JGUNE/JAULY/ALLUGUST 2007 Ewww.galleryandstudiomagazine.comRY&ST U VOL. 9D NO. 5I NewO York

The World of the Working Artist WEIMAR DREAMS

George Grosz, “Barberina” From Berlin to Broadway at The Morgan Library & Museum (p.21) Plus: Art vs. Empathy (NY Notebook, centerfold) Ulla Novina Alberto Jiménez

Winds of Change #1, Italian Marble “Daily Still Life” Oil on Canvas 100 x 81 represented by Icons in Stone On view through the Summer Months WORLD FINE ART GALLERY 511 West 25th Street, Ste 803 Broadfoot & Broadfoot Manhattan Gallery New York, N.Y. 10001 62 Greene Street, New York, N. Y. Phone: 646 336 1677 Hrs: Tues - Sat 12 - 6pm 646-808-7470 www.worldfineart.com [email protected]

THE BROOME STREET GALLERY Ground floor, 1,300 sq. ft. Exhibition space rental available

498 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013 Tel: (212) 941-0130

GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Sawaka Nagae WS C West Side Arts Coalition 1979 SALON 2007 Curated by Jennifer Holst and Berik Kulmamirov June 2 - 17, 2007 Reception: Saturday, June 2, 2:30-5:30 Artists: Elke Albrecht • Ash Almonte Carole Barlowe • Meg Boe Birns Joseph Isak Boss • Elinore Bucholtz Eduard Chernukhin • Susan Daniels Astrith Deyrup • Leila Elias K. A. Gibbons • Georgianna’s Gifts Irina Gorodetskaya • Carolyn S. Kaplan Berik Kulmamirov • Madi Lanier • Lori Lata Leanne Martinson • Margo Mead • Marsha Peruo “Pathetique #2” Encaustic on Wood Panel 12"x12" Shirley Z. Piniat • Olga Radjapova Carolyn Reus • Emily Rich • Anne Rudder Represented by Sima Schloss • Meyer Tannenbaum WORLD FINE ART GALLERY Marta Vaneva • Janice Wood Wetzel 511 West 25th Street, Ste 803 New York, N.Y. 10001 Broadway Mall Community Center Phone: 646 336 1677 Hrs: Tues - Sat 12 - 6pm 96th Street and Broadway, center island, NYC Gallery Hours: Wed. 6-8pm, Sat./Sun.12-6pm www.worldfineart.com [email protected] [email protected] 212-316-6024 www.wsacny.org G&S NYC GUIDE Everything Goes Book Cafe & Neighborhood Stage, at 208 Bay Street in Tompkinsville, Staten Island, continues to justify its name with a variety of free musical events, poetry readings, films, art exhibitions, and other community-oriented activities. On June 14 and 15, at 9 PM, Manhattan cognoscenti willing to brave the ferry can catch a performance piece involving lights, smoke, and audio by resident conceptual artist Steve Jones Daughs. Entitled “Mystic Portal,” it is billed as “a celebration of the New Moon.” Be there or be square! While on Staten Island don’t miss Cynthia von Buhler: Show & Tell at THE STATEN ISLAND MUSEUM, 75 Stuyvesant Place. Von Buhler, a resi- dent of the Island, creates interactive sculptures and surreal three-dimensional works that have won her a wide following in the New York art scene. She is also author of a highly acclaimed Children’s book, The Cat who Wouldn’t Come Inside (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Through June 17. Call 718.727.1135 for museum hours and information. Al Hirschfeld Portraits on view at THE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE, 215 West 57th St., thru July 13. A former alumni of the League, Hirschfeld applied a line as sinuous as that of Aubrey Beardsley to the fine art of theatrical caricature. In a career that spanned more than 80 years, he became one of the most admired draftsmen in America. See an array of caricatures displayed for the first time, including Mick Jagger, The Beatles, and early media stars such as John Barrymore and Charlie Chaplin. www.theartsstudentsleague.org (cont’d p.20) G&S Highlights Alberto Jiménez, pg. 15

On the Cover: George Grosz (1893 –1959) Barberina, 1925 Watercolor on wove paper 25 1/2 x 37 1/4 inches (647 x 948 mm) The Pierpont Morgan Library, Bequest of Fred Ebb, Photography by Joseph Zehavi, 2006 © Estate of George Grosz /Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY –See Weimar Dreams, page 21 Verane Guerin, pg. 4 Ekatherina S, pg. 24

Stephanie Rauschenbusch, pg. 29

Bugatti, pg. 14

Cornelia MacFadyen, pg. 4 Miguel Sansón, pg. 20 Sawaka Nagae, pg. 5 New York Notebook, pg. 16

GALLERY&STUDIO Subscribe to An International Art Journal GALLERY&STUDIO PUBLISHED BY $22 Subscription $18 for additional Gift Subscription $44 International © EYE LEVEL, LTD. 2007 Mail check or Money Order to: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GALLERY&STUDIO 217 East 85th Street, PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 217 East 85th St., PMB 228, New York, NY 10028 Phone: 212-861-6814 (212) 861-6814 E-mail: [email protected] Name EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Jeannie McCormack MANAGING EDITOR Ed McCormack Address SPECIAL EDITORIAL ADVISOR Margot Palmer-Poroner DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Karen Mullen City CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Maureen Flynn www.galleryandstudiomagazine.com State/Zip

