Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? Pg

April–May 2012 www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com Vol. 14 No. 4 New York GALLERY&STUDIO

Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? pg. 2

Michael Robinson (b. 1981). Still from These Hammers Don’t Hurt Us, 2010. Digital video, color, sound; 13 min. © Michael Robinson; courtesy the artist Daisy Chain A new excerpt from Ed McCormack’s HOODLUM HEART pg. 14 Sheila Hecht Symphony of Color Ark Angel, 48"x36", acrylic/canvas 48"x36", Angel, Ark Split Second Decisions May 1 – 26, 2012 Reception: Saturday, May 5, 4 – 6pm

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Hortencia Barreto Vera L.P. Cauwenberghs Doug Gilbert Elisabeth Holzschuster Nicholai Khan Helen Laishley Lola Lonli Marty Maehr MAEV Yvonne Maloney Isabelle Viallaneix W.M. Vinci Xiaoli Yang

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GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012

Whitney Biennial 2012: Where Have Painting and Sculpture Gone? f the present Whitney Biennial indicates matter what the relationship is between art Ianything at all, it may be that what Jack and medicine I would rather keep it purely on Kerouac once referred to as “the unspeakable the aesthetic plain [sic]. Why don’t you show visions of the individual” are back in style. your thesis in a medical hospital?” (Tactfully, Consider that Forrest Bess, a once obscure she didn’t specify Bellevue!) self-described “Texas roughneck fisherman” Aside from his sensational anatomical who, besides painting abstractions that experiments, however, as I made clear in my have a homespun avant garde quality which earlier essay, Bess’ paintings are well worth stands up favorably to Arthur Dove, Georgia considering. But don’t just take my word O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and other early for it; Meyer Schapiro, the distinguished art American modernist pioneers, performed self- historian and author, with whom the artist surgery to turn himself into a hermaphrodite, also corresponded, put it as follows in the has emerged as the belle of the ball. catalog essay for Bess’ 1962 exhibition at I first heard of Bess a little more than a Betty Parsons Gallery: decade or so ago when a representative of “Forrest Bess is that kind of artist rare in an organization called the Society for the any time, a real visionary painter. He is not Preservation of American Modernists called inspired by texts of poetry or religion, but by out of the blue to commission an essay on a strange significance in what he alone has The back cover of our January/February him. “Why pick on me?” I almost asked, seen. He also paints what he imagines and 2000 issue then remembered an old phrase by Norman is faithful to its character as the imagined. Mailer: “Set a thief on a thief, a madman on It may be the heavens or the ocean, but the race into a prehistoric pissing contest with a madman” –– or some other words to that picture is small, true to the size of the image their opposition to gay marriage and just effect. in his head, and a unique picture, never about anything else that’s progressive and In any case, since the Society was offering a repeating or re-arranging an already received humane. decent fee, I wrote the essay and it impacted, view. This painted image is perfectly clear Certainly gender issues play an important as they say today, like a fart in a bathtub. like a printed emblem or sign. Skill, power role in this Biennial, where one installation Now, all of a sudden trendies are lining of rendering, the delights of spontaneity of includes a Marsden Hartley portrait of up, like rubes waiting to ogle an embryo in the hand do not tempt him; the handling is a shirtless male so dewy-eyed and hairy- a jar at a country carnival sideshow, around straightforward like the simple forms, soberly chested that one can almost smell the the vitrine in the Whitney containing Bess’ objective, without trace of the exaltation that hormonal musk. Still, isn’t it better that Polaroids of the incision he cut at the base comes with experience of a sought-for hidden Hartley should be yanked gently out of the of his penis, where it met his testicles, sign. So plain and frank is the painting, so closet posthumously with a work of honest to fashion himself a homemade vagina. much like the unmoulded strips of weathered beefcake than that lascivious art historians Drawing from alchemy, mythology, art wood with which he frames his pictures, that should go on speculating ad infinitum about history, anthropology, ancient literature, it seems at first sight the work of a self-taught the much less wholesome implications of his the mysticism of Carl Jung (with whom he civilized primitive with limited skill. But look fetishistic emblematic abstraction “Portrait of corresponded) and god only knows what at his wonderful blacks, of many nuances: a German Officer,” supposedly inspired by a else, Bess concocted a “thesis” concerning granular, matt. shiny and rough, and you will young Nazi named Arnold Ronnebeck who his belief that he could achieve immortality recognize his knowledge and discipline, his was rumored to be one of his lovers in Berlin? by marrying the male and the female parts of mastery of an exacting technique.” Perhaps the most affecting gender related himself. The same display case also contains Granted Bess’ sexual proclivities have statement in this Biennial, however, is Wu a letter Bess wrote to his New York art dealer little to do with the aesthetic attributes Tang’s “Wildness,” a 72-minute high- Betty Parsons, as well as her demure reply: Schapiro extolled, even though in a letter definition color and sound video about a bar “Concerning the hanging of your thesis in to the critic, the artist confided that he had in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los your next show, I do not feel I want to. No “strong homosexual leanings” despite being, Angeles that has been frequented for decades on one hand, “the typical Texas ambitious by a group of mostly South American man ... rather roughshod ...the roughneck, transgender women. The bar’s patrons are the fisherman, the Captain in the Corps of seen dancing to the jukebox and speaking GALLERY STUDIO Engineers –– practical, sensible, displaying about their brutal experiences growing up as & leadership, aggressive...” On the other hand, pre-op males in countries where machismo An International Art Journal his “Personality Number Two” was “quite ruled: the cruel verbal insults and physical PUBLISHED BY the opposite: “weak as a jellyfish ... quite abuse, the beatings from fathers who could not accept their effeminacy without feeling ©EYE LEVEL, LTD. 2012 helpless in relation to adjustment to society ... artistic, sensitive, introspective and had rather somehow compromised in their own ALL RIGHTS RESERVED cry or lament the shortcomings of mankind masculinity. They also speak about how they 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 rather than fight .... This personality I have have finally found their true selves since their (212) 861-6814 E-mail: [email protected] found is actually somewhat effeminate...” surgical transformation as well as a safe haven EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Jeannie McCormack That even a man who so freely and more accepting family in their “sisters” MANAGING EDITOR Ed McCormack acknowledged his duel nature in an era at the Silver Platter. Particularly poignant is SPECIAL EDITORIAL ADVISOR Margot Palmer-Poroner when it still took considerable courage to do the scene on the morning-after in the almost DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Karen Mullen so could resort to such gender stereotypes empty bar, which looks much smaller and CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Maureen Flynn proves that sexual politics are still relevant dirtier with the sunlight pouring in, in place –– especially in a year when the Republican of the disco lights. The music has stopped, www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com candidates are tripping over their dicks, to Cinderella’s coach has turned into turn a phrase, and turning the presidential Continued on page 12 2 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 Five Diverse “New Expressions” ark Lerer, whose pen and ink style field. The same two hues figure prominently Mderives directly from the line drawings in another oil on canvas, entitled “Parkinsons and cross hatchings of old-fashioned comic Tango,” a literal dance between two strips sans irony or Pop flourishes, has to semiabstract figures who could resemble be one of the most cryptic draftsmen in relatives of Jean Dubuffet’s late career contemporary art. But leaving it to the viewer “Hourloupe” sculptures. to excavate meaning from his drawings seems These two complementary colors (which be the point. Take two drawings by Lerer in the artist says he has “taken to lately”) come the group show “New Expressions ‘12.” One into play yet again, set against a softly fleshy Linda Dujack called “Arab pinkish Men,” tan another on the ground below. That the birds depicts hue and are disproportionally large in relation to two seated accented the tree lends the painting a magical quality figures. with bits of fantasy, an unreality more true than any One wears of deep merely “factual” transcription of such a scene Western- cadmium would be. style clothes yellow Barbara Cuthel appears to be that rare and is in “The thing: a true visual poet. looking Idea of The other artist in this show inspired with what Motion,” by trees is Linda Ganus, who invariably appears to in which impresses one with her ability to make be concern drawing into a full-fledged, finished art form at the other Barbara Cuthel on a par with painting. Working in charcoal, Mark Lerer man, who pastel, and ink on very large sheets of Rives is dressed in printmaking paper, Ganus has recently been traditional middle-eastern robes and leaning at work on a series called “Wunderwald,” over clutching his forehead. Are the two depicting an enchanted forest where the men waiting in a U.S. immigration office ghostly white birch trees have large expressive and is the first man pitying the other guy for eyes peering eerily out of their prominent not having the good sense to go native so knots. The ground of the nocturnal woods he won’t be perceived as a fundamentalist in “Wunderwald # 3” have morphed into terrorist? Or are they in a doctor’s or dentist’s what appear to be steep cliffs with steps waiting leading down into some possible abyss, while room Linda Ganus in one place the steps go around in a circle. and is Ganus practices a subtle, totally personal one man interconnected circular and semicircular and unique species of neo-surrealism, the simply shapes clearly evoke that idea optically with effect of which is enhanced in “Wunderwald pitying all the dynamic kinetic suggestiveness of # 5” by the woozy whorls in the bare grain the other spinning wheels. of the actual large birch panel on which the because he Indeed, although he self-effacingly claims picture is drawn and painted in charcoal and is in pain? “I really haven’t a clue what it is I’m doing,” oil. Here, too, the addition of oil painting Just as Fritz Erismann clearly arrives at a visual idea increases the eeriness of the eyes peering out in “Black in the process of drawing and painting, then of the ghostly white trees, rendering them all Woman,” pursues it doggedly until it leads to gracefully the more unsettlingly lifelike. another resolved paintings such as the canvases seen “It took me four years to paint like drawing here. Raphael,” Picasso once remarked, “but a by Lerer Barbara Cuthel and Linda Ganus, two of lifetime to paint like a child.” He also said: of a figure the artists in “Expressions ‘12,” both take “Everything I can imagine is real.” Fritz Erismann with arms inspiration from trees, each interpreting them Both statements can be applied to the upraised, in her own individual manner. work of the contemporary painter and as though “testifying” in an evangelistic Cuthel first started studying trees in the printmaker Linda Dujack, a consummately church, the artist may be cautioning against Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the dogwood sophisticated artist who has achieved a the prejudicial political or social stereotypes tree in particular. In one composition called deceptively simple freshness of vision with we often carry in our heads concerning fellow “Dogwood Golden,” the slender limbs which she makes the most improbable things human beings merely going about their own appear breeze-blown and the blooms at their real with a remarkable economy of means. private business in the everyday world. tips full-grown. Arranged around the left side With a few lines and spare areas of color on Fritz Erismann, on the other hand, is of the composition and continuing along its four square inches of paper she conjures another species of artist entirely, with an bottom, bracketing Cuthel’s image of the up entire miniature worlds with their own agenda that is purely aesthetic. Starting with tree, almost Asian in its grace and delicacy, are peculiar logic and natural laws. a charcoal drawing on canvas, he searches for four rectangular divisions, containing images The subject of Dujack’s mixed media “interactive patterns and dynamic balances,” of the flowers with their white, pink, and work, “The Juggler,” for example, amounts some of which he subtracts to give the coral petals. Continued on page 9 composition “space to breathe.” Another painting by Cuthel called And breathe Erismann’s paintings truly do, “Dogwood Winter” depicts the tree bare of New Expressions ’12, New Century as seen in “Writing Code for Encryption,” leaves, set against an overcast gray sky, with Artists Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, in which imaginary cobalt blue calligraphic one blue bird perched on one of its branches, through April 14, 2012 letter-forms fairly dance across a magenta another in flight around its trunk and April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 3 Clouds and Flowers Are Variously Transmogrified in Bernice Faegenburg’s New Paintings

ost of us know Bernice Faegenburg although Faegenburg approaches them paintings, first exhibited at Leo Castelli Mfrom her large abstract paintings, from her own more lyrical perspective. Gallery in 1964, were based on a color some of which in past exhibitions (Given this affinity, it seems no mere picture of hibiscus blossoms by Patricia combined elements of Western and Eastern coincidence that Eric C. Shriner, director Caulfield that the artist appropriated from art, marrying Abstract Expressionist of the Andy Warhol Museum, chose one Popular Photography magazine that same painterliness to graceful calligraphic of Faegenburg’s paintings to include in year, prompting the kind of lawsuit from linearity. Characteristic the photographer that Andy of this style at its most relished for its publicity vigorous is the large mixed value, the inspiration for media triptych “Exploding Faegenburg’s images of Spring Evening,” last seen Irises, like that for her in Faegenburg’s 2010 paintings of clouds, came exhibition “Nature’s directly from nature. And Variations,” in which while Warhol’s flowers are monochromatic ink and deadpan, like his portraits, brush studies of birds and Faegenburg’s have a wild, leaves executed in an Asian rococo quality, resulting in manner, as though informed compositions as subliminally by the Mustard Seed Manual suggestive as those in of Chinese Painting, are paintings by Watteau and caught up in a lush, lyrical Fragonard –– particularly storm of vibrantly colorful the latter’s “The Swing,” and rhythmic gestural in which the flaring pink splashes and drips akin to silk skirt and crinolines of a Pollock. Here, too, the young woman being pushed more geometric elements by her lover on the garden with which Faegenburg reins swing evoke rosy labial folds. in and contains the runaway Contrary to Gertrude force of the painting –– such Stein’s assertion that “a as the pale green horizontal rose is a rose is a rose,” as stripe running close to the well as Freud’s reminder bottom of the composition that “sometimes a cigar is across all three panels, as only a cigar,” Faegenburg’s well as the smaller stripes in shapely Irises, even more green, pink, red, or black than Andy’s flat blooms, on the tops and bottoms Painting by Bernice Faegenburg emanate a sensual anatomical of the brush drawings of suggestiveness –– a veritable birds and leaves –– seem to refer both to a juried show at Point Park University in gynocologist’s flower garden! –– as they the decorative borders on Chinese scrolls Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.) unfurl sinuously in space, particularly in her and the hard-edged geometric forms of Not only does Faegenburg introduce a compositions in hothouse orange and pink Mondrian and all who followed him, new intimacy to her oeuvre with this series hues. once again uniting in Faegenburg’s own but also a kind of imagistic ambiguity that But flowers, even Warhol’s, also evoke inimitable fashion those twains of East and invites the viewer to “Rorschach” diverse funereal associations as well as sensual ones: West that it was once believed could never images in color schemes that range from don’t we surround caskets with them to meet. orange and pink hues of an almost garish perfume the musk of creeping decay? And Like Robert Rauschenberg, Bernice Day-glo chromatic intensity to subdued didn’t Factory assistant Ronnie Cutrone Faegenburg has often been excited by grisaille tones of olive, gray, and black. observe that Andy’s floral studies were mixing multiple images in an almost One high contrast composition by about “the darker roots of Flower Power?” cinematic manner with energetic painterly Faegenburg, especially, laid out in a This seems even more true of Faegenburg’s pyrotechnics. More recently, however, four-square grid (à la Warhol’s sequential Iris shapes, particularly in one recent work, Faegenburg has turned to small, specific Polaroid portraits) and executed in the harking back to an earlier composition images of flowers and clouds, the latter latter near-monochromes, may even remind she called “Night Blooms,” in which subject inspired by becoming fascinated some historically astute viewers of the the blooms are deep purple, set against a with early morning cloud formations works that George Stanley, a lesser known background of labial rose-red. during a visit to Puerto Rico. She took Pop artist of the mid-sixties, taking a cue Leave it to Bernice Faegenburg to many photographs of them, from which from Warhol, was inspired to create from suggest both sex and death in the same she then made silkscreens that were later the negatives of pornographic photographs. ostensibly abstract composition without worked over with acrylic paints on canvas If so, all the better in terms of the multiple making too big a deal about it! to explore how color combinations could associations that Faegenburg continues to –– Ed McCormack be used in different ways. trigger in our consciousness, in these more Some of these works pay tribute to Andy intimate and specific images as much as in Warhol, who also combined silk screen her more complexly configured large mixed Bernice Faegenburg, Viridian Artists Inc., printing and painting, particularly the late media works of the past. 548 West 28th St., April 24 - May 12th. Pop artist’s famous flower compositions, Although Andy Warhol’s flower www.viridianartists.com

