knowledge. groom. The Declaration is a statement of thecouldn’t address herself yet. JG: At one end of the piece you have a largehistoric impulse for marriage.

A detail of the installationCustoms House Room by Kathy Constantines at Artcite in Windsor, 1987.

P hoto: Carol Jacobsen Connie Samaras

JG: Connie would you describe your work CS: I really do remember seeing this film as a hunk of heterosexual female delight. for me? the year I reached puberty. I grew up in an Although this may be opaque for most view­ CS: The piece consists of eight 16 x 20 ethnocentric Greek household where marri­ers, I like the irony of presenting Day, the fif­ inch, black-and-white stills from a televised age was held as the primary option for a ties and sixties symbol of sexual repression version of an early sixties sex comedy woman despite the fact that I had no inter­ (i.e. woman as moral guardian), with Hud­ “ Lover Come Back” starring Doris Day and est, whatsoever, in the conventional roles son who symbolizes the eighties excuse for Rock Hudson. Underneath each still is a prescribed for women. In fact, one of the the moral legislation of our private lives — small 5 x 7 inch plaque of white writing on a things I liked about Doris Day was that, des­ AIDS. black ground which is a spectator’s re­ pite her moralism, she often played career JG: This art work seems to be a turn around sponse to these images. The plaque is a women. I suppose that was because the pro­ for you, from what you have done in the combination of autobiographical content and ducers had to give her something to do whilepast, where the script, that you have includ­ descriptive elements. The spectator for this she was holding out for Mr. Right. The ed here, is not attached directly to the im­ narrative is both female and gay. British film critic, Judith Williamson, has age, it is secondary, or below, and also is JG: Could you explain a little about what the written an interesting article on Day describ­ minimal. You previously had a great deal of movie is about? ing both the range of films she made and the written/thought/comment using the picture CS: In "Lover Come Back,” Day and Hud­ complexities of her personal life. Yet it’s for image as a secondary resource. Now it is son play ad-agents from competing firms. these moralistic characters that she’s evident that the picture resource is first with Hudson’s character, an underhanded kind of known. And it’s because of their cultural written comment as secondary image. What guy, stages a phony ad campaign for a fic­ symbolism that I selected the pictures of brought this change in your thinking? titious product both in order to win clientsboth Day and the supporting actress since CS: What you’re probably referring to is the away from Day and to passify his girlfriend they are so emblematic of that positive/neg­ “ paranoid delusion” series I started a cou­ by giving her the modeling job for the cam­ ative construction for women — the madon­ ple of years ago. I haven’t give up doing paign. No one, including Rock, knows justna/whore image. those. For a while there I used to wonder what the product is but its effect gives JG: Is the narrative text involving your per­ when they were going to end but now I see women great sexual allure so that they can sonal background? them as an ongoing chronicling of current end up nabbing the husband of their choice. CS: Well, there’s many different things go­ events. In twenty years, for example, one JG: The photos are set up in a special way, ing on. First off, I wanted to do a statement could look over those pieces as a kind of can you explain? that dealt in part with lesbianism and homo­ historical documentation which, although CS: The first five photos in the piece are eroticism, particularly since all the other using some of the same images from some­ from this phony ad promotion. The model,works in the show deal with sexuality from a thing like “ ABC’s Year in Review” (tele­ clad only in a bathing suit which emphasizes heterosexual perspective. But mostly, this vision), possesses a totally different com­ her breasts, is first pictured standing on a piece emerged out of my interest in some ofmentary from that of the media. It’s not un­ beach, then kneeling on a piece of furniture,the ideas presented in recent feminist film common for artists to work on different ideas then lying down on a bed wearing a mink. criticism which analyze the responses of ot once and, although this piece is somewhat Next she’s standing again smirking at a those spectators to whom a film is addressed different formally, the same concerns are wedding ring. Then, still clad in the bathing either secondarily or not at all. How do there, i.e. examining the complex play be­ suit, she stands next to a crib holding a women and gays, for example, respond to tween public and private that is the individu­ baby. The text under each of the photos images of women made exclusively for a het­ al’s experience in constructing cultural reads: 1.) The year I developed breasts I erosexual (to use the lingo) male “ gaze” ? ideology. saw this movie where a guy sees this woman JG: Male gaze as in voyeurism? JG: Would you describe for me two words, on a beach; 2.) later he sees her on a piece CS: Well, voyeurism is a variable for all film and the difference if they are used together of furniture; 3.) later on, he sees her on aviewers, but my point here is that since — carnal and knowledge. bed so he gives her a mink; 4.) after that, he these images are forged for male desire, CS: I don’t understand the question. sees her dressed as a bride and it’s then 5.) then what is the relationship of women to JG: The title. that he gives her a baby. these kinds of representations other than CS: Well, we were simply brainstorming a In the next two pictures, the model wears mimicry? title for the show when somebody asked a plunging neckline and sits in the fore­JG: The narrative under the last photograph what does “ fu ck” stand for. We couldn’t ground of a courtroom where she’s on trialstates: “ I don’t know what shocked me think of the first two letters and then Pi and for fraud before some sort of advertising more, seeing her nude or watching her haveKathy said the “ C” and “ K” stood for commission. Day is situated in the back­ sex,” is the direct surprise to the person “ carnal knowledge.” The the two of the ground and is wearing a white suit that’s who is following text and photographs. Since them said simultaneously how about “ femi­ buttoned up to her neck. She stands against she is not nude, being Doris Day, and in the nist understanding carnal knowledge.” a window in such a way that the frame obvious picture and in the film , she is not creates a black cross behind her. Doris is having sex. So there is a secondary com­ the prosecutor in this scene. In the first ofment there that I was trying to figure out. these two photographs, in which both ac­ CS: The panel that precedes this states that tresses are looking at the jury, I’ve written: the narrator has had a sexual dream about “ when I was 12, my first purely sexual Day so it's the spectator that’s observing dream about a woman” and in the next Day in the light of her own projections. photograph, with the actresses now facing Another irony of this final image is that, each other, I’ve written: “ turns out to be while the spectator is reading Day’s image about Doris Day.” “ perversely,” Rock Hudson, who was gay JG: Can you explain? from the start of his career, is being held up I Don’t Know What Shocked Me More -- Seeing Her Nude Or Watching Her Have Sex