2 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 The Sculptor Ulla Novina’s Ancient Inspiration o enter the cavernous exhibition space ing herself humbly within the very oldest Tof Broadfoot & Broadfoot, at 62 tradition of human endeavor. Indeed, as Greene Street, and encounter the sculp- William Zimmer, an art critic for The New tures of the Swedish-born American artist York Times once pointed out in an essay Ulla Novina, on view through the summer on her work, “She sees as early months, is to feel oneself in the presence antecedents manifestations such as of the sacred. To put it quite simply, the imprints of hands on rock faces made by forms that Novina coaxes with her chisel paleolithic people and slabs of rock that from massive slabs of marble are state- contain Viking runes––things that declare ments of grace. Without alluding to any- ‘I am here.’” thing in the known world they command Perhaps no piece of Novina’s addresses space with an innate majesty that makes our origins more explicitly than the piece the viewer hungry for the timeless narra- that she calls “Lucy #1.” The title refers to tive submerged within the surface of the the name given by the famed anthropolo- stone. Their economy of form enhances gist Louis Leakey to the most complete their mute power. skeleton of an early ancestor of humans Skane, the province of Sweden where ever found, excavated in Ethiopia. Since Novina was born is legendary for its this fossil is believed to be female, Novina expansive spirit and boisterous humor. Her refers to her as “our Primordial Mother,” biography tells us that she also spent some and pays tribute with this work in Mexican of her formative years in Varmland, a place onyx, a material with an off-white hue, of “mysterious forests and deep lakes,” suggesting very old bone. Although and also “the county of dreamers, story- Novina began her career with the human tellers, musicians, painters and sculptors.” figure, first as a painter and then when she Both places formed her personality as discovered her true vocation as a sculptor, well as her sculptural sensibility. She is a she has evolved a personal vocabulary of gregarious woman, given to witticisms, forms that transcend literal representation. wild enthusiasms, and easy laughter. But Yet, here again, the two roughly rectangu- there is also a serene stillness at her center, lar forms that she has carved into the a contemplative quality that makes it pos- stone, supported by a columnar “neck,” sible to imagine her sitting for many long are decidedly anthropomorphic, suggest- hours in her studio, where every surface is ing a primitive monument. covered with a thin film of marble dust, “Vessel of the Muse” Even when suggestions of the figure are evoking the timeless silence of the not explicit, as in “Morning Dialogue,” a snowy forests of her youth in Sweden, scale of the gallery space (the polar oppo- particularly craggy work in Italian marble, communing with monolithic slabs of stone site of the ubiquitous “white cube” that which she has scored along its top edge until they tell her in their mute way what the real estate crunch has imposed on with deep grooves, a human element they will become. much of today’s art), her pieces have plen- invariably enters into Novina’s sculptural For Novina has stated in no uncertain ty of space to breathe and exude an atmos- thinking. Here it takes the form of the terms that she regards her stones as sen- phere of pregnant power. “Stately” is the imaginative dialogue she envisages tient beings. She speaks of the “connec- term that springs most readily to mind. between the contrasting deep maroon and tion” between herself and her materials The totemic work in red Italian marble taupe stratifications and striations in the and insists that the dialogue that she has “Vessel of the Muse” grabbed and held stone at the time of their creation in pre- with it is reciprocal: “Together the stone me first, not only because it is the one history. and I tell a story. . . .This awareness cre- closest to the entryway, but because its tall And while it would be no more charac- ates a feeling in me of kinship with the vertical shape suggests an ancient tablet teristic of Novina’s mature aesthetic to stone which I express in my art by inte- with an almost anthropomorphic presence. imitate the superficial particulars of nature grating the natural with my sculptural As one moves around the piece, dramatic than to detail the individual features of the statement. If successful, self and stone are tactile contrasts become apparent between human figure, she creates a powerful held in shared embrace.” the smoothness of the surface facing the material metaphor in “Forest Portals,” in Admittedly, one does often not hear door and its opposite side, where Novina which two adjoining columns of dark artists talking in such terms, passion being has carved away the white stone to Italian marble, carved with precise lines the last taboo in our current climate of unearth the inner core of its white grain. resembling runic inscriptions, celebrate the cool irony. The last thing Ulla Novina is The strokes begin within the vertical natural habitat of her Scandinavian ances- concerned with is adhering to the dictates opening, suggesting a primitive fertility tors. of disposable culture. She is not working symbol––or perhaps, given the title of the Here, as in other pieces in this splendid in plastic or styrofoam, after all; her medi- piece, the very womb of the Muse, earth exhibition, Ulla Novina also proves herself um has been around forever, it is, as a mother of all art––and spread outward to be a worthy peer of her sculptural poet inspired by her work once wrote, over much of its surface. These ruggedly ancestors, Brancusi and his former student “essential structure–– the scaffolding of roughed-up textures, which contrast so Noguchi, who once said, “Actually, the the planet,” and taking inspiration from sharply with fine strands of white on the older it is, the better I like it. I don’t their source, her sculptures are built to opposite side, seem to speak of the intre- know why, but perhaps it’s simply because last. pidness that is required for an artist to col- the repeated distillation of art brings you One feels their enduring qualities laborate so boldly with the work of nature. back to the primordial.” immediately on entering Novina’s present For Novina to presume to do so, how- exhibition, where thanks to the generous ever, is not a function of ego but of locat- ––Ed McCormack