4 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 The Allusive Abstractions of Sheila Hecht side from the more obvious left, which consists of broad, bold strokes to imagine that the artist was musing on the A“immediacy,” “inevitability” is the of brilliant blue crisscrossed with the swift limitless plethora of widely varied choices that word and the quality that comes across most vivacity of a Chinese character. In this can spring from imagination itself, when she strongly in Sheila Hecht’s new exhibition work, that the canvas is perfectly square, completed and named the composition called “Split Second Decisions,” where each mark, breaking the Academic taboo against the “What If,” with its evocative central red form color, and painterly gesture appears absolutely supposed “monotony” of symmetrical suggesting everything from a lucky squared- fated and right for its context. painting formats, increases the sense of airy off character on a Chinese New Year card; to The show title, of course, refers to the spaciousness that makes the composition so the arch in Washington Square Park, viewed spontaneity that has long distinguished fresh and exhilarating. through rose-colored glasses; to the lower Hecht’s painting process, setting her apart Smaller in its actual dimensions yet no portion of a brightly body-painted female from the calculated products of many of her less expansive than the previous painting in nude, complete with navel and black patch of less intrepid contemporaries. In this regard it the sense of scale that it projects, Hecht’s pubic hair! can be said that Hecht is After all, artists one of the few authentic themselves often remaining heirs to what Rorschach their own Clement Greenberg, forms, as de Kooning in a 1955 essay about reportedly did when Paul Jackson Pollock, called McCartney visited his “American-Type studio in East Hampton. Painting.” Squinting at one of the To Greenberg, master’s large abstract Pollock’s work canvases, the former Beatle simultaneously paid asked what it symbolized. tribute to and surpassed “I don’t know,” de earlier developments in Kooning answered. “Kind European avant garde of looks like a couch, art: “Within a notion of doesn’t it?” shallow space generalized As with the best from the practice of Miro abstractions of de Kooning, and Masson as well as you can second guess to Picasso, and with some your heart’s content and guidance from the early still find it impossible to pin Kandinsky, he devised a the shape-shifting twists language of baroque shapes and turns of Sheila Hecht’s and calligraphy that twisted speedy, juicy, impetuous this space to its own What If, acrylic/canvas, 18"x 24" brushwork down to any measure and vehemence.” simplistic single meaning. Sheila Hecht has devised a vehement visual “Red Letter Day” also reveals her exquisite So don’t be fooled by the playfully punning language of her own, which has become all gestural élan with bold effusions of blue and title of the large painting Hecht calls “Ark the more allusive in her recent work, where red pigment that sweep both horizontally Angel.” For while those sinuous red linear the gestural calligraphy, without going and vertically across the white of the primed forms about a third of the way toward the so far as to verge on the pictographic and canvas with characteristic energy, creating the top of the composition could indeed suggest abandon its autonomous abstract thrust, has impression of an exploding ecriture consisting the graceful curves of an angel’s wings, it become all the more allusive. Yet, rather than of deconstructed letters from an unfamiliar would take a real stretch of the imagination descriptive specifics, Hecht’s is a language alphabet. to see that muscular welter of mostly yellow of urgent impulses and emotions, evoking a A true “American-Style” abstractionist strokes immediately below them as some sense of imminent events. And in her case, in the Greenbergian sense of the term, sort of boat passing the steeples of a fanciful the event is invariably whatever comes next Hecht proceeds from the radical proposition cityscape or to read those blockier swaths of in the continuum of her extemporaneous that painting is primarily about ways of blue tinged with red as river waves reflecting painterly process. For the sense of an ongoing manipulating pigment on a flat surface rather fiery sunlight... action is implicit in many of the titles that than about creating illusions. Which is to say: Allusion, after all, is indirect and elusive; Hecht affixes to her acrylics on canvas, such she is one of those artists who is invariably In a word, it is abstract. And Sheila Hecht, as “It’s a Go.” more concerned with how to paint than with who pointedly –– and, again, punningly Here, as in many of her paintings, the what to paint. Yet, paradoxically, her paintings –– titled another painting in this show action takes place when vigorous strokes are allusive nonetheless, evoking essences of “Sneak Peak,” is among the most evocative of vibrant primary color converge on the moments in the act of creation. One gets the abstract artists at work today for the “slippery pure white ground of the primed canvas. feeling that the artist discovers her subject glimpses” (to borrow a choice phrase from As in a Zen ink painting, albeit with matter –– and most likely the painting’s her worthy predecessor de Kooning) that bright primary colors instead of black title –– as the work comes into being. It is her paintings suggest, even while remaining and gray monochromes, the whiteness painting “in real time,” so to speak, and one open to an infinite number of other possible of the surrounding space enhances the can almost imagine Hecht having named the interpretations. –– Ed McCormack calligraphic quality of Hecht's strokes. In canvas that she calls “What a Blast” in a burst “It’s a Go,” this is particularly striking in of exaltation provoked by realizing the sheer the configuration on the right side of the impact of the explosive red yellow, red, and Sheila Hecht, Noho Gallery, composition, opposite the looser, overlapping blue forms that make up its composition. 530 West 25th Street, gestures of bright red and yellow on the By the same supposition, it’s just as easy May 1 - 26, 2012

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 5 Surveying Trends in Black Art Today he annual “Black Renaissance” dressed art lovers! Equally elegant was strong compositions, filled with underlying Texhibitions of the West Side Arts Holland’s full length portrait of a statuesque emotional resonance. Coalition have become a tradition in African beauty posing with all the poise of By contrast nature moves in and out of celebration of Black History Month, and this one of John Singer Sargent’s society matrons. focus in the art of Robert N. Scott. Scott’s year’s edition, co-curated by participating Alberto Bassat is another versatile watercolor, “Louisiana Swamps,” for artists Sonia Barnett and Robert N. Scott, image-maker, judging from the different example, was a splashy “action painting” was one of the most vital and varied to date. moods and atmospheres evoked from of moist, mostly monochromatic strokes A good place to start was with Ida Marx’s one work to another. Bassat’s visionary as spare and freely configured as a Zen oil “Mary,” a portrait of a young aspiring acrylic landscape, “Green Calm,” featured a ink painting, while his monotype, “Tropic artist. Combining a smiling likeness of the blazing sun illuminating the tips of verdant, Study,” was a more detailed depiction of pretty young woman with a handwritten texturally luscious hedgerows; by contrast gracefully overlapping green and yellow leaves text describing her hopes and dreams for his watercolor of a shrouded figure, its and fronds. the future, Marx’s painting presented boldly brushed contours containing neo- Craft was elevated to the level of art in a glowing portrait of idealistic youthful cubistic patches of color, projected a subtly Dariel James’ intriguingly titled large wall- ambition. Equally upbeat in another manner mysterious presence. hanging “Fifteen Variations of the Drunkards was Marx’s “Harlem Rooftops,” with its Herbert Evans, on the other hand, relied Path.” Working in hand pierced Asian batik expanse of luminous blue sky above a row of solely on rhythmic form, vigorous gesture cotton fabrics, James created a sumptuous tenements. and vibrant color, improvising with the composition in which a grid of blue squares, Nate Ladson also made a strong freedom of a visual jazz musician. Evans’ intersected by less regular shapes, suggested a impression with two Giclee prints in distinctly “Southern Folk” suggested a bucolic staggered maze. different manners: “Martin,” a thoughtful sensibility, its linear strokes overlapping like Sonia Barnett is that rare artist who can realist portrait of Dr. King in grisaille and sinuous tree limbs and daubs of primary capture genuine human sentiment without “Door of No Return,” a surreal seascape color suggesting foliage; while his “Pieces of descending into mawkish sentimentality. reminiscent of Rene Magritte. Both revealed a Dream” had the lyrical brevity of a Miles Witness, for example, “Caring Glance,” a Ladson’s accomplished tonal technique. Davis trumpet solo. color pencil drawing in which a man who In her acrylic on mirror, “Market Sandra A. Brannon is another artist who strongly resembled President Obama ruffled Place (Detail),” Debra Holland created a takes a nonobjective stance in her collages, a small child’s hair, as well as “Princess” and composition focusing on three women in which have an intimate and intricate poetry, Continued on page 9 ornate African garb which changed from as seen in “Sam My Father.” Fragments various angles of vision to include the viewer’s of text and imagery, skillfully juxtaposed WSAC, “Black Renaissance,” recently seen own reflection or other works in the gallery, by the artist, conjured up an elusive sense at Broadway Mall Community Center, transforming the figures into exotically of nostalgia in Brannon’s modest yet 96th Street (center island) The Aesthetic One-two Punch of Fred n active member of the student itself felt in the subtle architectonic structure Amovement of 1968, painter and sculptor of his compositions, even at their most free- Fred Friedrich survived during World War II flowing, it is the hidden armature beneath by collecting scrap metal among the ruins of his painterly fluidity. At times the flowing Berlin. Yearning to rebuild his city, he studied lines that he applies with liquified acrylic Architecture in Basel and Berlin. pigments form a kind of underlying grid not “I have always been interested in social unlike that in the paintings of the Austrian and human drama and events, and my life painter and self-styled architect Friedrich experiences have impacted in various ways on Stowasser Hundertwasser. And as in that my perspective of the world and by extension kindred spirit and namesakes’ work, there is on my work,” Friedrich states. “My time of in Fred Friedrich’s paintings an element of real creation began when I was able to feel the fantastic as well as the abstract, at least in the power of and feel faith in the faces, colors the manner that his heads emerge from the and lines that have come to be so important mazes of colors and energetic linear networks in my art. I often focus on themes such as the of color that he layers so richly. Bitol Cuadros Negros magnificence of qualities like loyalty, patience, In Friedrich’s mixed media painting wisdom, love, and innocence, and sometimes on canvas, “Bitol Cuadros Negros,” one suggest the oppressive forces of society and I connect to the intriguing difficulties of is almost reminded of Alexandre Dumas’ other external factors that ensnare or bind ideas such as chaos and the constant change novel “The Man in the Iron Mask,” with us all. And these forces are no less evident that characterizes the universe as we know the head in profile behind a dark network of in Friedrich’s sculptures, where the linear it within an order that is only partially dark crisscrossing lines. In “Alom Cuadros networks are replaced by a sense of erosion understood.” Negros,” on the other hand, some of the that gives his pieces a look of having been Friedrich studied with the sculptor Fritz lines within the head are finer, reminding rescued from the ravages of antiquity. Reuther at Kunstakademie in Berlin, and one of the spider veins in the see through A doubly talented artist in two mediums, while his own heads in stone have a strong brains of figures in paintings by the Russian Fred Friedrich is also uniquely gifted for his presence reminiscent of African sculptor neoromantic artist Pavel Tchelitchew. ability to create works of art that are equally (although more fluidly conceived), the faces Indeed, although the overall effect of Fred compelling for their humanistic as for their in his paintings tend to play an intriguing Friedrich’s work is primarily abstract, the abstract attributes. –– Peter Wiley game of hide and seek with the viewer amid human allusions that his paintings project an intricate scrim of flowing and sometimes is as important as that in the oeuvre of Fred Friedrich, Agora Gallery, crisscrossing lines. humanist artists like Leonard Baskin. The 530 W. 25th St., March 30 - April 19, 2012. Friedrich’s architectural training makes tumult of lines that surrounds his heads can Reception: Thurs. April 5, 6 - 8pm 6 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 CLWAC’s Annual Highlights Women Artists nyone who has read “The Obstacle 1896. ACourse,” Germaine Greer’s definitive Eleanor Tyndall Meier also a makes a history of women in art, its very title statement that might have been considered indicative of the problems they once faced, “improper for a lady” at that time, in her and in many cases continue to face, in an oil “Billy’s favorite Things.” For Meier’s art world dominated by men, can only be painting is a still-life made up of male athletic grateful to the late Catharine Lorillard Wolfe. equipment and team jerseys, so arranged as A prominent New York philanthropist and to create a dynamic composition in a manner art collector, and the only woman among the for which a writer for this publication once 106 founders of the Metropolitan Museum coined the phrase “abstract realism.” of Art, Wolfe (1828-1887), also has an art One can only be delighted that female club bearing her name. Although originally artists are now free to embrace a variety of intended “to provide aid, counsel and styles, mediums, and subjects: “Gravity,” exhibition opportunities for young women S.T. Faith’s sympathetic affecting humanist art students,” the club, which was originally boneware sculpture of a shabby elderly man limited to New York, has expanded over with lowered head and a lumpy overcoat. year to become a nationwide professional In “Out and About,” a monochromatic organization with annual exhibitions. graphic by Andrea Placer of an elderly woman walking down a street with the aid of a cane, the weathered gray stone facades of the buildings and the light and shadow Jill Banks on the foliage are skillfully evoked with as much attention to detail as the figure. A white marble sculpture of a female torso in cast marble and resin by Jacqueline Lorieo. Divided down the middle into areas of positive and negative space, Lorieo’s piece can be appreciated for its symbolic aspects as well as its purely aesthetic ones. A strongly Gaile Snow Gibbs painted landscape in oils called “Central Coast Hillside” by Carolyn Hesse-Low, in which tall ochre grass and verdant trees give way to distant blue mountains. “Snow Bound Neighbors,” a contrastingly urban view of brownstone stoops piled high with snow by Jeanette Helene Koumijian, notable for its perfectly orchestrated balance of subdued earth tones. And “Bird Dog,” an oil by Gaile Snow Gibbs depicting the harmonious relationship between a large dog and a small bird with a wit to match the painter’s skill. Since it is literally impossible to do justice to all of the artists in an exhibition containing over 200 works, one must settle for making a Jeanette Koumjian selection of a few that seem representative of the whole. Surrealism and still life combine notably in Lucy K.H. Kalian’s “Pride and Fear,” in which the painter’s meticulous oil technique lends verisimilitude to a mysterious melange of objects, including a shaving brush, eggs propped up à la Humpty Dumpty on miniature chairs and a pair of scissors balanced like a ballerina on the points of its blades. S. T. Faith Sherri Paul creates a sense of mystery out of the mundane, making a line of headless The CLWAC’s 2012 Annual Members’ armless dress dummies decked out in colorful Exhibition provides a splendid survey of garments taking on the presence of statues diverse subjects and styles. Among them from antiquity in her oil “Window Dressing.” “Hog Wild,” an accomplished realist Marsha Tosk mixes impressive sculptural portrait in oils by Jill Banks, depicts a robust craft with humor in her colorful polyresin K. H. Kalian woman with her hair in braids, sporting a piece “Nest Egg,” in which a rooster rests on leather jacket, standing by a stool on which a miniature mattress from which real single a motorcycle helmut rests. This “biker” is dollar bills protrude. Elayne Kuehler pays as telling a symbol as any of how far women tribute to Mary Cassatt, along with Berthe CLWAC, “Annual Members’ Exhibition have come from their repressed position in Morisot, one of the two leading woman 2012,” seen recently at The Salmagundi Art society when the CLWAC was founded in Continued on page 23 Club, 47 Fifth Avenue April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 7 “International Carrefour” at CFM Gallery heir and art realism, generally appear located in some collector imaginary 16th or 17th century Europe. announced Yet they seem just as feckless in their pursuit breathlessly to of pleasure, as they stand in their ornate the first limo- finery watching the procession of fanciful load of guests boats float down the Grand Canal in the to arrive from ceremony preceding The Venice Regatta, the city. or imbibe liqueurs served by what appear to He was be child slaves between the massive columns referring to his of a marble patio, while gazing out to a fourth wife, the moonlit beach where other revelers cavort in former Elaine silhouette. Kay, a blond, Indeed in their own way they seem every Lolita-like bit as daringly modern as we felt in the ‘70s, ex-beautician or Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald felt in the ‘20s, from Fort or Wystan Auden and Chester Kallman felt Lauderdale. in the ‘40s. And the edgy sense of immediacy Apparently, like that Andrei imparts to these costumed the nymphet fashionistas of a bygone era is what makes his in Andrei’s paintings so fresh and vital. painting, Also in Zukerman’s “International Alaksandra Nowak Hunt’s Carrefour,” as this showcase is billed, are ven the most fanciful art invariably mischievous young bride –– who would Kate Lackman, Jose Parra, and Aleksandra Ereflects aspects of reality. I am thinking eventually succumb tragically young to a Nowak, all excellent figurative artists of a painting by Andrei Mancino, known drug overdose –– had climbed to the top of whose careers should benefit greatly from professionally simply as “Andrei,” in a four the apple tree hours before and apparently their association with a gallery known for artist showcase exhibition curated by Neil had a hell of a fine time watching her championing contemporary symbolists and Zukerman, the owner and director of CFM husband and his hastily organized search surrealists which has revived the career of the Gallery in Chelsea. party comb the entire 160 acres beating the incomparable Leonor Fini and introduced Titled “Ecco La” Andrei’s oil on canvas bushes and frantically screaming her name. the brilliant French painter Anne Bachelier to depicts a mature fop, done up as if for the True, “Hunt,” as he was known to friends American art audiences. court of Marie Antoinette in powdered wig, Come to think of it, it may be even elaborately plumed hat, silk breeches and more of a leap to launch an artist from stockings, standing on one of the upper limbs Cincinnati, Ohio, where Lackman has a not of a tree, addressing a dainty nature nymph unimpressive exhibition history, into the New in a leaf-green tutu imploringly. The scene York art scene. Lackman, however, has that immediately threw me back to a wedding combination of traditional technical skill and celebration for Huntington Hartford that I uniqueness of imagination that Zukerman attended in the early 1970s on his estate in looks for in the artists he represents, and she New Jersey. “I’ll have you know that I finally managed to talk Elaine into coming down from the apple tree,” the then sixtysomething A&P