Panel 8 of 8. FromWomen's Films: Lover Come Back (1963) by Connie Samaras, Artcite 1987. r

16 Robert Martin,Ivo Beach, serigraph, 30"x44", 1984

s. could be cyphers in a hieroglyphic narrative. Ted Jones of Nashville, Tennessee, cre­ TRIED & TRUE: ates immense (nine feet tall by three feetSCULPTURE & DRAWING wide) formal, stylized woodcuts of religious Richard Dennis, Pieter Favier, Gary Zych images Shown were a Crucifix and two Sisson Gallery, Henry Ford Community Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Famine and College, DearbornFeb 5-25/88 Strife. Impressive in size and intensity, they are meditations in meticulous crafting from As modernism wanes and yet continues conception through realization. to be rehashed and regurgitated by too many At first glance the prints by Evelyn Terry, of today’s aspiring artists, it is all the mord , of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are childlike car­ rewarding to find work which successfully tooning, but they quickly reveal an underly­ challenges and transcends the modernist AFRO-AMERICAN ing broodiness. The contradiction implicit mystique. Drawing from eclectic sources between her simple, richly colored objects ranging from conceptual art to folk art, PRINTMAKERS and the mood of the text incorporated into sculptors Richard Dennis, Peter Favier, and Community Arts Gallery, Wayne State the prints imbues her work with a tense Gary Zych break traditional foundations in University, Detroit, Michigan psychic restlessness. their recent exhibition,Tried and True. At Jan 18-Feb. 5/88 Howardena Pindell, of Stony Brook, New the time when conceptual art confronted, York, prints simple, orderly geometric forms challenged and defied the tenets of modern­ Nine Afro-American printmakers exhibit­ over richly textured surfaces, covered, in ism, Dennis, Favier, and Zych were cutting ed their work in a show of the same name atone print, with innumerable and randomly their artistic teeth. During that era many Wayne State University’s Community Arts scattered numbers and arrows. It is as if she young artists engaged in an expanded art Gallery. The show was organized by Robert is imposing a shallow, delicately tinted sur­ dialogue with values that reached beyond Martin of Wayne’s Art Department, who face of order over a more fundamental modernist parameters: a dialogue focusing stated in his foreword to the exhibition cata­chaos. Her simple compositions communi­ on issues oriented content. logue that his goals were to “ survey the cate discipline, meditative concentration and Working with a variety of metals, woods, contemporary Afro-American print scene” peacefulness. and found objects, Richard Dennis repeated and to “ show how artists who make prints John Dowell, of Philadelphia, Pennsyl­ variations on a playful house motif accentu­ are more involved with the conceptual con­vania, works with the gestural delicacy of ating a narrow base reaching with a skyward cerns of making art than with technique.” the Asian art tradition. His Haiku-like com­ thrust to a sharp pitched roof. Stylistically, Certainly the show succeeded on the latterpositions are assembled from three primary Dennis’s works are a blend of folk, funk, score; the work was vastly diverse and had elements: line, brushwork and what is not. and expressionist art sensibilities. The sur­ in common nothing so much as the medium.He hints at landscape, at sound finding faces of his sculptures are richly colored pat­ Kenneth Falana, of Tallahassee, Florida,shape against wide open fields of space. terns of lacquer paints that suggest an affini­ showed work that was powerful political Robert Martin, organizer of the show, ty to graffiti art applied with a folk art direct­ rhetoric made visual. He depicts scenes of also exhibited his work. He constructs ness. The resulting sculptures are imbued highly charged social confrontations, as twoabstract collages from torn fragments of with a humor that is ironic and portentious. of his titles — Rubber Bullets/South Africa fabric and fibrous hand-made paper im­ These house/coffin visages whether solid, and Law and Order attest. Although his im­ printed with gridlike designs, some skeletal or mobile (on wheels), are packed ages give the impression of having been vio­rendered with computer-aided precision, with curious objects offering clues to an lently scribbled in a spontaneous burst ofothers crudely drawn. His work explored autobiographical narrative.The In Man Who emotion, they are compact intense distilla­most explicitly the three-dimensional Tested Fate (see photograph), an oversized tions of that emotion. possibilities of the print. The dichotomy of carved and painted wooden head hangs from The etchings shown by Lev Mills, of technology and handcrafting is also an in­ the ceiling on a heavy steel chain. This auto­ Atlanta, Georgia, were done for a book ofteresting aspect of Martin’s compositions. biographical work is based on the true story poetry written by Mukhtarr Mustapha. The As a survey of the contemporary Afro- of a lovers quarrel. In a small Pennsylvania poems are filled with primal imagery of the American print scene the show signified that town, Dennis’s uncle once handed his girl­ tribe and the hunt; Mills’ prints bring thatBlack printmakers are not adhering to a par­ friend a loaded gun in the midst of a heated primitivism downtown. His silhouetted ticular school or the interpretation of a nar­ argument whereupon she settled the dispute nudes have the texture of rain-soaked con­row range of experience. Rather this group by promptly firing a shot directly into his crete. They are overlaid and even defaced byof printmakers from across the country dem­ forehead. InWife Moving, Betty Up in the street grafitti and they speak, in an urbaniz­onstrated unique, individualized approaches M id w e s t(see photograph) andHouse Divid­ ed dialect, the same experience as theto the print medium. The show itself was ed, American experiences (via autobiograph­ poems. superbly presented and documented by ical narratives) including the ravages of war, Gregory Page of Ithaca, New York, con­ Wayne State. the frailty of relationships, and the tem­ tributed to the show a series of still lifes that Barbara Siwula is a frequent contributor to the porality of being (reflected in the terminal transformed the familiar into a mildly disori­ Detroit Focus Quarterly. course of everyday objects) reveal truths enting design of distinct shapes, shades and that are stranger than fiction. The tracks of gradations of gray. Page used this approach our past, like the contents of the houses, with a refinement and control that renders direct us into the future route. the mundane exotic. Pieter Favier’s work,Center Self Center Margo Humphrey, of Oakland, California, (see photograph), a large chiseled wood prints bright, brash pictures full of images head suspended by numerous wires within a rendered in a style at once sophisticated and finely finished wooden wheel, speaks incis­ naive. Her works have a very contemporary, ively of the overload of extensive interactions new wave feel, yet on another level they