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 3 Verane Guerin Makes the Human Face a Monumental Symbol lthough the more minimal modes of art though there is nothing traditional or aca- Aare generally assumed to be irreconcil- demic about Guerin’s style. Rather, she is a able with humanism, the gifted French thoroughly contemporary painter, and while painter Verane Guerin proved the exception most of her compositions center on a single to the rule in her recent exhibition at face filling almost the entire picture space, Monkdogz Urban Art, 547 West 27th one would be more accurate to compare the Street, in Chelsea. ones that include two faces––or possibly two The human visage painted on a scale images of the same face––divided by a verti- much larger than life is Guerin’s ostensible cal line to Barnett Newman’s abstractions subject; yet the physical properties of paint consisting of a single stripe set against a itself, as a surrogate for flesh, are every bit as dark, monochromatic color field. essential to her vision. Guerin’s faces almost Having exhausted the formal felicities always emerge from monochromatic color which should appeal to connoisseurs, let us fields in generally somber hues. Although conclude with the expressive qualities that “Mara” her colors are most often in an earthen also make Guerin’s paintings accessible to range, even her reds are muted, although bring to the weight of words and sentences. the layman: “Mara,” in which two adjoining their textures and tones may range from the For Guerin is most definitely a poet in paint, faces with prominent almond eyes emerge matte quality of a rag saturated with dried putting an exquisitely refined emphasis on from an ocher ground, shadowed by darker blood to more visceral clarets with consider- the exact density and viscosity of the pig- earth colors and overlaid with a smoky net- able surface sheen. ment that she applies to every section of her work of brushstrokes, suggests a mystical Indeed, nuances of tonal modulation are canvases, even while layering color in an apparition, while the single bearded visage important aspects of what Guerin’s art is all apparently spontaneous manner, in order to afloat on a deep red field in “Belius” evokes about. Few other contemporary artists who secure the subtle contrasts that make her nothing less than the “Shroud of Turin,” paint on a similar scale pay such minute figurative compositions as subtly sensuous as the artifact bearing traces of a face that some attention to subtleties of color, tone, and the abstractions of artists such as Mark believe to be the burial shroud of Christ. the ineffable qualities of “touch.” While Rothko and Jules Olitski. In these and other paintings by Verane Abstract Expressionists and Color Field Nor do these qualities run counter to Guerin, the human face takes on monumen- painters have been known to concern them- Guerin’s figurative concerns. Quite the con- tal proportions, mirroring the soul and selves with such things, precious few figura- trary, they enhance the emotional resonance reflecting the mystery of consciousness and tive artists make them as essential an ele- of her large, looming faces, lending them a life itself. This is a profound and timeless ment of their aesthetic as Guerin does. In depth of feeling, a soulful suggestiveness, subject, and the singular vision of this gifted this regard, an analogy can be made to the that one normally associates with the paint- French painter does it full justice. care that poets, as opposed to prose writers, handling of certain Old Masters, even ––Ed McCormack Cornelia MacFadyen’s Transcendence hile Cornelia MacFadyen credits the more for their overall effect on an intimate, WAbstract Expressionists as a formative poetic quality than on the expansive gesture influence on her work, she has evolved a executed on a grand scale. style that can only be termed visionary for Rather than trying to overwhelm the its mysterious allusiveness. In this regard, viewer, her oils on canvas tend to draw him MacFadyen seems a kindred spirit of the or her in, with their poetic forms, luminous legendary and difficult to classify American colors, and sensuous textures. Yet there is original Forrest Bess, in her recent exhibi- much more to these paintings than their tion at World Fine Art Gallery, 511 West seductive formal and physical qualities. For 25th Street, in Chelsea. MacFadyen’s shimmering color fields evoke Like that of Bess, her method is deeply mystical atmospheres, and her seductive intuitive, as she makes clear in a recent artist forms hint at a broad range of meanings. statement: “People ask me how do I know In paintings such as “Rebirth” and what I am going to paint, and my answer is “Lover,” areas of vibrant red flow like simple...I don’t. My paintings are an expres- molten lava, suggesting a fiery sense of pas- sion of what is happening in my life.” sion, while other canvases such as “In the “Lover” As a student at the Art Students League Fields” and “The Road Last Traveled,” and Pratt Institute, MacFadyen studied clas- employ more subtle, muted hues to create a ing stars. There is invariably a hint of magic sical painting and came under the sway of meditative mood. While the latter painting in her work, as though memories and per- the Impressionists. However, her eventual is especially engaging in chromatic terms, ceptions are being glimpsed in flashes of interest in Abstract Expressionism led her to with its luminous pink, yellow, and blue sat- intuition. her present style, which puts a similar ges- urations, other canvases such as Very occasionally there is even a sugges- tural freedom to the service of an intensely “Sandstorm” and “Out Looking,” employ tion of the human figure, as seen in “The subjective vision. almost identical color schemes––in this case Dancers” or “The Sprinter.” However, it Where MacFadyen differs most markedly red and yellow–– to vastly different effect. invariably takes the form of a phantom pres- from her predecessors is in the mystical As with other abstract painters, there is ence, perceived subliminally on the outer quality of her work, which recalls the early often a suggestion of nature in Cornelia edges of consciousness. For Cornelia American visionary Albert Pinkham Ryder MacFadyen’s paintings. However, it is no MacFadyen is, above all, a kind of artistic more readily than any Abstract Expressionist ordinary sense of natural events that one shaman, transforming “what is happening in whose name springs immediately to mind. gleans from these works; rather, they project my life” into visions of transcendence. For like Ryder’s, her paintings are easel a sense of phenomenological occurrences ––Maureen Flynn scale, rather than especially large and rely like, if not exactly, meteor storms or shoot- 4 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Sawaka Nagae: A Painter’s Visual Sonata at World Fine Art alter Pater made his famous state- impressive synthesis of the visual and the upper left and lower right portions of the Wment that “All art constantly aspires musical. picture, while the painterly elements (pri- toward the condition of music” in an “In this exhibition, I worked on my marily gestural strokes of black, red, and essay about the sixteenth century Venetian recent favorite piano piece, tried to con- brown on a yellow ocher field) create the painter Giorgione (Giorgio da struct the idea of tonal movement,” sense of push and pull––or, to put it in Castelfranco), who holds a momentous Nagae asserts in an artist statement issued more musical terms, point and counter- place in the history of art, although little in connection with her show. point–– that animates the composition. is known of his life and only a handful of The tonal movement of which she Here, too, there is a sense of flotation to paintings have been definitively attributed speaks is especially evident in “Pathetique the forms (particularly the bold black to him. However, Pater was able to phrase #1.” Like the other works in the series, stroke toward the top of the painting, this central thesis of the piece which can appear to be a with such general certainty in stormier counterpart of the full confidence that it applied cloud-shaped collage fragment all across the board. And the of musical notes above it, truth of his statement was to while the more angular red be borne out even more obvi- strokes at the lower right por- ously in subsequent centuries. tion of the picture interact Sound, even more than sense, with the notations on the is the essence of poetry (some printed sheet music in a more recent poetic movements such staccato manner, suggesting as Language Poetry, dispense how notes in a sonata can with sense altogether), and suddenly quicken and switch surely since its very begin- tempo from serene to strident. nings, abstract painting in par- Even more painterly is ticular has aspired to emulate “Pathetique #3,” where vigor- the freedom of music. Indeed, ously brushed strokes of red, some of the terms now used blue, and green are employed, routinely in art criticism origi- along with thick white impas- nated in musical to, to create a chromatic and discourse––“rhythm” being tactile interplay with collaged the most obvious example musical notes that alternately ––while others, such as “chro- vanish beneath and show matic,” can be applied both to through the thinner areas of color in painting and to chords paint in the manner of penti- in music. mento. In this composition, All of which brings us to too, the verdant passages sug- one of the more successful gest the lyrical rural mood of examples of this synthesis: how “Pathetique #3” the sort of musical form com- the New York artist Sawaka monly referred to as a “pas- Nagae explores the interrelationship this painting is executed on a twelve by torale.” between music, the most innately abstract twelve inch wood panel. This is a modest Then there are “Pathetique #4,” in of all art forms, and painting, in her series size compared to the enormous produc- which the sheet music again dominates “From the Sonata Pathetique,” seen tions favored by many contemporary the composition, interspersed with just a recently at World Fine Art Gallery, 511 artists since the advent of Abstract single bold green horizontal gesture; West 25th Street. Expressionism made mural scale routine; “Pathetique #5,” where, conversely, the Working in encaustic on wood panels, yet, in Nagae’s case, given her exquisite musical notes are all but obliterated by a Nagae often collages sheet music into the apportionment of space, the perfectly veritable storm of painterly activity, as in compositions in this series. However, she square format creates the illusion of much an especially violent musical crescendo, does not employ it as a symbolic or illus- larger scale. and “Pathetique #6,” where Nagae dis- trative element in any obvious way; rather, In “Pathetique #1, unlike most of her plays her subtlest gifts as a colorist with the delicate notes become an integral part other works in which painterly elements harmonious juxtapositions of reds, yel- of her compositions, much in the manner come into play, the collaged musical notes lows, and blues that bathe the composi- that calligraphy is integrated with tradi- themselves carry the full thrust of the tion in glowing chromatic auras. tional painting in China and Japan. Yet, at composition. Juxtaposed in subtly stag- Like Bill Jensen, the artist to whom the same time, she appears equally gered vertical and horizontal rows, they she seems most stylistically related, beholden to the more European aesthetic create rhythms that are simultaneously Sawaka Nagae employs the waxen surface tradition; for her use of these elements austere and lively, achieving the visual of the encaustic medium to create a sense also recalls how Kurt Schwitters employed equivalent of a lilting melody. The of weightless suspension. However, while ticket stubs and other bits of printed mat- absence of not only painted elements but Jensen alludes to nature, Nagae evokes ter as purely visual elements in his “Merz” any color other than the translucent the even more ethereal realm of musical compositions. Indeed, Nagae effortlessly amber of the beeswax in which the print- composition through layered nuances that achieves not only a striking synthesis of ed musical notes are embedded further lend her intimate paintings a sense of infi- Eastern and Western aesthetics (a tricky enhances the spare, lovely austerity of the nite inner spaces, making them loom larg- proposition which has eluded many of her composition. er by far than their actual dimensions. fellow artists in this era of postmodern By contrast, in “Pathetique #2,” the multiculturalism) but also an equally collaged sheet music appears only in the ––J. Sanders Eaton

