VGALLERY&STUDIOOL. 4 NO. 4 APRIL/MAY 2002 New York The World of the Working Artist ART for the BOOK APRIL 2002 DALI FINI

Moise et le Monotheisme, Freud 1974 Silver Plated Sculpture La Fanfarlo, Beaudelaire 1969 Watercolor Study CFM Gallery 112 Greene Street, SoHo, New York City 10012 (212) 966-3864 Fax (212) 226-1041 [email protected] www.cfmgallery.com VICENTE SAAVEDRA Ed Brodkin Recent Works

“Auguries,” Mixed Media, 47.5" diameter

“Birth of a Mandolin” Oil on Linen 22" x 14" April 23 - May 11, 200 Selected Oil Paintings Reception Thurs. Apr. 25, 5 to 8pm & Sat., April 27, 3 to 6 pm May 21 - June 1, 2002 Reception: Tuesday, May 21, 5-7pm 530 W. 25 St. • NYC 10001 PLEIADES (646) 230-0056 GALLERY Tues - Sat 11 - 6pm or by appt. Gelabert Studios Gallery Artist’s Studio: (201) 444-5399 • [email protected] 255 West 86th Street, NYC 10024 (212) 874 7188 wwwgallerynow.com/brodkin Cordula Ehms and Ray Wilkins “Faces of Life - Frozen in Emotion” Cordula Ehms, “Tulip Fields Forever” acrylics, dungrass, palmseeds Cordula Ehms, “Tulip on canvas 100Cm x 120cm “Courage” acrylics, pigments, sand on canvas 90cm x 100cm Ray Wilkins April 2 - April 27, 2002 • Reception: April 12, 6-8pm World Fine Art Gallery 511 West 25th St., 8th Fl NY, NY 10001 646-336-1677 www.worldfineart.com Tues - Sat 12 - 6 pm

GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Marjeta Lederman New Works Kimono #28 oil on canvas 36" x 60" Photo: Howard Goodman ”From Oriental Inspiration” April 23-May 11, 2002 Reception: Thursday, April 25, 5:00-8:30pm

530 W. 25 St. • NYC 10001 PLEIADES (646) 230-0056 GALLERY Tues - Sat 11 - 6pm G&S Highlights

On the Cover: “The livre de peintre—or artist’s book— achieved its fullest, most fantastic flowering only at the hands of surrealism’s two renegade classicists Marjeta Lederman, and transcendent draftspersons: pg. 7 Leonor Fini and Salvador Dali.” Art for the Book, CFM Gallery–Page 3 Patti Mollica, pg. 11

Susan Sills, pg. 32

Amy Banker, pg. 4

Hideo Mori, pg. 24 Ed Brodkin, pg. 10 GALLERY&STUDIO An International Art Journal Leon Yost, PUBLISHED BY pg. 13 © EYE LEVEL, LTD. 2002 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 (212) 861-6814 E-mail: [email protected] EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Jeannie McCormack MANAGING EDITOR Ed McCormack Vicente Saavedra, pg. 6 SPECIAL EDITORIAL ADVISOR Margot Palmer-Poroner DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Karen Mullen CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Juliet M. Ross Olga Sheirr, pg. 5

2 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Fini, Dali, and the Art of the Book at CFM Gallery “ he dream, then, has been a paradise exquisite eroticism, mythologized history, was to become one of the seminal libertine Tof books—a select few—in which the subjective spirituality, and arcane fabula- texts of the hippy era when it was pub- beams supporting the volumes should truly tion. lished in English translation as “The Story be sunbeams,” Andre Breton stated in Thus, “Art for the Book,” featuring of O”––will agree that Leonor Fini and 1937, in regard to his exalted vision for work by Leonor Fini and Salvador Dali, at this S&M classic were made for each other. livres de peintre, or artist’s books. “A spe- CFM Gallery,” 112 Greene Street, which No one but Fini, with her own unabashed- cial condition attaching to these books is opens April 5th, offers a unique view of the ly varied and adventurous sexual history that they should all be worth reading, that surrealist book, one that differs markedly to––quite literally––draw upon, could have they and they alone should form the phos- and elegantly from the notion of the livre illuminated this tale of a young woman’s phorescent substance of what we are de peintre as a repository for undecipher- increasingly ecstatic discovery of the joys of expecting to know and love, of what able texts, slapdash avant garde posturing, fleshly submission more feelingly. Fini’s eccentric typography, and chaotic design. evocative pictures of the willowy protago- Curated by Neil Zukerman, the owner nist’s encounters with a succession of and director of CFM Gallery and a leading prodigiously endowed ravishers are execut- contemporary champion of surrealism and ed with a linear and tonal fluidity that symbolism, the exhibition is also remark- makes her lithographs all but indistinguish- able for the unprecedented glimpses that it able from watercolors. In fact, Neil gives of the creative process of both artists. Zukerman, who reintroduced Fini in the For it includes not only actual volumes that United States tells one that he had to take can normally only be seen in the rare-book action at one point to stop one major rooms of exclusive libraries or the homes of international auction house from represent- a few private collectors, and lithographs ing them as such. And one can easily see and etchings from them, but in some cases, why, comparing the similarities between a preliminary studies that demonstrate how watercolor study and final illustration for certain illustrations evolved from initial this edition, published by Cercle de Livre conception to published work. Indeed, in Precieux, Paris, in 1962. some instances, the various stages––study, Because of the juxtapositioning of works copper plate, and finished illustration––are in various stages throughout the exhibi- exhibited side by side or even framed tion, other instructive comparisons can be together as a single entity. made between Fini’s oil portrait of Maria Of the actual books included in the exhi- Von Karnstein and the silkscreen that was bition, one of the heftiest and most alto- made from it and reproduced in gether magnificent volumes is the deluxe “Carmilla” published by Sherian Fanou, as Salvador Dali: lithograph/etching on edition, illustrated by Salvador Dali, of well as in her studies and finished illustra- lambskin for “Moise et le Monotheism” Sigmund Freud’s “Moise et le tions for such lavish volumes as “Livre by Sigmund Freud Monotheisme (Moses and Monotheism),” d’Images” by Juan-Bautista Piniero and printed in 1974. With its silver plated, “Monsieur Venus,” by Roman de enables us to look forward, not backward, sculpted cover depicting the full length fig- Racnhilde. and act accordingly.” ure of Moses, his head encircled by the As for Dali, who can deny that he under- This passionate effusion, issued a full halo of a monolithic eye dripping tears that took his most exalted collaboration when decade and a half after Breton’s futile vow flow in rhythm with the waves of his beard, his patron Giuseppe Alberetto, a religious ––made on behalf of himself, Paul Eluard, the sheer size of the book suggests the Catholic who hoped to save his soul, con- and Robert Desnos––to cease all literary imposing dimensions of the stone tablets vinced him to illustrate “The Dali Bible,” activity, expresses the almost metaphysical on which The Ten Commandments were his lavish and unorthodox interpretation of powers with which the surrealists invested supposedly handed down from Mount the holy book published by Lancell. Yet, the book. Yet, for all the intriguing experi- Sinai. Shown along with the book are ten Cervantes and Dante also inspired some of ments with collage, nonreferentiality, and untitled illustrations that Dali created for Dali’s most fantastic graphic excursions, as textual fragmentation that resulted from it. Printed on lambskin, an unusual materi- seen in his editions of “Don Quichotte the collaborations between surrealist poets al that lends them an extraordinary sensu- (Don Quixote)” and the “Divine and painters endeavoring together to sub- ality, in a combination of lithography and Comedy,” published in the 1960s by vert the traditional relationship of writer etching, their fiery colors and densely lay- Joseph Foret and Les Heures Claires, and illustrator, of image to text, the livre ered figures and forms evoke an inferno of respectively. de peintre achieved its fullest, most fantas- subconscious imagery that only Dali’s The great variety of books, original tic flowering only at the hands of surreal- complex visual vocabulary could have done drawings, studies, watercolors, and prints ism’s two renegade classicists and transcen- full justice. Freud’s seminal writings on the on view here and the coherent manner in dent draftspersons: Leonor Fini and riches and demons of the psyche and its which they are presented make for a schol- Salvador Dali. dreams provided fodder for all of the surre- arly, as well as a sensual and aesthetic, expe- For if Breton chose to join forces with alists, but particularly for Dali, who pays rience. And while both Fini and Dali are Matta, Magritte with Mesen, Man Ray him the ultimate tribute here, interpreting well represented in “Desire Unbound,” with Paul Eluard, and so on, Fini and Dali his ideas with that combination of intricate the big surrealist survey currently drawing were far more discriminating in choosing refinement and impulsive splashiness, of crowds to The Metropolitan Museum of their collaborators, forsaking the chummy, intellect and madness, that makes this Art, this more intimate show at CFM aesthetically incestuous creative liaisons of majestic volume a blissful textual/visual Gallery does far greater justice to the their contemporaries for a wide ranging marriage. contribution each made to the art of variety of classic texts that would enable Similarly, anyone who ever read the book. them to indulge their predilection for “Histoire D’O” by Pauline Reage––which ––Ed McCormack

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 3 Amy Banker: Postmodern Heir to the New York School

hile it took several leisurely cen- scraped and distressed surfaces, their ticity that is undeniable and inspiring to Wturies for figurative painting to vibrant chromatic contrasts, and their those of us who still hold high hopes for evolve from the ancient world, through thinly scumbled passages giving way to the future of genuine painterly endeavor. the Renaissance, beyond Impressionism, gorgeous, juicy impastos. At the same On encountering an oil such as to the present––when a good many artists time, there is a lot more than mere “Bicycle and Umbrella” at Ezair Gallery, still struggle with the challenge of repre- painterly pyrotechnics to be found in the one is immediately struck by its composi- senting the visible aspects of experience work of this artist who Knox Martin, one tional thrust, its coloristic impact, and its fruitfully—it would seem that the cycles of her mentors at The Art Student rugged physical presence, recalling the of abstract art have been on fast-forward league, has predicted will be a “leading almost visceral jolt one felt, facing for the since the start of last century. force in the 21st century art world,” first time a de Kooning, a Pollock, or a Propelled by critical pressures that have adding that Banker has already “earned Gorky. For without being in the least bit little to do with the timeless space in admiration and respect as a distinguished imitative of those earlier artists, Banker which painting should properly germinate American artist.” reinstates the notion of the painting as at its own pace, there can be no doubt Amy Banker herself will tell you that both object and event by virtue of her that this too-rapid acceleration in the the legacy of Abstract Expressionism was muscular paint handling and her rhapsod- name of novelty has cheated ic orchestration of a palette us of much that abstract art that ranges from rosy to has yet to offer, aborting its vibrant red hues, to deep progress and its promise at nocturnal blues, to verdant crucial points, simply greens, to strident yellows because subsequent genera- and frosty whites that slice tions of artists felt unnatu- decisively into her forms or rally coerced to react play along their edges like against what proceeded liquid light. them as a matter of course, As consummate a rather than being allowed to draftsperson as she is a col- build upon and add to its orist, Banker’s paintings are legacy. beautifully “drawn,” her This is particularly true of brush strokes sliding sinu- Abstract Expressionism, sim- ously on the natural viscosity ply because it loomed so of oil pigment itself, swirling large for so long in the criti- serpentinely to articulate a cal mythology as the move- shape, or veering off to cul- ment that put American minate in splashy configura- painting on the map and tions that obfuscate meaning, established New York City as even as they allude to any its epicenter. In fact, neither number of possible subjects Pop nor Minimalism nor any or objects: the outline of a of the mini-movements that bicycle wheel and the hint followed in their wake have of a figure here; the calli- had the initial impact or graphic suggestion of furious measured up to the accom- patterns of fertile organic plishments of painters such “Poppy Fields” growth in another major as de Kooning, Pollock, painting called “Poppy Kline, and Gorky; nor have they pro- not something she set out to claim but Fields,” or the sense of a weathered, slab- duced work anywhere near as authentical- simply “absorbed by osmosis” as a native like portal dappled by metaphysical auras ly revolutionary. New Yorker. In any case, she has not only in the scroll-shaped composition “Lower Established artists like Brice Marden, assimilated the lessons of the New York East Side Synagogue Door.” Frank Stella, and Lawrence Poons, who School but has built upon them in a It is possible to Rorschach all manner launched their careers with austere geo- manner that makes her a refreshing of subjects into the evocative shapes metric styles, only to circle back in recent anomaly in the contemporary arena for enlivening the compositions of Amy years to explore more gestural modes of the authenticity that she brings to the Banker, who readily admits that all of her expression, appear to have come to this gesture as an autonomous force, uncor- life experiences, from to simplest to the realization belatedly. Even more exciting, rupted by the coy strategizing and hip- most profound––as well as sundry other however, is to discover an emerging per-than-thou irony that far too many of influences, ranging from psychology (in artist such as Amy Banker, whose vigor- her peers employ as self-protective dis- which she holds a degree) to fairy tales–– ous and lyrical abstract canvases can be tancing devices. are fodder for her paintings. Far more seen in two consecutive solo shows at Indeed, Amy Banker wields her brush germane to the importance of her work Ezair Gallery, 905 Madison Avenue, the as though no one ever told her that hon- however, is how successfully Banker first from April 1 to 30; the second from est passion has now become The Last builds on the accomplishments of her May 1 to 31. Taboo, or that slick conceptual schtick aesthetic forbearers, adding a vital new Both exhibitions are entitled “The and stylistic posturing has replaced com- voice to the gestural tradition and Wheels & Deals of Motion,” which mitment to the lyrical impulse in much extending its possibilities into the post- seems as apt a title as any, given the recent art. And her stubborn commit- modern era and beyond. whirling compositional rhythms that ani- ment to following the dictates of her own ––Ed McCormack mate Banker’s canvases, with their tactile sensibility lends her canvases an authen-

4 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 At Juno Gallery: Olga Sheirr’s Radiant French Idyll y any standards that one cares to name, BOlga Sheirr has an impressive pedigree and an exemplary resume. As a young artist her mentor was Aristodimos Kaldis, the flamboyant Greek-born artist who cut a bold swath through the New York art world for decades and is still remembered by the cognoscenti as a “painter’s painter.” From Kaldis, Sheirr apparently learned something about that wizardly sleight of brush that makes a composition morph back and forth between landscape to abstraction; yet from early on in her career, she has developed independently, her style an inseparable facet of her character. Since the early 1960s, Sheirr has exhibit- ed extensively, everywhere from New York, to Paris, to Beijing, and her work has con- tinued to evolve in its own unique way with little regard for trends and fashions, as seen in her new solo exhibition “French Scenes,” at Gallery Juno, 568 Broadway, from May 17 through June 22. One of the constants in the art of Olga Sheirr has always been her ability to evoke a very specific sense of place, even while cre- ating paintings that shine as much for their formal attributes as for their atmospheric qualities. In her most recent group of watercolors, she focuses on “the rich coun- tryside of the Dordogne region with its lambent rivers, stately manors and 13th century towns restored by Andre Malraux; the Vendee region with its castles and moats; Paris and her soaring churches, waterways, and street scenes; and Provence with its villages snuggled into the moun- tainside.” Sheirr employs watercolor in a richly Olga Sheirr, “Ile de la cite” at Gallery Juno, 568 Broadway, Suite 604B saturated manner that lends it the from May 17 - June 22 212 431-1515 weighty presence of more opaque mediums the riverbank, makes the painting as atmos- Literally breathtaking as Sheirr’s such as oils or acrylics. Yet she retains the pherically evocative as any of Utrillo’s pic- “Domme, Dordogne River” paintings are, luminous freshness peculiar to aquarelle, turesque postcard views. however, they are just three pleasures thus achieving a balance between the mate- In terms of their sheer, exhilarating, among many in this show. “Vendee rial and the ethereal that sets her work sweep, among the most exciting achieve- Montaigue la Caillauderie,” for example, apart. ments of the present show are three varia- depicts a stately pale pink chateau bracketed This special synthesis of the physical and tions on the theme “Domme, Dordogne between a shimmering blue sky and a bril- the poetic is especially effective in the River,” particularly one in an extremely liant green lawn. The picture projects an Parisian scene entitled “Ile de la Cité,” horizontal format. With the deep blue river opulence and a genteel ease, lit by a sense where the white cloud formations in the snaking between an intricate patchwork of of underlying drama, that makes one think vibrant blue sky that dominates much of furrowed fields and meadows laid down in of one of Merchant and Ivory’s film epics. the composition were achieved by a combi- vibrant areas of green, pink, orange, and In terms of pregnant tensions brewing nation of leaving patches of the paper bare, ocher, punctuated by foliage, confetti-col- beneath a placid surface, its only painterly as in traditional watercolor technique, and ored flowers, and little white farm houses equivalents are certain canvases by Malcolm the addition of white pigment, as in with brilliant red roofs, this panoramic tour Morley. gouache painting. That lusciously oxygenat- de force appears to operate in time, as well Then there is “Gordes,” a tiny gem of a ed sky, the sparkling blue waters of the as in space. For, much in the manner of a painting, depicting small houses nestled Seine, and the confectionery pink pavement Chinese handscroll, to enter into this paint- into the side of a mountain. Something of running along the riverbank and leading ing is to embark on a journey and be car- an homage to her mentor Kaldis’ paintings the viewers’ eye right into the center of the ried over great distances. However, while of hilly Greek villages, yet limned in her composition, demonstrate how skillfully most classical Chinese scrolls are mono- own inimitable manner, this humble little Sheirr orchestrates chromatic contrasts and chromatic, Sheirr’s accomplishment here is picture encapsulates in its fresh and unaf- harmonies to lend her compositions a tran- all the more remarkable for her ability to fected directness all the hard-won mastery scendent abstract power. At the same time, harness such chromatic complexity to create that makes the art of Olga Sheirr some- Sheirr’s attention to scenic particulars, such such rollercoastering, yet coherent and thing to be treasured. as the foliage and houses clustered along serene, compositional rhythms. ––Ed McCormack