18 in today’s changing world. Leaning casuallyences are combined perhaps to comment onto an era that has been dominated by safe against a wall, it compels viewers to reevalu­art power structures as well (the decline of Reagonomics art, with little point of view ate their own roles and relations in the multi­modernism). But more ominous and outrage­(room for social conscience), except sales faceted world in which we exist (and ous is Blue Lullabi (see photograph), a blue and money; and the country relives the coexist). Favier’s other wall-mounted websteel crossword style framework supporting memory of Watergate with a presidential works containing various wooden formsblack stencilled glass words. The word cabinet wallowing in the graft and greed of were more sketch-like in their direction “ alibi” is repeated four times and illuminat­ guns-and-money/profit-before-people poli­ toward a social commentary. ed from behind by neon lights mounted oncy. These distorted American capitalist Gary Zych’s conceptual constructions in­the wall. The abstract patterns of light themes were echoed with a laconic wit in the corporate the use of white electrical light.behind the word lullabi flash on and off in aimages of Jessica Hahn, Donna Rice, and The issue of “ whiteness” is a recurring relentlessly slow, brainwashing interval. In Fawn Flail in theTried and True poster. theme in Zych’s work addressing subjectsorder to view the piece with all the words il­ All the work in the exhibition expressed such as white lies, white power, white heat,luminated, the viewer is forced to one van­limits in one form or another. Dennis: limits white collar, white washing, and so on.tage point in the gallery. This single point ofof beliefs and societal role playing; Favier: Zych’s work, K ing P in, consists of an eight view reflects the myopic vision of Reagon- limits of the intuitive self versus imposed foot fluorescent tube encased by five mini­omics: depersonalized, propagandizing,structures; Zych: limits of individual mal steel rods, forming an ominous columnmedia manipulation, where truth is relegatedfreedom in the midst of media propaganda of white light. Set at an angle and leaningto distorted contradictions. The color blue al­and government sanctions. But overall, the precariously against a pillar in the gallery,ludes to such Americanized notions as patri­work extended beyond the frail limits of K ing Pin, suggests a need to question andotism — “ true blue” ; repression — “ the modernism per se. reexamine past and present power struc­blues” ; civilian control — “ boys in blue.” Robert Cruise Jr. is an artist, teacher and director tures. Classical and contemporary refer­Blue Lullabi is without a diplomatic approach of the Center for Contem porary Realism in Detroit.

P h o to : G a r y Z y c h

11 A LULLab

"Tried and True: Sculpture and Drawing” at Sisson Gallery, Henry Ford Community College. From right to left:Blue Lullabi by Gary Zych, Belly Up in the Midwest (below) and The Man Who Tested Fate by Richard Dennis; a n d Center Self Center b y Pieter Favier.

19 MICHAEL HALL

Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, OntarioJan 9-Feb 10/88

In his earlier works sculptor Michael Hall Site is important to sculpture and the Art bolts is indeed part and parcel of the gave us open-winged receivers or flat openGallery of Windsor presents Hall’s works in a twentieth-century industrial landscape, but barriers to our progress. In this exhibition ofspace rich with possibility. The gallery is his sculpture is no more, no less about in­ ten full-size pieces (augmented by a show ofspacious and high-ceilinged, but unobtru­dustry than the equally timely sculpture by cardboard models at the Hill Gallery in Birm­ sive partitions keep it from being a ware­Bernini was about the technology of the ingham, Michigan), most of the works by house. The works can been seen to good ad­seventeenth-century. That his sculptures this always challenging artist describe hid­vantage by walking around them or from theare references to dumpsters is less import­ den, somewhat mysterious spaces — steel open balconies next to the galleries above.ant than is their evocation, perhaps ex­ plates enfolded around irregular pyramidsBut, even from the high angle, we are stillploitation, of the tomb threat that all such and cubes. Many of the pieces are calledprevented from seeing directly into thelarge, strong containers possess. “ waltzes,” after Hall’s working method of sculptures by their placement as well as by In his catalogue essay Donald B. Kuspit turning three steel plates into a four-sidedtheir form. Because Hall preserves the dis­ discusses the wealth of other associations construction. However, the cutting, folding,tinction between the inner and outer faces derivedof from the Constructivist tradition. and lapping of the steel plates that make thisthe steel plates by coloring them differently,However, in the end, Hall’s sculpture is metamorphosis possible is not fully compre-we do see more of the interiors and thus aabout what all good sculpture is about: form hendible: the method itself adds a dimensiongreater play of color. His colors, though theyin the space of the human creature. In this of hidden meaning to the pieces. appear to have been found on an industrialexhibition Hall’s special gift is that his work Hall, sculptor-in-residence at Cranbrook paint chart, are effective and uniquely pairedhas grown in elusive association while re­ Academy of Art, relates these forms to in­ for each piece. While the imperfect surfacestaining that blank command of earlier mini­ dustrial containers like the humble dump­are aesthically interesting, they are alsomalist work. ster, commenting that his work is an references to the disinterested manhandling Charlotte Stokesis an art historian in Michigan. outgrowth of the industrial environment ofobjects get on the job. the Detroit area. Hall’s vocabulary of steel plates and

Michael Hall,Waltz tor Whistler, steel, paint, 1984 Collection of the artist.