Andrei and acquaintances, did not actually climb the tree to coax his new bride down. Rather, he beseeched and begged her from below. Still, Andrei’s painting suggested a similar standoff between an over-the-hill playboy and a youthful object of his affection –– or “tot,” to use the term popular among the decadents who, like Hunt, frequented the legendary downtown Manhattan dive called Max’s Kansas City in the 1970s. Jose Parra Andrei’s people, painted with crystal clear Kate Lackman

8 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 certainly makes a good showing here. opportunity to study original works by some character and personality that they reveal. Indeed, one can compare Lackman’s of the accomplished figurative painters of our Witness, for example, “Angie,” in which a classical oil painting technique, as well as the own era, Parra obviously spent a good deal pale red-haired woman with a rouged cheek atmospheric desolation of the land her figures of time in museums, absorbing the lessons of glances aslant over her shoulder and black inhabit, to the contemporary Norwegian the Baroque and Rococo masters. feather boa, her glossed lips curling in a sly master Odd Nerdrum. But where Nerdrum’s It shows to particular advantage in his oil smile signifying a specifically Slavic species of paintings suggest post-apocalyptic allegories, “The Lost City,” in which a young woman humor. One dares suggest that no novelist Lackman’s hint at lyrical epiphanies. with an alabaster complexion and a lustrous could better evoke a woman’s character than In one picture a young brunette woman brown bouffant hairdo piled high atop a gold the artist does here with utmost brevity. in a long white shift reclines on her back, in and pearl tiara stands in what appears to be an But even Nowak’s floral studies are lushly a moody landscape, lost in a reverie, while ornate brass chariot, holding a pair of reins in suggestive; her drunken brush evokes a a large bird of prey perches on her raised one gloved hand and a cone-shaped portable bucolic vitality that simultaneously bespeaks knee. In another, a blonde girl in a blue telescope in the other. The yellow sash of her a perfumed sensuality and the ripeness that shoulderless shift sits at the feet of a majestic, silken purple garment flows behind her in the precedes mortality. No other artist in recent yet genial-looking, heavenly being. The breeze that also rustles the leaves jutting into memory has so dramatically restored the spectral figure perches on a rock, resting the upper left corner of the composition and sense of “nature morte” to floral still life. her chin in one palm, the graceful curve of sweeps the cottony cumuli across the purple- And that she does so, in oils such as “Twins” her wings flaring out against a dark sky that tinged sky, enlivened by tiny, distant pale blue and “Morning Glories,” without resorting grows luminous near the horizon line. The hot-air balloons on one side and the spires to the obvious, if affecting, morbidity of angel gazes down benignly at the girl, whose of a closer gothic castle on the other. Her Ivan Albright’s famous painting of blackened tousled golden mane and timelessly chic eyes are wide, the finely plucked brows above funeral flowers on a door, is all the more garb suggest a slightly careless bohemian them are raised, her dainty lips are delicately remarkable. art student. One of her bare arms draped agape. She appears to recoil in alarm from Aleksandra Nowak goes even further in loosely over a long-necked earthen vase something she has glimpsed through her a recent work entitled “Mysterious Garden beside her on the earthy terrain, the girl golden telescope. II,” with its elusive hints of a fountain and appears altogether at peace under the gentle The drama continues in the oils of the a shrouded phantom, pushing semiabstract protection of her guardian angel and muse. Aleksandra Nowak, who was inspired not symbolism to the verge of apparition. Born in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico, Jose only by Klimt, Schiele, Khnopff and Rops, Indeed, the quartet of artists in Parra, is a contemporary romantic who can but by lesser known members of the “International Carrefour” are all storytellers make a credible statement with a painting Succession movement from her own native whose visual magic provides both a challenge called “Survivors” of old fashioned schooners Poland, such as Stanislaw Wyspianski and and pleasure to a writer trying to translate with billowing sails being borne through the Witold Wojtkiewicz, to forge her own unique their visual magic into words. Viewers who air by hot air balloons, safely homeward to style, at once juicy and descriptive. She do not write, however, can skip the challenge a fairy tale city. His canvases are filled with succeeds so splendidly in imbuing even her and simply savor the pleasure. finely limned details, not only of the human floral still lifes with with an emotional power figure, but of antique architecture, and equal to that of her portraits and figure –– Ed McCormack masterfully rendered drapery that acts as a paintings as to persuade Neil Zukerman, a counterpoint to the rhythmic movement of man of very specific tastes, to exhibit subjects his figures’ bodies. to which he has rarely warmed in the past. International Carrefour, Besides working as a gallery assistant in Granted, Nowak’s portraits are especially CFM Gallery, 236 West 27th St., 2001 at CFM, where he doubtless had an evocative for the subtleties of human through April NEW EXPRESSIONS individual personalities came across strongly. notation itself. Continued from page 3 William Hunt, a prodigious young graphic Also included were the accomplished realist to little more than a mere stick-figure in artist, again demonstrated himself to be a oils of Gloria Shepherd, which combined transit on a simplified unicycle across a natural heir to the great African American bravura brushwork with an unusual ability tightrope strung between between two red draftsman Charles White, with his charcoal, to capture character. Especially impressive mounds. But in its pictogrphic way it conveys marker and pastel drawing “When Heroes was Shepherd’s portrait “George,” his white a profound sense of the perilous journey Cry ll,” depicting three grieving firemen and beard, rimless glasses, and neat cornrows we all must make on a tightrope almost as the burning Twin Towers in what had to be suggesting a fashion-conscious professor of short as the dash between the two dates on a one of the most affecting of all 911 tributes. Black History. –– Philip Wylie tombstone. Gail Comes, another artist who has been In “Whirlwind,” a white-lined monotype, appearing in various WSAC exhibitions Dujack depicts a simple little house encircled recently, primarily with oil paintings, also by a looping wind that trails colorful revealed extraordinary draftspersonly skills geometric flags in its wake, while her in her large graphite drawing “The Visitor,” drypoint/china colle, “Swallow The Moon depicting a large head in profile in a style The and Haul Up The Sails” evokes a whimsical combining classical qualities with elements of GALLERY&STUDIO navigational fantasy. Like all of Linda the Baroque and Art Nouveau. By contrast, Dujack’s creations, they are at once flights of Joyce Bolden demonstrated her skill in pen advertising deadline for fancy and enduring works of art. and ink drawing, particularly her ability to the Jun/Jul/Aug issue is ––Ed McCormack boil complex subjects down to their linear essentials in line and silhouette, as seen in her May 7 for color, BLACK RENAISSANCE “Madonna” and “Jazz Guys.” In the former May 15 for black/white. Continued from page 6 Bolden skillfully merged a mother and child; “Little Constantine,” Barnett’s two engaging, in the latter she captured an entire band in boldly painted portraits of children whose a stylized composition as succinct as musical

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 9 From Pristine Realism to Baroque Abstraction This Year’s AWS Survey Offers Something for Every Aesthetic Taste n the 145th Annual Exhibition of the the lights of an oncoming car on a tropical of subdued color. Dan Burt brings to life IAmerican Watercolor Society, the sheer highway, seen as if through a rain-blurred the intense sunlight, festive tourist crowds, variety of subjects and styles is extraordinary, windshield, in an impressive impressionist and bursts of vibrant color in “San Miguel giving a comprehensive overview of the tour de force. Lane Hall comes even Churchscape.” The poetic Americana of possibilities of the medium –– especially in closer to abstraction in “Metamorphosis,” Edwin C. Shuttleworth combines the the hands of artists skillful enough to belong where fall trees and foliage almost dissolve charms of Dong Kingman with those of to this venerable professional association. into amorphous areas of ocher and gold. Charles Burchfield to depict a ramshackle Techniques range from the spontaneity Trish Arnold, on the other hand, employs neighborhood where raucous kids climb a of Denise Athanas’ “Moonscape,” a bold innumerable dappled yet precise strokes dying tree while a woman hangs sheets and abstraction in fiery hues, to Daniel Vangeli’s to evoke the chiaroscuro of a dense forest towels on a clothesline among precariously “Lost and Found,” an affecting realist trail. Myrtle Hooker skillfully employs leaning clapboard houses. scene of a man sitting on a bench in a travel the translucence and fluidity innate to the Leslie Frontz and Jean Grastorf both evoke terminal thoughtfully regarding a teddy bear medium to capture the movement of clear, a more contemporary American reality on left behind by a child, suggesting in a single shallow water over rocks in a brook. the busy streets of New York City: Frontz drama as complex as Arthur Miller’s “Death Then there is “Dordogne River Valley with a young bluejeaned female hansom of a Salesman.” View,” a panoramic vista of verdant fields cab driver tending to her white horse on a Another haunting realist work is David and winding waterways by Frank Eber, who shadow flooded street, laid down in loose yet Mack’s “They Could Have Been in Pictures.” harks back to the great watercolor masters of descriptive strokes; Grastorf with a wide-angle in which a woman sits on an old fashioned 18th century England in his ability to convey photorealist view of sunny Sixth Avenue, porch next to what appears to be the ghost of atmospheric subtleties and a sense of vast the sharp geometry of the buildings and the a young female child. Although the woman spaces in a technique that shifts smoothly organic forms of the hurrying pedestrians appears to be a living soul, the lower portions from sharp-focused foreground details creating classical formal contrasts that lend a of her body are semitransparent, as if to to distant mountains melting in mist. By fleeting moment a timeless feeling. suggest how we ourselves begin to enter a contrast, Eric Wiegardt’s virtuoso technique An opposite sense of lyrical desolation more ethereal realm when we mourn a lost of swift strokes captures the humid quality of comes across in Donald Van Horn’s loved one. an overcast swamp that a lone figure strolls painting’s contrasting overcast and chilly- Landscape has always been a favored along with splashy, spontaneous élan. looking watercolor of train tracks telephone subject of watercolorists, and here, too, Cityscapes and urban architectural subjects polls and small town structure in the techniques range widely. Cathy Hillegas are also well suited to the various ways in aftermath of a snow storm. employs a meticulous realist style in her which aquarelle can be used to conjure up Andrew Wyeth, another great artist who dazzling painting of an autumn tree viewed atmospheric effects. Witness, for example, made watercolor a frequent medium, once from a vertiginous angle, its brilliant crown of Kathryn Keller’s “FDR Drive,” where light commented that those who termed him gold leaves and tactile bark clearly delineated. and shadow define form and lend velocity a strict realist failed to see the many small Harald Aksdal also employs the medium in to traffic moving under an overpass with abstractions contained in his paintings. great detail, apparently tinting leaves defined sun-splashed buildings in the background. Indeed “abstract realism,” to borrow a term with a pen-line with delicate watercolor Chizuru Kaplan’s painting of the Hôtel de coined by another writer for this publication, washes to achieve an effect as intricate as an Ville, in Paris, captures the baroque tactile makes a stunning appearance in Grace L. etching by Durer. quality of its grand old stone facade, as Haverty’s “Snow Geese,” where rhythmical By contrast, in a composition called well as the mottled blue patina of a classical patterns comparable to the “overall” “Driving Through the Rain,” Ekaterina statue in the foreground in what appears to compositions of Jackson Pollock or Mark Smirnova evokes windblown palm trees and be a drybrush technique utilizing streaks Tobey are created by dense flocks of birds in

Spring Gems Ten Years After Fine Arts Exhibit photography exhibit Curated: Robert Schultheis and Robert Scott April 11 - 29, 2012 May 2- 20, 2012 Reception: April 14, 2:30 - 5:30pm Opening reception: Artists: Saturday, May 5, 2012, 2:30-5:30pm Robert Scott • Gloria Pearl • Basia Goldsmith • Abhijit Goswami Michelle Melo • Mary Ryan • Liz Hill • Aya Ogasawaka Closing reception: Robert Schultheis • Arne Lewis • Hanna Seiman Sunday, May 20, 2012, 2:30-5:30pm