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 5 Vicente Saavedra: A Painter Continues a Great Tradition hile there are those who feel that studied at the Sorbonne, employs his con- complex composition. Along with the old Wprogress in art is contingent solely on siderable training to create paintings that fashioned manual meat grinder of the title, the constant production of new styles, ultimately transcend academicism by virtue which is clamped to the edge of a butcher’s movements, and novelties, there are others of his ability to imbue even the most tradi- block near a bowl of meat, it also includes a who believe just as fervently that one can tional subjects with freshness and immediacy. small vase of dried flowers and a straw-cov- advance the cause of beauty by adhering to His still life paintings are especially notable ered chianti bottle on an adjoining table. the eternal verities; by studying and emulat- for his handling of the play of light and Again, it is possible to read various mean- ing the techniques and values of the Old shadow on a variety of surfaces, as well as ings into the different objects, as one does Masters and employing them to capture for the the artist’s ability to create a com- in one of Chardin’s still lifes, seeing the vis- timeless subjects. pelling composition with the simplest of ceral red meat as a mortal reminder, the Since one of the greatest attributes of all objects. wine as either a sacramental or a bacchana- true art is that it recognizes no absolutes Perhaps one of the most remarkable lian symbol, and so on. With such a reading, beyond the ability of the individual artist to pieces in the present show in this regard is one could indeed see the contents of the express his or her vision convincingly, both the oil on linen entitled “Birth of a adjoining tables as symbolizing poles of life views are valid. In the novelty-hungry cli- Mandolin.” Like most of Saavedra’s paint- and death. mate of the current art scene, however, the Yet, as with a Chardin, it is less traditional artist has a harder row to hoe, so speculative and ultimately more sat- to speak, not only in having to impress us isfying to simply appreciate the way without gimmickry or sensationalism, but in Saavedra ennobles simple things. Far having to measure up to the standards set better, too, to admire the balances by the masters of the past. that he achieves between the con- Happily, Vicente Saavedra, a Venezuelan trasting shapes and their shadows; artist based in New York who looks to the the spatial tensions and textures, as Old Masters of the 16th and 19th centuries well as the subdued, subtly modu- for inspiration, demonstrates the enduring lated tonalities with which he unifies appeal of straightforward realism, reflecting the various elements and brings the wonderment at the beauty of ordinary entire picture alive in a manner that things, in his exhibition “Selected Oil quite literally contradicts the French Paintings,” at Gelabert Studios Gallery, 255 term for still life, nature morte. West 86th Street, at Broadway, from May As a figure painter, as well, 21 through June 1. (There will be a recep- Saavedra gives his subjects great tion for the artist on Tuesday, May 21, from vitality, as seen in two oils entitled 5 to 7 PM.) “Standing Nude” and “Sarah.” The Saavedra, who holds a Masters of Arts former canvas depicts a classically plump model with her face turned Degree from New York University and also “Painter at Easel” away from the viewer, her hair in a ings, it is of relatively modest size, an easel demure bun, the sensual contours of her painting, and its composition is one of his pendulous breasts and torso defined with simplest: a centrally placed stringed instru- exquisitely limned areas of light and shadow. ment poised against a gray backdrop on a In the latter painting, a red-haired model dark tabletop, with a tasseled length of rope leans back in a chair, one leg curving under Toshio wound around it and a crumpled white her, the other extended, her rosy coloring cloth object partially covering its rounded rendered with warm exactitude. Both paint- bottom. ings make palpable the ample proportions of Ikarashi Given the title of the picture, it is possible their subjects in a manner that celebrates the to see the rope encircling the mandolin as female form eternal, as opposed to the more an umbilical cord. That the crumpled cloth minimal attributes promoted by the fleeting appears to be a carrying bag from which the forces of fashion. instrument has been removed can also sug- Also included in the exhibition are two recent work gest a symbolic birth. However, while self portraits. In one, the artist wears a bril- Saavedra’s paintings are evocative enough to liant red smock and turns to regard himself invite a wide range of interpretations, and in a mirror. His hand, holding a brush, is May 9 - 22, 2002 such second-guessing is certainly enjoyable, extended in the air, capturing a split-second one can also derive sufficient pleasure from gesture poised between thought and action regarding them for their aesthetic qualities in the very process of creating the very alone. painting we are looking at. The other self Especially engaging here is the play of portrait shows the shirtless artist wearing a Cast Iron Gallery light on the smoothly polished wooden sur- visor, head down, absorbed in the act of 159 Mercer Street, 4th fl. NYC 10012 face of the mandolin, as well as the subtle mixing paint on an old fashioned hand-held folds and other details in the gray backdrop, palette. The perfect little still life of brushes P. 212 274 8624 F. 212 925 0342 which contrast markedly with the deeper and paint tubes on the nearby work table folds and shadows of the fabric in the fore- furthers the impression of a careful crafts- www.castirongallery.com ground. man paying tribute to the long, great tradi- Gallery Hours. Tues - Sat 12-6 PM By comparison to “Birth of a Mandolin,” tion to which Saavedra belongs. the somewhat larger oil on linen entitled ––Martin Parsons “Meat Grinder” is a considerably more

6 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 For Marjeta Lederman, the Kimono is Still a Richly Allusive Theme hen an artist discovers a theme that Ecole des Beaux Arts in the late 1890s, aspects of an Asian sensibility without sacri- Wsuits her purposes as well as the Lederman makes no secret of her Eastern ficing his personal identity. Japanese kimono serves Marjeta Lederman, influence, as the title of the present show, It is in her oils on canvas, however, that she is wise to continue to explore it as long “From an Oriental Inspiration,” makes Marjeta Lederman braids the best qualities as it proves inspirational. On the evidence of unabashedly clear. of two distinctly different aesthetic strains Lederman’s newest solo exhibition at Thus, along with her oils on canvas, the most strikingly, as seen in the canvas called Pleiades Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, from exhibition includes a group of drawings in Kimono #27,” which for all its Eastern floral April 23 through May 11, the painter still Chinese ink on rice paper, some with touch- decorativeness also suggests the cruciforms finds the kimono a rich creative resource, es of watercolor, in which she consciously so ubiquitous in Christian iconography and employing its outline as a formal arma- Western art. Whether or not ture to support powerful abstract com- Lederman has consciously considered positions and its ornate designs as an crucifixions as a subtext of her kimono imaginative springboard for imagery series, the structural similarity is unde- that transcends decoration to verge on niable, given the flat frontal position- the metaphysical. ing of the garments, which almost Indeed, suggesting the title if not invariably have their sleeves spread out the plot of Tim Rice and Andrew on either side. This allusion, conscious Lloyd Webber’s Broadway hit “Joseph or not, to one of the most powerful and the Amazing Technicolor and emotionally laden symbols in Dreamcoat,” Lederman’s kimonos Western art makes Lederman’s serve as windows to a radiant inner kimonos infinitely more evocative world in which luminous colors and than, say, Jim Dine’s early Pop intricate patterns come alive and take bathrobe paintings, the well known on aspects of the fantastic. contemporary works to which they Lederman, who was born in might most readily be compared. Slovenia and dreamed of being a At the same time, however, the sen- painter since childhood, is essentially sual floral flowering within the self taught. However, she is an excep- kimonos so obviously contradicts their tionately diligent autodidact. Along austere cruciform structures as to cre- with developing her own improvisitory ate dramatic contrasts and visual ten- techniques, such as employing tooth- sions that enrich these paintings dra- picks and sharpened chopsticks to matically. And it is the sensual allure of incise her paint surfaces with intricate Eastern beauty that ultimately wins textures that enrich their tactility, she out and makes Lederman’s paintings has spent interminable hours in muse- succeed so splendidly. For even in a ums, both in her native country and in painting such as “Kimono #26,” the U.S., studying the old and modern where the cruciform is most pro- masters, letting their lessons inform nounced we are thoroughly seduced her work and imbue it with art histori- by luminous hues––ochers, reds, cal resonance. blues, and greens––that appear lit To this day, Lederman tells one, she from within. And we are equally won will go right up to a painting by over by the imagery that enlivens the Gustav Klimt or some other artist she garment: a veritable constellation of admires in a gallery or museum and vibrant floral forms flowing all around scrutinize the pigment at close range a large Oriental vase––an ornate recep- tacle within the imagistic receptacle of to divine the particular alchemy by “Kimono #26” which he or she arrived at this or that the kimono itself! precise effect. Such curiosity concerning adopts tools and techniques traditional to And in Kimono #28,” the one composi- technical matters has paid off handsomely in Asian art, yet adopts them to her own pur- tion in which the sleeves of the garment her own paintings, which are possessed of a poses. These works are floral still lifes in point downward and the cruciform allusion degree of sophistication and refinement that which she demonstrates a quite remarkable falls away altogether, the inner space opens must surely be the envy of many more for- linear facility for a Western painter (or to be like a portal on a realm dominated by a mally trained artists. more accurate, an American painter of large white orchid and brilliant green leaves At their sumptuous best, the light-struck Eastern European origin, particularly in her and fronds, set against a richly variegated, surfaces of Lederman’s oils on canvas can ability to toss out a sinuous line like a lasso burnished reddish ground enlivened by remind one of Monet’s way of making var- and capture the vitality of a living flower or some of Lederman’s most subtly ravishing iegated strokes of color coalesce into a shim- leaf through its carefully controlled varia- painterly activity to date. mering chromatic whole, or the manner in tions of thick and thin, as well as through Marjeta Lederman stated recently that she which Vuillard employed muted, subtly her skill manipulation of the density and intended to continue with the series until modulated hues and delicate textures to tonality of the ink itself. In this regard, she had created at least one hundred evoke the patterns of the fabrics and wallpa- Lederman’s synthesis of Eastern technique kimono paintings. Judging from this second per designs in his domestic interiors. Like and Western sensitivity equals that of Morris solo exhibition centering on the series, the Vuillard, who was highly influenced by the Graves, another artist who, in his subject seems inexhaustible. Japanese art that he first encountered at the floral paintings and drawings, assimilated ––Ed McCormack

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 7 Ikarashi: Materiality as Metaphor The Magical o embody meaning in the surface of a sensibility that he contributes to the whole Tpainting, as well as in its forms and col- retains those special qualities of reticence Moonlit ors, is to employ the medium to its fullest and mystery that Tanizaki argued should be potential. This truth is made clear by the preserved, even as East and West move closer, Narratives of Japanese painter Toshio Ikarashi, whose solo saying, “I would push back into the shadows exhibition of recent work can be seen at the things that come forward too clearly.” Ruth Poniarski Cast Iron Gallery, 159 Mercer Street, from At the same time, the sheer physicality of May 9 through 22. Ikarashi’s work asserts itself powerfully in a at Jadite Galleries Ikarashi, who has won numerous awards large painting such as “Affair in the and exhibited widely in galleries and muse- Woods,” where the aggressive scale of the ums in his native Japan, can be most imme- canvas and the boldness of the composition diately compared to the Spanish artist create considerable impact. Here, the com- Antoni Tapies for the rugged tactility of his position is dominated by two roughly circu- work, manifesting that “noumenal” spirit, to lar forms, their centers aswirl with the afore- use the older painter’s term, that exists in mentioned linear spirals, that converge amid materials themselves. several smaller white shapes, which float Ikarashi’s pigment-encrusted surfaces sug- suggestively over and around them. Some of gest molten energies trapped within sub- these smaller shapes are rectangular and stance. The roughly weathered skin of the inscribed with symbols, suggesting arcane thick pigment exudes a sense of fossilized scripts. Others are sinuous, elongated with vitality, as though it boiled and bubbled appendages that look like stylized fingers or “Bather’s Invention” ferociously into being before being frozen in the prongs of a fork. stasis, with all the evidence of that furious These fork-like shapes are considerably activity left visible on its face. The burnished larger and more prominent in another paint- The painter Ruth Poniarski inhabits golden browns that the artist favors are ing, entitled “Birth in the Woods,” where her own private Arcadia. It is a place decidedly autumnal, suggesting the season they appear superimposed over several inter- where figures from art history mingle for the poetic Japanese custom of moon- locking forms in subdued red, purple, blue, freely, as in a dream, with unlikely human viewing. These natural allusions are fur- ocher, and brown hues. There is a sugges- or animal companions in serene nocturnal thered by recurring references to “woods” tion here of natural forces and energies of landscapes. Although her compositions in the titles of Ikarashi’s recent paintings, as nature that can be likened to the early “new are rife with incongruities, the anxiety well as the scored linear spirals, like the naturist” paintings of Gregory Amenoff, for that one associates with surrealism is wood-grain patterns on the stumps of trees, Ikarashi’s expressive shapes are as elusive as strikingly absent from Poniarski’s paint- that enliven so many of his compositions. they are allusive, which is to say that they ings. These intricate mazes seem as integral to suggest a great deal without being specifical- Thus, the title “Kingdom of Peace” Ikarashi’s work as Hundertwasser entrail-like ly descriptive. In another large canvas enti- seems especially apt for Poniarski’s solo ribbons of color. Ikarashi’s vision, however, tled “Village in the Woods,” however, exhibition at Jadite Galleries, 413 West is considerably more subdued, his colors, Ikarashi introduces clearly identifiable 50th Street, from April 4 through 25. while vibrant, of a somber cast that brings imagery in the forms of rudimentary houses (The reception is April 4, from 6 to 8 to mind the novelist Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s crudely sketched in the manner of a child’s PM.) great essay on aesthetics “In Praise of drawing or the frenzied graphic graffiti of Humor is another element that lends Shadows,” which celebrates all that is subtle Jean-Michel Basquiat. These simple levity to Poniarski’s acrylics on canvas, as and subdued in traditional Japanese culture. dwellings are drawn in white strokes, as seen in “Birth of Venus,” where For although Ikarashi is a decidedly contem- though with chalk on a board, over larger Botticelli’s Venus appears beached, step- porary, internationally-attuned painter who painted rectangular forms. One house is ping onto her pink seashell as though it partakes of all the freedom and formal inno- inscribed with a cross and has an arrow were a surfboard. She holds a towel to vation of the multicultural mainstream, the pointing to it with the word “church” her midriff, but such modesty is barely scrawled nearby. Other words and necessary, since she is semi-transparent phrases such as “who are you?” and anyway, with a nice view of the foamy “my name” are also scrawled here and surf showing through the outline of her there on the composition, their hasty torso. Apparently unfazed by any of this, impulsiveness contrasting starkly with a single white duck waddles along the the elegance of Ikarashi’s painted shoreline. forms, finely scored with those linear In another painting by Poniarski enti- wood-grain patterns that figure so tled “Milking of Spring,” Rembrandt’s prominently in his formal lexicon. slightly more dowdy wader holds her Toshio Ikarashi is a painter whose baggy white nightgown above her flabby work achieves tension and power by knees under a full moon. A bucket virtue of its exquisite balance of simple appears in a bunkhouse window, feeding and complex elements, which combine the stream at her feet, while a lone horse to create their own unique form of poses prettily in profile in the back- beauty. That the material qualities in ground. Poniarski possesses a unique abil- his work are fully as prominent as their ity to orchestrate such incongruities con- formal and symbolic elements, and vincingly, creating a composition with a indeed often overshadow them, lends logic all its own. his paintings a remarkable physical The theme of “The Bather,” so ubiqui- integrity. tous in art history, is reprised once again Toshio Ikarashi ––Peter Wiley in Poniarski’s painting of that title, where 8 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Yali Peng’s Paintings Liberate Calligraphy from Language hat Asians call “ink painting” would calligraphers, particularly in Japan. Wbe considered drawing in the West. We readily embrace this designation, But in order to agree that the term is accu- because Peng’s isolated, yet sensually rate in context it is necessary to understand weighty, shapes do indeed succeed as paint- the weight with which Asian cultures invest ed forms, especially since the artist employs The Gesture. colored inks on grounds tinted with other, Calligraphy, which the Chinese consider paler hues, rather than working in black and superior to painting for its ability to embody white in the monochromatic manner of tra- beauty in brevity, presents an even more ditional ink artists. The particular colors that Peng chooses for her compositions, however “Horse of a Different Color” daunting puzzle for the Western mind, since penmanship, even at its most accomplished, spare, also add to our perception of them as a woman reclines in an outdoor tub amid is not regarded tall trees, her long wavy hair trailing here with any- down onto the forest floor. Nearby two thing near the lions recline in a docile manner that respect accord- recalls both Henri Rousseau’s sleeping ed brushwork gypsy and the peaceable kingdom of in the East. Edward Hicks. Although Poniarski is a And the writ- more sophisticated painter than either of ten character those great primitives, she shares their itself, being uninhibited way with imagery, which undecipher- enables her to create compositions that able to us, are genuinely dreamlike, rather than seems as for- pseudo surreal. midable a bar- In a related canvas called “Bather’s rier as an iron Invention,” the same bathtub, green in gate between color, is seen in an open field under one two cultures. of those full moons that Poniarski paints Yali Pang, so evocatively. While a woman in a robe who recently dips one foot into the water, another had a solo woman similarly garbed perches on the exhibition at edge of the tub, gazing skyward. Behind Artsforum them, in the middle distance, a single Gallery, 24 lion is seen in repose, resembling the West 57th “I Love The Blue Moon” serene stone sentries outside the 42nd Street, solves street branch of The New York Public the problem brilliantly by liberating calligra- paintings, rather than calligraphic works or Library. phy from language, the gesture from the drawings, since they invariably add a Leonine figures appear once again in ideogram, even while retaining its innate painterly dimension to her expressive forms. the title painting of the exhibition, brevity and grace. In doing so, she also For “Loving Sensual Touch,” for exam- “Kingdom of Peace.” Here, three docile bridges the gap between calligraphy and ink ple, Peng chose a deep red hue with the vis- beasts guard the sleep of a slender young painting, making the dance of the brush ceral suggestiveness of dried blood. With woman in leopard-spotted pajamas, as a more appealingly accessible than ever before this color, centered on a pale green ground, fat full moon peeks through deep blue to the Western eye. she creates a form that, for all its bold, non- tree-limbs. Once again, it is Poniarski’s For while it is true that we have learned to specific abstraction, evokes two figures sil- ability to combine the fantastic with the appreciate some aspects of calligraphy as houetted in ardent, even strenuous, erotic mundane that lends her scenes their rar- translated through Abstract embrace. Though seemingly set down with efied flavor. She is a painter acutely Expressionism––especially in the work of a single decisive stroke, this shape suggests attuned to numinous subjects, yet she painters such as Franz Kline, who were the volumic mass of merged human bodies, grounds them with visual wit—those clearly influenced by it––Peng’s work pres- its almost sculptural effect further enhanced jazzy patterned pajamas being the piece ents the brush stroke as an autonomous by its placement against the plain, pale de resistance here––that makes even the entity. ground. (None of which is to suggest that it most outlandish situations seem some- More concerned with flow than with is necessary to “Rorschach” figurative mean- how cozily familiar. “push and pull” (Hans Hofmann’s term for ings into Peng’s compositions, since they Even while being charmed by her often the angst-ridden Western approach to ges- can be appreciated just as well for their deceptively innocent imagery, however, ture that he and his peers cultivated), Peng abstract virtues alone.) one should not be distracted from what sets her swift, sinuous strokes afloat in space In other paintings as well, particularly the a truly exquisite and consummately in a manner more akin to calligraphy than poetically titled “I Love the Blue Moon” sophisticated painter Ruth Poniarski is. to painting. That she paints on canvas, how- and “The First of a Million Kisses,” Yali For her ability to capture the subtlest ever, rather than on rice paper, and with Peng combines Zen-like simplicity with nuances of her subjects and cloak them in acrylic ink instead of Chinese ink or its coloristic expressiveness to give even her mysterious moonlit auras makes her visual Japanese equivalent, Sumi ink, tips one off sparest, most elemental gestures the full narratives not only magically atmospheric that Peng fully intends for her work to be weight and depth of serious painterly but aesthically successful. regarded as painting rather than as writing–– enterprise. ––Peter Wiley even writing of the freeform, nonreferential ––Maurice Taplinger style that has evolved among some modern APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 9