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 5 Sidney Harris Captures Midtown in Midtown he cartoons need no introduction. Any Hopper’s people, albeit in a more crowded, Tregular reader of The New Yorker is vigorously stirred melting pot), they are familiar with the fluid line, literate wit, and nonetheless united visually by Harris’s angularly printed signature of S.Harris. sumptuous brushwork and use of color What many may not know, however, is that (here silvery blue hues that evoke the metal- besides also being one of our best gag car- lic interior of a subway car) to meld dis- toonists, Sidney Harris is also a gifted parate elements in a picture harmoniously. painter. And in a related painting, “Subway dip- Both aspects of Harris’s work will be fea- tych,” comprised of two dynamically juxta- tured in a two-part exhibition at The posed views of a train interiors, Harris’s Berkeley Gallery, Berkeley College, 3 East mastery of the pictorial tensions that Hans 43rd Street. The cartoons will be on view Hofmann called “push and pull” rivals that from July 10 to 30; the paintings from of any Abstract Expressionists. August 1 through 31, with a reception for His gift for making a composition com- “Subway Blues” the artist on Tuesday, August 7, from 5:30 pelling in formal terms, even while giving us to 7:30 PM. Although both parts of the for the viewer to contemplate in an unhur- the gritty particulars of a scene, is also evi- show are well worth seeing, this review will ried fashion. Prominent among these are the dent in “42nd and Mad,” where the thrust- concern itself primarily with the paintings, sensuous vitality of his brushwork and the ing diagonals and horizontals of construc- since the cartoons have already reached a abstract underpinnings of his realism. Both tion scaffolding create a geometric context large audience and Harris’s fine art deserves are evident in such finely rendered details as for the organic shapes of passing workers to be just as well known. the hints of cubistic structuring in the and pedestrians. Similarly, another composi- In the series he calls “Midtown,” Harris abruptly cropped portion of a shopping bag tion called “Bikes” is animated by the move- has something in common with Edward visible in the lower left corner of the com- ment of cyclists, shifting shadows, and foot Hopper, who was a successful illustrator position that Harris calls “Subway Blues.” traffic at a busy Times Square intersection. before he became known as a painter. As arresting as this detail is, it does noth- Sidney Harris, who graces his paintings However, while most of Hopper’s city ing to impede the overall flow of the com- with the same distinctive signature that scenes can be seen as moody meditations on position, which takes in the entire length of identifies his cartoons for The New Yorker, loneliness and urban alienation, Harris’s are a subway car, with poker-faced passengers has an unsurpassed ability to orchestrate the all about the more densely layered hustle reading newspapers and doing everything visual cacophony of the modern metropolis, and bustle of Manhattan today. Yet even as else humanly possible to avoid making eye shaping its crazy simultaneity into impres- he captures the manic energy of midtown at contact with each other. Yet for all their iso- sively coherent aesthetic statements. midday, Harris’s style offers sundry pleasures lation (which may be as profound as that of ––Byron Coleman The Living Line of John Porro at Agora Gallery lthough it has always cessor, he employs it to to us, the ample contours of her buttocks Abeen vitally important, evoke a more volumetric anchoring the figure to the picture plane, the very armature on sense of form. while the narrower shape of her squared of which visual art rests, only Perhaps the artist Porro shoulders, emphasized with soft blue shad- over the last couple of seems most akin to for his ows, adds complementary gravity to the decades has drawing deft way with the figure upper portion of the composition. Although achieved recognition as a and sympathy for human the figure’s face cannot be seen, the posture complete form of expres- foibles would be Toulouse- of her body and her expressively enlarged, sion, rather than a vehicle Lautrec, whose weary clawlike hands impart emotional tension to for preliminary studies for whores are recalled in this the image. work in other mediums. splendid contemporary In “Ecstasy,” on the other hand, there is This evolution has come draftsman’s charcoal draw- a suggestion of autoerotic reverie, embodied about largely thanks to tal- ing of a middleaged female by the figure of a bulky male nude. The ents such as John Porro, nude, “Tell Me What’s pink, fleshy form, outlined by a jagged black an artist born in London, Going to Happen” (which line, appears to writhe on its belly, its face now living in Scotland, one admired on Agora flushed a contrasting shade of red, its eyes whose works on paper can Gallery’s website prior to screwed shut, one muscular arm stretched be seen at Agora Gallery, viewing the exhibition). toward the viewer as it grips the edge of the 530 West 25th Street, in Like Lautrec, even when bed. Although nowhere near as grotesquely Chelsea, from June 1 “Seeing is Believing” he employs water based distorted, the figure in “Ecstasy” can be through 21. (Reception: Thursday, June 7, media on paper in a manner that could compared to some of Francis Bacon’s tor- from 6 to 8 PM.) technically be defined as painting rather mented voluptuaries. Given his background, one is tempted to than drawing, it is Porro’s incisive drafts- A simpler sense of wonder comes across compare Porro to David Hockney and, in a manship that activates and animates compo- in the tender charcoal drawing, “Seeing is more general sense, to cite a great tradition sitions such as “Mikki” and “Ecstasy.”At the Believing,” which depicts a pregnant nude in British draftsmanship that dates back to same time, Porro reveals himself to be an kneeling and cradling her big belly in her Blake and Fuseli, although Porro is report- appealing colorist in both works, employing hands with prenatal maternal pride. Here, as edly more enamored of the German a subtly harmonized palette of earth colors in all of his drawings, John Porro isolates an Expressionists and Egon Schiele. However, and fleshy pinks highlighted with piquant intimate aspect of humanity and renders it his drawing is more precise than that of touches of brighter red and blue hues. memorable by virtue of his ability to endow most Expressionists and although his line In “Mikki” we see a substantial nude line with a sense of the monumental. can be as fluid as that of his Austrian prede- female figure standing with her back turned ––Peter Wiley