20 J AL LOVING Recent Works, Paintings and Hand-made Paper G.R. N'Namdi Gallery Jan 2 9 -Mar 19/88

This is a celebration of the richness of life-in-the-world, the whole world, one glow­ ing with serious play. He makes paper then I takes it apart, weaving and un-weaving, warp and weft wild and serene. Time folds in upon itself. Future and past are made pres­ ent. We are restored to ourselves, given a gift which has always been in front of us but hidden, clouded by our self-absorption and self-interest. We become renewed with a sense of purpose to go forth into this world, now. Detroit Dakar Nazca New York Pontiac Paris Tokyo Timbuktu crowd into this third floor gallery making the space small with all its energy and tumultous presence. A sight for sore eyes. A sigh of relief. A contrary-to- all-the-evidence belief that “ it” can, does, and will happen. He sees himself large, this painter from Detroit, shaped by centuries. Here, step into this robe and take on the mantle of responsibility — an obligation to live free and continously offer freedom to o th e rs . Al Loving was born in Detroit in 1935. He has been living and working in New York for the past twenty years. His public works in Detroit can be seen on the First National Building off Cadillac Square and in the Detroit People Mover station at the Millender Center. He has been commissioned to do a new work for the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Robert Marsh, a Detroit artist and musician, works with live improvisation as artistic director of RC— 22.

Al Loving, Mercer Street Series, hand-made paper 50"x40", 1976. Courtesy of G.R. N’Namdi Gallery.

Al Loving, Self-Portrait, dyed cloth, 11"x13", 1986. Courtesy of G.R. N’Namdi Gallery. "SIGNS, TIMES,WRITINGS FROM THE WALL"

Ongoing Michigan Artists Program (OMAP) Detroit Institute of Arts, DetroitNov 22/87-Jan 17/88

©Photography Dept., The Detroit Institute of Arts

Charles McGee,Noah's Art Continuum, aluminum and polyester urethane, 4 8"x10 0 "x6 ". Collection of Richard and llene Karson

The inaugural OMAP exhibition, “ Signs, side, match it to the titleVincent Defends The paintings, bereft of meaning, were shal­ Times, Writings from the Wall,” was New Wave Art and you solved one of Con­ low fantasies reduced to benign decoration. plagued by too much similarity in approachstantine’s visual puzzles! Only the French Charles McGee seemed to be the show’s and use of brilliant color, not to mention off-fries were missing! mystery guest. His elegant sculptures com­ the-wall humor. Taken individually, some of Patrick St. Germain’sRoad K ill andQuiet prised of brightly colored, geometric shapes the works generated a chuckle here andSunday Afternoon in the Country should assembled to allude to human and animal there, but as a whole, the group's manic have been cartoons in A A AMichigan ’ s Liv­ forms were, refreshingly,not attempts at preoccupation with satirical, social commen­ ing. Not only did he poke fun at motor homebiting satire. They exuded a whimsical tary grew tiresome very quickly. maniacs and tourists, but he also kept hiswarmth which d id, however, match the Greg Constantine played art guessing sense of humor about his own excursionsoverall color scheme. games with his viewers in a manner appro­ into the wilderness. In contrast to the humor they attempted priate to the entertainments found on kids Self-proclaimed historian and “ storytell­ in their work, all nine of the artists were ex­ meal boxes at fast-food restaurants. Take er,” Jerome Ferretti attempted to involve thecruciatingly serious in their catalogue state­ G oya's Third of May, 1808: substitute Van viewer as innocent voyeur in a domestic, ments, sometimes to the point of unintelligi­ Gogh for the man with outstretched arms, middle-class environment. Unfortunately, bility. Perhaps the long-awaited opportunity artistic vandals for the Spanish citizens, his watercolors,Kitchen Kitchy Koo andD in­ to exhibit their work in such an august in- New York’s police for Napoleon’s troops, n e r P arty failed to arouse the intellectual sat­ sitution as the DIA robbed them of their abili­ subway train yards for the Spanish country­ isfaction that comes with successful satire. ty to laugh at themselves. Dolores Slowinski "FIELDS OF FIRE"

Ongoing Michigan Artists Program (OMAP), Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Feb 14-Apr 2 4 /8 8