Broadway Mall Community Center Broadway Mall Community Center Broadway@96St. (NYC) Center Island Broadway@96St. (NYC) Center Island Gallery Hours: Wed 6-8pm, Sat/Sun. 12-6 pm Gallery Hours: Wed 6-8pm, Sat/Sun. 12-6 pm [email protected] 212-316-6024 www.wsacny.org [email protected] 212-316-6024 www.wsacny.org

10 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 Denise Athanas Eric Wiegardt

David Neil Mack Edwin C. Shuttleworth

Daniel Vangeli

Noriko Hasegawa Harald Aksdal

Donald Van Horn Towle, in which a clear crystal feline figure appears transfixed by a bouquet of flowers in an equally transparent vase from which a large Catherine Hearding goldfish appears to have escaped into thin a composition called “Snow Geese.” It also air; “Color Theory” by Catherine Hearding, manifests in the bold forms made by the open in which a scattering of Crayola wax crayons pages of magazines hanging over a tabletop color the pristine tiles of a checkerboard in Noriko Hasegawa’s austerely painted tiled floor; and “A Cut Above,” by LaVonne composition “Reading Materials,” as well as Tarbox-Crone yet another sharply focused in the extreme close-up of sensual shadowed watercolor composition in which a pair of Sharon Towle and curling flower petals in Tracy Williams’ scissors is mysteriously suspended from a yarn with its own inimitable qualities. “Surge,” and the enigmatic arrangement of hoop in front of a shelf piled with patterned –– Maureen Flynn pristine stones in Geoffrey McCormack’s sewing baskets. “Ascension. 2.06.11” The value of this yearly survey cannot be Another, especially playful, category in underestimated in terms of emphasizing American Watercolor Society, this show might be called “Enigmatic Still the many tendencies and directions that 145th Annual Exhibition, Salmagundi Club, Life.” It includes “Curious Cat,”by Sharon distinguish watercolor as a major art medium 47 Fifth Ave., April 3 - 22, 2012

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 11 WHITNEY BIENNIAL with her bed, her books, her art supplies, Aside from a tall totem of artificial Continued from page 2 and what she claims is everything else that animal bones inspired by Marcel the pumpkin, and the only sound is the she owns); and performance (including Duchamp’s famous bottle rack by Joanna clink of glass as the workers in the bar are music, short plays, and daily dance recitals Malenowska Vincent Fecteau’s toy-colored seen bagging all the beer bottles to put out and their rehearsals, which take up most little sculptures in gypsum cement, resin in the alley for the sanitation truck to pick of the museum’s main hall, its floor now clay and synthetic polymer paint; and some up. handpainted with architect Marcel Breur’s dust-colored crane-like birds suspended The only problem with this year’s survey 1964 blueprint for this incarnation of the from strings by artist and puppeteer is that, while people have counted on museum) have all but elbowed painting Tom Thayer (also represented by some the Whitney Biennial to tell them where and sculpture out of the show. interesting art povera assemblage paintings American painting and sculpture were This to such a degree that, for want of incorporating corrugated cardboard, as going since 1932, when it began as an something more relevant to the state of well as a jerky shadow show video with a annual, the 2012 edition makes us wonder the art today to look at, we even found soundtrack provided by a 78 rpm record instead where those two venerable art ourselves savoring Native American revolving slowly on a turntable (a wry forms have gone. Although there’s plenty activist Leonard Peltier’s prison paintings tribute to old technology); there isn’t much of evidence on view in galleries around of horses, buffalos, and motorcycles out sculpture worth looking at in this Biennial town to indicate that even many young there on the great mythological plains, either. Not many interesting photographs artists are still painting and sculpting, without even wondering or bothering to either, except those of a young African- like too many museum shows today this find out for what political, patronizing, American artist named LaToya Ruby one suffers from a curatorial capitulation or simply campy (pardon me once again, Frazier who, along with some so-so to that postliterate culture in which art Bruce Hainley!) reason the kind of kitschy pictures of a demonstration protesting apes popular entertainment and popular stuff that cries out for black velvet should corporation exploitation, showed some entertainment dresses up as art. One can turn up in what is supposed to be the most riveting self-portraits in a decaying only compare it to walking into our local important periodic contemporary survey in domestic interior posing in her deceased Barnes & Noble Superstore on East 86th the city, not to mention the country. grandfather’s bed clothes and blankets Street and noticing how much floor space I don’t know if Nicole Eisenman –– not exactly Mapplethorpe media-sexy has been surrendered to Nooks that once would agree, but the robotic takeover money- magnet stuff but powerfully belonged to Books. of emotional territory by technology evocative. What it comes down to is that video is what her painting of a blank-faced In fact, there aren’t a lot of highly (Including “These Hammers Don’t sausage-fingered cartoon guy apparently marketable “art objects” in this show at all, Hurt Us,” the one by Michael Robinson text-messaging immediately suggested, its which may be why the critics for both the featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Michael title “Breakup” hinting at a conveniently New Yorker and New York magazine have Jackson that Bruce Hainley gushes about in cowardly new way to terminate a hailed it as a refreshingly non-mercenary the show’s catalog as “mourning somehow relationship from a safe distance. Eisenman answer to the overblown bucks-driven art freaked with festivity,” even while going also covered a couple of walls with large scenes of recent seasons. And less emphasis on out of the other side of his mouth as monotypes of distorted faces whose on the bottom line and more on the art to how the term “camp” has long been vigorous painterly contortions absolutely itself would indeed be heartening, if it did “evacuated of whatever dubious meaning ooze nostalgia for German Expressionism. not amount in this Biennial to being an it might never have even had” Oh really, But perhaps this poignant hint of ultimately disappointing example of the old Bruce?; installation — (“This is a lot appropriation here is part of the problem cliché about throwing the baby out with neater than your work room was before rather than the solution, as are the echoes the bath water. I straightened it up,” Jeannie said to me, of Forrest Bess –– albeit a cleaned up, more ––Ed McCormack as we rummaged through one by Dawn hard-edge one –– in the otherwise worthy Kasper, a young artist from Los Angeles abstractions of Andrew Masullo (who, it Whitney Biennial 2012, Whitney Museum who was present to chat with visitors, turns out, actually owns a couple of the of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue since she has moved into the museum Bess paintings in the show). (at 75th St.), through May 27, 2012