6 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 2007 WestConn M.F.A. Candidates Shine at Blue Mountain avvy New Yorkers have come to look for- In her acrylic painting on can- Leka sounds like an Sward to the periodic Master of Fine Arts vas, “How I Remember It,” abstract purist of the Thesis Exhibitions by graduate students of Ginger Hanrahan appears to old school when he Western Connecticut State University, view the floral patterns on an sates, “My paintings where Margaret Grimes and John Wallace, old, worn carpet through the are about the beauty of the two distinguished artists who co-coordi- magnifying lens of nostalgia for color, geometry, clean- nate the M.F.A. program, actually put the the intimate comforts and emo- liness and accuracy,” emphasis on painting tional security of there is a postmodern rather than career plan- childhood. (It is undercurrent in his ning or making art an as enlightening work that jibes with accessory to one’s to learn that Ginger Hanrahan Peter Halley’s compo- social life. Once they Hanrahan’s sitions of linked rectan- have learned to paint, it paintings are influenced by gles inspired by Jean Baudrillard’s simula- is assumed that their her previous work in hand- tion theory. Such complex suggestiveness, students will make their crafted textiles as it is to pon- couched in formal simplicity, compels one way in the art world on der that the great watercol- to look at abstract painting in a whole new their honest aesthetic orist Charles Burchfield once way. merits, rather than on supported himself as a wall- It is also indicative of the pluralistic spirit quirks of personality or paper designer). Hanrahan, of art today that the work of Betty Ann a facile gift for publicity. however, tran- Medeiros, the only illustration And the six young scends senti- graduate student in the show, artists in this year’s exhi- Gulgun T. Aliriza mentality, stands up handsomely with the bition (which “repre- transforming fine art on display. In her illustra- sents art work generated through two years the sensual forms and earthy tion for the tale “Twelve Dancing of intensive study,” according to Grimes) colors of her homey subject Princesses,” Medeiros employs an give every indication of having what it takes into a rich, muscularly delin- accomplished realist watercolor to do just that, judging from the work on eated by overall abstraction. technique to evoke a candle-lit view at Blue Mountain Gallery, 530 West Susan Lozoraitis juxtaposes costume scene in the tradition of 25th Street, in Chelsea, from June 19 the spiky form of a tall potted N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, and through July 7. (Opening reception: June cactus plant with scruffy red Maxfield Parrish, albeit with dra- 21, from 5 to 8 PM.) graffiti in her politically point- matic tonal contrasts reminiscent Gulgun T. Aliriza, a native of the ed still life “Military is Proud of Georges de La Tour. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, to Kill Innocents.” But the The lamentable fact that shows an oil on panel called “Winter real bite of her oil on canvas another Golden Age of American Light,” in which a woodsy landscape is emanates from her expressively illustration is unlikely, given that made sumptuously palpable in awkward forms Susan Lozoraitis most art for reproduction today is thick, juicy pigment. Although and vigorous paint handling, hurriedly knocked out with Photoshop and Aliriza’s extremely tactile paint which imbue the composi- other computer technology, makes application can remind one of tion with an edgy, aggressive Medeiros’s work seem all the more refresh- the British painter Frank crudeness reminiscent of ing and valuable. One can only hope that an Auerbach, her brushwork is late-period Philip artist this more fluid in the manner of de Guston. Indeed like gifted at Kooning and her forms have a Guston, Lozoraitis evoking way of slipping in and out of achieves a perfect bal- character abstraction. This feeling of flux ance between abrasive- and atmos- plays with the tenuous nature of ness and elegance. phere can perception, animating Aliriza’s The only abstract help to composition in stimulating painter in the exhibi- revive the ways, even while her painting tion, Derek Leka, lost art of conveys a convincing sense of employs a rectangular visual story- the nature subject at hand. shape that recalls Josef Betty Ann Medeiros telling for a David Cerne takes a some- David Cerne Albers’s “Homage to new era. what more realist stance in paintings such as the Square” as the main motif of his acrylic All six artists in the 2007 Western “Checking to See Who is Following Me painting, “Absolute Magnitude.” There is a Connecticut State University M.F.A. Thesis Looking Back at the Distant Fading Blue suggestion of Neo Exhibition acquit themselves admirably Atmospheric Sky Ridge.” But as its intrigu- Geo, given the in their different ways, demonstrating ingly convoluted title indicates, he infuses eclectic complexity the tangible benefits of studying at a scenes such as this view of telephone poles of the composition, school that puts an emphasis on basic looming over an obscure country road and which also contains studio skills rather than art world suggesting crosses at Calvary with an under- linear elements that schtick and careerism. This is some- tone of uneasiness. Cerne accomplishes this wiggle like ribbons thing rarer these days than one might by virtue of a painting style that could blowing in the think, and their instructors are to be almost be called “jittery,” especially in his wind, set against commended for pointing them in the agitated handling of the large expanse of geometric color right direction. milky sky hovering oppressively over this areas with a decid- desolate crossroads of Deepest edly cybernetic ––Ed McCormack Nowheresville. quality. So while Derek Leka JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 7 “Reflection”