©Photography Dept., Detroit Institute of Arts

Whereas viewers may have doubted the serious intent of the artists in OMAP’s first show, the second show left no room for * doubt. Human bones, ashes, eerie wailing, and sandbag bunkers interspersed with tele­ vision screens were meant to be takenvery seriously. Carol Jacobsen, who after seeing the profusion of military cemeteries in Northern Europe, determined to communicate the ng of emotion she experienced when faced with the reality of death due to war. r .t Expanding and refining a work she had August 6 ' nr installed and lived with in a New York storefront, she horizontally mounted 324 ir i that someti human arm bones in 27 columns across three walls of the gallery. She had purchas­ Hiroshima,!* ed the bones from a biological supply house and engraved upon them the names of dead I M nobody cod soldiers recorded from 50 cemeteries. She also created a video tape of some of the cemeteries which was presented on a 8:16a.m. monitor in the center of the room. In the sterile space of a museum gallery the work lost the confrontational power Jacobsen seems to relish. It became an ob­ ject, not an event. It is as if Jacobsen forgot the reason she was so moved in those Euro­ pean cemeteries:she had been there. Her viewers had not. Her video tape could not begin to recreate the drama of her experi­ ence. M ilitary Cemetery: Homage to Green- ham became the equivalent of a bronze plaque that nobody bothers to read. It is curious, however, to see Jacobsen use human bones in her work considering her outspoken resolve to work against ex­ ploitation and domination. Is hers a lesser form of exploitation because she does not know the names of the Asians whose re­ Rolf W ojciechowski,What Will Remain, multimedia, 1988. mains they are; because she was not there when the bones were gathered7 In the end Jacobsen stands as unemotional and insen­ humanity had progressed from primitive programs, popular TV shows, etc. read like sitive as her viewers. times (symbolized by graceful paintings the memoirs of a “ couch potato. ’ ’ The video What Will Remain is declarative, not in­ from Lascaux on one curving wall) to the monitor enshrined within a curved wall of terrogative. It is Rolf W ojciechowski’s grim nuclear age (symbolized by images of Naga­ sandbags set on a sand painting of an elec­ monument to the future set to the soundtracksaki after the atomic bomb on the other) with tronic circuit that made upVideo Bunker was from “ 2001: A Space Odyssey.” fire (simple or nuclear and controlled by hu­ Yager’s sequel to Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 Tucked into half of a darkened gallery, manity) being the elemental source of book, The Medium is the Message. the piece was reminiscent of some of Robert warmth, power and total annihilation. Like All three installations had a certain dated Smithson’s nonsite work but with the addi­ Jacobsen, Wojciechowski relied on guilt to quality which sapped them of the power nec­ tion of two tall, triangular walls that curve pique our political/environmental con­essary to challenge the numbed and de­ like protective arms around concentric cir­ sciences. tached consciousness of an audience of the cles of dried plants and ashes,and the Jay Yager, on the other hand, was not in­ 1980s. soundtrack. Like Smithson’s work, there terested in making judgments or prodding us were definite references to locations outsideto action. He simply handed us a video ver­ the gallery; unlike Smithson’s work, how­ sion of a coffee table book. Contrasting im­ Delores Slowinskiis a Detroit area freelance writer ever, Wojciechowski’s was charged with ages of old newsreel footage, popular adver­who is a frequent contributor to theDetroit Focus emotionalism and melodrama. In his view, tisements, segments of home videos, newsQuarterly.

23 UNDER CONSTRUCTION: NEW PHOTOMONTAGE Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum Feb 2-Apr 2/88

Under Construction: New Photomontage must meet. . . . Once a frame is proposed to ‘April fool, it is not my birthday and mommy maps out a kind of structural dislocation, notrepresent a situation, a matching process is not here,’ then the frame for ‘birthday unlike the early constructions of Dada artists.tries to assign values to the terminals of each party’ will be replaced by April fool joke.” 4 The work inUnder Construction undermines frame that are consistent with the marks at The frame-breaking mechanism of Dada­ the genre of photography so that the viewereach place.” 3 ist works underscores their dialogical form, is kept in a state of tension — unable to re­ An example of how frames work can be according to which they simultaneously ject the frame of photography as the rules forprovided by using one of Minsky's favorite restate and question the frame expectations reading the work, while tempting him to useexamples, a child’s birthday party. “ When a their readers and viewers brought to them. photography as the system to decode mean­child is invited to a birthday party, he or she The aesthetic experience called forth by in g. is asked to perform a specific cognitive task, Dadaist works operates within a radical dis­ This kind of structural dislocation is a within a ‘birthday party frame’. At the top junction: it aims at the ultimate destruction type of “ frame-breaking." The concept oflevel of the frame are things that are always of the frame itself, transforming the perceiv- “ fram es" has been explored in the fields oftrue: the child can reasonably expect that er’s initial recuperative gesture into one of sociology and psychology, and provides athe party will celebrate the birthday of creative frame-making (through the creation model both of the way we store our knowl­another child, the child's mother will be of new genres, through metaphor and edge and the way this knowledge is activat­present, there will be a birthday cake with through different modes of topicalization.)5 ed when we are confronted with new experi­candles, and various party games. Beyond 1. Inez Hedges,Language of Revolt: Dada and ences.' The sociologist Erving Goffman that, the child will also have filled in other Surrealist Literature and Film. Duke University defines frames as “ schemata of interpreta­terminals or “ slots" with expectations bas­ Press, Durham, N.C. 1983 tion" within which experience becomes ed on what he or she has been told will hap­2. Erving Goffman,Frame Analysis. Cambridge: meaningful.2 Within the field of “ artifical in­pen or on experience from previous birthday Harvard University Press, 1974 telligence," psychologist Marvin Minsky parties. Thus, the child might expect the 3. Marvin Minsky, “ A Framework for Representing defines a frame as a network of modes and“ hot dogs" and the “ pin-the-tail-on-the- knowledge” , in Patrick H. Winston, ed.,The relations: "The ‘top levels’ of a frame are donkey.” The failure of the party to live up Psychology of Computer Vision. New York: fixed, and represent things that are alwaysto those default assignments does not dis­ McGraw Hill, 1975, pg. 212 true of the supposed situation. The levelsqualify the birthday party frame but may 4. Inez Hedges, Language of Revolt. have many terminals — slots — that must be modify the child’s default assignments for 5. Ibid. pg., 57 filled by specific instances or data. Each ter­subsequent birthday parties. However, if the Bruce Checetskyis a photographer and freelance minal can specify conditions its assignments child arrives at the door only to be told: writer who now lives in Cleveland.