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12 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 “Seasons of the Mind” at Broadway Mall nner and outer worlds were the subjects Watercolor is also the medium used by box, Finger captured the distinctly different Iof “Seasons of the Mind,” a group show Deborah Yaffe in “Anguish St.,” which character of each with almost portrait-like curated for the West Side Arts Coalition by depicts the torment of a lone man with his expressiveness. Linda Lessner, whose own contributions back to the viewer leaning against a column Watercolorist Barbara Hughes demonstrated were two lyrical landscapes: Autumn Grasses” in a desolate trash and graffiti littered subway yet another way with still life in her an atmospheric visual poem in soft yet vibrant station. The extreme simplicity of Yaffe’s refreshingly upbeat images of floral still life, hues celebrating the modest beauty to be style, like that of Jacob Lawrence, enables her executed in bright clear colors with winning found in out of the way places, and another to evoke strong emotion without lapsing into simplicity. A bouquet of orange and pink oil on canvas called “Pristalline,” depicting melodrama. blooms in a blue vase and an orange, a the more definite forms of bare trees frosted Emily Rich, on the other hand, employs lemon, and a lime in a shallow blue bowl are with snow in the sort of white winter the same fluid oil technique and coloristic all Hughes required to make the simple title wonderland that global warming may be boldness familiar from her abstract “Joy” seem somehow entirely appropriate. making a thing of the past. expressionist works in her figure studies and Marie Robison is another artist who Lucinda Prince has evolved a unique still life paintings. Rich is at the top of her makes a great virtue of simplicity in her technique of applying oil paint to canvas in spontaneous form in both “Figure in Space” monochromatic work in ink and gouache “In soft vertical streaks that can be described as a and “Sunlit Still Life.” and About Town.” Here, the complexly cut kind of “diffused Impressionism.” Here, the Working in soft pastel or sepia, Pilar black mat becomes a part of the composition, technique is employed to lend a shimmering Malley approaches similar subjects in her dividing the intricate composition, drawn in sense of light to the multicolored foliage of own inimitable style. Malley’s “Columbian a graceful linear style reminiscent of Matisse “Autumn Road” and an icy sheen to a more Dancer” captures a slightly surreal, phantom- and Dufy, into a series of charming urban close-up composition called “Winter Tree.” like figure twirling her opulent skirts, while in vignettes that would be equaling as engaging Marvin Gettleman displays an impressive her “Country Kitchen,” she employs pastels in the New Yorker magazine as in a gallery. technical virtuosity in different mediums. on black paper to impart a phosphorescent Then there is Marianne V. McNamara, Solid areas of subdued color, enhanced by quality to a still life atop an old fashioned whose intricately detailed paintings in a scored lines, are employed by Gettleman to brick oven with open flames burning below. sophisticated faux primitive style depict a wide depict a beach house with a raised deck in Another excellent pastelist, Arlene Finger, Continued on page 23 a color print entitled “Mitch’s Hideaway,” took on an unusual subject in her still life while his watercolor “Boats, Rockaway” is “Sneakers.” Combining a pair of well-worn WSAC, “Seasons of the Mind,” recently conjured up in a more fluid, spontaneous running shoes on a decorative cloth and an seen at Broadway Mall Community Center, manner. apparently brand new set of sandals still in the 96th Street (center island) MAEV: An Artist’s Reaffirmation of the Visionary Impulse arely are subject and medium so chromatic “pulse,” they create fantasy, as seen in a venture into Rseamlessly merged as in the paintings on the sense of a rarefied realm of Orientalia entitled “New Japan,” copper of the doubly-gifted Quebec-based fantasy and heavenly harmony. where the bare breasts and torso visual artist and musician MAEV (Maev Sinuously delineated of a beautiful woman appear Marchini) whose compositions are infused floral forms also appear in delineated in a phantom-like with a singularly ethereal sense of light. compositions such as “Allegra” manner against an ostensibly A visionary in the tradition of William and “Paradisia.” In the latter abstract cosmic background, Blake, MAEV abandoned oil painting work they evoke the cosmic the contours of the figure’s hair for her unusual medium in the wake of a terrain upon which one of flowing upward like huge flower. trying family crisis in the late 1980s. Unlike MAEV’s characteristically The word “visionary” had that British master, however, she does not comely female nudes strolls been bantered about so freely as employ the copper plate for printing multiple gracefully among exotic crane- to have almost lost its meaning in editions; rather, each plate serves as the like birds. In another piece called recent years. But an artist such as surface for a single original painting, etched “Terre-Ciel,” two nudes crouch MAEV makes clear that the spirit with tactile lines and brushed with colored on a massive green vegetal of William Blake, Samuel Parker, varnishes in her own inimitable manner. mass with a curvaceousness and others among the group The resulting works have a transcendent that rhyme visually with those Envoi Sensuel that embraced the name “The quality, at once mythic and romantic, with of the figures, floating over a Ancients” for their love of myth human and fantastic peacock-like avian shimmering body of water. Between them and magic is still alive in the postmodern era. figures afloat in glowing cosmic spaces. Most a large water bird preens against a glowing For MAEV’s work is possessed of a visionary of the human figures in MAEV’s paintings solar orb emitting blinding golden rays. intensity and a conviction that provides visual are exquisitely formed female nudes of a In yet another stunning scene entitled “Soleil evidence of her statement, “I love to create beauty approaching those of Botticelli. Bleu,” a bather with a flowing mane is seen for the pleasure of others, whether it be Invariably, they are enveloped in richly partially submerged in a body of water and with original music, floating to transmit my burnished hues, as seen in “Envoi Sensuel,” encircled by delicate flowers which curve upward impressions, my interiors realizations or to where a slender Venus etched in a supple line to vanish into an orange stratosphere where compose a parallel universe with my paintings is combined with a fiery globe in an especially planets are suspended like bright balloons. on copper where the unreal transcends the radiant configuration. In other works, such as “Embrasement,” day to day in a flight of colors, where the heat MAEV’s colors are as variegated as those beautiful faces surrounded by crowns of of well-being mixes with Love and Hope.” in Redon’s pastels, albeit more fluid and filled flowing tresses float disembodied in fiery, –– Maureen Flynn with light. Further enhanced by a mottled almost equally luminous areas of sky and effect in which several colors flow together water. Elements of the Rococo and the MAEV, Agora Gallery, 530 West 25th St., in almost “marbleized” configurations that Baroque also come into play in MAEV’s April 24 - May 15, 2012. bring the entire surface alive with a vibrant compositions to enhance their sense of Reception: Thurs. April 26, 6 - 8pm April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 13 DAISY CHAIN, an excerpt from HOODLUM HEART: Confessions of a Test-Dummy for the Crash and Burn Generation a memoir by Ed McCormack away from the to all the enticing erotic adventures that home I no longer status could automatically invite, especially in had. But I didn’t the early 1970s, when the rise of feminism have to freak out had suddenly made being a woman seem a and make such a greater adventure than being a man. And scene, following although she had never given me the slightest them out onto reason to picture her in such situations when the street, I still had her safely locked into the role violently kicking of wife and mother, now that I had given the cab they got her every reason to seize her freedom with into, causing the a vengeance, my head filled with feverish driver to curse visions of my beautiful Jeannie, who had a and scream until fear of flying (Erica Jong be damned with my wife got out your “zipless fuck!”) and would continue on and told her to San Francisco by Amtrak, engaging with friends to go on mysterious strangers in railway sleeping cars; without her. or, since she had an affinity for New Age She went spirituality even before there was a name for with me back it, perhaps practicing so-called “tantric sex” into Max’s, the with organic hippies in wiggy communes; or owner Mickey romping in “a teeny polka dot bikini”on a Ruskin, who had beach somewhere, God forbid, with golden witnessed the California surfers as sleek and playful as baby whole fiasco as seals. he worked the Admittedly, such frivolous imaginings door and was were hardly in keeping with my wife’s sober not one to frown nature. Still, we were living through an upon outrageous unpredictable era whose capricious spirit behavior on the the writer Grace Paley seemed to sum up in part of his regular the title of her story collection “Enormous patrons, flashing Changes at the Last Minute.” And given her his snaggly openness of heart, what I feared even more vampire grin than a short fling or two, was that Jeannie and giving me might become emotionally involved with In the weeks and months after my wife the thumbs-up sign as we entered. She had someone else, while I felt fatally sure that I walked out on me, I felt like space debris, a Coke, I had a double Southern Comfort could never love anyone but her. floating aimlessly without gravity. And it only on the rocks. Then we caught a cab back I was so certain of it that I had to tell got worse when Jeannie broke the news that uptown to her apartment and, for the first myself I was just being maudlin when I as soon as our son’s private school let out time in a long time, spent the night together. started to identify with my uncle Charlie, for summer vacation they would be leaving Suffice it to say that our private life has who slowly drank himself to death after his the city for awhile, Holden to spend time on always been of a sacredness that prompts an marriage broke up. After all, Charlie was a her grandmother’s farm in Virginia, where unaccustomed reticence, pulling me back sentimental wreck of a furniture mover with he would have horses to ride and cousins his from the brink of indiscretion with some far fewer social opportunities than those own age to play with; she to continue on to favorite lines by the great modern romantic my status as a feature writer for the hippest visit a couple from her meditation group who poet Robert Creeley: “My love’s manners publication on the planet automatically had recently moved to San Francisco. in bed / are not to be discussed by me / as afforded me. And unlike his wife Dolly, who “Groovy, be sure to wear flowers in your mine by her/ I would not credit comment fed my sad-sack uncle’s self-pity and hastened hair,” I wanted to say, a sarcastic reference upon gracefully. / But I ride by that margin his way to an early grave by refusing to let to Scott McKenzie’s corny flower child of the lake in / the wood, the castle; and have him see his infant daughter, Maryanne, I anthem with the lyrics, “If you’re going a small boy’s notion of doing good.” knew Jeannie would never shut me out of to San Francisco / Summertime will be a Just like the song, that night she gave Holden’s life no matter what happened. In love-in there.” But I was trying –– a little me loving shelter from the storm. But fact, although she hoped I would not abuse belatedly, I must admit –– to be cool and come morning we were back in our old the privilege, she had given me a key to her avoid alienating her even more than I already emotional miasma, and although I was new apartment as soon as she moved into had. My most recent offense, among others already entertaining fantasies of everything it, so I could comfortably stop by in the that made her feel she had to leave New York going back to how it used to be, she had not afternoons when she was at work and visit to “think things over,” as she put it, was how changed her mind about fleeing the city. our son after school. I had behaved when she showed up one * * * For while there was a lot of sadness night at Max’s Kansas City with some new What tormented me as soon as she and between us and some understandable friends I had not met before: a blonde in a Holden left for Virginia was that for the bitterness on her part, I knew she was tie-dye muumuu and headband and a couple first time in her adult life my wife would be constitutionally incapable of malice toward of over-fastidious dudes who struck me as a single woman traveling alone –– on her me –– or toward anyone, for that matter. “Bloomingdales hippies.” way out to the Coast, anyway –– and prey When we were still together I would Granted, Max’s was my territory, my home 14 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 sometimes tease her, only half jokingly, about Hooker. tolerate out of bed as well as in. suffering from “a chronic empathy disorder.” ...And so on ad absurdom, with the more One such woman was the singer- Or else I’d kid her about being “the eternal memorable faces, figures, and personalities songwriter, whom I’ll call Sybil, since sorority sister,” always sending birthday receding in vanishing perspective into the the pseudonym seems to suit her refined cards and presents, treating even her female faded half-forgotten phantoms of oh so waspishness. After recovering from the friendships like “platonic romances.” many drunken one night stands. These shockingly unlivable condition of my Perversely possessive of her sweet sour-grapes reveries, however, afforded apartment, Sybil had opened up to me disposition, I had waited until it was too me little solace; for remembered in such immediately that first night, as we lay in its late to realize that the biggest beneficiary numbers with neither affection nor nostalgia, rubble, confiding how insecure it made her of all the goodness I so greedily wanted to but rather something more like the clinical to be in a studio with professional musicians, monopolize had always been me anyway. remorselessness of a serial killer inventorying recording her first album. * * * his victims, even the most desirable female “I don’t think I would have ended up in Shameful as it feels to admit, in order bodies smacked more of concentration camps the music business at all,” she told me, “if as to stop my pathetic mooning and soothe than chorus lines. a kid, growing up in Connecticut, I wasn’t my bruised ego I would sometimes try to Nor could I take much pride in imagining always scribbling stuff secretly in my loose- console myself for having driven away the that those with whom I coupled so carelessly leaf book, little poems and things that I was only girl I had ever truly loved by taking found me any more lovable in the prime of too shy to show anyone. As a matter of fact, a forlorn mental inventory of the others I my premature decline than I found them in if my parents, both of whom are academics, had been with since. Male chauvinist jerk the bloom of their jaded youth –– especially hadn’t insisted that I take piano lessons, the that I was, I would even go so far as to line after more than one nubile necrophiliac way I was going, I probably would have them all up at attention, hup hup, in a naked had likened me to certain wasted rock and become a reclusive old maid like Emily daisy-chain in my mind’s eye. Next to the roll stars, signaling that it was not really any Dickinson.” exotic ebony arabesque of a black Jamaican particular attribute of mine to which they It was not impossible to imagine. On first model who had followed me inexplicably, were attracted, but the wrongheaded myth impression she could almost have appeared flying commercial at her own expense as I of romantic self-destructiveness: that slight gawky, even a little homely, like a shy young traveled on the chartered jet of a rampaging whiff of formaldehyde that must have wafted librarian, if not for how her natural blond hair rock and roll tour through a drugged blur of off me around that time like some cheap framed her even but somewhat plain, pixyish midwestern cities on assignment for Rolling aphrodisiac cologne. features like shiny straw, and how strikingly Stone, I would place for nice contrast the pale Was it any wonder, then, that I continued her fitted, faded denim outfits and Western ivory figurine of the wispy blond singer- to pine inconsolably for the one lover who boots set off her long-legged lissomeness. songwriter who accused me –– or at least had never been the least bit turned on by my “I’ve never even performed my songs on accused the haunted, rubbled apartment that suicidal tendencies? As lovely inside as she stage,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what my estranged wife had left to my benign care was physically, for years Jeannie had tried, it’s going to be like when I have to go on the –– of inspiring her most maudlin recorded gently and without self-righteous preaching, road to promote the album. How can I even lament. She in turn would be flanked by the to rescue me from myself. Ironically, Neil look out at the audience without freezing middle-aged but still well-preserved ex- Young’s haunting ballad “Heart of Gold,” up? What do I do with my hands when I’m mistress of an immortal abstract painter who which never failed to remind me of her, came not playing piano or guitar? Suppose I start had been a hero of my too-late beatnik youth out around the time she finally despaired to sing and my throat closes and my voice and some of whose genius I may have hoped of my alcoholism, drug addiction, and doesn’t come out?” would rub off on me simply by dipping my hopeless negativity, and walked out our door, “I’m sure you’ll do fine.” brush in the same old pot. The painter’s becoming, for all intents and purposes, as free She looked at me skeptically. “Oh yeah? mistress would be joined at the other ample as I was to experience unsentimental sex with Well, will you come on the road with me hip to a zany young waitress and aspiring unloving new lovers in the cold meat light of to me to keep me company and bolster comedienne I met one night at the Comedy pure pornography. my confidence? Suppose I paid all your Store in Hollywood, who, with witless Naturally now I could not help but worry expenses?” disregard for the comedic possibilities of her that I might suffer by comparison. So, I looked at her as if she was crazy. incongruous nudity, insisted on auditioning ironically, while I may have thought that in “I’m only kidding...I guess. I know you her entire standup schtick for a captive my haphazard relations with others I was have your own work to do. But maybe audience of one the following morning, as discovering the weakness of women for men sometimes when you’re not too busy you I lay immobilized by a hellish hangover in a who were indifferent to them, what I was could come and hang out with me in the suite at the Chateau Marmont. really uncovering was the weak little bitch of studio. I mean, it could be fun if you’re up Next in line would come a self described a masochist in myself. late anyway. We work all night and there’s “struggling actress” who survived in the In my case, this weakness was always lots of beer in the fridge.” incongruous luxury of a vault-like ground- compounded by the genetic strain of So for a time at least, unless I got waylaid floor studio apartment two doors in from the alcoholic morbidity that had devastated so by someone else at Max’s, I made a habit of river railing on Sutton Place, and got laughed many of the men in my family. And while showing up after midnight at Jimi Hendrix’s out of her own bed one night for having this sentimental affliction didn’t curb my old studio, Electric Lady, tucked in among the audacity to suggest that I ghostwrite her libertine tendencies, it did prevent me –– or the head shops and boutiques of West 8th memoirs –– all about how an elderly record perhaps I should say I vigilantly prevented Street. Although they didn’t go so far as company president paid her to pee in his myself –– from enjoying even the most casual to say so, it was obvious that the session mouth, among other gross-out kiss and tell emotional intimacy with any woman other musicians and the engineer resented how tales involving an all-star cast of prominent than the wife I still loved and hoped would she would dote over me, fetching my beers, New York perverts of both major sexes, one day take me back. This was something lighting my Marlboros and my joints (from through the mere transcription of which this I was almost puritanical about, keeping my which her sullen sidemen would accept only dim golden bimbo was convinced she could guard up as cautiously as a boxer –– especially the occasional toke), and insisting that I wear become the hottest thing since The Happy with those rare few whose company I could her big white cowgirl hat because “it looks so

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 15 cool on you.” initiative to do enough on my own anyway. genuflecting reverently at the altar of Yoko Since I’d made her promise not to “I suppose I could manage that.” Ono –– who, coincidentally, cut him loose to mention that I wrote for Rolling Stone, Then she ruined everything: “And after I do some growing up of his own around the lest anyone get their hopes up about an get you all sparkling and shampoo that mad same time Jeannie did me. For while I didn’t article, perhaps they regarded me as some Medusa’s mop of yours, since it’s Saturday have a metaphysical bone in my body, I was idle, morally deficient character –– a cross and everybody will be home I’m going to often convinced that my estranged wife was a between a male groupie and a hippie gigolo. take you up to Connecticut to meet my good witch who had put a love spell on me. Bent over their guitars, keyboards, or the parents and my little brother and sister.” At very least she was a bewitching mystic, the control panel, I’d sometimes catch one or We got into the tub and I let her pour the only real one I had ever known, and if other the other of them glancing askance in my shampoo over my head, then scrub, rinse, women lost their mystery after awhile, she direction. But I couldn’t have cared less, and and towel me down as if I was something she never did. Indeed, some lines by the British being the spiteful prick that I was, strutted owned. But although I had not broken the poet Philip Larkin could have been written around like the cock of the walk to annoy news to her, there was no way I was going for her: “In times when nothing stood / But them all the more. anywhere to meet anybody’s parents or worsened, or grew strange / There was one Provided one is sufficiently stoned and siblings on this day or any other day. What I constant good: / She did not change.” has no better place to be, a recording studio told her instead was that I was going to stop If anyone had changed it was I, as my overnight can be a comfortingly timeless, up at 89th Street to get some fresh clothes addictions distorted my personality and womb-like place, with its hermetically sealed and would be back in an hour or so. sense of reality until, at times, as Jeannie atmosphere like that of a gambling casino, its But I never went back to her apartment or once declared despairingly, she could barely dim somnambulant corridors, its twinkling showed up at the studio or saw Sybil again, recognize the young man she had married lights, its wall-to-wall carpets to cloud-walk and can only assume she no longer wished to in me. And now I sat there in her ascetic, upon. I took particular, perhaps even sadistic, see me after the thoughtless, cowardly way Gandhi-bare apartment, trying to feel at satisfaction in slouching with a beer in a big I stood her up that day. For although my home, as though I belonged. Yet everything leather chair, listening to Sybil’s ethereal phone had been turned off for nonpayment around me told me that I no longer did. soprano waver plaintively on the chorus, as by then, she knew where I lived and could Leaning against the wall near the book she tried take after take of the ballad she had have stopped by and rang the bell or stuffed a case, the acoustic guitar, in which she had written about that first night, when I brought note in my mailbox. But as far as I know she recently started taking lessons, seemed to her home from Max’s and made her lie down never did. symbolize the freedom of her new single life. with me in the wreckage of my marriage. * * * So did her latest series of gouache paintings, When the sessions ended in the small That day, suddenly needing to feel a sense depicting fancifully stylized male figures hours of the morning I was no more eager of meaningful connection to my past, I went gracefully traversing starry expanses in a than she to return to that haunted railroad straight from Sybil’s to Jeannie’s apartment. style resembling Persian miniatures. Now it flat of mine. The hi-rise apartment in Chelsea It was a three-room railroad flat on the also struck me as significant that among the that she shared with a good sport of a young ground floor of a tenement on East 73rd esoteric texts on her book shelves such as The record company secretary who was rarely Street. Since it was in the rear of the building, Tibetan Book of the Dead and Ouspensky’s home was comfortable enough, and Sybil where no traffic or street noises could be In Search of the Miraculous, I noticed The was sane, cheerful and intelligent, with a heard, and since my wife and son were out of Diaries of Anais Nin, who had been taken up well-bred way about her that was a welcome the city, it was as quiet as a tomb. by some of the more liberal Pop feminists, relief from some of the painted and tainted I sat in the rocker in the middle of the such as Gloria Steinem and Nora Ephron, as girl desperadoes I ended up going home with tiny living room, where the only other an early icon of sexual liberation. Now even from Max’s. But as soon as day dawned I was furnishings were a round wooden table and the metal anti-burglary gates crisscrossing the always eager to escape. Night was one thing, some colorful pillows stacked in a corner as room’s only window, made me feel like an but daytime made everything too mundanely cushions for sitting on the floor. Although intruder, despite my wife herself having given real. she never made a prideful point, as I had since me the key with which I had entered through The final morning began with what could my teenage years, of flaunting bohemian the door. almost be called an epiphany: I awoke to attitudes, Jeannie was the least materialistic The window looked out on a dreary a rippling classical melody, and there was person I ever knew. From the beginning, concrete courtyard with some garbage cans Sybil with the Vermeer sunlight streaming she never put wifely pressure on me to make lined up and a scrawny tree in the middle. in on her straw-colored hair and her long, a lot of money. Instead, quoting Joseph When she took the apartment Jeannie had slender vase of a back, as she sat so erect and Campbell, she always told me,“Follow your hoped, perhaps with the help of some potted austere in her nudity on the piano bench bliss.” In fact, she often used the phrase “on plants, to turn the courtyard into a pleasant down at the foot of the bed, nothing moving this material plane” almost dismissively, as if little urban garden. But she gave up on that but her elbows as her fingers played over taking for granted higher, more metaphysical idea the first time she unlocked the gates, the keys. Lyrical moments having become levels of existence about which most of us climbed out through the window, and saw rare in my life of late, I fixed this one in my mere mortals could only speculate! And how the backs of the surrounding tenements mind for a second or two before grunting when she claimed that, even though I was blocked the sun. my usual hungover greeting. Sybil stopped almost a year older than she, I was still “a I sat there in that eerily silent little playing, swung her lanky legs over the piano relatively young soul,” I believed her, just as apartment until I began to feel a sense of bench, and turning to face me, said, “Good I did when she assured me that, even if I had loneliness and desolation as vast and spooky morning. Do you have any particular plans become impossible to live with in my present as that which I imagined a lone astronaut for today?” drugged and drunken incarnation, we would must experience while orbiting in outer “Why, what did you have in mind?” “always be together in eternity.” space. And then I knew it was time to go “Well, I ran a bath and first I want us to I was every bit as credulous in this regard down the block and across Second Avenue to get into the tub together.” as Robert Crumb’s comic strip character Dr. Generosity’s. “Fine,” I said, thinking that bathing was Flaky Foont hanging on the words of * * * something I probably was not taking the his guru Mr. Natural or John Lennon Continued on page 18