78“Bather’s Invention” Ed Brodkin Sensualizes Semiotics he term “scholars’ painting,” originat- poised on that precipice where images these methods, too, Brodkin realizes forms Ted in China in the Sung dynasty to morph into language, span a grid of panels of beauty whose qualities are quite describe a category of learned artists whose painted with vigorous strokes of pigment unprecedented, having been achieved work differed from that of artisans and aca- that surge in different directions, imbuing through a kind of aesthetic alchemy that demicians in that, according to historian the composition with great energy and can only come about when common mate- and author James Cahill, its “quality of immediacy. rials are transmuted through an uncom- expression was principally determined by In the tondo “Auguries,” the very title mon creative sensibility. the personal qualities of the men who cre- tips one off to Brodkin’s belief that signs Familiar letter forms, for example, ated it.” are pregnant with portents and omens that become objects of pure delectation in a The same could be said of the contem- delve deep into the human psyche, raising mixed media painting called “Footnotes,” porary American painter Ed Brodkin, questions to which there can be no easy where they take on the sinuous grace and whose work is invariably a product of his answers. Here, five circular forms contain- beauty of tropical flora. Juxtaposed with wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, rather ing different ancient symbols for the sun overlapping discs filled with newspaper than of those practical career choices that appear to orbit like planets within the larg- clippings––fragmented media narratives–– make some artists today artisans and acade- er circle of the composition, against a the shapely letters constitute a colorful, micians in the guise of avant gardists. ground enlivened by horizontal bands of albeit incomplete, calligraphic Roman Communication, a subject dear to color overlaid with broken, wavering alphabet: “abcdefgtuvwxyz.” Brodkin’s heart but broad enough to grant strokes of black latex floated over wet Simply by leaving out several middle let- him a good deal of imagistic latitude, is the polyurethane. Around the outer edge of ters, Brodkin calls our attention to begin- overall theme of his solo show of recent works at Pleiades Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, from April 23 through May 11. (There will be receptions for the artist on Thursday, April 25 from 5 to 8 PM. and on Saturday, April 27, from 3 to 6 PM.) Characteristically, Brodkin employs a broad variety of signs and symbols to explore “the power and meanings of visual imagery” as it has evolved in pictographs and other written signs over many cen- turies, from the “primitive”––a word that the artist takes care to qualify with quota- tion marks, given his respect for the innate “Voices” ingenuity of indigenous people––to the most recent high tech permutations of the large circle, in contrast to the ancient nings and ends, seeming to suggest that binary sequences in cyberspace. sun-symbols within the smaller circles, a the mystery in any sequence of events or What is being celebrated here is, in the steady sequence of zeros and ones––the story exists, not in its genesis or its artist’s own distinctive locutions and syn- binary system that is the basis of digital denouement, but in the middle, where the tax, the “unique and wondrous facility computing––introduces an element of significant action that precipitates change among the planet’s fauna” to create writ- modernity that the artist invites us to pon- occurs. ten systems for “sending and receiving der as an augury of either “advancement or The title of another work, “Prologue. information, recording all sorts of transac- oblivion.” Epilogue,” again signifies a fascination on tions, recording and preserving scientific Here, as in all of Brodkin’s work, the Brodkin’s part with beginnings and end- discoveries, reaching for higher under- constantly questioning, probing, philo- ings. Here, several small rectangular pan- standings, correcting by-passed ideas––as sophical content is couched in the context els––each containing a single, elegant letter well as––telling and perpetuating untruths, of a personal painterly vocabulary that set against a dark, earthy ground, its edges preserving foolish myths, brainwashing, could only have been achieved by a illuminated by color chips, as if licked by building and preserving power for the painstaking process of trial and error, flames––are arranged in a large, wing-like greedily ambitious...” through a great deal of experimentation configuration. The suggestion is of lan- As the latter phrases of that statement with a wide variety of unlikely materials. In guage taking flight, as when words gain make clear, Brodkin acknowledges the neg- general, if not in every instance, Brodkin the glorious velocity that results in poetry. ative as well as the positive potential of the tends to favor the use of latex, enamel, The notion of letters borne aloft by wings signs we devise to communicate redeeming polyurethane, and other ostensibly indus- also recalled a rather miraculous event this ideas and destructive doctrines alike. Such trial paints and solvents over traditional writer once witnessed outside New York dualities and paradoxes seem central to artist’s materials such as oils, and even over University, where a sudden, strong gust of Brodkin’s inquiring vision, to the investiga- slightly more modern ones like acrylics. wind made paperback books on a street tive and exploratory nature of his art. Over the years, these materials have vendor’s table start flapping their pages The mixed media painting that Brodkin become so innate to his working process and take off like a flock of pigeons! calls “Ancestral Whispers,” for example, that they meld with his subject matter in a And, indeed, that memory seems an apt takes in a broad spectrum of humanity peculiar manner, forging an amalgam of simile for the way Ed Brodkin elevates the with a procession of starkly simplified fig- physicality and idea that enhances both ordinary, making lowly materials do the ures and sheilds inspired by Paleolithic art the sensual qualities and the meanings of work of high art; transforming familiar employed to represent, in the words of the his compositions. Through such means he images by placing them in new contexts, artist, “warriors, farmers, weavers, builders, materializes his visual metaphors, giving and providing unexpected revelations for hunters, women, men, the wise and the them a weight and physical presence that is the viewer. foolish.” These pictographic personages, finally inseparable from their content. By ––Ed McCormack

10 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Patti Mollica Shares her Shimmering Urban Visions ew York City has inspired so many In her painting “Guggenheim Museum variety of subtle effects: “Midtown Nartists for so many decades––from at Dusk,” for one splendid example, the Mayhem” gains its dynamic momentum poets and novelists, to painters and sculp- eccentrically flowing facade of Frank by her juxtapositioning of the simplified tors, to photographers and filmmakers–– Lloyd Wright’s familiar building on the shapes of yellow cabs, converging in that one would almost think its possibili- left side of the composition creates a broad strokes, with garish smears of neon ties had long ago been exhausted. Then thrusting shape that pulls the eye into the that create a dynamic sense of gritty noc- along comes an artist such as Patti picture. This is counterbalanced by a turnal drama. Conversely, In “Con Ed on Mollica, whose exhibition “Urban lamppost and street signs set against a vig- Park Avenue,” Mollica’s use of boldly Impressions” can be seem at the orously worked white sky on the opposite brushed areas of green gives the urban side of the compo- scene a delightfully incongruous pastoral sition. Bracketed feeling, akin to one of Richard between the muse- Diebenkorn’s semi-abstract California um’s facade and landscapes. Here, too, the peppermint- the green trees striped Con Ed smokestack jutting up out outside Central of the street and the anti-naturalistic Park, directly palette––particularly the chromatic deli- across the street, ciousness of the pink, pale blue, and stri- two figures dent yellow office buildings in the middle strolling along in distance––create a visual excitement that the middle dis- harks back to Fauvism. tance, illuminated It is one of Patti Mollica’s great by a shaft of light strengths as a painter that she can indulge on the sidewalk, such coloristic playfulness even while cap- become the focal turing an authentic sense of the city’s point of the picture character and atmosphere. Indeed, the and unify by their poetic license that she takes with color, as presence all the well as form, only serves to make her other elements. sense of the city feel more real. For By contrast, the Mollica is one of those rare painters painting entitled whose personal vision, rather than distort- “Soho Fire ing reality, seems to amplify it, making us Escapes” is a study see even the most familiar places and in the patterns cre- things with greater clarity. ––Judith Levy ated by light and shadow on the facades of the cast Ruth Poniarski iron buildings Kingdom of Peace peculiar to that area of the city. Tall loft windows catch dark shadows like yawning gap- ing mouths, while fire escapes thrust forward into the “Soho Fire Escapes” sunlight, suggest- Manhattan Athletic Club, 277 Park ing glistening teeth. In the foreground on Avenue, April 2 through May 31. the left side of the composition, an ornate Mollica, who has a BFA from SUNY old fashioned lamp post provides a curv- Oswego and whose work is in numerous ing contrast to the rectangular structuring private and corporate collections, has stat- of the architectural elements. While the ed, “I view the world as a mosaic of building facade is depicted at an angle shapes and color. Even what appears to be that suggests perspective, this is contra- a most ‘mundane’ sight can be extraordi- dicted by the way in which Mollica flat- narily interesting from a design/composi- tens the forms on the picture plane tion standpoint. My focus is not on the through her use of light and dark pat- subject matter per se, it’s on the inherent terns, creating spatial tensions between design qualities within that subject.” the abstract and the representational qual- April 4 - 25, 2002 The city provides Mollica with a seem- ities of the painting. The artist exploits Reception: Thurs. April 4, 6-8 pm ingly limitless number of opportunities for such contrasts skillfully to lend her paint- exploring her clearly formulated aesthetic ings a good deal of vitality that is further Jadite Galleries goals. Her paintings are notable, above enhanced by her bold, energetic brush 413 West 50th St. NY, NY 10019 all, for their strong compositions, bravura work. Mon - Sat 11 - 6pm 212-315-2740 brushwork, and striking color harmonies. In other paintings, Mollica explores a [email protected] www.jadite.com

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 11 At Agora Gallery, Mirroring the Diverse Face of Latin American Art ne of the more comprehensive group roots in spirituality. Sierra’s canvases often ground, but grew up in Latin America, Osurveys of the season, the “Latin feature birds and other creatures in fanci- influenced by its cultural rhythms. In American Art Exhibition,” seen recently at ful, expressively distorted compositions . Pace’s compositions the human face is Agora Gallery, 415 West Broadway, was Simone DeSousa, born in Brazil, merged from several different angles to far too inclusive to be done full justice employs rich color and impastos like a create composite portraits with an unusual here. One can, however, give a glancing postmodern abstract expressionist. presence. sense of its diversity with the brief descrip- DeSousa’s succulent paint quality lends Born in Ecuador, Francesca Rota- tions that follow. It is hoped that they will tactile presence to her bold forms. Born in Loiseau is fascinated with eyes. Painted at least provide some insight into the high Mexico City, Karen Deicas tends to favor smoothly and directly in a manner that level of imagination and craft that Latin simple rectangular forms, which she paints owes something to outsider art, albeit American artists bring to the table to wet-into-wet to achieve a subtle coloristic informed by a sophisticated sensibility, enrich the feast of multiculturalism that shimmer. Deicas’ work is simultaneously Rota-Loiseau’s people confront the view makes contemporary painting unique. strong and subtle. face-to-face with their frank gaze, their The paintings of the Argentinean painter Jorge Humberto Goncalves-Romero, moist eyes seeming to mirror their individ- Patricio Bonta combine elements of neo- born in Venezuela, combines the figure ual souls with a peculiar expressiveness. expressionism with intriguing imagery, as and abstraction in a unique manner. The subconscious mind is the source for seen in a strong monochromatic image of Goncalves-Romero worked out certain the powerful, darkly brooding abstractions a couple embracing in a window that puts ideas regarding light and shadow on a of Fernando Moreno. Moreno is a truly the viewer in the role of voyeur. Sabrina computer before incorporating them into postmodern abstract painter in that his Villasenor’s severely cropped paintings of his complex, kinetically evocative acrylics compositions are fraught with a wide vari- nude figures make one think of the on canvas. Leonardo Faillace, educated in ety of meanings which are cloaked in mys- Mexican muralists. However, Villasenor Buenos Aires, is a neo-surrealist whose tery yet lend his forms a pregnant power pushes her nudes much closer to abstrac- meticulous mixed media paintings evoke a and presence. tion and her concerns appear more rarefied private world. Figures, faces, and While one cannot claim to get a com- painterly than political. Another Mexican fanciful settings merge in Faillace’s poetic plete overview of Latin American art from painter, Elsa Zarduz shows the influence scenes. Colombian painter Jaime the work of only thirteen painters, the of Orozco, particularly, in her bold yet Izquierdo employs a restrained form of curatorial care and inclusiveness with focused compositions, in which the nude expressionism to give his unusual figura- which this group was assembled comes figure also comes into play prominently. tive compositions and still life paintings an impressively close nonetheless. Even more Argentinean Alejandra Tolosa employs underlying energy. Izquierdo’s paintings significant is the fact that every painter in forms influenced by Pre-Columbian art, have a quiet power that belies their serene the show seemed to bring to it something albeit within an abstract context. One of surface organization. special that gave one a cumulatively Tolosa’s best paintings depicts a grid of The figure is fragmented in various ways impressive sense of the general quality and mask-like faces in subdued earthy hues. By to create both a sense of abstraction and a diversity of Latin American art as a whole. contrast, Dania Sierra employs brilliant psychological tension in the paintings of colors to create compositions with their Silvia Pace, who is of European back- ––Maureen Flynn

12

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, Inc. Members Exhibition 2002 April 9 - April 28, 2002 Reception and Awards: Saturday, April 13, 3 - 5 pm

The Broome Street Gallery 498 Broome Street. NYC 10013 Hours: 12 - 6 except Mondays

FOR CLASSIFIED & WEBSITE LISTING RATES Call or Write: 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 (212) 861-6814 e-mail: [email protected]

12 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Leon Yost’s Breakthrough Epiphanies in Northern Italy p until quite recently, Leon Yost, a ups of intricately patterned floor tiles, aerial Udocumentary photographer by profes- panoramas of rooftops or towers, fragments sion, a photographic artist by inclination, of statuary, gondolas on Venice canals, was best known for the images of sacred details of frescoes and mosaics, and other rock art sites in the Southwest and else- diverse elements. where that have preoccupied him for a good Yost works with fast film and available many years. A veteran of some twenty-six light, hand printing from 35 millimeter neg- solo exhibitions, including shows at the atives, limiting each edition to twenty proofs Arizona University Art Museum and the plus an artist’s proof. Since the proofs are San Diego Museum of Man, Yost has long made one at a time, each varies slightly from been a unique presence in contemporary art the others in the edition, making every for his successful marriage of aesthetics and photo-assemblage unique. The almost archaeology. painterly coloristic subtlety that Yost In his most recent exhibition of large achieves by such methods, as well as by his color photo-assemblages at Noho Gallery in careful placement of the individual prints Chelsea, 530 West 25th Street, this past within each composition, is especially strik- February, Yost took northern Italy, from ing in “Burano in Perspective,” its subject a Rome to Venice, as his subject and found in small island-village just north of Venice that the grandeur of its cathedrals and colon- the accompanying text informs us is nades inspiration for a significant new depar- “famous for lace-making.” ture that broadened his oeuvre considerably. Here, the slightly sun-bleached pink, red, Some who have followed Yost’s career and blue buildings bordering the canals pro- over the years may have been surprised by vide a pastel palette which Yost exploits mas- the contrast between his opulent Italian sub- terfully to create piquant chromatic accents. ject matter and the austere desert settings of These close-valued yet vibrant hues, bracket- his earlier pictures. Even more relevant, ed between areas of luminous sky and shim- however, is the formal inventiveness of his mering water, advance to the picture-plane, new photo-assemblages, which make clear contradicting veering perspectives in verti- that Leon Yost should be regarded first and cally stacked views of canals, creating spatial foremost as an artist who employs the cam- tensions that further enliven the composi- era as a tool, rather than merely another art- tion. Yost’s skillful placement of these ele- ful photographer. ments imbues “Burano in Perspective” with Indeed, Yost’s use of the photographic an abstract power to match its picturesque medium in these most recent works can be qualities. likened more accurately to the work of such Equally dynamic in another manner “Tuscan Totem” painters as Robert Rauschenberg and David are “Pantheon Reassembled”––in which Hockney than to that of most other pho- the vast rotunda and the floor below, replete gle view. Yet, in other photo-assemblages, tographers. Nor is this meant to imply any with tiny tourists, are reconstructed from he juxtaposes images to create contrastingly value judgment regarding the relative merits several separate proofs and juxtaposed with intimate effects. In “A Taste of Venice,” for of the two mediums. It is simply that, while an exterior view of the magnificent temple–– example, close-ups of tomatoes, peppers, the skills specific to a professional photogra- and “Three Apses.” In the latter work, the and uncooked pasta are contrasted with pher are everywhere evident in his recent interiors of the Basilica of San Miniato, the more panoramic views of gondolas, canals, work, Yost has entered a fertile new phase of five-domed Basilica of San Marco, and and outdoor cafe umbrellas; while “Fifteen his creative journey, in which the purely Rome’s San Clemente are combined in a Virgins” zeros in on the vernacular charms visual and aesthetic elements have taken richly detailed vertical composition flooded of the homemade shrines to the Virgin precedence over documentary concerns. At with unearthly amber light. Mary that one encounters everywhere in the same time, the fastidious professional Yost’s sumptuous synthesis of the three Italy, their simplicity a humble contrast to habits of a documentary photographer com- cavernous churches creates a transcendent the more official religious displays. pelled Yost to present texts next to his space, a soaring spiritual milieu of symphon- Visiting Italy obviously had a salutary photo-assemblages on the gallery wall, pro- ic proportions and Escher-like complexity. effect on the creative energies of Leon Yost, viding helpful historical information, to illu- Other pieces, such as “Basilica of Santi giving him a new slant on the spiritual minate the images and add to one’s enjoy- Quatro” and “Baptistery, Florence,” set archaeology that has long been a subtext of ment of the exhibition overall. mosaics and architectural elements afloat his work. Each of his recent photo-assem- What really makes these new works against areas of blue sky, creating composi- blages, comprised of up to six 11" by 14" important, however, is the manner in which tions that combine the earthly with the photographs, embodies a rich array of Yost transcends the confines of traditional ethereal. In the former photo-assemblage, images, encompassing both the secular and photographic presentation, employing col- the exterior of the church is seen from religious aspects of a country literally satu- lage techniques and fragmentation to create below and inverted; in the latter, the ornate rated with art history. Respectful but not imagistic juxtapositions which achieve cine- octagonal ceiling is splayed out like a man- overly reverent, Yost turned this treasure matic sweep and an almost visionary intensi- dala. trove of inspiration to his own ends, creat- ty. Most of Yost’s compositions are in verti- Yost’s juxtapositioning of different photo- ing works that span the centuries by virtue cal formats, the images stacked one above graphic images serves to suggest the actual of their intellectual depth, technical wiz- the other. Vertiginous views of cathedral scale of existing places much more accurate- ardry, and dazzling immediacy. ceilings converge unexpectedly with close ly than could be accomplished with any sin- ––Ed McCormack