8 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Joy and Struggle Energize the Intimate New Paintings of Dorothy A. Culpepper orothy A. Culpepper has been swim- others who proceeded her, process is of translucent green, suggests a distant frag- Dming against the tide of art world fash- course entirely germane and pertinent to ment of sky and verdant land glimpsed from ion for several years now, and her work Culpepper’s work to a degree one might the deep heart of a forest. keeps getting stronger as a result of it. not have thought possible at this particular While such impressions are bound, when Those of us who have been charting her point in art history. To encounter one of her viewing an abstract painting, to be subjective progress are hardly surprised; for it was clear paintings is to understand anew the mean- on the part of the viewer, it is clear nonethe- from the beginning that Culpepper is, if one ing of the term “action painting.” One less that something is evolving in Culpepper’s may extend the metaphor just a bit further, experiences first hand the sense of move- aesthetic that bears close monitoring. a long distance swimmer. She is obviously ment and flux, the dance, if one will, that Recently she appears to be working in areas painting for posterity and the trends of the takes place in the painterly arena. of the composition for a new sense of space moment are hardly of concern to her. This dance was once thought to be com- that allows her paintings to “breathe” in a Culpepper’s solo exhibitions at parable to a boxing bout or a bullfight; for new way. This is an exciting, some would say Montserrat Gallery ––first in its former loca- it was couched in the macho language of risky, departure for a painter who has relied tion in Soho, and now in its new space in the 1950s, when the New York School was for so long on the jam-packed tensions of Chelsea, where her work can also be seen in in its heyday and male painters got the lion’s compositions that read as densely layered the year-round salon exhibition–– invariably share of the credit for the revolution that energy constructs. A lesser painter would run provide surprises, even while remaining true put American art on the map. Fortunately, the risk of draining away some of the energy to her long-held stylistic convictions. Her in these more liberated and enlightened by opening up an aperture at the center of new solo show at Montserrat, 547 West times such sexist metaphors are no longer the composition–– of letting the air out of 27th Street, which will run from July 5 needed or even the slightest bit relevant. the picture, so to speak, at the same time as through August 4, with a reception on Culpepper’s approach is every bit as rugged she was trying to let it breathe. Thursday July 12, from 6 to 8 pm., reveals and aggressive as that of any male artist Culpepper, however, intuitively knows that her commitment has not wavered. around; yet her boldness can also be seen as exactly how far to go in this direction, with Indeed, few contemporary painters have balletic. Her “dance” truly transcends all the the result that the energy in her new compo- adhered so faithfully to the gestural mode outdated and rigid gender associations with sitions shifts rather than abates in a way that pioneered by the Abstract Expressionists and which critics once attempted to differentiate makes for a whole new way of experiencing fewer still have added so significantly to its between masculine and feminine qualities in the space in her work. And she is able to do living tradition. Culpepper appears to have painting, just as her entire mode of expres- this not only with what I have referred to as been born to do just that, having a breadth sion escapes the subjective tag that is put on “openings” in the picture plane but also with of vision and a generosity of spirit that can gestural painting, becoming something a new way of defining space on the picture only be seen as Whitmanesque, even in her more than a record of personal experiences plane itself, as seen in “Energy,” where she new paintings, which are on an easel scale, or impulses. employs splashy strokes of white and yellow as opposed to the near mural scale of some For while Culpepper’s pictures are to superimposed a roughly rectangular of her earlier compositions. Which is to say, informed by the events of her daily life and “frame” over a large part of a color field even in these more intimate formats, the the particulars of her biography as a woman encrusted with variegated layers of deeper athleticism and the energy of her painterly and an artist (one thinks particularly of a reds, purples, browns and blues built up with approach can remind one of the all-embrac- moving series following the demise of her densely layered drips. ing heroism of Whitman’s poetic line. husband), the scope of her work is universal, Another of Culpepper’s most intense Like the great poet, Culpepper is an artist embracing a wide range of intuitive associa- new paintings is “Reflection” (which may be at once avant garde and democratic. Her tions that cannot and should not be pinned the work which initiated the series, if work sings of life’s joys and struggles with down to particular meanings. Yet her most indeed, she numbers her pieces sequentially, such conviction that even those who are not recent paintings are tantalizing for the very as they are finished), where characteristically knowledgeable regarding abstract painting, reason that they invite specific interpretation rhythmic skeins and drips of brown, red, such as a friend who once visited one of her nonetheless, due to what seems a literal and pink are overlapped on a brilliant yellow exhibitions with this writer, can be swept breakthrough in the dense overall fields of ground, with a tangerine-colored orb at the away by the majesty and the immediacy of thickly layered poured paint that have domi- center, which gives the impression of burst- her compositions. (To this extent she is a nated Culpepper’s work for quite a while. ing into flame, since it is topped by an area populist as opposed to an elitist, even while One says “literal” because the apparent of “marbleized” red and yellow hues. Here, working in a manner that supposedly breakthrough takes the form of a semi-cir- too, the central form is loosely overlaid with appeals primarily to the educated taste of cular opening, like a porthole or the mouth slashes of white that roughly intersect at those with a background in art history.) of a cave in some paintings, as seen in horizontal and diagonal angles. Initially, Culpepper’s work grabs the “Three Planets and a Star,” where the area By simply defining this space, Culpepper viewer by virtue of its palpable physical qual- surrounded by overlapping skeins of blue, has opened it up just as radically as she does ities: the deliciously tactile textures that she red, yellow, and white is embedded with in the paintings where the window-like achieves with the skeins of paint that she collaged objects (some circular, one star apertures contrast more obviously with the pours and layers with such intrepid accuracy, shaped) that suggest a nocturnal sky, a cos- overall painterly energy field. Such decisions, as well as the nails, bits of glass, and other mic space, a Milky Way of pregnant possibil- apparently made spontaneously in the act of materials that she has been known to scatter ities. By contrast, in another recent painting, painting, are what make Dorothy A. over her surfaces. The rhythms of her ges- “A Garden of Green,” the sense is of a more Culpepper’s compositions a source of con- tures in the act of painting are solidified in verdantly earthly space, owing to the thicket stant fascination and excitement for those of pigment so that one can actually experience of layered green strokes laid down on a blue us who regard the art of painting as an the sense of process in the finished product. field surrounding an opening in which a eternally vital endeavor. As with Pollock, de Kooning, and the paler aquamarine hue, overlaid with a semi- ––Maurice Taplinger