16 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 “Complexity” Takes Varied Forms In Marilyn Henrion’s Triumphant New Solo Show ore than most visual artists, Marilyn patterns of flowing water and foam, the with a rugged cragginess reminiscent of MHenrion has always taken inspiration stitches form overlapping spirals that suggest Clyfford Still. Henrion, however, brings from poetry. Back in the Beat era, Henrion the churning rhythms of ocean waves. By her own unique eloquence to this winning and her husband Ed held regular literary contrast in “Orange Sea (triptych),” where combination of attributes by virtue of the salons in their home in Greenwich Village, a beachscape and rolling surf spans all the geological allusiveness she evokes through at which Allen Ginsberg, Ray Bremser, and three cotton scrolls, the stitches shower down essentially nonobjective means. other Beat poets read. She introduces her in a slight vertical curve, like beams of light, In contrast to the expressionistic feeling of most recent series of mixed media works, complementing the golden auras which “Red Rock (triptych),” another large work “Complexity,” with a called “Pink Rock (triptych) quote from T.S. Eliot’s appears to reference Cubism, Four Quartets: “Home with its more subdued hues is where we start from. / and depiction of flatter, more As we grow older / The blocky rock formations, their world becomes stranger, the fractured, shallow ridges patterns more complicated hugging the picture plane for / Of dead and living. / dear life. And in yet another Not the intense moment large triptych titled “Gray / Isolated, with no before Rock,” Henrion appears to and after, / But a lifetime riff on Minimalism, with burning in every moment the more monolithic forms / And not the lifetime of of monochromatic mineral one man only / But of surfaces presented in extreme old stones that cannot be close-up, with only their deciphered.” meticulously rendered shadows Henrion’s twentieth and striations serving as realist solo exhibition expands reference points. upon the 80 year old Then there is “Lake Rock artist’s long-term project (triptych),” in which, without of “applying contemporary abandoning the underlying aesthetic sensibilities to armature of abstraction that traditional textile techniques invariably bolsters even her and combining them with most pictorial compositions, modern technologies.” Like “Old Stones 3” (Inspired by a Neolithic burial ground the artist saw while she Henrion again ups the ante her other recent works, was artist in residence in Cape Cornwall, England) of representation. For here, “Old Stones 3, (triptych)” was created by saturate the entire composition. The sun’s with photorealist clarity, she conjures up a printing one of her own digitally manipulated reflection spreads and melts like an egg yolk sparkling image of waves and rocks. photographs on cotton fabric, then adding on the surface of the water near the shoreline, Although it is unusual for an artist who an intricate tactile quality to the surface via where a tiny silhouetted human figure is as consummate a colorist as Marilyn painstaking hand quilting with silk thread. strolls and casts its shadow. Dwarfed like the Henrion to create major statements in The central motif of the piece is a large travelers in classical Chinese landscapes by the monochromes, among the most striking crater filled with green grass, surrounded magnitude of nature, this lone figure suggests compositions in the exhibition are two winter by stones and dry brush, seen within a our existential insignificance in relation to scenes that forsake her normally vibrant panoramic landscape. Spanning all three the natural wonders that surround us on our palette for grissaile. In “Chiaroscuro 1,” panels, this manmade structure takes on journey through life. delicate vertical water weeds are gracefully the mysterious strangeness of a crop circle, In a previous series, titled “Soft City,” silhouetted against irregularly spaced dynamically achieving Henrion’s stated aim exhibited at Noho Gallery, and seen in horizontal stitches, suggesting ripples in of finding “resonance in the scientific theory part more recently at Highwire Gallery, a stream. In “Chiaroscuro 2,” a structure of Complexity, as well as in poetry.” in Philadelphia, Henrion focused on the suggesting the “Stairway to Heaven” in Equally bucolic in their own way are two storefronts and historic cast iron facades of the famous Led Zeppelin song appears single images from the same series, “Old New York’s Soho art district. Whereas those amid snow-laden branches in a forest. Both Stones, I” and “Old Stones, 2,” both of compositions were architectonic, suggesting works find a mystery and a magic in natural which focus on old stone walls and ruins photorealist variations on Henrion’s hardedge settings that, were they alive today, Japanese overrun by lush, verdant foliage, suggesting geometric abstract fiber art of past years, her master printmakers such as Hiroshige and mythic rural hideaways for faeries and present works evoke not only organic natural Hokusai might have admired. And that nymphs straight out of a story book. forms but the vigorous gestural brushwork of Marilyn Henrion accomplishes this with a Henrion’s hand-stitching, by the way, Abstract Expressionism. combination of state of the art technology is never a random element in her work; This aspect of “Complexity” is especially and ancient textile techniques makes her own for it invariably adds not only a sensuous striking in “Cornwall Rock (triptych),” peculiar mastery all the more magical. “painterly” tactility to her pieces, but an where ruddy rocks and rushing blue water underlying sense of depth, heft, and energy take on a gestural vivacity and a visceral, –– Ed McCormack as well. The directions of the stitches and the fleshy sensuality recalling de Kooning’s nude patterns that they create vary greatly from bathers. Conversely, “Red Rock (triptych),” one composition to another. In “Green one of Henrion’s boldest, most coloristically Marilyn Henrion, “Complexity,” Sea (triptych),” for example, where the fiery large media pieces, has an abstract Noho Gallery, 530 W. 25th St.,` entire composition is inspired by abstract angularity akin to Jack Tworkov coupled April 3 - 28, 2012

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 17 ...For while “Hey, what’s happening Flash?” said Al as a skunk and I didn’t have a Kooper, sitting at a table near the popcorn she practically had metaphysical machine, drinking beer with Gene Cornish of to prop him up, bone in my body, The Rascals when I walked in. but she got him I was often Since Kooper, who played that fantastic up onto the stage convinced my organ on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and they sang a estranged wife before founding Blood, Sweat and Tears, was gorgeous rendition was a good witch no sartorial slouch himself with his ruffled of ‘Help Me Make who had put a shirts and snakeskin boots, I took his greeting it Through the love spell on me. for a sign that while I may have felt like shit, I Night.’” was still looking good. Lowering his Despite the hokey old-time saloon voice, McSheehy atmosphere, with barrels of peanuts here asked me if I and there, shells and sawdust all over the wanted a quaalude floor, and a small stage at the back of the or wanted to duck room, where poets and musicians sometimes into the john for performed for a mostly clueless crowd of “a little snort,” uptown singles, what I liked most about Dr. and when I told G’s was its proximity to Jeannie’s apartment, him I was cool which sometimes made me feel, pathetically, for the moment, like I was keeping the home fires burning, said there was this even though all I ever stoked there was my chick he knew drunkenness. And of course it was convenient would dig me if that the tall, ponytailed co-owner Dave I felt like a little McSheehy, who reminded me of Buffalo Bill “nooky” tonight. in the fringed buckskin jacket he always wore, Along with all his was Dr. Generosity himself. other virtues, Dave “Hey, Ray, give that crazy Irish poet the always seemed to usual on me,” he called over to the bartender, have a few spare when he spotted me from across the room girlfriends on hand going through the slow charade of digging for friends in need. and I just had to tell you so.” down into my jeans for my wallet. “He “Thanks, man, but I’m cool in that It was something that Jeannie and I had knows his money’s no good in here!” department too,” I told him. got used to hearing. Flower children of Stocky, red-bearded Ray Freed brought a “Okay, but let me know if you change both sexes were always coming up to us bottle of Budweiser and a shot of Southern your mind, because I can give her a call and and gushing about what a beautiful couple Comfort over, set it down in front of me get her right over here. I mean, you looked a we were, a high compliment in the age of on the bar, and nodded. Ray was a real poet little down when you walked in, and I figured androgyny. There must have been something in the cryptic, short-lined Robert Creeley since you’re not with your lady and all ...” about how we looked together, with our mode. We’d once had a conversation about Then, glancing out the window near the long hair and unisex clothes, that suggested the art, me doing most of the talking, bar and spotting a familiar figure with a some kind of hippie ideal to them. Some telling him how much Donald Allen’s guitar dangling from a strap across his back, of them would even say that we looked like landmark anthology of the Beats and other making his gangly way down the Avenue and brother and sister, and that notion had always nonacademic poets, “The New American across the street like a windblown scarecrow been a turn on to me anyway, ever since we Poetry” had meant to me as a recent high in the summer rain that was starting to fall, lived like incestuous siblings in my family’s school dropout and aspiring beatnik hanging McSheehy said, “Oh shit, don’t look now, attic on Staten Island as newlyweds. It was an out in the Village, Ray mainly nodding. We but here comes Bert Sommer. Him and oddly pleasing, even scintillating, notion. And had not had much to say to each other since, Sandy Bull, man, them two junkies can be if in that era of do-your-own-thing-group- and I could never determine for certain the biggest pains in the ass. But I got to give grope and stoned sexual experimentation, whether he thought of me as a phony and it to Sommer for one thing: nobody, not at least some of our flatterers harbored a sellout for not being quite as down and even Simon & Garfunkel sings Simon & orgiastic designs on us, we could accept their out as his favorite freeloader “the last Beat Garfunkel’s ‘America’ better than he does. compliments and divert them graciously, street poet” Jack Micheline, or if he was just Takes your fucking breath away.” while remaining an island of two, shielded stoic. Either way, I liked him –– or at least It happened that Bert Sommer had from the potential anarchy inherent in such I liked the idea of him. Although I couldn’t introduced himself to Jeannie and me a overtures by the exclusivity of our long see myself ever being on the other side of the couple of years earlier on one of those personal history and the then-still-inviolable bar, he was the true bohemian I could have luminous summer Sundays around Bethesda strength of our near-incestuous bond. become, and sometimes told myself I could Fountain in Central Park, which, along with Others who approached us so solicitously still become if I ever got fed up enough with the Sheep Meadow, had become a regular turned out to be panhandlers, trawling for pop journalism and the whole phony lifestyle tribal gathering place, kind of like an uptown “spare change” –– that ubiquitous hippie that went with it. Washington Square. At first we had taken oxymoron ! –– and it was to this category “You really missed a good one last night, him for a stereotypical acid casualty when that Sommer could have seemed to belong my man,” McSheehy was saying now, sidling he approached us with pinwheels swirling until he told us his name and it dawned on up to me at the bar and slapping me on the in his eyes and a big sloppy smile, saying, me that he had performed at Woodstock and back. “Wow, man, let me look at you two. What a once had a hit single with a typical flower “Around midnight Kris Kristofferson and beautiful couple! Really, people, you’re the child anthem called “We’re All Singing in the Rita Coolidge wandered in. He was drunk most beautiful couple I’ve ever seen, man, Same Band.” Hence he apparently belonged

18 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 to that category of well wishers with no Pre-Raphaelite hair, something about her Dylan while I go in and get the beer and a ulterior motives at all. Having beatifically soft features, high cheekbones and restrained couple of other things I need?” she asked, transcended all the superficial trappings of manner reminded me of Jeannie. (In fact, handing me the leash. “He sometimes gets fame to become the last of the blissed-out a year or so later, in that period when I was antsy and starts howling if I tie him up.” wandering troubadours, he wanted nothing courting my estranged wife all over again, While she went in to shop, I stood in front from us on this beautiful day in the park but trying to win her back, they would come of the supermarket thinking how weird it to bask in our shared aura. face to face at a press party for former Beatle would be if Jeannie was still in the city and Now that I was no longer half of that George Harrison in a posh Indian restaurant were to come along right now and see me beautiful couple, however, Sommer didn’t called Nirvana, and Naomi would say to standing here holding the leash while this oaf seem to recognize me when McSheehy called Jeannie, “You’re so pretty,” then look at me of a dog took a big steaming shit (no way I him over to the bar, asked him what he was significantly, as though she finally understood was going to scoop the poop, baby; I turned drinking, and requested that he favor us, with why I had closed my heart to all others.) my back). Not that I wanted to think about his rendition of “America.” Because Naomi dressed in a bohemian where my wife might be coming from in Being “the original punk” (as the poet gypsy style, she also called to mind some of this neighborhood at this hour on a Sunday, and Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga would the beatnik chicks I had always been attracted given how it tortured me when I called her forgivingly remember me several years later, to as a kid in the Village. And that she late at night or early in the morning on a when we encountered each other in another happened to live on Jane Street, in a mellow weekend when our son was staying with life as mature men, while rummaging in the brownstone pad with lots of bookshelves and my parents on Staten Island and got no same box of paperbacks at a public library silky paisley scarves draped over Tiffany-type answer. Surely she would be bemused by the book sale, and I finally, belatedly apologized table-lamps to dim the light, also pleased me. incongruity of this scene, since I’d always for calling him “Gerome Lasagna” repeatedly The first time she invited me home with her, balked at having to walk Holden’s little in print, even after he had asked me to cease the apartment struck me as a cozy civilized terrier Tuffy, especially when we came home and desist) I had never much cared for Paul place, sort of like a hippie Hobbit hole, that late at night and I’d had a good deal to drink. Simon’s self-consciously literary English could become a sometime refuge from my Indeed, I’d always expressed distaste for major lyrics. But now I heard that familiar many hectic nights of haunting Max’s. And animals in general, something she found hard song as if for the first time when Sommer, it helped that she never tried to guilt trip me to understand, having grown up on a farm with his girlish fallen angel face framed by a when I wanted to leave. with horses, dogs, and other assorted critters. frizzy copper-colored steelwool halo of hair, Naomi was normally a late riser. When I I even claimed to be allergic to our cat Lulu raised his battered acoustic guitar, plastered woke before her, I would dress quietly, leave and complained that her cat box had to be with peace signs and flower power stickers, a note, and slip out, since the door locked a smelly breeding ground for billions upon to his patched denim knee, strummed the automatically when it closed behind one. At billions of toxic germs. At my worst I had familiar opening chords and, right there at other times, when I was really beat and she even speculated aloud only half in jest (since the bar, sang,“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry got up a little earlier, knowing that I usually who knew that there wasn’t at least grain our fortunes together...” craved the proverbial “hair of the dog that bit of truth in some superstitions and why take By the time he got to the part that goes, me,” she would bring me a beer in bed. But chances?) that my luck may have been lousy “’Kathy,’ I said as we boarded the Greyhound this time, having slept unusually late for me, because Lulu was a black cat and crossed my together,” I was already transported back I woke to the disturbingly domestic smell of path countless times a day. to a brief star-crossed era called Camelot, eggs frying. Knowing how much she loved animals, in which, after my future bride slipped out When she heard me coughing and I couldn’t help wondering: Would it have of her grandmother’s house in Virginia, retching a bit, as I often did when I lit my counted in my favor had I at least been a little we met at the depot in Washington D.C., first Marlboro of the morning, Naomi walked more tactful, rather than railing so arrogantly and escaped by bus back to New York City into the bedroom wearing my long-tailed against all of God’s innocent little creatures to begin our own romantic search for that denim cowboy shirt as a sort of short robe, like some mean-spirited species-snob that no mythical land. and asked what kind of toast I wanted, wheat animal lover in her right mind would want And when his angelic tenor cracked and or rye. to be married to anyway? And that reminded almost came undone on the line,“Kathy, “ I don’t really think I can eat anything at me of how appalled my wife had been at I said, though I knew she was sleeping, all,” I begged off. “Is there any beer left in something I did one time when she was ‘I’m empty and aching and I don’t know the fridge? I could really use a cold one to still modeling and I went out to one of the whyyyy,’” I knew that McSheehy had been settle my stomach.” Hamptons with her to a magazine shoot with right: When Bert Sommer sang “America” it “I’m afraid you finished that six-pack a photographer who was using his own house really did take your fucking breath away. we brought in last night,” she said. “Don’t and the property around it as a location. * * * you remember? But, listen, it’s almost noon He had this poodle that was pestering me That night, I went to Max’s, where a already, so I could throw some clothes on by following me around and yapping at my publicist for Sybil’s record company had and go pick up another one. Or else, if you heels; so, after a few attempts to discourage brought her on the night we met (probably like, you can come along. I have to walk the little fucker with surreptitious sneers and hoping I’d decide to write about her), but Dylan anyway, and maybe some fresh air low, guttural growls, when the photographer where she was not comfortable with all the would make you feel better.” and his assistant went back to the house for Back Room freaks and rarely ventured on We got dressed and she got the leash on more equipment, I gingerly lifted it under the her own. Fairly confident that I would not the big goofy sheep dog. We went out and belly with my foot and sent it flying out into run into her, there I met up with another walked through the almost empty Sunday the middle of the swimming pool. There was woman with whom I occasionally stayed. streets, which were carpeted with wet leaves a high splash and for a long tense moment, The former wife of a well known folk-rock left over from the previous night’s rainstorm, knowing little about the aquatic abilities musician, let’s call her Naomi and admit to that small old fashioned supermarket of canines, I feared I might have drowned that her most immediate appeal for me was across the street from the United Cigar store the goddamned thing, until it surfaced and that, although she was Jewish with olive skin and newspaper stand on Sheridan Square. doggy-paddled right back to where I was and a thick, somewhat frizzy mane of dark “Would you mind waiting out here with Continued on page 23