Joyce Neimanas,Sun Ones, 7 2 "x4 2 1987. ", Courtesy of the artist.

24 DEBORAH FRAZEE JOHN CARLSON HUBBARD

Nawara Gallery, Walled LakeFeb 27-Apr 2/88

At the Nawara Gallery, John Hubbard’s universal truths — seemingly a jumble of first stages of thought. The woven images hand-made paper reliefs are saturated withdisconnected forms and patterns, but juxta­pull the works into another realm of being color and classical form. The use of a seem­posed over an order, alluding to an underly­that could not be done on paper only. The ingly symetrical image balance creates theing cosmology in which we are all connectedplay of color, positive/negative images and feeling of an alter. The ritual of making hand­in a universe of light and energy. spatial floating forms develops a depth that made paper may have evolved into the set­ The pieces come across as a message of continually enriches the perception. ting of shrine forms that was used here. images in a contemporary form of hierogly­ The woven forms were created on a dob- Although Hubbard has developed drawingsphics. A need to know more about the formsby loom and painstakingly planned out so with natural settings in the past, this is theand secrets that the artist suggests traps thethat three layers of cloth are woven at the first Detroit presentation of his new style, viewer into a constant re-examining of whatsame time, allowing the finished piece to using paper itself as sculpture. The potencyis seen and reseen. Carlson’s use of positiveopen out from its accordian inception into a of the color pulls the viewer up to and intoand negative shapes allies the viewer’s first­single complete panel. To understand the the w orks. hand knowledge into repeated reexaminationsplanning that went into each piece inspires Deborah Frazee Carlson’s works relate of what is perceived. The continual reintro­more respect for the finished works. It is un­ on a different plane of absorption. The im­duction of a metamorphosizing rabbit/hu­fortunate that the work put into these pieces ages projected are both recognizable andman form crosses cultural and time boun­will not be recognized by many viewers. blurred. Many of the symbols used — fish, daries. Images float across the surface, These works are gems of beauty and birds, spirals, and human forms — go transforming as they glide by the viewer. development. beyond the obvious. Deborah explains that In the exhibit, Carlson’s paintings on James R. Gilbert the images are information carriers, tellers ofpaper seem to be the release of the idea in its

Deborah Frazee Carlson, Phaten Fish #1. Courtesy of Nawara Gallery. 25 CURTISS / ^ Q \WILLIAM

Mardigan Library, University of Michigan-DearbornMar 25-Apr 29/88

An exhibition of hand-blown glass at thestatement, and pursuing tangents in hiswith and against the runner to project a con­ Mardigan Library, featured two artists: forms. The personification in his forms is tinual stage play of human folly, the Curtiss Brock and William Morris. developing beyond the beauty and simplicitybackdrop changing. Curtiss Brock’s use of glass as textured of the earlier works. The sculptured forms Correlating this exhibition with the one at form implying rocks from nature are effec­ are rich with tensions. The groupings havethe Nawara Gallery reviewed above, pre­ tiv e . His trompe I'oeil technique enriches the visually become families in storytelling sents a strong parallel vision. All four artists viewer’s response to the shapes and forms animation. Brock’s simplicity is his forte. are dwellers in an un-urban setting. They grouped together. The contrast of clear col­ William Morris’ translucent glass ves­ are in tune with nature by proximity. In their ored glass to the textured rock-like glass sels have evolved into forms that come from works they have gleaned facets of what they surface creates a tension that accomodatesearly painted rock caverns; they imitate the live in a concise way through image usage many responses. Glass in it’s hot fluid state rock shape itself. While Brock’s surfaces are and projection. John Hubbard lives in Mar­ is a difficult, watery substance to handle. flowing solid textured forms, Morris’ glass quette, Deborah Frazee Carlson in Whitmore Brock uses the tension of manipulation andsurfaces are inlaid with images of transpar­Lake, Curtiss Brock in Smithville, Ten­ resting to create images that suggest natureent colors and textures. They are directly nessee (formerly from Dearborn), and through implication. related to the pattern and surface innuendoWilliam Morris in Stanwood, Washington. A piece Brock showed at the Detroit Art­ of rock as pattern and rock as process. In Their reflections on, and usurpings from ists Market during this same period achiev­ some vessel forms there are flowing images nature, allow the viewer to share in that ex­ ed the trompe I ’oeil effect: a blue glass of early cave drawings transposed into thepe rie n ce . shape, suggesting water, rested within aglass surfaces. The thin running human strong textural rock form, holding and pro­figure is galvanized into a glass vessel, James R. Gilbert is a Detroit area artist, teacher, and a frequent contributor to Detroit the Focus tecting the water. It was a complete state­ much like the Greek amphora jars picturing Q uarterly. ment of nature's innocence captured bythe athlete captured in movement. The tex­ man. Brock is now reaching beyond this tures and surfaces within the glass interplay

William Morris, Untitled. Courtesy ofHabitat Galleries. FRESCO FRIENDS OF LUCIENNE BLOCH AND STEPHEN POPE DIMITROFF VIDEO: " COMMUNITY UPBEAT "