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 13 Exploring the Significance of Images at Noho Gallery he title “what’s in an image” invites once sensuous and allusive. Benice Horowitz Tintriguing speculation in an exhibition codifies nature within gridded compositions, by the New York Society of Women artists, her colorful and vigorous gestural calligraphy at Noho Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, from evoking aspects of landscape in its lyrical April 2 through 20. (Gallery hours are dance, even while retaining a striking abstract Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 AM to 6 autonomy. PM, with a reception for the artists on April Other artists are even more overt in their 4, from 5 to 7 PM.) merging of image and abstraction: Sheila Some works in the show demonstrate that Kriemelman employs cityscape as a launching the definition of an image has been broad- pad for form and color in a canvas where architectural elements and other simpli- fied images and symbols morph into Benice Horowitz abstract shapes and vibrant color areas are scored surface which suggests any number of further enlivened by splashy painterly organic life-forms without spelling them out. pyrotechnics. While the collages of Wendy Isabel Shaw’s gracefully elongated female Brest are ostensibly abstract in their overall nude in bronze with a luminous blue patina thrust, on closer inspection images from perches on a welded steel bench, her expres- sion serene, her gestures articulated with mime-like delicacy, the merging of tradition- al and modernist mediums enhancing the artist’s elegant and harmonious marriage of unabashed figuration and sleek semi-abstract form. Another bronze nude by Mireille Lemarchand is contrastingly voluptuous and craggy of surface, as she balances on her back like a cat, embracing her raised knees with one arm, cradling her head with the other, appearing to herself to sleep in a near- fetal reverie of languorous self-containment. Other distinctly different approaches are seen in the work of two more sculptors: Isabel Shaw Shelley Parriott’s tactile layerings of mesh ened considerably in the postmodern era. and wire take the grid beloved of painters And this seems all for the good, given the into three dimensional space with intriguing- evocative qualities in the work of essentially ly results. Anne Bedrick employs rough sur- nonobjective artists like Rachelle Weisberger, faces and expressive distortions to give her Gloria Scher, Harriet Regina Marion, and humanistic figures emotional thrust. Benice Horowitz. Time honored subjects such as landscape Rachelle Weisberger’s paintings combine and still life are revitalized in the work of sharply defined elements of geometric other artists, such as Ann Pellaton, Olga Sheirr, and Catchi. Pellaton evokes the earthy essence of Italy’s landscape in dark, deep hues and strong semi-abstract forms. Sheirr, whose solo exhibition is covered at length elsewhere in this issue, conjures up Parisian scenes in watercolor, albeit with an atmospheric poetry akin to Utrillo’s oils. Janet Indick Catchi’s oil of a large vase of flowers and Eastern prints and fragments of text emerge fruits spread out on a picnic blanket is exu- to lend her intricate and variegated composi- berant composition of boldly brushed pastel tions a semiotic richness that is intriguingly hues. Then there is Elisa Pritzker, whose literary. glazed multimedia piece memorializing the Sculptors also tread a fine line between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center has Sheila Kriemelman actual and the implied: Janet Indick’s “High a ghostly presence, with the two majestic abstraction with softly diffused color fields to Tea” combines a witty neo-dadaist visual pun structures glowing fluorescently against a achieve a pleasing synthesis of the precise and with a totemic structure, balancing an old dark sky. the poetic. Gloria Scher’s compositions vary fashioned tea pot and ornate table cloth atop Also including works by Olga Poloukhine, from chromatic explorations involving hori- a long pole encircled by lace garters and col- Joyce Pommer, Anne Stanner, Gerda Roze, zontal bands of color to works in which orful stripes. Barbara Arum creates a more Liz Arum, Francis Avery, and Maureen vibrant hard-edge shapes, set against subtly figurative totem in an elegantly carved Renahan-Krinsley that were not available for modulated washes, suggest hermetic person- wood sculpture in which the piece de resist- preview, “what’s in an Image” is a laudably al symbols. Harriet Regina Marion works in ance is a stately, simplified female nude bal- ambitious exhibition. Indeed, its inclusive- mixed media, employing ink jet printing on ancing two abstract shapes on her head, as ness endeavors to explore the complicated unprimed canvas to which she adds hop- well as a graceful exotic bird. The versatile relationship of image to idea and raises ques- scotch numerals scrawled in oil pastel, shag- artist Anica Shpilberg, also an accomplished tions well worth considering. gy fringes, glitter, dirt, and a variety of found painter, is represented here by a stone sculp- ––J. Sanders Eaton objects to create tactile surfaces that are at ture with powerful forms and a ruggedly 14 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Joan Schreder Evokes the Metaphysical Majesty of Antarctica he somewhat archaic yet uniquely lation between immense expanses of sky and bial “dark night of the soul” in broad day- Tevocative phrase “a terrible beauty” sea. So terrible is their beauty, in fact, that light. comes most immediately to mind on one is reminded of the following lines from By contrast “Antarctica Series #2” is a encountering the photographs in the Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Imaginary panoramic view of ice-floes stretching “Antarctica Series”of Joan Schreder, whose Iceberg”: “Icebergs behoove the soul serenely toward the endless horizon where recent exhibition at Artsforum Gallery /(Both being self made from elements/ ocean meets sky, with icebergs looming in Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, was a land- lease visible)/To see them so: fleshed, fair, the distance, while “Antarctica Series #4” mark in a long and productive career. erected/indivisible, ” as well as her observa- focuses on an iceberg filling the center of In order to fully understand her approach tion in the same poem that an iceberg “cuts the composition in the middle distance, its to photography, it is important to under- its facets from within./Like jewelry from a shape, size, and monolithic placidness recall- stand that Schreder was a painter before grace/It saves itself perpetually and adorns/ ing Melville’s description of Captain Ahab’s turning to photography. In the 1930s, as a Only itself.” crew spotting a gigantic sperm whale “lazily youngster participating in the progressive undulating in the trough of the sea,” and education system instituted by John tranquilly resembling “a portly burgher Dewey, she studied painting with the then smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon.” unknown Jackson Pollock. In the forties, Equally evocative in another manner is after graduating from Vassar College with “Antarctica Series #10,” a more severely a drama degree, she continued her art cropped image dominated by a large, education at the Art Students League craggy land mass, its surface entirely cov- under the watchful eye of the esteemed ered by snow, except for two dark areas painter and teacher Morris Kantor, while that resemble eye-sockets, making it look and studying printmaking at The New like a huge skull rising from the frigid School with the equally respected William water––a macabre vision worthy of the Hayter. great fantastic draftsman Alfred Kubin. Schreder continues to paint to this day, Of course, one could comment, as one and in previous shows, has exhibited her “Antarctica Series #6” critic did, on the ecological implications of fanciful watercolors along with her photo- Joan Schreder’s Antarctic views, as “elegiac graphs. In her most recent solo show at Such metaphors do not seem overblown mementos of a fragile and small part of the Artsforum, however, her “Antarctica Series” for the profound and soul-wrenching sense earth that is at risk of disappearing in the alone took center stage, and this seemed a of isolation that Schreder captures in these not very distant future.” And while the pres- wise curatorial decision, given the solitary pictures, as well as the introspection that ent writer might quibble with the very use majesty of these magnificent photographs. they provoke. In “Antarctica Series #1,” for of the word “small,” since one of the most Indeed, so powerful are these pictures that example, a large cloud hovers above an ice- striking qualities of Schreder’s compositions their auras fill the gallery, engulfing the berg, dwarfing even this monolithic giant by is the almost metaphysical sense of immensi- viewer in hushed silences such as one nor- its immensity, the disparity in scale between ty that they project, one would not be in mally encounters only in places of worship. the two elements suggesting the finite error to dwell in such matters. Much more Indeed, one cannot help but feel something nature of all earthly things. Here, too, the germane, however, to the power and impor- akin to reverence when confronted by dramatic effect is enhanced by the shadow tance of these pictures as works of art and images of such solitary majesty as we see in that the cloud casts on the water, dimming universal symbols is what they whisper to Schreder’s digital C-prints of glaciers, ice- its natural sparkle, deepening the gloom that the attentive viewer of our common mortal bergs, and ice floes bracketed in utter deso- permeates the scene, suggesting the prover- fate. ––Jorge Santiago

Reviewing Hispanic Artists OM NAMAH SHIVAYA For an art exhibition in October, 2002 To Commemorate the September 11 Tragedy And Hispanic Heritage Month For information write or call Gelabert Studios Gallery Experience of a Lifetime 255 West 86th St., NYC 10024 An adventure trip to Mount Kailash Ph: 212-874-7188 Contact Mr. Shri Gupta 212-772-7909

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APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 15 Surrealism’s Guilty Pleasures at the Met to him from the Met’s permanent collection that exemplary for her liberated bohemian life-style. Surrealism is the movement that critics love to wasn’t even in the show when it originated at the Considering how revered Freud was by many hate. Perhaps part of the reason is that it can be Tate. surrealists, Varo also makes an iconoclastic state- awfully entertaining, which is something that “When I encountered this large, pre-drip ment with her oil “ Woman Leaving the most professional aesthetes don’t seem to think painting in the last gallery, I felt I was experienc- Psychoanalyst.” The canvas depicts a mysterious, serious art is supposed to be. After all, if some- ing it with the astonishment of its first viewer,” veiled woman gripping a disembodied male head thing is entertaining it stands to reason that it Schjeldahl enthuses embarrassingly, his rhapsodic by the beard, as she prepares to drop it down a doesn’t require a great deal of explication, and reaction to a picture that is only marginally surre- well, which the artist opined was “the proper that kind of leaves the critic out in the cold, al and hardly among Pollock’s most significant thing to do when leaving the psychoanalyst.” doesn’t it? works betraying a built-in antipathy to the Desire is not only unbound but celebrated in This may explain, at least in part, the generally movement that borders on a disqualifying critical all its kinky permutations in this lavish survey. chilly reception given the excellent and highly bias. Among the most poignant pieces are those of enjoyable exhibition “surrealism: Desire Both Kimmelman and Schjeldahl make much Joseph Cornell, the American recluse whose Unbound,” which originated last year at the of the misogyny of male surrealists––old news by nerdy demeanor and suburban life-style in a row Tate Modern, in London, and is now at now––without making nearly enough of the fact house in Queens that he shared with his mother The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth that some of the women were more than a and disabled brother did not afford him the erot- Avenue, through May 12. match for the men, both as artists and in terms ic opportunities enjoyed by his counterparts in A sumptuous clothbound catalog of the of their serial sexual conquests. And in regard to Paris. Like Emily Dickinson’s poems, Cornell’s exhibition, edited by Jennifer box assemblages, often built Mundy, Senior Curator at the around images of screen goddesses Tate, is available from Princeton such as Greta Garbo and Hedy University Press (9 3/4 x 10 7/8; Lamarr for whom he lusted from 352pp. 300 color illus.; $65.00.) afar, demonstrate that desire unre- Besides paintings and sculpture quited can often be more exquis- by all of the leading lights of the itely ardent than desire unbound. movement, the show features a Quite opposite in their explicit- veritable treasure trove of photo- ness, the drawings and drypoints graphs, documents, manuscripts, of Hans Bellmer explore aspects of and ephemera, as well as the mag- polymorphous perversity through nificently illustrated books that a startling array of anatomical were an important part of a move- anomalies suggesting all manner of ment in which the visual and the erotic permutations. Also on view literary were so naturally wed. Yet are a number of Bellmer’s stark some critics, when faced with a photographs of disturbingly dis- plethora of self-explanatory pleas- torted dolls, which show up Cindy ures, can do naught but quibble. Sherman’s slavishly imitative The usually levelheaded Michael efforts in a similar direction as the Kimmelman of The New York garish pornshop sextoy throw- Times surprised us most by open- aways that they are. ing his review with a rambling and By the same token, the gelatin barely relevant third-hand account silver prints of Pierre Molinier, a of a performance by the Canadian Man Ray, “Kiki de Montparnasse as Odalisque c.1925 real meshugah who shaved his artist Jean Benoit, which was pre- own body, donned sheer black sented at an international Surrealist exhibition exploring issues of gender identity that have only stockings and photographed himself as a woman organized by Andre Breton and Marcel come to the forefront in recent years, artists like (often in stylized lesbian embrace with other art- Duchamp in 1959, and merely documented in Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Leonora fully disguised and montaged self-portraits) obvi- passing in the present show. Carrington, and Leonor Fini were often way ously influenced the rarely exhibited leather-fetish Quaint as it sounds now, when Benoit was ahead of their male peers. Still, both critics insist photo collages with which Robert Mapplethorpe stripped naked by his wife before an audience on stereotyping the women of surrealism as launched his career. (Indeed, we were present and pretended to brand the word “Sade” on his muses, mistresses, and party dolls. (Our man at when the then unknown Mapplethorpe’s collages chest, it couldn’t have been much sillier than The New Yorker even goes so far as to make a were unveiled in a small private exhibition in the Karen Finley’s more contemporary antics with witless analogy to Hugh Hefner’s harem of Hotel Chelsea suite of Stanley Amos, an early peanut butter or yams. And it would have at least Playboy bunnies!) ’70s scenemaker and Warhol associate, and been more avant garde in 1959 than today. So Kimmelman gives the obligatory nod to thought immediately of Molinier). we can only suppose that Kimmelman kicked off famous victim Frida Kahlo, and that’s about it. As one would have every right to expect in any his piece with this irrelevancy because he needed Schjeldahl tips his hat to Meret Oppenheim’s fur- major survey of the movement, “Surrealism: a good stomping platform for trashing the rest of lined teacup, and has the good manners not to Desire Unbound” also has lots of great stuff by the show, most of which is infinitely more inter- ignore the long neglected and now overexposed Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Giorgio de esting than Benoit’s stunt, illuminating as it does Louise Bourgeois. Neither critic, however, men- Chirico, Yves Tanguy, Jean Miro, Rene Magritte, the erotic milieu in which surrealism thrived, and tions Tanning, Varo, Carrington, or Fini, all Alberto Giacometti, Marcel Duchamp, Andre casting much light on how it continues to rever- three of whom have major paintings in the exhi- Masson, and just about everyone else ever associ- berate in contemporary culture. bition. ated with the movement. From his podium at The New Yorker, Peter The latter is an especially grievous omission, So don’t be put off by those who would dis- Schjeldahl gave a more balanced account than since Fini (paired with Salvador Dali in CFM play their erudition at the expense of your fun. Kimmelman of the show’s scope, the origins of Gallery’s “Art for the Book,” reviewed elsewhere Guilty pleasure that it may be, this is one of the the movement, and Breton’s role as its reigning in this issue) was not only one of the strongest most entertaining exhibitions you are likely to see Pope. Yet his only epiphany came in the last para- painters in a movement often dismissed as mainly this season. graph of the review, standing in front of Jackson “literary,” as “The Ends of the Earth,” a 1949 Pollock’s “Pasiphae,” a painting already familiar oil in the exhibition makes clear; she was also

16 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Critiquing the Critics Redux: tent to one that appeared first in these pages. The Co-op Controversy Once again, no problem! In fact, they are more Lawrence (“Larry”) Rinder, the Anne and Joel than welcome to take a hint from our review, else- Ehrenkranz Curator of Contemporary Art at the where in this issue, of Ed Brodkin, another out- Whitney Museum of American Art, was one of the standing artist who exhibits at Pleiades Gallery and six curators of the 2000 Whitney Biennial and also is long overdue to be discovered by “the newspa- curated the museum’s Bitstreams exhibition in per of record.” 2001. This year should be an even busier one for At the same time, it isn’t easy to have faith in a this distinguished art world personality: Besides publication that purports to cover all the news being the chief curator of 2002 Whitney Biennial, that’s fit to print, yet pointedly ignores significant which opened March 7 and continues through cultural signals such as the recent rescue of WBAI May 26, Rinder will also be the juror for Pleiades radio, New York’s only really noncommercial sta- Gallery’s 20th Annual Juried Exhibition, which tion (NYPR has too much corporate funding to opens on June 26 and will run through July 13 in qualify) by its listener sponsors. the gallery’s new location at 530 West 25th Street. WBAI, an award-winning Pacifica Foundation Rinder’s involvement with the latter exhibition outlet long known for its uncompromising politi- leads us to reflect on one of the more puzzling cal and arts coverage, was seized last year in an ille- questions in today’s art scene: If a curator of his gal coup by a group of greedy media pirates, stature thinks highly enough of a venue such as backed by certain of its board members, who Pleiades to put the full weight of his considerable apparently hoped to convert it to a commercial reputation behind it, why do so many members of station. But a coalition of faithful listeners protest- Leonor Fini the critical establishment––particularly those who ed daily outside the station’s Wall Street head- write for The New York Times––consistently quarters, filed lawsuits, and after a bitter, year-long ignore exhibitions in artist-run galleries such as struggle, were able to regain control of WBAI. In Pleiades? the upshot, canceled programming was restored This issue was raised but hardly resolved awhile and fired broadcasters were rehired. back, when we participated in an Artists Talk on This was a major victory for free speech, demon- Art panel discussion entitled “What Makes a Co- strating how democracy can still work when a op Gallery Successful.” While many opinions on determined group of citizens decides to fight the sundry matters were kicked around by the two system, and it should have been covered as impor- gallery directors, two artists, and one writer on the tant news story. Instead, it was afforded only nom- panel, the one thing they all agreed upon was that inal coverage by the Times, which spun it in two cooperative galleries rarely, if ever, get reviewed by brief “human interest” items as a minor dispute what is commonly referred to as “major media.” between aging sixties activists and seemingly more Since the panel discussion was recorded on a reasonable members of the Pacifica National videotape that is still available from ATOA, no one Board. has to take our word for some of the dispiriting However, even this woefully neglected story was allegations that were made by panelists and audi- afforded more space than the Times has chosen to ence members about the New York Times in par- allot in recent years to the many gifted and signifi- ticular. cant artists who exhibit their work in co-op gal- Painter Cecily Firestein, who has been a mem- leries. And we really have to wonder why, consid- ber of the Phoenix Gallery, the oldest New York ering that even Barron’s magazine, a bastion of co-op, since 1959, claimed that while the Times business rather than hipness, was right on the reviewed shows there regularly during the 1960s, money when it ran an article two years ago head- in the past four decades they did so only twice to lined: “Art Democracy: Artist-run co-ops are good Joseph Cornell her knowledge. for everyone but the snooty establishment.” “One of the artists that got reviewed happened Quoting critic Lawrence Alloway, the piece to be the wife of the Times’ business manager,” made the very important point that “artist-run Firestein added with a rueful grin. exhibiting societies such as the French Salon or the Even more damning, and also recorded on the British Royal Academy, open to members,” have a video, were comments by Barbara Kulicke, who long and honorable history, having “preceded the stood up in the audience during the question and emergence of commercial galleries in the 1870s.” answer period following the panel discussion and The writer, Peter C. Du Bois, went on to record identified herself as an artist and a member of the how the 10th Street Galleries of the 1950s made Prince Street Gallery, another well known co-op. history by “focusing on American art, particularly “Recently I called an old friend of mine, an art abstracts, that weren’t widely shown in commercial critic from the Times,” Kulicke said, “because I galleries.” wanted to hear from her why co-op galleries are Barron’s being the sort of magazine that it is, not getting reviewed. And her answer was that the bottom line was: “The good news here for there there’s ‘a wall,’ ...join a commercial gallery potential art buyers who are willing to make up or you’re not going to get through.’ And when I their own minds about what they like, who buy told her that this just isn’t right she said, with their eyes, not their ears, is the fact that quali- ‘Well...what’s ‘right,’ you know? Good luck!” ty art is available in co-ops at very fair prices.” In fairness, one member of the Pleiades Gallery, More recently, artist-run galleries have been gar- veteran social realist painter Erika Weihs, did man- nering support from other quarters as well. For age to get through the wall recently and get example, Linda Handler, director of the Phoenix reviewed in the New York Times. In fact, the Gallery, which has remained in Soho while other Times’ review appeared shortly after a review of co-ops have joined the exodus to Chelsea, informs Weihs’ exhibition was published in us that the venerable venue was recently awarded a Gallery&Studio, and seemed to borrow liberally 2001-2002 Fund for Creative Communities Grant from ours. Not that we minded: We’re always in the amount of $ 4000 by the Lower Manhattan pleased when we can point the Times in the right Cultural Council. Meret Oppenheim direction, as we also did in the case of Corky Lee’s Handler, who has worked diligently on behalf of photographic show at The Museum of Chinese in the gallery for several years, is delighted that the the Americas, in Chinatown, which the Times cov- grant will enable the Phoenix to mount a major ered in a review remarkably close in tone and con- continued on next page