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 19 Three Unique Visions at New Century Artists Gallery urely, it seems time to retire the term is amazingly close to that of an ancient the selection also included Shalev’s original S“outsider” which excludes all too many Greek.” designs for butterflies and snowflakes, as artists from the mainstream. “Exceptional Another individual who brings a fresh well as his interpretations and variations of Artists,” the term employed by Barbara N. contemporary approach to a venerable form, designs by well-known Japanese origami Cuthel, curator of the recent three-person Omer Shalev learned the Japanese art of artists such as Tomoko Fuse, Suzuki exhibition, “Unique Visions,” would seem a Origami, which dates back to the Edo era Nakajima and others. Some of the most better bet. (1603-1867), from books pored over in his crowd-pleasing pieces among those For while Lyndon Rochin, Omer executed by Omer Shalev were origami Shalev, and Leonard, are each autistic to floral bouquets with some of the flowers varying degrees, each displays exceptional intricately crafted from actual dollar bills and proficiency in their chosen artistic a modular paper sculpture created with New disciplines. York City Metrocards! Born at a time when the mysterious Indeed for those only acquainted with medical condition of autism was even less traditional subjects such as cranes and well understood than it is today, Lyndon other animal pieces, this exhibition by an Rochin was unable to verbalize as a child. It American virtuoso of the craft should come was suggested that he be institutionalized, as something of a revelation. but his mother, who was determined that The third participant in this show, who he live as normal a life as possible, resisted prefers to be known by the single name this obviously misguided professional advice. of Leonard, showed a group of color For the past 17 years, Rochin has lived on photographs that offered intimate views Lyndon Rochin his own and become known for his original of his immediate surroundings. One of mosaic designs for plates, trays, end tables, the most affecting was “Pigeon Perch,” a and picture frames. picture of a deserted, derelict bungalow The art of mosaics originated some 5000 with an overgrown yard behind a chain-link years ago among the Sumerians, Greeks, fence. By contrast another color photograph and Romans, who employed it to decorate by Leonard, aptly titled “Lonely Church,” floors, doorways, vaults and small fountains. evoked the stark mood of painters such Rochin’s intricate designs, created with as Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth in ceramic and glass tiles, and occasionally photography, focusing on a simple white bits of sea shells or pebbles, are possessed clapboard church bordered by windblown of a pleasing symmetry and an innate grace hedges and located on a barren stretch of that makes them transcend their utilitarian flatland. That this photograph is mounted functions to become objects of timeless on a stretched canvas heightens its painterly aesthetic beauty. In the round mosaic plate effect. called “Golden Valentine,” a bright red Equally stark in its own way is heart is surrounded by small square-shaped Leonard “Weathered and Waiting,” Leonard’s image tiles in harmonizing tones of gold, brown, of dark wooden closed doors, the cruciform and green, while the more oblong shaped structure of their paneling suggesting that piece that Rochin calls “Bits & Pieces” they may be the entryway to the same features an oval center filled with what “Lonely Church.” Here, one is reminded of appear to be beige and blue half-moon Magic Realist painter Ivan Albright’s famous shaped sea shell fragments surrounded by a oil “That Which I Should Have Done, I Did border of round ocher-colored round tiles. Not Do.” However Leonard’s photograph Then there is another oblong plate titled projects a similar sense of foreboding even “Water Pebbles,” in which the pebbles without the added melodrama of the funeral of the title are arranged within a smaller leaf that Albright added to his dark portal. shape in the middle of the composition and Other pictures by Leonard such as the surrounded by many more square tiles, the Omer Shalev image of snow covered tree limbs called contrast between the different geometric “Silver Winter” and the blaze autumnal forms providing strong visual interest. leaves titled “Golden Moment,” are Here, as in other pieces by Rochin, such local public library branch. He eventually contrastingly lyrical and upbeat, revealing as “Dresden Blue,” an intricate circular became so adept at creating complex paper another side to this artist. composition, the closely packed square sculptures, some of them involving more All three artists in “Unique Visions” and round tiles in shades of a single hue than a hundred steps and folds, that he overcome handicaps that would thwart less create a swirling effect and a kinetic illusion joined the Origami USA Organization determined souls, creating work whose value of movement akin to the paintings of Op and began exhibiting his own pieces in speaks eloquently for itself, making clear Artists such as Bridget Riley. domestic and international conventions. why curator Barbara N. Cuthel states that This viewer, however, was particularly On view here were several figurative pieces, it is “my privilege and honor to work with taken with a rectangular-shaped piece called including a multicolored horse fashioned them.” “Golden Age,” featuring irregularly sized from ornate decorative paper and a fanciful –– J. Sanders Eaton pink stones bordered by more uniform clown, as well as origami tessellations: yellow tiles, giving the effect of four closely intricate, interestingly symmetrical abstract placed classical columns. As curator Cuthel wall hangings fashioned from a single sheet Unique Visions, recently seen at accurately observes, “Mr. Lyndon Rochin of paper. New Century Artists Gallery, works here, in New York –– and his vision Along with his own tessellation designs, 530 West 25th Street

20 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 Diana Freedman-Shea’s Italian Idyll ressed to sum up the art of Diana miraculously credible-looking group of trees. if anything, the energy of the struggle PFreedman-Shea in a couple of words, one Visible vestiges of the human hand, so imbues the final painting with a vital visual might say that it is all about geometry and welcome for their vital link to a bravura tension. This comes across most strongly atmosphere, two things the painter says she tradition ranging from Manet through so- in how the largely triangular interaction of loves and strives to capture on canvas. But no called “action painting” –– especially in an the red terracotta rooftops dominating the sooner did one put down that last sentence art world now so overrun by technology that aforementioned pair of large oils plays off than the realization dawned that it might be the current 2012 Whitney Biennial is virtually against the more serene greens and blues of even more to the point to say: Freedman- void of paintings –– do nothing to distract land, sky, and sea. Clustered and grappling Shea’s work is primarily about painting itself. from Freedman-Shea’s distinctive brand of like ruddy wrestlers toward the bottom of the For only the alchemy peculiar to painting realism. Indeed, her paintings display an canvas, these rural rooftops create a sense of alone among all of the arts could accomplish innate understanding of “colour and colour- “push and pull,” to borrow Hans Hofmann’s what we see in “Umbrian Panorama,” one light,” as the great nineteenth century British favorite term, serving as geometric foils of the landscapes the and compositional artist painted during anchors for the a recent stay in Italy atmospherically that she remembers as buoyant elements being “like heaven.” above. It is a vision she One uses the makes manifest in this term “above” quite work, particularly. For deliberately here, while there are larger since the two- and more elaborate dimensional sanctity compositions in her of the modernist new solo exhibition, picture plane is never in this medium-size entirely lost on an vista in an extremely artist as sophisticated horizontal format, as Freedman-Shea, Freedman-Shea even as she toys with achieves the seemingly the fictive illusion of impossible task of classical perspective. evoking the ethereal Perhaps it element of air in the is confronting material substance paradoxes such as of oil pigment. Like this one that makes an earthly halo, painting so difficult the troposphere’s for Freedman-Shea, translucent bands of who obviously palest pink and blue puts more faith in illuminate and gild the modernist than verdant horizon line. critic and champion of Turner, John Ruskin, postmodernist theory and practice and clearly For Freedman-Shea, as for Fairfield once described how, when sunlight hits a concurs with her great predecessor Willem de Porter, another verbally eloquent painter patch of grass from a certain angle, “it will Kooning’s famous lament, “Painting, for me, who incorporated some of the gestural appear to us that part of the grass [is] green, is not a situation of comfort.” panache of Abstract Expressionist into a and that part [is] a dusty yellow (very nearly Yet, as one can only surmise from her realist context, it would seem that “the the colour of primroses)...” rhapsodic descriptions of her stay in Italy, deepest reality is in visual experience, or in It is through her astute use of light and as well as from the glowing evidence of the the paint medium as the medium for nature.” color as the building blocks of topographic paintings that resulted from it, when the hard In Freedman-Shea’s case, in particular, this geometry, rather than through some work goes well it can be heavenly. aesthetic self-consciousness sometimes means superficial attempt to imitate the lay of the The proof is in the exhibition’s one that traces of process and pentimento show land, that Freedman-Shea reveals herself to self-portrait “Diana Painting in Ascea,” in through some of her more thinly painted oil be true landscape painter in the post-Cezanne which she depicts herself seated on the floor washes in the finished work. This is especially tradition. The combination of geometry in her studio, brush in hand, leaning over a effective in one pastoral vista of green and and atmosphere for which she strives truly small painting in progress, with the paint- pink-inflected fields where brisk charcoal lines comes to the forefront in large recent Italian light-color streaming in brilliantly through can be seen within a semitransparent clump landscapes such as “Ascea Paese toward the glass doors to the terrace. On a low of foliage, letting “air” into the composition. Marna,” and “Roofs, Sea, and Sky,” where pink rectangular stool near the sofa in the (Freedman-Shea is a painter with an infallible the red grooved terracotta tile roofs of rural foreground of the composition, the artist’s instinct for knowing exactly when “enough is Italy figure prominently in the foreground floppy-brimmed orange sun hat rests on top enough.”) as abstract forms, framing the atmospheric of a thick blue art book, forming a serene In yet another bucolic scene, she employs terrain. little still life within the painting of the artist what the 18th century watercolorist Freedman-Shea speaks frequently about painting. –– Ed McCormack Alexander Cozens, inspired by a mention “how hard painting is.” But the struggle of the technique in Leonardo’s “Treatise does not show in any way that could prove on Painting,” called “blot drawing,” to lay any more tedious to the viewer than it does Diana Freedman-Shea, Prince Street Gallery, down some blackish, drippy, Rorschach-like in the work of Giacometti, who was known 530 West 25th St., April 24–May 19, 2012. marks that cohere from a distance into a to fret in a similar manner. To the contrary, princestreetgallery.com

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 21 A Really Sweet Group Show at Broadway Mall nd now for dessert. Or to be more exact, also coloristically amplified, its rough textures All God’s creature love dessert as much as A“Desserts,” a photographic exhibition, reddish where they leap up like tongues of we do seems to be the message of Cornelius co-curated by JD Morrison and Jack Cesareo, flame from a printed text, presumably by Mead’s colorful wild life photographs. To of the West Side Arts Coalition, about Lewis Carroll. The Cheshire Cat was featured both “Female Kingfisher” and “Great White something almost everybody loves. on LSD blotters and in more than one rock Heron,” a beak full of fish is just as good for Cesareo is an artist seemingly obsessed song of the 1960s. Why shouldn’t it morph dessert as for dinner. “Snowberry Clear Wing with a giant inflatable cupcake. Apparently, into a strawberry and inspire JD Morrison’s Moth,” however, prefers sweet flower nectar. this monstrous confection, which should be weird take on the timeless tale? And “Green Baboon” munches happily on the envy of Claes Oldenburg, is to Cesareo as In turn, Jean Prytyskacz is inspired by Jack something resembling a moldy green custard cyprus trees were to van Gogh, as water lilies Cesareo, at least in one scrumptious picture, bun. were to Monet. In “The Grand Canyon,” the “Jack’s Cupcakes, featuring a round platter In “At Dromoland Castle,” Janice huge cupcake, with its gooey pink frosting crowded with real, edible cupcakes covered Wood Wetzel shows an elegant confection and multicolored sprinkles, is set against with frosting and multicolored sprinkles. concocted by the pastry chef of a luxury the railing overlooking the canyon as if to Prytyskacz, who also shows luscious color hotel in Ireland on the site of an actual 16th pit one worldly wonder against another. pictures of chocolate covered marshmallows, century castle. No Hostess Twinkie by any In L.A., it gets its close-up right in front of arranged like a bouquet of flowers on long means, it resemble a rare orchid pierced by a the hills bearing the huge letters that spell skewers, fresh candied apples and a pyramid chocolate spear. HOLLYWOOD. Then there is “Brooklyn of honey balls, may be photography’s answer Lucinda Prince, on the other hand, brings Bridge,” where it steals the scene, distracting to Wayne Thiebaud, the California painter of us back down to earth –– or, more accurately, bemused tourists from yet another landmark Pop cakes and pies. below it –– with stylized semi-abstract by being more yummy-looking. Like their Photographer/chiropractor Dr. Barry representations of grapefruits and apples subject, Jack Cesareo’s color prints are very Pinchefsky combines the intimate mood photographed from the decorative tiles of large, suggesting an ongoing narrative about of the family album picture with art New York City subway stations. a sweet thing’s relentless bid for fame and photography in his pictures of a child’s Then there is Amy Rosenfeld, whose photo fortune in the Big Apple. birthday party. He shows an elaborate white collage “Cafe Lalo Desserts,” combines an JD Morrison, the show’s co-curator, frosted, gaily colored sculptural production, ornate collage juxtaposing of an Art Deco is another artist with a unique vision decorated with lollypops and other goodies, postcard for Cafe Lalo with snapshots of whose pictures tend to put a strange aura in “Rosabella’s First Birthday Cake.” But desserts and happy customers devouring on ordinary things. In Morrison’s “The by far his most engaging picture is “Gee, them. Bon appétit! –– Maureen Flynn Cheshire Strawberry,” for one zany example, I Hope My Second Birthday Tastes This the fruit of the title perches like a cat on a Good Too,” which focuses on the birthday tree-limb. At its center the strawberry wears a girl herself, her face, one of her hands, and WSAC, “Desserts,” through April 8, 2012, wide smiley face expression, as it casts an eerie her pink bib blissfully smeared with white at Broadway Mall Community Center, flying saucer glow. The bark of the tree is frosting. 96th Street (center island) G&S Classifieds opportunities West Side Arts Coalition (WSAC) established 1979, welcomes new members from all Michael R. Horenstein geographicareas. There are approximately 1 4exhibits per year for Fine Arts, Photography, and Craft Arts. Attorney & Counsellor at Law Music, Poetry, Theater and Dance programs available. Contact info: Tel. 212-316-6024, ➢ Arts Law, Provenance Concerns [email protected] or website- www.wsacny.org. Or send SASE to the West Side Arts Coalition, ➢ General Business Law PO Box 527, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025. Visit our ground floor gallery at 96th Street & ➢ Contract Drafting & Review Broadway (on the center island) New York City. Open: Wed. 6-8pm, Sat. & Sun., 12-6pm. ➢ Corporate Law & Company Formation ➢ Commercial Litigation Custom Picture Framing for artists and galleries. Museum quality, selected frames & 437 East 80th Street, No. 27, New York NY 10075 mats. Float & dry mounting, canvas stretching. Jadite Galleries, 662 10th Ave. (betw. 46/47 Sts.) Ph: (212) 517-7340 Email: [email protected] Hours: 12 - 6 pm, Free delivery in Manhattan. 212-977-6190 [email protected]

