JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2008 www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com VOL. 10 NO. 5 New York GALLERY&STUDIO FANCY DELANCEY STARBUCKS BOHEMIA The New Museum and the New Lower East Side Gallery Scene by Ed McCormack Cover photo by Antonio Huerta ” Dry Tears “ On View May 14 - July 11, 2008 www.huc.edu/museums/ny HEBREW UNION COLLEGE –JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION MUSEUM ,usvhv hgsnk iufn – 'dkue iuhbuh urchv Brookdale Center, One West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012-1186 Rosalyn A. Rosalyn A. Engelman: Joe Chierchio “Barber Shop” Colored Pencils 16" x 20" Colored Pencils “Barber Shop” Sept. 9 - Oct. 4, 2008 GALLERY OF GRAPHIC ARTS, LTD 1601 York Ave. New York, N.Y. 10028 212-988-4731 Tues-Sat 11-6:30 www.joechierchio.com [email protected] GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2008 G&S Highlights On the Cover: Art, real estate and historical Joe Chierchio, pg. 31 self-consciousness animate the living Hendrik Smit, pg. 25 diorama that is the booming new Lower East Side gallery scene. A native son reports. (centerfold) Dorothy A. Culpepper, pg. 4 Joseph DiPiazza, pg. 8 Elizabeth Delson pg. 27 Anne Kolin, pg. 7 Wayne Thiebaud pg. 10 A.B. Bradshaw, pg. 28 Rosalyn A. Engelman, Alphonse Lane, pg. 6 pg. 26 Kenneth Dinkel, Jane Stanfel, pg. 11 pg. 29 GALLERY&STUDIO Subscribe to An International Art Journal PUBLISHED BY GALLERY&STUDIO $22 Subscription $18 for additional Gift Subscription $44 International $4 Back Issues © EYE LEVEL, LTD. 2008 Mail check or Money Order to: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GALLERY&STUDIO 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 217 East 85th St., PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 Phone: 212-861-6814 (212) 861-6814 E-mail: [email protected] Name EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Jeannie McCormack MANAGING EDITOR Ed McCormack Address SPECIAL EDITORIAL ADVISOR Margot Palmer-Poroner DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Karen Mullen City CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Maureen Flynn www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com State/Zip 2 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2008 Stacey Clarfield Newman: Courage and Transformation rt is not therapy and art can save unconscious attraction towards the light. somewhat incongruously over an area of Anobody. This is a hard truth known by The purification of the soul by fire, repre- bare white paper, perhaps signifying how the all artists who have been faced with devas- sented in Romanesque art by the burning ever changing cycles of life mirror those of tating life challenges. Yet it is also inarguable ember placed by the angel in the prophet’s the seasons. that art, in times of suffering, can provide mouth, is visually portrayed on a small Indeed Newman maintains that her cho- consolation and spiritual succor for those Mattei urn by means of an image of Love sen medium, collage “is like life in its layer- who create it, as well as for those who are holding a butterfly close to the flame. The ing of reality and fantasy, trials and success- receptive to it. Angel of Death was represented by the es.” And her own process, which she refers For this reason, over the years, along Gnostics as a winged foot crushing a butter- to as “painting with paper” (since she with gaining critical begins by hand painting acclaim for her gallery the papers that she cuts exhibitions, Stacey or tears, to assemble her Clarfield Newman has compositions) is more devoted considerable layered than most. Often time and energy to cre- it involves layering trac- ating murals for hospi- ing paper, tissue, rice tals and AIDS outpa- paper, and watercolor tient facilities––places paper of different where people come face weights and densities to to face with mortality create contrasts between and the spirit is tested. opacity and translucency, Over the past four the complexity further years, since her last enhanced by photo exhibition in Chelsea, transfer and drawn Newman herself has imagery that adds an been tested by life- evocative symbolic ele- threatening illness and a ment to the overall succession of family abstract thrust of her crises which are reflect- compositions. ed, however obliquely, Newman’s use of in her new solo show at such imagery is especial- Viridian Artists, 530 ly affecting in “Breast West 25th Street, from Plate,” which refers June 3 through 28, directly to her bout with with an artist’s recep- breast cancer and inte- tion on Thursday, June grates photo transfers of 5th from 6 to 8 pm and mammeries, a woman a collector’s reception with upraised arms, and on Saturday June 21, other significant symbols from 3 to 6 pm. The with bold abstract col- title of the exhibition “Breast Plate, 2008” lage areas akin to “Naked on the Wall” speaks to the level of fly, from which we