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 17 survey, to be titled “Leaps and Bounce,” featur- American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, to The ing emerging Asian American women artists. In Jewish Museum and in New York City. a letter to the gallery, the LMCC hailed the In 1991, the artist was honored with an exhi- upcoming show as an important contribution to bition entitled “Echoes of New York: The “the richness of Manhattan’s cultural landscape” Paintings of Theresa Bernstein” at The Museum that will “help strengthen local communities and of the City of New York, and in 1998, 1999, contribute to the uniqueness of New York.” and 2000, Joan Whalen Fine Art mounted three And, as we noted earlier, the fact that major retrospectives of her work over the past Lawrence Rinder, a curator praised by Maxwell seventy years. L. Anderson, the director of the Whitney Over the years, Bernstein’s subjects evolved Museum, for his “talent, wisdom and energy,” with the times, from poignant scenes of soldiers will be jurying Pleiades Gallery’s Juried saying their goodbyes to loved ones in 1914; to Exhibition this year also indicates that artist-run a Fourth of July celebration during World War galleries are beginning to get at least some of II; to hippies and break dancers in more recent the respect that they deserve. Now all that years. remains is for the Great Gray Times and others She captured the spirit of each decade with to finally catch up. characteristic sympathy and verve. Her early oils, such as “Dance Hall” (1911) and “Carnegie Hall” (1914) combine genre subjects with vibrant contrasts of light and dark reminiscent of the visionary loner Albert Pinkham Ryder. In Theodoros Stamos, “Adam,” paintings of the 1920s, such as “Saturday Night, Louis K. Meisel Gallery Gloucester,” and “Boys on the Deck,” we begin to see elements of cubistic structuring, albeit group portrait had recently protested against the combined with a coloristic freedom more akin to Metropolitan Museum of Art for not showing the Fauves, and muscular brushwork reminiscent American abstract painting of the type they were of the Expressionists. By the 1940s, when she busy pioneering. painted pictures on musical themes ranging from Although at age twenty-eight, Stamos was the opera to jazz, such as “Don Carlos” and youngest member of the group and looked it, “Charlie Parker,” she had already achieved the even with the big black mustache he already fluid synthesis of bold form, strong color, and sported, he is seated right up front, sharing slashing strokes characteristic of the mature style pride of place with Rothko and Barnett that culminates in such urban subjects of the Newman, an indication of the esteem in which mid seventies as “Bank Line.” he was held by his older colleagues. And their While unbeholden to any particular branch of faith in the Greek-American prodigy was justi- modernism, Bernstein synthesized elements of fied. Moving over the next several years from several different movements to forge her own surrealist influenced biomorphic abstractions to unique style. In this sense, she was more adven- a more open, gestural lyricism, Stamos was to turously attuned to the innovations of become an important member of the New York Modernism and evolved in a more complex School, with work in the collection of the manner than many of the better-known male Modern, the Whitney—and even that damnable painters of the Ashcan School who were among Metropolitan! her early peers. Louis K. Meisel, who has always been some- Theresa Bernstein in her New York Yet, Theresa Bernstein never abandoned the thing of an “irascible” in his own right, showing studio in 1988 essential humanism at the core of her vision. the kind of art he believes in and never giving a And while we can only wonder if her deep and damn what was considered fashionable at any abiding love for humanity contributed to her given moment, surprised but did not disappoint Theresa Bernstein (1890–2002) remarkable longevity, we can be fairly certain us with this beautiful and important retrospec- We were saddened to hear from her art dealer that it will help to make her work endure. tive exhibition. Joan Whalen, of Joan Whalen Fine Art, 24 West Stamos at Meisel and Other Surprises * * * 57th Street, about the recent death of the Louis K. Meisel Gallery, at 141 Prince Street, Vincent Arcilesi’s “Drawings: Portraits and painter Theresa Bernstein at age 111. No, that is is one of the true landmarks of Soho, featuring Nudes,” at 2/20 Gallery, 220 West 16th Street, not a typo: Born in Philadelphia in 1890, as its owner puts it, with characteristically unaf- gave a more intimate view of a leading realist Bernstein graduated from the Philadelphia fected bluntness, “fine art which is fun to look painter best known for his mural scale, multi-fig- School of Design for Women (now Moore at and live with, which does not require lengthy ure oils on canvas. Arcilesi’s exquisitely refined College of Art) in 1911, and the following year explanations to understand and enjoy.” drawings in conte and pastel demonstrated the moved with her family to New York City, where Meisel, who represents the well known realist incisive draftsmanship that is the armature for all she studied at the Art Students League with painter turned sculptor Audrey Flack and the of his work. William Merritt Chase. In 1919, she married the late, great pin-up artist Gil Elvgren, among Arcilesi, who lives and works in a loft near artist William Meyerowitz, with whom she lived other artists with solid reputations and outstand- Ground Zero, also demonstrated considerable in New York City and Gloucester, ing technical skills (a criteria for being on the ability as writer in a moving first person account Massachusetts, until his death in 1981; and in gallery roster), earned his place in contemporary of 9/11, published in a recent issue of “Artists the 1920s, she helped John Sloan to form the art history when he coined the term Proof,” the newsletter of New York Artists Society of Independent Artists. “Photorealism.” Equity Association, in which his friend and fel- As one of the youngest and one of the very Given his reputation for normally eschewing low painter Jack Beal is quoted as saying, “We few women among the group of urban realist abstraction (except, occasionally, Abstract have to keep making art so that Osama bin painters later to be known as the Ashcan School, Illusionism, which requires trompe l’oeil) Meisel Laden doesn’t win.” Bernstein attracted early attention with her vital, surprised us recently when he mounted * * * vigorously brushed cityscapes and genre scenes. “Theodoros Stamos (1922-1997)––Celebrating Jan Wunderman, a veteran artist who has been Bernstein’s career took off in 1919, that Six Decades of Painting.” exhibiting since the 1940s, showed recent tumultuous year in American life chronicled in This was a major posthumous retrospective of paintings at Denise Bibro Fine Art, 529 West John Dos Passos’ famous novel, with a success- a painter who first came to widespread attention 20th Street. Wunderman’s show was aptly enti- ful solo show at the Milch Gallery and a rave when he was included, along with Mark Rothko, tled “Choice & Chance,” since her large, lyrical review in International Studio. Numerous other Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and oth- abstractions in oils on canvas explore the chal- critically acclaimed solo and group exhibitions ers, in a famous photo published in LIFE maga- lenge of “organizing disorganization” with flow- followed over the ensuing decades in prestigious zine in 1951. The picture was entitled “The ing forms that vigorously overlap and interact to venues, ranging from the the Butler Institute of Irascibles,” because the artists in the glowering create compositions chock full of rhythm and 18 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Eve Ingalls, Soho 20

Vincent Arcilesi, 2/20 Gallery Jan Wunderman, Denise Bibro Fine Art movement. An element of chance obviously cealment, subterfuge and hidden agendas, which enters into Wunderman’s spontaneous working Bachner explored through her use of a kind of process. Nonetheless, it is the conscious choices camouflage material manufactured in East that she makes on the spur of the moment in Germany during the Cold War, her own old, the act of painting that make her sinuously surg- worn shoes, footprint reliefs on the gallery walls, ing compositions work so splendidly. and other odd elements which she layers or * * * combines artfully. How people dealt with the Monica Bernier, Prince Street Gallery At Soho 20 Chelsea, in its new location at 511 doomsday atmosphere of Cold War paranoia and West 25th Street, Eve Ingalls’ solo show how it is mirrored in our present post 9/11 human figures. Yet their baroque shapes bear lit- “Unsheltered” featured a downright intimidat- anxiety goes hand-in-hand with gender issues tle relationship to human anatomy. The fact that ing installation of her large sculptures in pig- expressed wryly through domed shoe sculptures, the landscape is painted more or less naturalisti- ment and metal. Entering a room filled with pink army boots, and other ominous/funny cally, with cottony clouds drifting by in a bril- Ingalls’ towering totom-like configurations of fetish objects and material metaphors. liant blue sky and areas of verdant green alter- weird white and gray biomorphic forms stacked Barbara Bachner is an aesthetic provocateur nating with patches of brown earth, creates a almost to the ceiling, the viewer feels as though who is not afraid to push your buttons––or even stark contrast, giving these vaguely figurative he or she has stepped right into one of Yves subvert your sense of humor––as long as she can forms the startling appearance of extraterrestrial Tanguy’s eerie surreal boneyards, where gargan- make you think. hitch-hikers glimpsed by the roadside. Monica tuan object-creatures lurk and loom, spreading a * * * Bernier, however, locks figure and ground into sense of ineffable foreboding. If you happened to pick up this issue close to harmony by virtue of her technique of virtually Eve Ingalls possesses a highly original sculp- our distribution date, April 2, we should alert carving every element of the composition out of tural sensibility, at once sensual and unnerving you that the paintings and collages of Monica thick, tactile strokes of oil pigment. enough to make us wonder what she will come Bernier can still be seen at Prince Street Gallery, For its vigorous physical quality, Bernier’s style up with next. 530 West 25th Street, through April 6. Bernier’s has qualities in common with the late, New * * * oils on canvas, particularly, combine elements of Image paintings of Philip Guston, while the sur- Barbara Bachner is one of our most versatile the surreal with an impressive painterly prowess. real quality of her imagery also makes one think and unpredictable artists, moving easily between In a small but strong painting entitled “Group,” of Matta. Bernier, however, has her own offbeat visual and conceptual modes of expression, as in for example, we see several intriguing forms vision, which makes this show well worth seeing. her recent mixed media installation lined up within a landscape. They have a monu- “Camouflage, at Gallery@49, 322 West 49th mental presence akin to the sculptures of Henry * * * Street. As the title indicates, the theme was con- Moore, and indeed they are suggestive of

The Living Room Gallery at St. Peter’s Church ARTLIAISON presents works by Donna Sinisgalli ON INTERNET entitled “Emerging From the Dark Months” established on the world wide web in 1994 visit us at: http://artliaison.org

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APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 19 Five Distinct Visions in Soho Montserrat Gallery, 584 Broadway, is terious shadows and frosty white high- Stockar. known for presenting a varied roster of lights. In one of her most poetic paint- Stockar is one of our most skillful pro- local and international artists. In recent ings, a flock of pigeons ascends against a ponents of what R.B. Kitaj calls “drawing- months, this well known Soho venue backdrop of lower Manhattan buildings. painting,” in that much of her technique mounted several successive shows that pre- In light of recent events one cannot help is linear. She draws with color in her oils sented a number of striking, yet comple- viewing their flight as Phoenix-like, a on canvas, giving her work strong graphic mentary, stylistic contrasts. symbol of a great city’s ability to rise thrust. In “Ground Zero,” the large can- above devastation, a theme that Duzoglou vas that was the centerpiece of her exhibi- Lee, Wal-Chong makes poignant with her bold composi- tion, flowing rhythmical strokes suggest The Korean born painter Lee, Wal- tion, vigorous brushwork, and dynamic smoke billowing over clustered groups of Chong has evolved a personal visual lan- way with tones in the darker range. rescuers searching through the rubble of guage for celebrating the magic of daily In another strong painting, the Twin the fallen Twin Towers. life. Often Lee’s small paintings are Towers are seen intact and bathed in While “Ground Zero” is a major state- arranged in grids in the manner of filmic beams of light as sailboats glide by, a ment that sweeps the viewer up in its story boards. In them, the joys and moving memorial that, like all of G. Ruiz whirlwind composition, smaller canvases tragedies of life are depicted in a narrative Duzoglou’s work, conveys emotional such as “Firefighters” have a more inti- manner in line and color. Images pour impact while retaining formal power. mate power akin to the American expres- forth in profusion: a plane crashing into sionism of Robert DeNiro senior. the Twin Towers, couples making love, Ken Green Stockar’s energetic brush work, however, ships at sea, flowers, animals—literally Ken Green is an artist from Minneapolis imbues her canvases with an emotional everything under the sun, from the most with a vibrant way with color and a dra- power all their own. tragic scenes to the most mundane, drawn matic way with figurative form. Green’s with simplicity and grace, the line figures are enveloped in an array of rain- Stefan Kleinschuster inscribed into pigment, as though etched bow hues that lend them mystical auras in Stefan Kleinschuster paints very large with a sharp instrument. These simple the series of large canvases that he calls figurative oils that appear to explore the narratives capture the flow of dailiness in “Ascension of the Fallen Heroes.” In one complexity of the relationships between all of our lives with a directness at once such painting, several translucent figures, men and women, from tenderness to cru- primitive and consummately sophisticated. suggesting phantoms, rise above the elty. Because of the dark, somewhat kinky, “In our daily life we confront with prone figures of men in brilliantly col- sexual suggestiveness of his work he is numerous personal ordeals because of the ored garb lying prone in a field of rubble, bound to be compared to Eric Fischl. complex underlying emotions of life,” Lee reaching toward a shining orb at the top However, although they do share certain has stated. “We are tormented by conflict- of the composition. Although the rain- similarities in terms of the drama they ing feelings of good and evil, love and bow-clad victims are not wearing recog- convey in their work, Kleinschuster is a hate, pleasure and pain, anger and despair, nizable uniforms, they are obviously sym- much stronger painter. Indeed, his monu- and obsession and indifference. Then we bolic of the firefighters, police officers, mental nude and partially clothed figures have golden mean, a path which lies and other rescuers who perished in the are a lot closer in style to those of Lucian beyond the bipolar emotions and leads to World Trade Center tragedy. Freud; for like the older painter, peace and equilibrium of mind. I try to In other paintings as well, Green Kleinschuster makes oil paint a sensual express these things in my paintings.” employs color intrepidly, with an unre- surrogate for flesh, employing juicy Along with narrative grids exploring strained boldness, to convey the spiritual impastos to build up succulent, richly subjects from the tragic to the erotic, Lee intensity that propels heroic human shadowed surfaces that fairly glow with creates larger, quilt-like works in sewn endeavor. Indeed, his figures, with their light and life. fabric in which the fullness of life is athletic physiques and colorful costumes, In the huge canvas, “Compendium expressed in more abstract terms, with have the symbolic directness of comic Vitae,” when the larger-than-life figure of brilliant rectangles of color or severely book super heroes, although their expres- a man raises his meaty arm above the simplified animal and floral forms. Like sively exaggerated gestures recall prone form of a woman as though to Lucas Samaras, Lee, Wal-Chong is a Michelangelo-esque grandeur and other strike her, the serene little smile on the unique artist who moves easily between classical strivings. There is also the hint of woman’s face suggests that this is an erot- very different mediums and modes of a Futurist influence in the swirling vortex- ic game rather than an act of violence. In expression to capture the flow and move- es of color that the figures inhabit. “Compendium Vitae III,” the man who ment of life and bring it into harmony However, the manner in which Ken embraces a woman from behind has a with a unique sensibility and aesthetic Green assimilates these aspects of art his- shadowy, ghostly quality that contrasts identity. His work must be taken as a tory into his own style is original and sharply with her vibrant presence, sug- whole to get the full effect of his fertile refreshingly direct. gesting that she is the anchor of their creative imagination. relationship. This impression is enhanced Helena M. Stockar by the fact that while the woman is par- Gloria Ruiz Duzoglou The terrorist attacks of September 11, tially clothed in a bulky sweater, the man Gloria Ruiz Duzoglou, a painter born 2001 are a subject that will not be going who clings to her appears infantile in his in Malaga, Spain, has lived in a variety of away for quite some time. It seems only nakedness. cultures and assimilated aspects of each natural that contemporary artists will Kleinschuster’s compositions possess an into her work without sacrificing her own attempt to deal with the most traumatic extraordinary momentum that springs distinct cultural identity. In her most event in recent American history. It is from his ability to convey a host of psy- recent oils on canvas, Duzoglou explores doubtful, however, that many will be as chological subtleties and emotional the city, a subject that she imbues with successful in capturing the spirit of hero- nuances in powerful painterly terms. great poetry in her palette of subdued ism that 9/11 brought out in the best blues and earth colors, enhanced by mys- and bravest of our citizens as Helena M. ––Wilson Wong