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 9 Group Show Brings Art from the British Isles to Chelsea “ nited in Art,” an exhibition of fine art ing phantom faces appear in the window. series of figurative works, inspired by a Ufrom England, Wales, Scotland, and Currently residing in Scotland, Baron sojourn to Pakistan, in which he seeks to Ireland, presents a varied sampling of emerg- Charlie Lush evokes a mood akin to Edvard reveal “the story of anguish and hurt hidden ing and established tendencies from the Munch in “Women on the Path,” with its behind a face.” United Kingdom and its territories at Agora small figures dwarfed by sinuous trees, while The English artist Maggie C, whose Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, in Chelsea, another painting entitled “Women on the paintings are inspired by subterranean volca- from June 1 through 21. (Reception: Boat” creates a contrastingly festive feeling noes, states, ”I’m trying to connect with Thursday, June 7, from 6 to 8 PM.) with fashionably dressed figures on the deck of nature and capture the energy that exists Like Bill Jensen and Gregory Amenoff, an elegant cruise ship. Like Alex Katz, Lush is beneath our feet.” In the powerful triptych Patrick Walshe imparts a visionary quality to one of the few contemporary painters who can “Lava Rush,” with its thickly encrusted tex- landscape. However, Walshe delineates the make serious art from stylish subjects. tures and vibrant red hues evoking an explo- lay of the land more faithfully than his Another artist from Scotland, Lee sion, Maggie C interprets a violent facet of American counterparts, even while imbuing Robertson paints realist oils that resemble nature in strikingly abstract terms. his views of the Irish countryside with a film stills with sensuous painterly surfaces. In In sculptural installations with titles such misty metaphysical dimension. In paintings “Only Nature is Divine,” a moody young as “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” and such as “Scenes from the City Glendasan” leading-man type appears to gaze up at the “Allegory of Abundance,” Andrew Cooper and “Scenes from the City The Lake,” viewer from within an environment of scat- deals with the contrasts and ironies of a sci- Walshe approaches Turner for his near mys- tered autumn leaves. In “Nowhere, entific age. As designer of major architectur- tical evocation of majestic landscapes Somewhere,” a face framed by what appears al works for corporate and public spaces, through vigorous painterly means. to be an abruptly cropped car window cre- Cooper has learned to stop the passing London painter Maureen Oliver explores ates dramatic tension. While suggesting a attention span in its tracks and capture the complex spiritual themes in a deceptively narrative, Robertson leaves it to viewers “to mass imagination through his manipulation primitivistic style. In “Tree of Life,” an make up their own mind what is going on.” of glass and other ethereal materials that embryonic human form appears, as though Although an autodidact, Mohammed lend his work a poetic quality rarely encoun- seen through a circular window, at the center Yasin Saddique has evolved a highly sophis- tered in art so conceptually rigorous. of a large tree, while the faces of a man and ticated semi-abstract style in which skillfully Also including work by Su Goddard and woman are cradled by its upper branches. In simplified cityscapes combine colors sugges- John Porro, two artists reviewed at length another intriguing painting by Oliver Vincent tive of stained glass with formal rhythms elsewhere in this issue, “United in Art” will van Gogh sits at his easel like a solitary art akin to the gemlike compositions of Paul interest not only anglophiles but everyone saint, a bandage wrapped around his severed Klee. However, Saddique conveys a more concerned with international trends in con- ear, painting “The Starry Night” while mock- humanistic side of his artistic vision in a temporary art. –-Marie R. Pagano Vivid Portrayals of Personal Sensibility he journey from his South African ori- appears to be a 1960s “flower child” inhabit spontaneous techniques to capture a sense Tgins to the artist’s community of the same sphere, just as earthly figures and of immediacy that creates intriguing ten- Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he now lives religious apparitions frequently coexist in sions between the actual and the representa- and works, has obviously been a fruitful Renaissance paintings. In Renard’s “Le tional elements in his art. For even while one for Kevin Connolly Gillespie, whose Secret,” a pair of lissome female arms reach- employing his skill in anatomy to bring his allegorical surrealism is included in the es out from a background of fractured figures alive, Jarko often employs a mono- group show “Vivid Portrayals,” at Agora Cubist planes to embrace the figures of chromatic palette to undercut his realism in Gallery, 530 West 25th Street from June 26 three smaller French soldiers, posing as intriguing ways, as seen in the painting he through July 17. (Reception: Thursday, though for an old photograph, as one might calls “Let it Be,” where the artist’s use of June 28, from 6 to 8 PM.) mentally embrace a cherished memory. silvery gray tonalities makes the statuesque In the manner of Dali and Magritte, Although trained as an engineer, by dint nude almost appear as though she is fash- Gillespie employs a pristine, meticulous real- of his own efforts Michael Hyman has ioned from gleaming stainless steel. ism to imbue imaginative situations with a acquired remarkable skills as a realist painter. Souda Traore, an artist of African ances- compelling verisimilitude. Landscape and He is also a sculptor and a photographer, try who was raised in Switzerland but the human figure are limned so convincing- and these disciplines also inform his paint- returned to the continent as a teenager to ly that one accepts their anomalous aspects ings of female nudes. From sculpture he has study at the National Institute of Fine Arts as factual representations of an existing obviously learned a great deal about vol- in Mali, now lives and works in Boston. world. umes in space, which he employs to give the Still, she steeps herself in African culture and Gillespie succeeds splendidly in his stated women in his paintings a palpable presence. journeys imaginatively back to the time of strategy to “externalize the internal” in While Hyman’s work is too personal to ancient Egyptians. Combining pastels, inks, paintings such as “Guardian,” where a slen- be termed “photorealism,” his figures pos- clay, sand, and other materials, Traore cre- der, shadowy female nude appears to stroll sess a photographic naturalism that marks ates haunting facial reliefs of the great down a stratospheric runway while luminous them as contemporary, coupled with strong Pharaohs, as well as of various mythical clouds fan out around her like enormous contrasts between light and shadow that beings in an innovative technique that tran- angel-wings. heighten the visual drama of compositions. scends the boundaries between painting and As a professional restorer of paintings, And that Hyman juxtaposes his naturalistic sculpture. Roger Renard has learned to assimilate the nudes with esoteric symbols drawn from One of Souda Traore’s most remarkable methods of the Old Masters and apply them Judaism, Russian Orthodox Christianity, artistic traits is her ability to incorporate a to his own subjective vision, creating a high- and even comic book imagery, lends his variety of timeless ethnographic motifs with- ly original synthesis of the classical technique realism a potent post-Pop panache. in the context of a subjective, innovative, and contemporary sensibility. Thus in The nudes of the Finnish artist Jarko and eminently contemporary style. Renard’s painting “Psyché-délit,” for exam- emphasize painterly and tactile qualities that ple, both the physical persona and the drug- approximate in another manner the sensuali- ––Maurice Taplinger induced visions of a young woman who ty of his subjects. Jarko employs a variety of 10 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007