CONTENTS: CALENDAR 1988

THE ART OF FRESCO (TECHNIQUES) SATURDAY, JUNE 25,1988 FRESCO FRIENDS FRESCOES OF LUCIENNE BLOCH MEMBERSHIP UNION STREET GALLERY COMMITTEE AND STEPHEN POPE DIMITROFF 4145 WOODWARD COORDINATED BY DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48210 JEANNE POULET DIEGO RIVERA EXHIBIT 313/464-6914 313/831-3965 RECEPTION: 7:00-12:00 APRIL 1987 DENNIS KAPP SPEAKER: DEBRAH ZUCCARINI VICKY ADAMS CURATOR: BARBARA HELLER DONNA CAMPBELL ART CONNECTOR INTERVIEWS SUNDAY, JULY 10,1988 JIM & JOAN LIMBRIGHT CHANNEL 2: SUNDAY TIMES RICK & DEBRA ZUCCARINI GALERIA DE LA BELLE ARTE GIRUARD & ANNE BAPTISTE ITALIAN AMERICAN CULTRAL CENTER ADRIEL & CHALET GIVENS STAFF: DAN MURRAY 2811 IMPERIAL DRIVE JOHN KROLL WARREN, MICHIGAN 48093 THERESE KREDO 313/751-2855 RECEPTION: 2:004:00 DR. KOEFF DENISE SWOPE PETER & ROBERT KOEFF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SPEAKER: DEBRAH ZUCCARINI STEVE DAVIS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER RENALDO MINERV INI 313/981-5106 THURSDAY, JULY 14,1988 SHARON MCDONALD GALERIE NORGRAFIC FRESCO FRIENDS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/HOST 29555 NORTHWESTERN HIGHWAY HONORARY SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN 48034 CHAIRPERSONS 313/476-4315 TERRY KELLEY 313/353-5525 RECEPTION: 5:00-7:30 BARBARA HELLER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SPEAKER: DENISE SWOPE HEAD OF RESTORATION LABORATORY SERVICES CREATIVE DIRECTOR SUNDAY, JULY 17,1988 DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS 313/698-1674 LIVONIA FAMILY " Y " LINDA DOWNS JEANNE POULET CURATOR SEGMENT PRODUCER COMMUNITY ART CLUB EDUCATION DEPARTMENT EXHIBIT COORDINATOR 14255 STARK ROAD DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS 313/464-6914 LIVONIA, MICHIGAN 48154 LOTH AR HOFFMANN FIONA HAMER 313/261-2161 RECEPTION: 2:004:00 GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS SPEAKER: DENISE SWOPE CENTER FOR CREATIVE STUDI AUSTRALIAN SEGMENT TONY WEAVER SANDRA YOLLES MARKETING SALES SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11,1988 EDITOR SUNDAY AT THREE SERIES DETROIT FOCUS QUARTERLY 313/545-2738 JOHN J. KROLL & DAN MURRAY THE HOLLEY ROOM MICHELLE GIBBS PHOTO VISUALS THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS EDITOR DETROIT COUNCIL FOR THE A LYDIA BURNETT WALLACE 5200 WOODWARD AVENUE CITY ARTS MAGAZINE SCRIPT PUBLICATIONS DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48202 313/833-9759 PRESENTATION: 3:00 AGNES SCOTT 313/833-1899 BOARD MEMBER NORA POTHOFF WEST BLOOMFIELD M.A.P.P.I.N.G. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21,1988 CABLE COMMISSION 313/656-2737 ART GALLERY OF WINDSOR LARK REED ALICIA PALMA-LESKO 455 RIVERSIDE DRIVE WEST SOUTHWESTERN OAKLAND RESEARCH LIBRARIAN WINDSOR, ONTARIO N9A6T8 CABLE COMMISSION 313/421-6600 519/258-7111 RECEPTION: 7:00-9:00 STEVE PALACKDHARRY GARY RIZZO SPEAKERS: JEANNE POULET CHANNEL 2 -WJBK DEBRAH ZUCCARINI SUNDAY TIMES PROGRAM GAFFER 313/824-8082 MARIE MCGEE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25,1988 BOARD MEMBER LIVONIA ARTS COMMISSION LAWRENCE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY " COMMUNITY UPBEAT " TUESDAY AT NOON MONA GRIGG ART AWARENESS SERIES WRITER 43589 FLEETWOOD OBSERVER ESSENTRIC 21000 WEST TEN MILE ROAD CANTON, MICHIGAN 48024 SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN 48075 BRIAN LYSAGHT 313/981-5106 313/356-0200 PRESENTATION: 12:00 WRITER OBSERVER ESSENTRIC This calendar sponsored by "NORGRAFIC" NOW AVAILABLE

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/ 7 Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri, 9-6 / Thurs 9-8 Sat, 10-5

Nelson Smithhas published his latest bookwork in a hardbound edition of 110 copies, Printed in 3 colors, the com m ercial offset process was m anipulated to create subtle and rich reproductions. Every other page contains an im age printed I ne mrnmmimm on transparent vellum that interacts with the various narratives printed on the facing and backing pages.V ictim s o f C irc u m s ta n cis e available at theM ic h ig a n d ic k b u c k G a lle r yand theDetroit Artists Marketand other galleries and booksellers. Retail price is$115.00. Art Store Nelson Smith's Bookworks will be exhibited at the mxmmmwmu MICHIGAN GALLERY jn im n 2661 MICHIGAN AVENUE, DETROIT 14339 Michigan Ave. J U N E 4 - 2 5 in Dearborn, between Greenfield & Schaefer, 581-7063

JEANNE POULET

VERNISSAGE ■ >k r & w

OPENING RECEPTION VENDREDI: 1 6 h . - 24 h . FRIDAY: 4:00-8:00 PM

16 SEPTEMBRE 1988 SEPTEMBER 16, 1988 gallerie rapid-grafic

1600-1604 ouEST NORTE DAME MONTREAL, QUEBEC N3TIMA 514 932 0220 DIRECTEUR: DIRECTOR: GERMAEN 0WINGT0N RVE CUJAS-PARIS 1986