20 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Penumbra at Pace: Aspects of Reality and Dream

good case can be made that it is coun- employed materials imaginatively in her Aterproductive for artists’ groups to piece, “The Juggler.” Like Marisol, Weiss segregate themselves according to either a combines two dimensional drawing with figurative or abstract bias, since it can be their dimensional objects to create dynam- interpreted as a reactionary stance that ic, visually witty contrasts. places the artists involved outside the Penny Dell employs interior spaces in mainstream––particularly in a period like her compositions to create her own the present one, when a healthy pluralism intriguing contrasts. Dell’s monoprints of holds sway anyway. That said, “Penumbra empty rooms explore the tensions between at Pace University,” an exhibition by The representation and abstraction, perspective Penumbra Society for Representational Art and the picture plane. at The Michael Schimmel Center for the Then there is Barbara Lubliner, whose David Derr Arts, 1 Pace Plaza, from April 1 through boxed sculpture “Hugs and Kisses” 28, is a show that anyone interested in art merges the real and the abstract in another reflecting both reality and dreams should manner. In Lubliner’s piece, a woman’s not miss. arms, appearing to embrace her own preg- The title of the group refers to “the nant belly, create a strong formal state- partly shaded outer region of the shadow ment. cast by an opaque object, especially that of The bas relief comes into its own in this the shadow cast by the earth or moon exhibition in the work of three artists with over an area experiencing a partial distinctly different approaches: eclipse,” and the intriguing sense of mys- Gloria Spevacek, an artist known for her tery that definition suggests is evident sculptures of animals who also happens to everywhere in this large and varied exhibi- be president of the Penumbra group, is tion. represented here by one of her most Ailene Fields, for example, is a well fanciful pieces. Entitled “Marine Equis,” known sculptor and teacher whose figures Spevacek’s relief depicts two romping invariably have a surreal quality. In both sea horses in a beautifully balanced “Greenman II, Summer” a mythological composition. head, and “Seeing is Believing,” a graceful Yanka Cantor’s relief is entitled “Silence,” and features a crouching female nude , glass eyes are combined with more Sally Weiss traditional sculptural materials to create nude. Cantor’s graceful anatomical abbre- effects at once beautiful and unnerving. viations lend her pieces a poetic brevity In his oil “Mephisto’s Waltz,” David akin to that of Giacomo Manzu. Derr depicts a brilliant red devil choreo- Then there is Martin Glick, whose graphing the terpsichore of an anthropo- “St. Serapion,” simply by being enclosed morphic crocodile and a blue horse in a within an ornate gold frame, combines smoky nocturnal landscape set in what elements of the bas relief and painting. appears to be some nether region of New Glick’s piece is also notable for the artist’s Hades. Derr’s meticulous style and expres- skillful handling of folds and draperies in sive figural distortions lend the scene a the martyred monk’s cowl. slightly “bent” Boschian beauty. By contrast, the sculptor Cari Clare Gina Novendstern’s “Tribunal” is a projects a sinuous sexiness in the slenderly frieze of headless nude figures in bonded elongated figure she calls “Getting Ludlow Smethurst bronze. The dark patina and emaciated There.” Like African tribal sculpture, quality of the figures evokes a death camp albeit informed by a thoroughly contem- or other hellish situation, and also sug- porary sensibility, Clare’s sculpture suc- gests that Novendstern is a humanist in ceeds by virtue of its sleek formal brevity. the tradition of Leonard Baskin. Although painters are a decided minori- In a collage called “All the World’s a ty in this group, two final ones acquit Stage,” Ann Lasusa combines figures from themselves admirably: Girair Poladian is an old line engravings and other arcane expressionist whose nudes and portraits sources to create a surreal realm of combine vibrant color areas with unique gnomish personages and shifting perspec- linear grace. Poladian’s “Nude” turns the tives. Lasusa has an impressive ability to voluptuous female figure into a sensual make diverse elements merge in a coherent arabesque, while “Boris” captures the and evocative composition. character of a bearded man with calli- Sarah Katz, on the other hand, employs graphic swiftness. scattered elements effectively in her sculp- Ludlow Smethurst orchestrates a com- tural installation, juxtaposing a full figure plex array of objects and patterns in realist with anatomical details that suggest frag- still life compositions with remarkable res- ments from antiquity. Katz’s piece is called onance. Especially evocative is “New “The Dream Tune,” and the poetic effect Shoes II,” in which Smethurst combines that she achieves with its dispersed ele- elements that seem to tell a story with the ments lives up to the title. succinctness of a poem by Emily Another gifted sculptor, Sally Weiss, also Dickinson. ––Dorothy K. Riordan Ailene Fields

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 21 Sasha Linda Wasko’s Spiritual Painterly Path ot too long ago, especially in what are ers. Our lives are filled with positive and Nconsidered to be serious art circles, the negative thoughts. We are surrounded by mere mention of anything “spiritual” was choices on how to reach our quest through scorned by formalists who had lost sight of use of soft or hard powers. The challenge is the fact that abstract painting had its origins to orchestrate this noise and center it on in the search for meanings beyond the phys- truth; this is my mission.” ical world. In the late 1800s, abstract pio- Although thoroughly contemporary in neers such as Kandinsky, Kupka, Malevich, their immediacy, Wasko’s oils clearly belong and Mondrian had, to varying degrees, to the tradition of Malevich and Kandinsky. explored then-popular spiritual belief sys- At the same time, Wasko has also taken cer- tems such as Theosophy and Rosicrucianism tain cues from Abstract Expressionism. Her and sought to evolve a visual language for best paintings allude to landscape and even, conveying aspects of the unseen world that at times, to architectural structures within a “Power of Dialogue” they perceived to be the underpinnings of landscape, without making such references our daily reality. specific. It was an opposite quest than the forsak- There is also a sense in Wasko’s composi- energy and light. ing of meaning that the formalists would tions of the elements––of wind and light The spiritual force underlying the paint- insist upon in later decades, and a similar and movement, expressed with a combina- ings of Sasha Linda Wasko is undeniable and concern with spiritual content in abstract tion of geometric and organic forms, inseparable from their success, for the painting is being revived in the work of enlivened by vigorous gestural elements . numinous quality in her work lends it a artists such as Sasha Linda Wasko, whose Wasko’s way with luminous color, which she depth that skirts decoration and goes far solo show was recently seen at Montserrat employs to create impressive chromatic clari- beyond the superficial attributes on which Gallery, 584 Broadway, in Soho. ty, and sharply articulated form, adds to the some abstract painters rely for their effects. “Peace, I feel, starts at developing my overall dynamism that activates her compo- At the same time, even while striving to own internal potential to the fullest,” Wasko sitions. Her pictures appear to depict an apprehend the unseen, Wasko produces has stated in relation to the personal philos- internal world rather than the external land- paintings that possess an exhilarating formal ophy that informs her work. “Each and scape that the eye sees; and yet the rhythmi- power and lyrical sweep. every one of us as one person has the poten- cal thrust of her compositions is such that it ––Robert Vigo tial to affect others and perhaps many oth- convincingly evokes a sense of a natural Masques and Fetishes: The Art of Stephen J. Ballance ike the late Robert Mapplethorpe, the pink tulips appear to sprout from the torso LMichigan-based photographic artist of a nude woman whose body has seemingly Stephen J. Ballance finds a similar sensuality metamorphosed into a shapely vase. In in floral subjects and the unclothed human another picture a woman wearing a lacy figure. And while Ballance has exhibited bustier and cradling three large flowers in compositions centered on flowers alone, as one arm wears a black head-scarf and a seen in a print from his “La Nature Morte” metallic bird-mask with a long pointed series exhibited a few years ago at the beach. Dennos Museum Center, some of his most While the previous picture was both sexy compelling images are those in which floral and lyrical, this more darkly psychological forms and female nudes are featured in the image verges on the grotesque, simultane- same picture. In other recent pictures, too, ously suggesting one of Goya’s Spanish Ballance adds masks, angel wings, and other Court portraits and Joel-Peter Witken’s props to lend his pictures of nudes mytho- altered photographs depicting various freak- logical and symbolic qualities that the artist ish personages. has stated “reference concepts such as heal- Somewhere between the two, in terms of ing and redemption.” being both fanciful and sensual, is an image In his recent exhibition at Agora Gallery, of a bare-breasted woman holding an elabo- 415 West Broadway, Ballance exhibited a rately feathered mask to her face with one powerful series of his Polaroid transfer hand and a large pear in the other. She is prints. These works are created through a wearing black elbow gloves and standing painstaking process in which an image pho- near what appears to be an especially phallic Polaroid Transfer by Stephen Ballance tographed on Polaroid film is cut apart plant, its many fronds jutting up from the before it can fully develop and the portion bottom of the picture like a bouquet of Here, as in all of the pictures in Ballance’s containing the dyes is pressed onto damp- erect penises. “Masque” series, the odd props that he ened watercolor paper. The image is then The same feathered mask and black chooses to juxtapose with the nude women reworked on a computer, which enables elbow gloves are featured in yet another projects an erotic fetishism that is fully equal Ballance to achieve sumptuous painterly picture in Ballance’s “Masque” series, here to that in the surrealist photographs of Man effects, before printing the final image out on a gracefully posed nude model with a Ray. Indeed, it is in this exalted company, as as a Giclee print. boldly patterned cloth draped over one leg. well as that of the aforementioned The resulting pictures have the coloristic This composition also features a bunch of Mapplethorpe, that the photographs of subtlety of watercolors combined with the flowers with long, sinuous petals that Stephen J. Ballance belong. imagistic specificity of photography, as seen rhyme visually with the feathers decorating ––Lawrence Downes in one composition where long-stemmed the model’s mask.

22 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 WSAC Group Show: A Study in Complementary Contrasts “ he Harmony of Contrast” is a title acrylic and oil pastel that depict light- figure of a woman in an old fashioned Tthat could seem oxymoronic if not filled rustic scenes with breathtaking bold- dress in a landscape, apparently gazing off for how effectively the recent exhibition, ness and vigor. Especially appealing here through the gadget named in the title. curated by artist Joyce Lynn for the West was Lynn’s painting of a road winding Wendy White, on the other hand, paints Side Arts Coalition, proved its point. For through a brilliant red shed, set against a monumental figures with a down to earth the show, at Broadway Mall Community vibrant blaze of autumnal trees. presence, as seen in her large acrylic on Center on the center island at 96th Street Peter Campione is an artist with a canvas of two women. Gazing out at the and Broadway, was remarkable for its whimsical view of the animal kingdom. viewer as though he or she were an diverse range of subjects and materials, yet Chimps, horses, bears, penguins, hum- intruder, clutching towels to their breasts, the contrasts that it presented were ulti- mingbirds and other creatures cavort hap- the two figures, painted by White in hasty, mately complementary. pily among fanciful flowers in Campione’s scumbled strokes are nearly as forbidding Figurative painter Ernesto Camacho, Jr. bright, upbeat acrylic paintings, for which as Leon Golub’s mercenaries. was represented by a large acrylic on can- one is tempted to coin the term The polymorphous ink and watercolor vas of a subway scene in which a beauti- Zoological Surrealism. drawings of Camilla Wier recognize no ful, elegantly dressed young woman, seat- In the oil paintings of Byung Sook Jung boundaries between the inner and outer ed between two unsavory-looking male classically endowed female nudes bathed world. Beautiful female faces sprout wings passengers, balances a large pumpkin in in golden light are seen in dreamy interi- or morph into floral forms and other fan- her lap. Although wings are nowhere in ors where gilded picture frames and other ciful things in Wier’s delicately drawn evidence, one suspects she may be an objects gleam out of darkness. Jung's visions, which recall the fluid intricacy of angel, since a subtle aura emanates from atmospheric paintings have the feeling of psychedelic art, as well as such symbolists the figure that bathes the dreary subway remembered dreams or situations one step as Odilon Redon. car in her radiance. removed from reality. Floral forms also figure prominently in James Glass is an artist whose innova- Frequent WSAC exhibitor Carole the acrylic paintings of Astrith Deyrup. tive use of mixed media lends his work a Whitton was also well represented in this However, Deyrup employs them for their tactile appeal to match is imagistic power. show by two large, characteristically bold abstract qualities, creating bold, lumi- Here, Glass was represented by a group of watercolors. Especially exciting was nously colored compositions in which the strong compositions on the theme of Whitton’s painting of two women bathers sensual contours of large blooms fill the 9/11: A rugged cross with police and watching a large wave roll in, the figures canvas, suggesting spiritual energies as firefighter’s hats affixed rising out of tex- reflected in the blue and green water, the much as organic matter. tural rubble; a toy plane crashing into a composition captured with snapshot Then there is Linda Lessner, who map of Pennsylvania with real pine immediacy. moves easily between atmospheric land- branches collaged onto it; a weeping face By contrast, Arlene Sheer paints inti- scapes and seascapes in oil and pastel to of Lady Liberty, and other jarring sub- mate, delicately tinted watercolors that mixed media works with conceptual ele- jects. look like scenes from Tolkien’s “Middle ments. Particularly interesting among the Janusz Jaworski is an intimist whose Earth,” even when she is depicting an latter is an undersea scene incorporating tiny, poetic abstractions in watercolor actual landscape in Spain. Mountains, cas- bits of glass, weeds, dried flowers and a explore inner worlds. Jaworski possesses tles, caves, and other elements take on a cryptic note, saying, “Stop the medicine. the singular ability to create a compelling fanciful fairy tale quality when transmuted Have I cried for you?” mindscape and evoke a mood with a few by Sheer’s whimsical sensibility. Curator Joyce Lynn succeeded splen- simple kite-like shapes set against pristine Eleanor Gilpatrick has her own uniquely didly in making this varied yet coherent white grounds or other faint forms afloat romantic vision, which comes across most group show live up to its oxymoronic on luminous veils of color. mysteriously in a small oil wash painting title. Joyce Lynn, the show’s curator, takes a on paper. Called “The Viewfinder,” direct approach to landscape in works in Gilpatrick’s composition places the tiny ––Marie R. Pagano Leda Arensberg Art in Motion COLLAGE, ASSEMBLAGE 2002 Dynamic Spatial Organization through the use of Varied Media curated by Emily Rich

April 3 - April 21, 2002 Reception: Saturday, April 6th 3:00 - 6:00 PM

Iris Berman • Maria De Simone • Jack Dittrick Carolyn S. Kaplan • Reena Kondo • Inge Price Emily Rich • Dora Riomayor • Arlene Sheer Jordi Waggoner • Miriam Wills “Seven Sisters” April 2 - April 20, 2002 Broadway Mall Community Center Reception: Saturday April 6, 3 - 6pm Broadway at 96th St., NYC (center island) PLEIADES GALLERY Wed 6-8 pm/Sat & Sun 12-6 pm 212-316-6024 530 W. 25 St., NYC 10001 (646) 230-0056 Tues - Sat 11 - 6pm or by appt. [email protected] www.wsacny.org

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 23 The Transcendent Blue Wet-Dreams of Hideo Mori y far the most significant accomplish- he has been largely responsible for elevat- Maja’s classically full figure, the second Bment of the postmodern era has been ing in a fine art context makes his paint- nude is a markedly more contemporary its critique of the Eurocentric assumptions ings akin in technique to Salvador Dali’s type of beauty, possessed of that aerobi- that have defined the canon of modernism description of his own pictures as “hand- cized slenderness peculiar to women for more than a hundred years. Japan, painted dream photographs.” In fact, today, as she raises her arms as though to where there has been a vital and varied Mori has said of his process, “I start copy- unclasp a necklace, showing her firm avant garde from the postwar era to the ing as if I am taking a photograph.” But young buttocks to the viewer. While the present, has been one of the major bene- as James Cavello astutely observed in his spiritual––or at very least the metaphysi- ficiaries of this newly enlightened atti- curator’s statement for the exhibition cat- cal––is hinted at in the bit of blue curtain tude. Since the mid-1980s, numerous alog, “Whether realist or not, painters mysteriously emerging from the blue sky surveys of contemporary Japanese art cannot move forward unless seeing behind the figures, there is something have been mounted by important muse- through their own eyes.” And what decidedly more down-to-earth in the ums and galleries in the United States and Hideo Mori sees is invariably filtered knowing gaze that the reclining Maja Europe. This has had a beneficial effect through his highly selective vision and casts over the nudity of her nubile com- for Japanese artists in their homeland as transmogrified by his singular sensibility panion...But, then again, who can say well. As their stock has risen in the inter- until it conforms to what the artist, refer- with any degree of certainty that desire national art world, artists once ignored by ring to himself in the Dali-esque third itself is not a facet of our spiritual striving? a conservative cultural establishment have person (a sure sign of a man with a Although some of the figures in Mori’s been embraced as national treasures. healthy creative ego), terms “the invisible paintings appear to be living beings, while Few, however, are as deserving of that worlds of Mori.” others are obviously statues from antiqui- designation as Hideo Mori, one of Japan’s ty, all of them are equally drained of flesh- most distinguished and revered painters, ly color. Yet, rather than robbing the fig- who has exhibited in the Guggenheim The engulfing ures of life, the pervasive whiteness creates Museum in New York City, the Tokyo “ a sense of ambiguity that has a converse National Museum of Modern art, and dimensions of his effect, making the statues, too, come alive numerous other prestigious cultural insti- canvases, combined as though by some supernatural, tutions the world over. with their severely Pygmalian-like wizardry. And although Curated by James Cavello, Mori’s many of Mori’s models are Caucasian recent exhibition, “Blue Infinity,” at limited palette of mostly rather than Asian, the exaggerated, mar- Westwood Gallery, 578 Broadway, came blue monochromes, and ble-whiteness of their complexions also as a revelation to many who mentally suggests the almost ghostly pallor that equate contemporary Japanese art with its the luminous refinement geishas and Japanese noblewomen would more publicized permutations, such as the of his paint surfaces, heavily powder themselves to attain, just neo-Pop neophytes of the “Super Flat” achieved with an as the luminous blue hues in Mori’s paint- school, who paint banal images of bug- ings have been likened to the precise clear eyed cartoon characters in unmodulated airbrush, lends his blue in Oriental ceramics and tiles. primary hues. compositions an Surely this bloodless pallor with which In contrast to those flash-in-the-pan hip Mori imbues his figures, coupled with the hop artists geared to Japan’s imitative impressive visual power unearthly blues that complement it so youth culture, Mori, who was born in and physical presence. exquisitely, reaches a sort of apex in the Mie Prefecture in 1935, is a mature ” canvas entitled “A Woman by Lakeside.” painter whose meticulously refined large That last phrase is especially significant In this major canvas, an almost phospho- realist canvases evoke figures in misty blue because for all his kinships to the surreal- rescently glowing white nude appears to dreamscapes suggesting a mysterious and ists, Hideo Moei does not avail himself of have emerged like some shapely sea mam- complex inner world. The rarefied atmos- the familiar, timeworn props of surreal- mal or beached mermaid from a body of pheres and incongruous figurative juxta- ism; nor does he traffic in imagistic incon- blue water. She looms monolithically, glis- positions in Mori’s paintings make it pos- gruity for its own sake to make metaphys- tening, all but dwarfing the lake, the des- sible to liken him most immediately to ical gag cartoons in the manner of olate surrounding landscape, and a sky such surrealist masters as Rene Magritte Magritte. Rather, he depicts an inner pregnant with white clouds and gray mists and Paul Delvaux. Like the former artist, world with its own inimitable logic. It is a that hover like shrouds. Her damp white Mori creates brilliant visual metaphors realm suffused by blue, the hue that, as hair hangs limply as seaweed, as she curls and like the latter, he bathes the nude Donald Kuspit pointed out in an essay on up in a near-fetal manner, probing with female figure in nocturnal auras that Mori, Kandinsky called “the typically the fingers of one hand a dark, womb-like evoke the sensation of vividly erotic wet- heavenly color.” opening in the moist earth along the dreams. However, Mori generally works One might also add that blue is a color shoreline. One could read all manner of on a larger, more contemporary scale often associated with eroticism, as in the symbolism into such an image; yet, since than either of those two Belgian easel phrase “blue movie,” and that this tanta- we are more concerned here with aesthet- painters. The engulfing dimensions of his lizing tension between the spiritual and ics than Freudian analysis, why belabor a canvases, combined with their severely the sexual is also an essential element of beautiful dream with tedious interpreta- limited palette of mostly blue mono- Hideo Mori’s artistic vision. Surely it is tions? chromes, and the luminous refinement of apparent in a painting such as “After In other paintings, such as “Homage to his paint surfaces, achieved with an air- Goya,” in which we see a perfectly copied Man Ray” and “Facing the City,” female brush, lends his compositions an impres- version of the Spanish master’s “ Maja nudes appear in other surreal situations. sive visual power and physical presence. Desnuda” reclining in her familiar pose In the former canvas, a slender young Mori’s use of an airbrush, a tool for- on her ornate divan and glancing at woman reclining in a nocturnal landscape merly associated with slick illustration that another female nude. In contrast to gazes up, as though roused from her