may deduce that the but- Abstract Expressionist brush strokes. Here, candor and vulnerability that makes terfly was equated with life rather than the too, the irregular shape of the composition Newman’s latest series of mixed media and soul in the sense of the spirit or transcen- and its expansive sense of scale in relation to collage paintings among the most powerful dent being. This also explains why psycho- the body of the viewer (akin to how an X- and compelling of her career. analysis regards the butterfly as a symbol of ray screen conforms to the proportions of “I felt like Rip Van Winkle, waking after a rebirth.” the human torso, an effect heightened by long sleep,” Newman said during a recent With this in mind, the symbol of the but- the photo-negative quality of the imagery), phone conversation, speaking of how eager terfly seems more of a grace-note than ever, along with the suggestiveness of the title, she had been to get back to work after as it flutters through recent collages by provoke an unusual sense of visceral empa- recovering from her surgeries. “I remember Newman, such as “Aftermath.” In this long thy, when one comes into close physical being in a parking lot in the rain; people all horizontal piece, its format suggesting a proximity to the collage. around me were complaining about the Chinese hand-scroll, the red floral forms Other collages, such as “Inner Piece” weather, and here I was looking up at at the flaring out at the center of the composition (pun obviously intended to skirt cliché and sky, feeling just so grateful to be alive...” take on a visceral quality that the artist con- emphasize formal intention) and “Vagabond Even before she took seriously ill, firms. While making clear that they were not Blues,” are idyllic abstract landscapes, the Newman’s collages were life-affirming in a deliberately contrived to represent anything former depicting an imaginary realm of pri- manner that set them apart from much so specific, Newman states that these fiery vate solace, the latter celebrating the restless other contemporary art. Now, the timeless red forms now remind her of how her body joy of having a new lease on life. symbol of the butterfly, long ubiquitous in “was literally torn open” by the trauma of Like all of Stacey Clarfield Newman’s her compositions and continuing as a her medical ordeals. recent works, these are the profoundly prominent feature of her new work, is espe- At the top left of the composition, a radi- inspiring personal testaments of a highly tal- cially resonant in light of her recent experi- ant bird hovers uncertainly, as though hav- ented artist who has walked through fire ences. ing lost its way, while at the lower right a and emerged whole to tell the tale. In “A Dictionary of Symbols,” J.E. Cirlot large butterfly flutters close to the blood- tells us that among the ancients, the butter- red, flame-like fronds. Nearby, sharper ––Ed McCormack fly was “an emblem of the soul and of the forms, resembling autumn leaves, float JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2008 GALLERY&STUDIO 3 Dorothy A. Culpepper: Painting in Maximum Overdrive ontext, in (Reception: Ccontemporary Thursday, July painting, can 17, from 6 to often appear to be 8 PM.) everything. When One of the we understand ways that that a certain Culpepper keeps mode of expres- her work fresh is sion has been his- by continually torically validated, employing new those who contin- techniques for ue or extend its manipulating pig- tradition can be ment by pouring readily absorbed and dripping and into the critical other means, to dialogue. keep the surface However, the of the work active danger in such a and alive. The simplistic system title of her new of aesthetic assim- show indicates ilation was point- the degree of ed out by risk-taking that Kandinsky, the makes her work a father of “pure kind of high-wire composition,” as act, predicated on he referred to it, spontaneous as early as 1912, processes of paint when he wrote, handling and split “The artist must second decision train not only his making. eye but his soul, “My work is a so that it can never ending weigh colors in its challenge in own scale and design, color and thus become a finding a way to determinant in paint that is total- artistic creation. If ly me,” she has we begin to break stated. “I want to the bonds that feel free as I bind us to nature express myself and to devote through paint, ourselves purely found objects and to the combina- shapes of color tion of pure color and canvas. As and independent my work matures, form we shall pro- I realize that the duce works that “Discompose” history of art has are mere geomet- spirit’ that then take place are either per- helped my paint- ric decoration, resembling something like sonal, in that they affect some kind of ings and monoprints to evolve into maxi- a necktie or a carpet....” mental integration, or perhaps supra-per- mum overdrive.