Montserrat Contemporary Art Gallery is reviewing artist portofolios for its new For health care information please contact Chelsea Gallery. National and International artists are invited to submit. Sase, slides, photos and brief New York Artists Equity Association, Inc. (NYAEA) at 212-941-0130. artist bio. Send to: Montserrat Contemporary Art Gallery, 547 West 27 Street, NYC 10001 Write for information to NYAEA, PO Box 1258, New York, NY 10276 NYART MAGAZI NEseeks experienced advertising rep to help expand advertising base beyond galleries to include art related cliental. Generous commission. or email: [email protected] or [email protected] email: [email protected] nohoG alleryis viewing portfolios in all media for our Chelsea location. Visit nohogallery.com Gelabert Studios for application form, or send SASE to Noho Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, NY, NY 10001. Gallery MANHATTAN ARTS INTERNATIONAL announces its 7th “Celebrate The Healing Power of offers artists the opportunity to showcase their work in a unique, ART”juried online exhibition. The purpose is to promote artists who share our belief about art and its vital elegant Upper West Side setting. Fully equipped gallery for rent importance to healing individuals and the planet. We are seeking all styles of art that is positive and on weekly or yearly basis. Top quality lighting. Call 212-874- uplifting. All media except video/film. There are no size restrictions. Jurors: Nancy Reyner, artist and 7188 for rental details or visit our website: author;Edward Rubin, NY arts writer and curator; and Renée Phillips, author and director, Manhattan Arts www.gelabertstudiosgallery.com. Gelabert Studios Gallery, International.For more information please visit http://www.manhattanarts.com/Gallery/Healing-Power- 255 W. 86th St. (at Broadway), New York City 10024. of-ART/index.htm

22 GALLERY&STUDIO April/May 2012 DAISY CHAIN United to pick up The Times, so we’ll have SEASONS OF THE MIND Continued from page 19 something to read when we get home.” Continued from page 13 standing. To a casual observer, we could have looked variety of urban and suburban characters with “Jesus, can’t I take you anywhere?” my like a couple who had been together for some warm wit and sympathy. Especially engaging wife asked, glancing nervously toward the time, me carrying the plastic supermarket is “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” in which a house, as the poodle leaped back out of the shopping bags; she holding the leash in one middle-aged blond woman in a flowery dress pool and shook water all over me, as though hand and clinging to my arm with the other; broods alone in an over decorated living it knew exactly what it was doing. the dog pulling ahead, as we made our way room with a full moon and a neon Cafe sign Now I was regretting that rash move in through the quiet, leaf-strewn West Village visible in the window. retrospect and wondering if it might have streets, back to the apartment. Two abstract artists also made a strong counted in my favor and kept my wife from But once again, I was already plotting showing: Amy Rosenfeld’s “Intertwining leaving me if I had behaved more like a kindly my escape. It was one thing to sleep with Shapes” and “Shapes and Colors” were both Doctor Dolittle type, as I gave a good sharp someone; but meeting their parents, or bold, dynamic compositions, featuring forms yank to Dylan’s leash to get him away from letting them make you breakfast, or going that embraced like puzzle pieces laid down that big steaming pile of shit, so we wouldn’t out to walk their dog with them, then back in brushy areas of matte acrylic hues. Richard have to claim it and have some busybody “home” to hang out leisurely passing sections Carlson, whose works sometimes feature yenta come along and start lecturing me of the Sunday Times back and forth, was figurative fragments in an abstract context, about my civic responsibility as a dog owner. quite another. It felt much too intimate, offered his almost minimalist “Spectrum Just then, Naomi came out of the too domestic. It made me feel emotionally Series,” in which vertical stripes, some with supermarket and said, “Wow, he didn’t come unfaithful to the wife who had left me and columns of newsprint showing through rushing at me the minute he saw me. I’m filled me with remorse. vibrant translucent hues, others in gray so happy that you two are finally bonding. * * * monochromes, projected a stately presence. Let’s make a quick stop across the street at ––– Byron Coleman

CLWAC biblical scene in drybrush W.C., “Jeremiah Continued from page 7 1:5 Before I Formed You in the Womb, I Impressionists, with tiny maternal paintings Knew You”; and Arlene B. Robbins’ detailed scenes that go beyond appropriation to yet fresh and fluid aquarelle of the bronze succeed on their own merits. “Alice in Wonderland,” at the fountain in In “Wrestling Sumos,” Lynda Sumner Central Park. combines the two struggling forms of One wants to go on and on, but space only Japanese wrestlers into a single struggling permits brief mention of other highlights, mass of bronze that takes on an expressive such as Virginia Abbott’s amazing and monumental presence above and beyond antically baroque mixed media assemblage, “Give Up the Ghost,”; Janet Cook’s “Sisters,” a large oil in an ornate neo-art- nouveau style of two semi-nude young women with flowing hair literally floating Eleanor Tyndall Meier in air; and Dorothy S. Stewart’s “Hand Laundry,” a small, atmospherically evocative oil of closed storefronts and gaping tenement doorways engulfed in areas of light and

Carolyn Hesse-Low its relatively modest proportions. Gloria Spevacek’s “Large Resting Puma,” a sizable sculpture in bronze resin is at once monumental and reposeful, reminding one of Jo Davison’s famous sculpture of Gertrude Stein. Then there is “The Seeker,” another bronze by Margaret Nicholson depicting a nude adolescent girl reading a book, her slender form angular and demurely posed. And a medium sized piece in carved elmwood called “Letting Go,” Jean T. Kroeber captures the lighter-than-air mood of two embracing young lovers. Watercolor also makes an impressive Andrea Placer appearance in Mary Coelho’s exquisitely bucolic little composition, “Gate to the shadow which bears favorable comparison to Garden,” with its masterly handling of Edward Hopper’s “Sunday Morning.” chiaroscuro; as well as in Diane E. Halley’s –– J. Sanders Eaton contrastingly meticulous large fresco-like Jacqueline Lorieo

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO 23 2012 U.S. Performance Tour 2012Korean U.S.Folk Music Performance on the World TourStage Korean Folk Music on the World Stage

Sonagi Project is a Korean percussion group, which is consisting of fiSonagi ve musicians, Project isled a Koreanby Chang percussion Jea Hyo. Thegroup, group which has is created consisting modern, of Sonagi Project fi ve musicians, led by Chang Jea Hyo. The group has created modern, Sonagi Project original music on the basis of Korean traditional rhythms and chants. “Barame Soop” Beingoriginal inspired music onto Korea’sthe basis shamanic of Korean culture traditional and the rhythms vocal andart of chants. “Barame Soop” Pansori,Being inspired Sonagi’s to Korea’sperformances shamanic have culture expressed and thean excitingvocal art emotion, of - Forest, Wind and Rain - thePansori, pathos Sonagi’s from deep performances bottom of Koreanhave expressed heart and an dynamic exciting energy emotion, - Forest, Wind and Rain - ofthe Korean pathos traditional from deep music. bottom They of Korean have made heart anand effort dynamic on energy contemporaryof Korean traditional translation music. to TheyKorea’s have traditional made an music. effort on Sonagicontemporary Project translationcreated its toown Korea’s performance traditional in 2008music. by using KoreanSonagi Projecttraditional created instruments. its own performanceIt is called “Barame in 2008 Soop”by using (Forest,Korean traditionalWind & Rain). instruments. “Baramesoop” It is called has been“Barame favorably Soop” reviewed(Forest, Wind and &infl Rain). uenced “Baramesoop” on folk music has area been of Korea. favorably reviewed and infl uenced on folk music area of Korea. Sonagi Project is recognized as one of the leading percussion groupsSonagi Projectin Korea. is Therecognized group has as performedone of the leading“Baramesoop” percussion since 2008. Specifigroups cally, in Korea. they Thehave group two mainhas performed concerts at “Baramesoop” National Museum since of 2008. Korea in Seoul inSpecifi 2008. cally, They they also, have participated two main in concerts Brazil Music at National Tour for Museum three weeks of Korea in 2009 in Seoul andin 2008. Japan They Music also, Tour participated in 2011. They in Brazil won Music Surim Tour Cultural for three award weeks of 2010 in 2009Jeonju Int’land JapanSori Festival Music ofTour Korea. in 2011. All members They won of Surim the group Cultural have award longtime of 2010 teaching Jeonju experiencesInt’l Sori Festival for their of Korea. instruments All members and rhythms of the group around have the longtimeworld. 2012 teaching U.S. tour ofexperiences Sonagi Project for their is sponsored instruments by andSurim rhythms Cultural around Foundation the world. in Korea. 2012 U.S. tour of Sonagi Project is sponsored by Surim Cultural Foundation in Korea. Website and performance clip: http://sonagiproject.blogspot.com/ SponsoredWebsite and by performance Surim Cultural clip: Foundation http://sonagiproject.blogspot.com/ website: www.surimcf.or.kr ContactSponsored Dr. byJu-Yong Surim Ha:Cultural [email protected] Foundation website: www.surimcf.or.kr Contact Dr. Ju-Yong Ha: [email protected]

Schedule of Performance and Workshop APRIL 2012 Schedule of Performance and Workshop APRIL 2012 Hartford University (CT) SOMETHIN’ Jazz Club Monday,Hartford April University 2, 2012 (CT) Monday,SOMETHIN’ April Jazz16, 2012 Club Monday,Bliss Music April Room, 2, 2012 F213 Monday,10:00 - 11:45 April pm 16, - Performance2012 2:30Bliss - Music 4:20 pm Room, - Percussion F213 Workshop 10:00 - 11:45 pm - Performance Tuesday,2:30 - 4:20 April pm -3, Percussion 2012 Workshop Korean Cultural Service NY Tuesday,Millard Auditorium, April 3, 2012 Fuller Music Center Friday,Korean April Cultural 13, 2012 Service NY 12:30Millard - 2:00Auditorium, pm - Performance Fuller Music Center Friday,KCS Gallery April 13, 2012 12:30 - 2:00 pm - Performance 7:30KCS Gallerypm - Performance Wesleyan University (CT) 7:30 pm - Performance Wednesday,Wesleyan UniversityApril 4, 2012 (CT) Brandeis University (MA) Wednesday,TBA - Workshop April and 4, Presentation2012 BrandeisSlosberg Music University Center (MA) Slosberg Music Center Thursday,TBA - Workshop April 5,and 2012 Presentation Wednesday, April 18, 2012 Thursday,Crowell Concert April Hall5, 2012 Wednesday,1:00 - 1:50 pm April - MUS 18, 3b 2012 Intro to World Music 7:00Crowell pm Concert- Performance Hall 3:301:00 - 4:501:50 pm - HISTMUS 3b183a Intro Empire to World at the Music 7:00 pm - Performance Margins:3:30 - 4:50 Borderlands pm - HIST 183ain Late Empire Imperial at the China Skidmore College (NY) Thursday,Margins: Borderlands April 19, 2012 in Late Imperial China SkidmoreArthur Zankel College Music Center: (NY) Helen Filene Ladd Thursday,1:00 - 1:50 Aprilpm - Music19, 2012 3b Intro to World Music ConcertArthur Zankel Hall Music Center: Helen Filene Ladd 2:001:00 - 3:201:50 pm - HISTMusic 80b 3b EastIntro Asia: to World 10th Music Century Monday,Concert Hall April 9, 2012 to2:00 the - Present3:20 pm - HIST 80b East Asia: 10th Century Monday,12:20 - 2:10 April pm 9, - 2012Class Presentation to the Present Tuesday,12:20 - 2:10 April pm 10, - Class 2012 Presentation Union College (Schenectady, NY) Taylor Music Center Emerson Auditorium Tuesday,7:00 pm - AprilPerformance 10, 2012 Union College (Schenectady, NY) Taylor Music Center Emerson Auditorium 7:00 pm - Performance Monday, April 23, 2012 Lycée francais de New York Monday,5:00 pm - April Performance 23, 2012 5:00 pm - Performance Friday,Lycée Aprilfrancais 13, 2012 de New York Tuesday, April 24, 2012 Friday,Lycée francais April 13, Auditorium 2012 Tuesday,2:00 - 3:30 April pm -24, Workshop 2012 1:00Lycée - francais2:00 pm -Auditorium Performance 2:00 - 3:30 pm - Workshop 1:00 - 2:00 pm - Performance Diana Freedman-Shea

Looking Down and Looking Out American Watercolor Society April 24–May 19, 2012

145th Annual International Exhibition April 3–April 22, 2012

Salmagundi Club Prince Street Gallery 47 Fifth Ave at 12th Street, New York, NY 10003 530 West 25th St., NYC 10001 Hours: Tue - Sat 11- 6 pm Daily 1–5pm, Tuesday 1–8pm, Monday closed 646 230 0246 princestreetgallery.com www.americanwatercolorsociety.org Jeff Woodger “A Woodland Scene” 2012 Oil on canvas 40" x 30" “A Woodland New Romantic Landscapes An Australian journeyman’s new romantic views from Australia, Japan and New York City. May 29, - June 9, 2012 Reception: June 2, 4 - 6 pm

530 West 25th St., NYC, 10001 Tues - Sat 11 - 6pm 212 367 7063 www.nohogallery.com

April/May 2012 GALLERY&STUDIO