24 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Hideo Mori “A Woman by Lakeside,” acrylic on canvas, at Westwood Gallery, 578 Broadway. dreams by a vision of feminine lips hover- emotional personality. Margarite Almeida, suggest that only art can bring the world ing in the sky above the tree line like a an attractive and articulate woman who is into proper focus and provide a promise flying saucer; in the latter, two apparently James Cavello’s partner in life, as well as of immortality. real nude women stand among ceramic in Westwood Gallery, tells an anecdote In “L’Angelus in Blue Sky After sculptures of Chinese soldiers from antiq- that gives one a hint of Mori’s attachment Monet,” a painting that rivals Mark uity, gazing at a distant, smoke-shrouded and loyalty to his friends. Recently, when Tansey’s postmodern narratives for its vista of the New York city skyline. the couple went on a vacation to Lake subtle visual wit, Mori makes another Noticeably absent are the Twin Towers of Tahoe and James was injured in a skiing intriguing, albeit characteristically oblique, the World Trade Center. accident, Mori, who was in Japan at the comment on the relationship between art Although couched in his characteristi- time, was so distraught at the news that and life. Here, the famous painting by cally dream-like manner, “Facing the he fell into despair and went on a drink- Millet of two peasants, a man and a City” is this Japanese painter’s tribute to a ing binge. Although Mori speaks no woman praying in a field, is suspended city that he is said to deeply love. Indeed, English and Cavello speaks no Japanese, mysteriously against one Mori’s transcen- in the wake of the September 11 tragedy, the two men had formed such a deep and dent blue skies, enlivened by wispy white Mori also created an affecting lithograph mutually affectionate bond that the artist clouds. In front of the large canvas in its entitled “Peace Protector,” in which a refused to sober up until he had been ornate frame stand a casually dressed con- classical head hovers like a cloud above assured that the dealer’s injury was not temporary couple. Although the two the same skyline, here with the Twin life-threatening or permanent. trendies sport well-fitting jeans and appear Towers affectingly restored. Out of the That life and art are interminably inter- to be solid from the waist down, their edition of 200 prints, fifty were designat- mingled in Mori’s concerns is reflected in upper bodies and heads dissolve in white ed to be donated as gifts and the remain- those paintings in which Chinese, Greek, light, as they assume postures similar to ing prints were to be sold, with the entire or Roman statues substitute for the those of the figures in the painting. proceeds to be donated to the “I Love human figure, as seen in “Uneasy Whether Hideo Mori is suggesting that New York Art Benefit.” The artist and Retrospection,” which features three par- the modern couple is more enlightened, Westwood Gallery also earmarked pro- tially eroded female torsos set like classical or simply more ethereal, than the earthy ceeds from the sales of selected paintings columns against a vibrant blue sky, and peasants in Millet’s painting, is just one in the exhibition to be donated to the “Rush Hours,” in which sculpted heads among many intriguing issues raised by same charitable organization. from ancient times to the modern, this eternally engaging contemporary This generous gesture of support for emerge from a crowd of commuters. master. our grievously wounded city says some- Here, the fact that the human faces are ––Ed McCormack thing about the character of Hideo Mori, blurred, while the stone heads are ren- who is known for his sensitive, highly dered with photorealist clarity, seems to

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 25 Dieter Obrecht: A German Artist’s Universal Concerns he German-born artist Dieter Obrecht, tional realities” exploring the concept of story, the story of my soul-pain, a sadness to Twho has been exhibiting extensively time. From the early to late nineties, he con- be witnessed of what people are able to do throughout Europe and elsewhere since the cerned himself with digital computer art, and are doing to each other. This artistic early 1970s, has a varied history. Like his employing technology to explore the con- expression is applied with an intention to great predecessor Joseph Beuys, Obrecht, nections between so-called “virtual reality” provide enough space to develop (and who emigrated to Greece in 1992, then and personal reality. And from 1999 to the encourage) the viewer’s own interpretation moved to London in 1998, has extended present, Obrecht has been exploring and fantasy into my work. Therefore, in an his creative activities well beyond the gallery Abstract Expressionism, albeit from a post- effort not to dilute a fragile moment of sen- wall. Most recently, he has been involving modern perspective, which he explains sibility, I do not provide any obvious titles.” himself with the mass media in various ways, involves “studying the works of leading The untitled paintings in Dieter Obrecht’s embarking on specialized teaching projects, abstract painters with a strong emphasis on show, are at once lyrical and powerful, con- and even dabbling in spiritual diplomacy by those of the German artist Gerhard Richter” veying a hint of emotional complexity––if “meeting with the Dailai Llama to present and “researching the relationship and con- not to the degree that the artist may intend, him with a painting about the political/ nections between abstract and figurative judging from the ponderousness of his state- human rights situation in Tibet.” painting in an effort to arrive at a marriage ment. For, in truth, one would not really be For the past two years, Obrecht has also of the two.” able to determine the impetus for the paint- worked as an art director and designer for a For his most recent exhibition, ings strictly on the visual evidence at hand. Japanese jazz-rock band in Osaka, as well as “re(e)volution,” at Montserrat Gallery, However, Obrecht’s statement does shed creating digital images for record compa- 584 Broadway, in Soho, Obrecht did an light on the underlying forces that inform nies, and providing Internet based free edu- abrupt shift prompted by the events of his overall compositions of vertical textured cation as resource for beginners in art histo- September 11. strokes on vibrant color fields, which stand ry—all in keeping, apparently, with his “I changed my planned theme for the quite handsomely on their own as hermetic broad based philosophy and vision of the exhibition and the paintings,” the artist expressions of private angst translated into artist as an all-around shaman/communica- wrote in a statement accompanying the striking visual terms. In the final analysis, to/scholar in the Beuysian tradition. show. “The paintings now on display for me while Dieter Obrecht is an articulate artist This deliberate, theoretical approach fig- represent a visual transformation of inner with a strong conceptual commitment and ures into Obrecht’s activities as a painter, as conflict where ethical values and everyday his theories are certainly relevant, the bot- well. His work has been divided into three reality are colliding. My paintings are a tom line is that his paintings, at once gestur- distinct phrases. From 1973 to 1980, he 2-dimensional place for an open dialog al and meditative, speak eloquently for explored what he calls “Neo-Surrealism,” about self-destruction, a downward trip on themselves. creating metaphysical compositions of “fic- which mankind probably is. They echo a –Bela Miklos Kim, Myung-Sik: A Painter’s Haunting Sense of Place he longing for the place of one’s origins more somber palette. Vigorously brushed Tis one of the most basic and bittersweet strokes of gray, blue, and black are massed of all human emotions. Kim, Myung-Sik, a at the center of the composition to convey painter and college art professor from the sense of a landscape viewed through Korea, grew up in a small town called darker mists of memory, with the surround- Kodegi, which completely vanished over the ing areas of the white paper left bare. years due to creeping modernization. This Although this compositional spareness is a “ghost town” of memory was the subject of feature of much Asian art, here it serves to some of the most affecting paintings in suggest a sense of isolation, of how a melan- Kim’s recent exhibition at Montserrat choly nostalgia often seems to exist in a kind Gallery, 584 Broadway, in Soho. of void, apart from all that makes up the Kim, Myung-Sik is a lyrical expressionist present and the daily events of one’s life. whose vibrant palette and fluid gestural style “Hometown, Kodegi Hill” The visual information in another painting effectively evoke a variety of moods. His in the series is considerably more specific, acrylic paintings on Oriental paper have a suggest a bouquet. The mood evoked is at even while the composition is abstractly joyous sense of freedom that is almost child- once gay and funereal. The flowers, after all, schematized, with the outlines of small like, yet they are informed by a sophisticated are simply flowers, and unaware that they dwellings and foliage scrawled loosely over and mature sensibility, in subjects ranging are participating in an elegy. So the overall roughly rectangular areas of subdued color. from Central Park, in New York City, with feeling of the compositional is finally more In yet other compositions, however, Kim tall buildings rising above brilliant multicol- celebratory than elegiac . There is the sense treats similar landscape subjects in a more ored trees to the landscape and small of a cherished childhood memory, an effect buoyant manner, blocking in the various dwellings of Kodegi. enhanced by Kim’s fresh approach to form elements in bright primary hues accented In his memory-paintings of Kodegi, Kim and color. In this regard, Kim can be com- by a lively linear calligraphy of strokes combines cultural nostalgia and a deeply felt pared to such contemporary American and dashes. sense of place with a strong sense of expressionists as George McNeil and Jay In the latter paintings Kim, Myung-Sik, abstract design and a bold use of color. In Milder, who adopt the directness of chil- who has exhibited widely in his native Korea one painting in the series a pagoda-like dren’s paintings to invest their pictures with and whose work is in numerous public and house appears in swift red outline in a large, an adult depth of feeling. private collections, seems to suggest how rectangular area of brilliant yellow brushed In another painting in the series simply even the most haunting memories are onto the paper in broad strokes. It is juxta- entitled “Hometown, Kodegi Hill,” in con- invariably acompanied by an irrepressible posed with a bright explosion of floral trast to the sunnier hues in the previous sense of joy. shapes in red, green, and yellow hues that composition, Kim employs a somewhat ––Marie R. Pagano

26 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Celebrating African-American Art his year, artist Dee Winfield curated the winking self portrait on a box of “Quaker TWest Arts Coalition’s annual Black Hominy Grits,” as well as in another History Month exhibition at Broadway Mall acrylic on canvas of a man in an argyle Community Center, on the center island at sweater and wide-brimmed fedora cooling Broadway and 96th Street. Entitled it with a bottle of Heinekin on an inner “L.I.F.E. (Looking into the Fine Arts city stoop. Experience),” the show rallied together a Bernice Simms put formal brevity to diverse group of artists to herald, in the different purposes in “Green Dress,” a curator’s words, “the Black experience in gracefully composed oil of an arabesque- figure and form.” like figure limned in a bold neo-fauvist Winfield herself did so with a large canvas manner akin to Milton Avery. Vibrant color Stuart McClean, “Chit Chat” in oil and graphite called “Reading ‘Closed areas were also featured in another painting Doors.’ ” It depicted a stately, shapely by Simms of two women having lunch in an By contrast, a serene stillness distinguished woman seated in a chair reading a book in ornate setting around a vase of flowers. an oil by Trevlin Jeffrey, in which a monu- the nude. The unfettered reader was ren- Carol Maria Weaver showed two large mental female figure with an Afro wreathing dered in charcoal on bare canvas, while the mixed media paintings on wood in which her head like a halo raises her arms to drink cityscape in the window was painted in full joyful dancing figures were interpreted in a heartily from a gold vessel that the title tells color. One might be tempted to view the strong semi-abstract style. Weaver’s paint- us is the “Cup of Life.” monochromatic figure on the colorful back- ings were semi-abstract, yet expressed a Danii Oliver is an artist who can make the ground in terms of Ralph Ellison’s strong sense of character with their flowing folds in clothing and other inanimate details “Invisible Man,” as a symbolic reflection of contours and the figures’ expressive features as expressive as facial expressions. Oliver’s the Black experience in White America. Or and buoyant gestures. “My Sista” showed the fond relationship of else one could simply appreciate the picture Another ubiquitous exhibitor, Jack two young women in miniskirts posed in for its visual contrasts. In either case, Dittrick, contributed a dynamic relief paint- front of a skillfully articulated stone wall, Winfield is an accomplished painter whose ing entitled “Venus Williams,” capturing the while another oil captured the despair of a work invariably raises intriguing questions. incomparable grace of the great athlete lop- young man unlucky in love, his woeful pres- Elton Tucker, on the other hand, spells out ing across a green tennis field on which she ence looming before a screen door. his intentions with upbeat texts such as cast her long, lovely shadow. Amid the more socially engaged works in “Have Faith” and “You Inspire Me” stenciled The large, emblematic acrylic paintings of this show, Ashley Peek’s paintings were onto portraits of proud, attractive African Stuart McClean, whose work can also be anomalously fanciful. “Mushroom Faeries” Americans set against energetic, graffiti-like seen at the Simmons Gallery, a new venue and “Mischief” both featured delicate surfaces. Tucker’s work, at once funky and in Harlem, adopt certain characteristics of winged nudes cavorting in whimsical natural elegant, combines positive propaganda with African sculpture in contemporary terms. settings, demonstrating not only Peek’s a lively approach to form and color. McClean’s colorfully clad, silhouetted fig- unique vision, but the rich diversity of styles Frequent WSAC exhibitor Mikki Powell ures have a frieze-like flatness, vibrant colors, and subjects in African American art. revealed characteristic deadpan wit in her and kinetic sense of movement. ––J. Sanders Eaton

Abstraction March 14 - April 25, 2002

Dennis Clive May 2 - June 13, 2002

Allan Stone Gallery 113 East 90th Street, NYC 10128 Tel. 212.987.4997 Fax. 212.987.1655

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 27 Arensberg’s Soulful Contraptions Mirror Our Human Klutziness umor is one of the most misunder- rors affixed to the sculpture, Hstood components of art, for all too seemingly inviting introspec- often critics and others fail to realize how tion. Into a subject as serious serious it can be at its core. Leda Arensberg as Hell, Arensberg’s piece makes this point as effectively as any artist in introduces a note of gentle recent memory with a work called “After humor to salve our sense of 9/11,” which can be seen in her solo show national impotency. “Art in Motion,” at Pleiades Gallery, 530 In other works dealing with West 25 Street, from April 2 through 20. subjects of a less grave nature, (There will be a reception for the artist on Arensberg is freer to indulge Saturday, April 6, from 3 to 6 PM.) in flights of fancy that combine Like most of the pieces in Arensberg’s a whimsy reminiscent of Paul show, “After 9/11” is a kinetic sculpture, Klee, Joan Miro, and Alexander created with wood, wire, beads, and sundry Calder with elements akin to other odd materials mounted on a small Jean Tinguely’s Dada-influ- “Away to the Circus” 22" x 27" mixed media motor on the wall. From the edges of a cen- enced kinetic “metame- tral rectangular form, several lengths of wire canique” assemblages. pristine early boxed constructions, some of protrude in different directions like spindly Pieces such as “Away to the Circus,” and which included springs and shapes similar to limbs. Affixed to these are whimsically “Seven Sisters,” for example, are a sheer those in her present works, as well as in the shaped forms and beads that slide up and delight, with bright colors and shapes sug- delicately delineated ink drawings of trees down the wires when the motor is turned gesting deconstructing playing cards. that she showed in the same venue in the on and the piece is set in motion. The Hearts, spades, arrow heads, circles and 1994. Although the wires sticking out from whole thing starts to shake and quake and other intriguing symbols jut out from the Arensberg’s new moving sculptures could the sliding beads make clicking and clacking tips of bouncing wires, on which beads slide suggest abstract versions of the delicate noises as the contraption gains momentum and click back and forth, or boing this way limbs in some of her arboreal drawings, and its various components start to revolve. and that on wobbling springs. The overall while the colorful forms on the tips of them Like most of Arensberg’s recent kinetic effect is of barely controlled chaos. could suggest stylized leaves, they could just sculptures, with the exception of one or two That the low-tech motors Arensberg as easily be seen as the limbs of stylized small ones in shades of industrial gray, employs are not always consistent, tending human or animal figures. “After 9/11” is quite colorful. But the fact to quicken or slow unpredictably, may vex Yet, perhaps it is better to view these zani- that the predominant colors here are red, the artist but only adds to the fun for the ly evocative configurations as discrete life while, and blue, coupled with the pregnant viewer, giving the pieces a touching sense of forms unto themselves, possessing their own title, lends this particular piece a peculiar fallibility that oddly humanizes them. This peculiar vitality and an inimitable soulfulness poignancy. is humorous and refreshing in an age of that makes us recognize them, for all their For all its cacophonous kineticism, the sometimes intimidating computer science strangeness, as fellow creatures––and smile! piece has an elegiac quality. It seems not so and technological wizardry. The Humpty And like such worthy predecessors as the much an antic Yankee Doodle Dandy satire Dumpty precariousness of these quaintly aforementioned Calder, Klee, and Miro, of jingoism as a sympathetic statement mechanized, strangely beautiful objects, Leda Arensberg appears to recognize that a about what a sadly ineffectual, if under- seems to speak reassuringly to our common smile can be an appropriate response to seri- standable, response patriotic flag waving is human klutziness, as if to say, “Don’t ous art. Indeed, because a smile, like a to the anger and grief that we all feel in the worry––nobody’s perfect!” sneeze or sob, is involuntary, it just may be wake of a tragic event that has changed our This general sense of optimism pervades the most sincere response of all. lives irrevocably. There are even small mir- Arensberg’s oeuvre. It was present in her ––Ed McCormack

ABSTRACTION THE BROOME STREET AS EMPHASIS GALLERY June 7 - June 27, 2002 Reception: June 13, 6 - 8pm Ground floor, 1,300 sq. ft. Exhibition space

Maria Le Roux Munante rental available Jim Schulte 498 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013 Tel: (212) 941-0130 William Wolf