28 National Conference

of Artists CLAUDE MONGRAIN MICHIGAN CHAPTER MAY 2 JULY 17

JU NE 10 PHOTOGRAPHY WHEN WINTER JULY 16 WAS KING JAMES H. DOZIER J U N E 4 JULY 10 JUANITA ANDERSON

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29 30 dJ Madonna College KARL fo r A r t LARSON • Art History • Commercial Art EXHIBIT • Studio Art TO JUNE 30, 1 988

Day and Evening Classes THE DANISH CLUB OF DETROIT Call Admissions (343) 594-5052 2271 1 GRAND RIVER, DETROIT, Ml 4821 9 njOi ______CONTACT______[m/m MADONNA ELIZABETH JEANNE

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so you don't miss any issuesDetroit of Focus Quarterly Please check one: CranbrooV Academy o f A rt Registrar CAA CH $5.00 Per Year CD $______Tax Deductible Contribution 500 Lone Pine Road P 0 Box 801 Bloomfield Hills, Michigan N im e . Graduate Program 48013 Architecture Ceramics Address- Design Fiber City___ Metalsmithing Cranbrook Painting Photography Limited Enrollment Resident Artist Facu Ity State______. Z i p ------Printmaking First year financial aid available Sculpture for qualified students M ail Check Detroit Focus Quarterly or 743 Beaubien Money Order to: Detroit, Michigan 48226 Several Detroit urbanologists and historians are designing a self- Announcing URBANOLOGY guided tour that will link the exhibition sites. The tour will in turn be incorporated into a site map/poster. Discussions are under way to In the late twentieth century, our culture is predominantly urban. explore the possibility of a smaller traveling exhibition selected from Government, industry, the marketplace, academia, art, music, mass Urbanology: Artists View Urban Experience. media, entertainment, professional sports, high life and low life all blend together to constitute the urban experience. For many of us, CALL FOR ENTRIES city life is the synthesis of diverse cultures, ideas, values, and Eligible Artists: All visual artists residing in Michigan and the energies that can only happen when many people live and interact Midwestern States, and Ontario. within urban boundaries. But on a daily basis, we are reminded of NOTE: U rb a n o lo g endeavors y to present signifi­ the pressures and perils that impact our cities: the decline of the cant bodies of work and installations. manufacturing industry that spurred migration to cities in the first Ten (10) slides in plastic slide page, or type­ place, rampant unemployment and poverty; women, children, and written proposals with appropriate visual docu­ families at risk; deteriorating buildings and infrastructures, decaying mentation (drawings, diagrams, photographs, school systems, crime, violence, homelessness, drug abuse, the videotapes) for exhibition consideration. death of tradition and sense of place, alienation — the list is almost Enclose a brief resume and statement about endless. The urban crisis is particularly acute and visible in rustbelt your work. All slides and visual documentation cities like Detroit. City officials and private developers seek dramatic must be accompanied with self-addressed treatments for stubborn illnesses. Some produce answers while stamped envelope for return to artist. others produce even more questions. Deadline: 5:00 p.m. Friday, August 26, 1988. How does the Artist respond to the ongoing debate about the Submit to: Urbanology: Artists View Urban Experience urban culture and environment? Urbanologyseeks to find out through a multi-site exhibition and a symposium, both thoroughly P.O. Box 25010 Harper Woods, Ml 48225 Participating Sites: Detroit Artists Market; Detroit Focus Gallery; documented in a two-part catalogue. The Gallery, Marygrove College; Michigan Urbanology: Artists View Urban Experience is an ambitious exhi­ Gallery; Sarkis Gallery, Center for Creative bition program that combines 10 Detroit galleries and an alternative Studies; Community Arts Gallery, Wayne State site as the showplace for sixty to one-hundred Michigan and regional University; 55 Peterboro; 1515 Broadway; artists who address urban issues and experience in their work. selected David Whitney Building galleries, an Scheduled for the month of June, 1989,Urbanology: Artists View . _ alternative exhibition site. Urban Experience will be curated by representatives from each of the No Entry Fee participating sites. In collaboration, they will review slides and pro­ U rb a n o lo g is y directed by Rose E. DeSloover, Chairperson of the posals from interested visual artists and design a variety of coherent Division of Visual and Performing Arts at Marygrove College, and exhibitions that will collectively produce a vigorous investigation of Director of The Gallery at Marygrove, and Doug Aikenhead, Associate urban issues. Priority consideration will be given to artists who have Professor, Photography Department, Center for Creative Studies, and produced significant bodies of work or who propose compelling Editor of theMichigan Photography Journal. Aikenhead is also co­ installation concepts. Artists are advised to noteA u g the u s t 26, editor, with John Bukowczyk, Associate Professor of History at 1988, D e a d lin efor submission of slides or proposals with documen­ Wayne State University, ofDetroit Images: Photographs of the tation forU rb a n o lo g y consideration. This deadline will allow for Renaissance City, published by the Wayne State University Press curating activity in September and notification to artists selected for Artists with questions are advised to writeUrbanology atP.O. Box U rb a n o lo g yin October. The remaining months preceding the June 25010, Harper Woods, Michigan 48225, or telephone Rose 1989 Urbanology: Artists View Urban Experience exhibition will allow DeSloover at 313/884-1038 or Doug Aikenhead at 313/398-2428. for catalogue preparation and exhibition planning and promotion.

Detroit Focus Non-profit Org. 7 43 Beaubien Bulk Rate Detroit, Michigan 4 8 2 2 6 u -s - Pos,a9e Paid Detroit, Mich. Permit No. 2960

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