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28 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 Ina Wishner’s Watercolors Limn the Luminous Landscape recent review of the work of J.M.W. reveals her innate savvy, nonetheless, in the ATurner pointed out, correctly, that the splendid organization of her pictures. great English painter’s landscapes were nine- In the aquarelle entitled “Sun Striking the teenth century forerunners of Color Field Cliff,” for example, the landscape is evoked painting. Other relationships to abstract in loose washes of color that are casual yet painting, albeit of more structural varieties, controlled. Layers of clouds, mountains, and can also be seen in the work of John Sell fields are laid down in flowing horizontal Cotman, another British painter of roughly bands that function brilliantly in both picto- the same period, known primarily for his rial terms and as abstract design. Through work in watercolor and sepia wash. her lyrical tonal modulations, Wishner fills It is to the latter painter that one can the entire composition with a sense of light compare the contemporary artist Ina and air. Wishner, whose exhibition of landscapes in The title of another work, “Sussex Downs “Pink Magnolia, Sissinghurst” watercolor and pastel, “At Home and Near Rodmell,” tips one off that Wishner is Abroad,” was featured recently at The Pen familiar with the English countryside, in “Pink Magnolia––Sissinghurst,” for while and Brush, Inc., 16 East 10th Street. whether or not she is consciously influenced the subject is ostensibly British, the slender Although she is a contemporary American by the British watercolor tradition. Here, branches bearing brilliant red buds that artist based in Port Chester, New York, Ina however, the boldness of her paint han- dominate the foreground are rendered with Wisher has mastered what has come to be dling––particularly the way she captures the a bold linear grace that is decidedly Asian. known as classic English watercolor tech- lay of the land in what appear to be single As a pastelist, Ina Wishner also reveals nique. Like Cotman, Wishner often employs strokes of a broad brush, as well as the five impressive facility, as seen in “Spectacular washes of translucent color to render the bold dashes of yellow in the foreground that Sky––Sussex,” where white clouds and landscape with a bold simplicity that verges function more as abstract flourishes than yellow streaks of light are captured in on abstraction, yet retains the natural char- descriptive elements––can also be likened to staccato diagonal strokes, set against a acter of her subjects. modern American watercolor masters such vibrant blue sky. Wishner’s direct, unaffected style is a as John Marin and Charles Burchfield. It is in her watercolors, however, that this refreshing contrast to much of the stylistic Indeed, in the process of evolving her gifted artist reveals most dynamically her strategizing that one sees today. While tak- own distinctive style, Wishner appears to ability to assimilate elements from several ing her inspiration directly from nature, have assimilated techniques from a wide different traditions and employ them, in her rather than from a selfconscious desire to variety of sources, including classical Chinese own unique manner, to conduct a lively cultivate postmodern sophistication, she ink painting. This seems especially apparent dialogue with nature. ––Maureen Flynn connect show iz win .b lf e s “THRUSH” THREAD, WOOD, PAPER 23" x 19" THREAD, WOOD, PAPER “THRUSH” t GRETL BAUER THREADED DRAWINGS AND CONSTRUCTIONS r coming soon... MAY 22 - JUNE 15, 2002 568 BROADWAY SUITE 607 NY, NY 10012 (212) 226-8711 FAX (212) 343-7303 TUES. THRU SAT. 11-5:30 PM a GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 29 Galleries 2002: an overview The historical influence and current role of leries that once called 57 St. their home, are Sculpture Center, a non-profit gallery and New York City’s galleries and museums are now Chelsea habitats. Several cooperative school, established in 1971. It is now locat- indisputable. Without them the city would galleries, including NoHo, Bowery, Blue ed at 44-19 Purves St., LIC. And, we all not have achieved its status as a global Mountain, Prince Street and Pleiades made know that MoMA, now associated with leader intellectually, creatively and com- their moves to West 25 St. in Chelsea which PS1, will close its doors for renovations at mercially. This city attracts, influences, now places them on a level playing field 11 West 53 St. from May 2002 until 2005 exhibits and sells artwork by artists from all with the privately owned commercial gal- with temporary 160,000 sq. ft. facilities at continents in staggering numbers, thereby leries. There are a few galleries that have set 45-20 33 St., LIC. We cannot deny that enhancing its multi-cultural vitality. up satellite galleries in Chelsea, while keep- this move by a major museum will inject Imagine, there are over 1,000 galleries and ing their uptown headquarters, including Queens with new vitality. Like Williamsburg alternative exhibition spaces in New York Mary Boone, Marlborough, and Gagosian. in Brooklyn, LIC is bursting with exciting City –including the five boroughs. How they What’s New: artists’ studio buildings and alternative all survive is a mystery and watching their In the last few years, despite a sluggish spaces. Manhattan, still a dominant force, ebb and flow is an adventure. economy, many gallery owners decided to is not the only place of action. make their mark in New York City. Among Who Closed: Not long ago, SoHo dominated the down- them are Lyonsweir, at 526 West 26 St., Sadly, we have recently bid farewell to town art scene, with 300 or more galleries. where contemporary Realism in all media is Schmidt Bingham, Linda Kirkland, Then, escalating real estate costs forced their shown. It is one of the several newer gal- Knickerbocker, Thread Waxing Space, Dru exodus to Chelsea. SoHo’s gallery popula- leries where representational art reigns Arstark, Asyl, and many others. But, as we tion has been cut in half, while we can now supreme. New also is Fresh Art, a non-profit know so well in the art world, they may one easily count more than 250 galleries in organization located at 135 West 4th Street, day reappear in a new form. And, in the Chelsea –and growing. We cannot remem- that represents and promotes NYC artists meanwhile, many more galleries will take ber such excitement since the East Village with special needs –bravo. Eye Beam, a their place. But, we wonder, as space buzz in the 80’s and that was a flicker com- gallery that shows digital art, at 540 West becomes sparse, have we seen the last of the pared to the expansive growth of Chelsea. 21 St., joins the host of new and established new frontiers? What brings such attention to this area is galleries that are showing computer inspired —Renée Phillips the brisk accumulation of blue chip as well works. In Harlem, Sugar Hill Art Center, as brand new. For example, pioneer Paula located at Broadway and 151 Street, opened Cooper, one of the first dealers to appear in its doors to show art with an African- Renée Phillips is author of New York SoHo in the 60’s, was also among the American presence. Contemporary Art Galleries: The Complete Chelsea trailblazers, along with Matthew Major changes: Annual Guide. Excerpts from the book may be Marks. Tatistcheff, Sherry French, Robert What is one borough’s loss is another’s gain. read at www.ManhattanArts.com Miller and Fischbach, a few well-known gal- Manhattan’s Upper Eastside lost The

•CLASSIFIED•CLASSIFIED•CLASSIFIED•CLASSIFIED•CLASSIFIED• COMPETITIONS CELEBRATING ITS 43RD YEAR, PRESTI- FINE ART PACKAGING Shipping supplies RECENT WORK SHOWCASE 2002, NYC GIOUS ARTIST-RUN GALLERY IN THE (wholesale & retail) • Private mail box • group exhibition and $9000.00 awards. Deadline HEART OF SOHO IS SEEKING NEW Lamination • Free Estimate • EZ-Mail, Inc., April 30. Send Sase for prospectus: Slow Art MEMBERS. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE 217 E. 85th St., NYC 212 772-7909, Productions, 870 Sixth Avenue, NYC 10001 SEND SASE TO PHOENIX GALLERY, 568 212-982-1956 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10012 13TH annual Juried Competition at Viridian’s PHOTOGRAPHY FOR ARTISTS new Chelsea location: June 25 to July 21, SOHO GALLERY is currently reviewing Specializing for 20 years in quality slides & 2002. Juror: Robert Rosenblum, Curator, artists’ portfolios. Please send slides, resume & 4 & 5 transparencies of fine art. Bob Sasson, Guggenheim Museum, Contributing Editor, SASE to: Montserrat Gallery, 584 Broadway, 212.675.0973 ArtForum and NYU Professor. Awards: Cash NY, NY 10012 Prizes, Group Show, Continuous Slide POSITION WANTED Screening for runners-up. Deadline: April 13, WWW.NEWYORKARTWORLD.COM Attractive, creative young woman, bilingual 2002. Send SASE for prospectus: VIRIDIAN is currently reviewing artists portfolios for (English/Spanish), with BFA in Interior Artists Inc., 530 West 25th St., New York, NY web gallery showcase. 212-228-0657 Design and experience in media sales, advertis- 10001. Or download from our web site: E-mail [email protected] ing, and marketing, seeking challenging, inter- www.viridianartists.com esting position in gallery, museum, or media WEST SIDE ARTS COALITION venue. Contact Silvia. Phone: (718 ) 459-4457 20th ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION, welcomes members from all areas. Visual E-mail: [email protected] PLEIADES GALLERY, OPEN TO ALL arts exhibits, theater events, multi-media MEDIA. JUROR: Mr. Larry Rinder, Curator opportunites. Phone: 212-316-6024 CHORUS MEMBERS WANTED of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of e-mail: [email protected] Non-sectarian chorus welcomes anyone with American Art, NY. NY. SHOW: June 26-July FOR RENT a desire to sing. No audition, no experience 13th, 2002. SLIDES DUE: May 20. Send GALLERY FOR RENT • Upper West Side, well required. Join now. Monday rehearsals, SASE for PROSPECTUS to Pleiades Gallery, equipped, by week, street level. 212-874-7188 6:30-8:30 pm, 9th Ave./28 St. 530 West 25th. 4th Fl, NY, NY, 10001-5516. Jack Eppler (212) 475-2702 646-230-0056 GALLERY FOR RENT • Midtown area e-mail: [email protected] OPPORTUNITIES (2,000 Sq. Ft., Heavy traffic location) Prestigious artist-run gallery in the heart of By week or Month. 212-245-6369 Chelsea gallery district. Limited number of SERVICES memberships now available. For information CAREER DEVELOPMENT & COACHING. FOR CLASSIFIED LISTINGS send SASE to Pleiades Gallery - 530 West 25th Private Consultations, Group Workshops, Call or Write: 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, St (4th Fl) NY, NY 10001-5516 or call Publications & Marketing Services. “How to New York, NY 10028 (212) 861-6814 (646) 230-0056 Sell Your Art” seminar held April 11 and May e-mail: [email protected] 19. Renee Phillips, Manhattan Arts Int., 212- 472-1660. Web site: www.ManhattanArts.com 30 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 “Abstraction” and Anderson at Allan Stone ollowing closely on its recent group ly “liquefied,” to borrow Allan Stone’s own of sinuously Fshow, “The Figure,” Allan Stone Gallery, apt word; the latter contributes a small unti- swelling vertical 113 East 90th Street, has mounted an tled oil on board from the late 1940s that rainbow hues by equally important and comprehensive survey appears more marbleized than dripped. Jay Rosenblum; entitled “Abstraction,” on view through Arshile Gorky also puts in a a strong and a wickedly April 25. In either area, few venues have the appearance with “Enigma,” a very early whiplashing calli- inventory or resources to draw upon that (1928-29), beautifully somber oil. The sub- graphic abstraction Allan Stone has, but the gallery is especially dued hues and tightly locked-in composition by Nguyen well-known for showing the giants of show the influence of Braque, but the sensu- Ducmanh called Abstract Expressionism, all of whom are al, biomorphically flowing forms are already “Kung-Fu-You.” present and accounted for here. pure Gorky. * * * John Anderson As soon as you walk in, one of the first Nor can one ignore a vigorously linear Just before the “Abstraction” exhibition, things you see is a large collage by Robert watercolor by Hans Hoffman; a luminous Allan Stone Gallery featured a solo show of Motherwell, with splashy areas of pale blue new sculptures by John Anderson, who was oil color combined with exquisitely torn and born in Seattle and has shown with the pasted paper. For some of us with peculiar gallery since 1962. A recipient of a taste, Motherwell’s intimate collages surpass Guggenheim Foundation Grant and New his large canvases. This untitled piece is a Jersey Council of the Arts award whose work splendid example, circa. 1964, of his casual is in numerous museum collections, includ- command and elegantly juxtaposed odds and ing those of the Whitney and the Modern, ends. Anderson is still perhaps best known for his Right across the room is “Herald,” a big early carved sculptures of tool-like objects. knockout of a canvas by Franz Kline of a Franz Kline His more recent pieces, however, are mas- rough, elongated rectangle boldly brushed sive assemblages of stripped and sectioned onto a juicy white ground. Although Kline little gem of Synchromist composition, circa. pieces of timber, often with the stumps of has drastically reduced his composition, it is 1916-17, by Stanton MacDonald-Wright; a smaller branches protruding in thorn-like possible to discern “ghosts” of more charac- characteristically tactile 1950 canvas by configurations from their outer surfaces, teristically converging calligraphic strokes Richard Pousette-Dart; and an energetic pierced through their centers and linked like showing through the white. But even with- 1959 oil on canvas incorporating shapes beads on giant necklaces to lengths of strong out the pentimento, this major canvas, dated staked out with masking tape by Robert S. industrial cable. 1953-54, has its own peculiarly frozen “push Neuman. Either suspended from the ceiling in and pull.” There are also myriad pleasures to be densely layered bundles or incorporated, Talk about gestures, Edvins Strautmanis’ found by less famous but nonetheless worthy along with larger limbs and sheets of pol- monstrously huge, profoundly splashy paint- artists in this stunning show, among them: a ished steel, into large floor pieces, they form ing “One Time Only” is well named. characteristically jazzy composition of intri- rugged monolithic structures that appear at Reportedly, Strautmanis sometimes painted cately layered hard-edge shapes by Richard once playful and brutal. with a broom, and this time it looks like he Hickam; an sumptuous little grid of edible Like gigantic tinkertoys that might at any dipped one into a big bucket of gooey red pastel impastos by Sue Miller; an austere moment spring noisily to life in some mon- paint, took one insouciant, go-for-broke black and blue geometric composition by strous, mutant “Dance of the Wooden swipe at the canvas and hit the jackpot! Kazuko Inoue; a splashy gestural oil by Soldiers,” John Anderson’s new sculptures Of course no gesture fest like this one Alfred Leslie from 1960, before he convert- command space with their awesome, almost would be complete without de Kooning and ed to realism; a subtle, quilt like collage by intimidating overall presence, even as they Pollock. The former is represented by a gor- Philip Sultz; muscular painterly excursions by seduce us up close with the elegance of their geous oil on paper in mostly yellow hues both Dominick Turturro and Robert beautifully carved, chiseled, and in some from 1942, before his cubist structuring real- Baribeau; a chromatically gorgeous painting cases painted, surfaces. ––Ed McCormack Sumi-E: The Art of Brush Painting An exhibition by the Metro New York Chapter, THE CONTEMPORARY Sumi-E Society of America, Inc. NARRATIVE Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery Brooklyn Botanic Garden April 19 - May 9, 2002 1000 Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11225 Reception: April 25, 6 - 8pm Tel 718 623 7200 www.bbg.org April 13 - June 9, 2002 Festina Amaturo Yves Aubrymore Tuesday-Sunday, 10AM -5:30PM Admission: $3:00 Seniors $1.50 Members & Tues. Free Louis Brachet Susan J. Goldman Meet the Artists at Sakura Matsuri, April 27 & 28 Willie Reed, Jr. Sakura Matsuri Events: Calligraphy Demonstration by Rose Sigal Ibsen, 1-5 PM 415 West Broadway, 5th Floor Brush Painting Workshop with Eva G. Mihovich SOHO, NY NY 10012 and Carol Itzkowitz Neiman, 2-2:30 PM 212-226-4151 / Fax: 212-966-4380 www.agora-gallery.com • www.art-mine.com Curator: Rose Sigal Ibsen Coodinator: Eva G. Mihovich Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 6 pm

APRIL/MAY 2002 GALLERY&STUDIO 31 Susan Sills’ Witty Coutout Installations Humanize Art History lthough freestanding two dimension- And by the same token, why shouldn’t an felt when he arrived in Tahiti, expecting Aal sculpture did not attract major crit- artist known primarily for cutouts sprawl an unspoiled paradise, only to realize that ical attention as a discrete phenomenon out into the larger space of installation it was already a French tourist resort. until 1996, when the Whitney Museum art? Indeed, cutouts and installation—at Such thoughtful conjecture sets Susan mounted a major exhibition called least in Sills’ case—go together like a Big Sills apart from those artists who have “Contemporary Cutouts,” it had its ori- Mac and fries. employed the cutout merely for its visual gins in the 1960s, when artists such as One of the things that makes Sills’ novelty, lending her work a conceptual Red Grooms and Alex Katz, among oth- pieces succeed is her ability to mimic the aspect that adds to its complexity, as well ers, sought to escape the limitations of the styles of various artists and periods so as to the viewers’ enjoyment. Thus, in yet traditional pictorial space and bridge the convincingly that we recognize her art another life-size cutout installation enti- gap between painting and sculpture. Few historical sources as instantly as the faces tled “What Sybil Saw,” we see the girlish artists, however, have pursued this of old friends. From the bright, flat color model for one of the main figures on the intriguing hybrid form as doggedly nor areas of Ukiyo-e in the previous work, she ceiling of the Sistine Chapel swooning refined it as wittily as Susan Sills, whose moves effortlessly to the staccato strokes furtively over Michelangelo’s sketches for solo exhibition “Ladies of Leisure: Life- and subtly modulated hues of “David” as she takes a break in the mas- size Cutouts from the Old Masters” is at Impressionism in “Degas Vu.” Here, ter’s studio. Viridian Artists, Inc., 530 West 25th three separate cutouts of a nude bather, By her ability to imagine such behind- Street, from April 23 through May 11. (There will be a reception April 27, from 4-6 PM. and a gallery talk by the artist on May 4, from 3 to 5 PM.) Sills takes the art of appropriation to new heights by unfettering familiar figures from art history from the confinement of the frame and thrusting them into real space, to confront the contemporary viewer in new and surprising ways that invariably provide not only smiles but also fresh insights about how women have been viewed by male artists of various periods. Seemingly one of the few contempo- rary artists to real- Susan Sills with some of the life-size cutouts in her solo show, “Ladies at Leisure” at Viridian Artists ize that unabashed Inc., 530 W. 25th Street from April 23 - May 11. 212 414-4040 www.viridianartists.com humor can be more viewer-friendly and enjoyable than irony, combined with such props as a real towel, the-scenes details of art history as how Sills is not above punning to up the ante soap, and sponge, form a cinematically Michelangelo might have selected his of fun in titles such as “Utamaro, flowing sequence. Since we know Degas models from among the naive and impres- Utamaro, I’ll See Utamaro.” In the piece worked from photographs, Sills takes it sionable teenagers of Florence, who must so named, as well as in others, Sills com- one step further to imagine how he might surely have daydreamed of things more bines figures cut from birchwood and have handled a video camera! mundane than their own unimaginable painted in oils with found props from the Then there is “Voulez vous un chapeau, immortality, Susan Sills brings exalted real world, such as the cardboard box M. Gauguin?” or, “Would you like to buy subjects down to earth. In doing so, she from a Happy Meal and other a hat, Mr. Gauguin?” in which two of the makes us vividly aware of the simple MacDonald’s detritus scattered on a painter’s dusky beauties crouch in the human, and sometimes even humorous, tatami mat in front of two 18th century manner of flea market vendors behind origins of great art. geishas. Why, in the multi-culti, pluralistic stacks of actual straw fedoras. In this ––Ed McCormack realm of postmodern art, should two tableau, with characteristic wit, Sills gives working girls have to settle for only sushi? us an inkling of how Gauguin might have

32 GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002 what’s in an image

April 2-20, 2002 Noho Gallery 530 W. 25 St., NYC 4th Fl. (212)367-7063 Hours: Tues.-Sat.11am-6pm Artists Reception: Thurs, April 4, 5-7pm

New York Society of Women Artists

PENUMBRA AT PACE UNIVERSITY

THE MICHAEL SCHIMMEL CENTER FOR THE ARTS 1 PACE PLAZA, NEW YORK, NY APRIL 1 - 28, 2002

YANKA CANTOR CARI CLARE PENNY DELL DAVID DERR AILENE FIELDS MARTIN GLICK SARAH KATZ ANN LASUSA BARBARA LUBLINER GINA NOVENDSTERN GIRAIR POLADIAN GALLERY HOURS: MONDAY - FRIDAY 1PM -5PM LUDLOW SMETHURST Patti Mollica Urban Impressions GLORIA SPEVACEK WEEKENDS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY April 2-May 31, 2002 212-346-1398 SALLY WEISS Artist’s Reception: Thursday, April 11, 6-8pm Manhattan Athletic Club 277 Park Avenue (48th b/w Lex. and Park ) 212.486.3477 Hours: M-F 5:30am -10pm, Sat. & Sun.: 9-6 pm SCULPTURE·PAINTING www.mollicastudio.com AMY BANKER “Bicycle and Umbrella” oil/canvas 40" x The Wheels & Deals of Motion April 1 to April 30, 2002 May 1 to May 31, 2002 Reception: Reception: April 3, 2002 6pm - 8pm May 7, 2002 6pm - 8pm EZAIR GALLERY 905 Madison Ave. between 72nd & 73rd Streets New York, NY 10021 212 628-2224 Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 6 pm

GALLERY&STUDIO APRIL/MAY 2002