The Inimitable Touch of Catherine Malvezin “ ouch” is a term that was once para- vibrant depiction of the light on water. ous connoisseur. Tmount in painting. The best words Both the sky above and the waves below Especially enjoyable in the latter regard is that we have in English to describe the are dappled with luminous strokes of pale the larger canvas Malvezin has entitled qualities to which it refers derive from the blue, purple and yellow that create dazzling “Esperance–Irak,” where a single slender French: finesse, panache, felicity. Yet refine- chromatic harmonies and convey a convinc- tree, its sinuous branches dotted here and ment and delicacy of execution often seem ing sense of sunlight and fresh air. At the there with delicate pink blossoms, appears to be in short supply in contemporary art. same time the darker browns and subdued against an expanse of deep nocturnal blue. Many younger painters, especially, seem to greens of the land masses on the shoreline While the decorative quality of the compo- think such concerns are passé, lend a note of gravi- sition harks back to chinoiserie as practiced no longer relevant. They are ty to the picture, by van Gogh, Gauguin and other Post- mistaken: Good painting creating a perfect Impressionists, the application of the pig- never goes out of style, counterweight to ment, in tactile vertical streaks, is of a suc- although it sometimes gets the bouncy shimmer culence decidedly Western (and particularly overlooked in a climate where of its more ethereal French). In any case, it is an exquisite paint- art is marketed like fast food. elements. ing with a title that could be interpreted, in Fortunately, there are still Sensuality of a topical contemporary sense, as a poignant artists like the French painter form, clarity of plea for peace embodied in an affecting Catherine Malvezin color, and sensuous- symbol of natural regeneration. to remind us of these endur- ness of surface are As a figure painter, Malvezin appears to the salient character- prefer youthful, graceful subjects, as seen in ing verities. Malvezin, whose “Sevigne” work is on view in the year- istics of Malvezin’s her painting “Le danseur,” where the male round salon exhibition at Montserrat still lifes, such as “Bouquet,” where a rich subject, striking a dramatic, half-reclining Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, is a painter profusion of flowers and fronds, practically pose as he faces the viewer but peers off of consummate technique. Equally well overflowing a white pitcher decorated with into the distance, has a languid, idealized versed in landscape, still life, and the figure, subtly rhyming floral designs, is set against quality akin to Elizabeth Peyton’s ethereal she forges a link between the past and the a dark red background as succulently paint- portraits of rock stars. However, while the present, assimilating many of the lessons of ed as the subject itself. Indeed, the entire colors in “Le danseur” are similarly limpid, art history in a style possessed of impressive canvas is filled with tactile nuances and the strokes are more fluid, demonstrating freshness and immediacy. tonal modulations that bring it alive for the the touch that makes Catherine Malvezin Malvezin’s marinescape “Sevigne,” for general viewer and offer an opportunity for the far superior painter. example, is especially notable for the artist’s deeper delectation on the part of the seri- ––Sandra Reade A Group Show in Which the Human Spirit Manifests in Form genre of the portrait to get at vital human she evokes is a place of misty vistas and vast “ he Manifestation of Form” features Tartists who have evolved distinctive issues, rather than to put a cheery face on mystery, reminiscent of the rarefied realm of approaches to the human figure, ranging her African-American subjects. Often, floating nymphs in Henri Fantin-Latour’s from exacting portraits to symbolic fantasy, Jordan chooses a limited palette and utilizes “Daughters of the Rhine” or the brilliantly- at Agora Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, in severe cropping to infuse her compositions lit paradise of Philip Otto Runge’s Chelsea, from June 1 through 21. (Recep- with drama, as seen in her painting “Jay-Z.” “Morning.” Like those great Symbolists, tion: Thursday, June 7, from 6 to 8 PM.) Here the famous rapper’s face, a brilliant Nahkala envisions the idealized female figure Shirley Lu, formerly of Taiwan, now liv- shade of blue to symbolize emotional shad- as an emissary from an angelic world, and ing and working in New York, paints por- ing rather than reality, suggests the pensive like theirs, her work inspires spiritual con- traits of women that convey an unusual mood of a public person caught in a rare templation in the viewer. emotional and psychological depth. Almost moment of private introspection. Born in Berlin, Ilona van Hoek is also a always, Lu’s women are glamorous, elegant- Smith Jordan, whose biography informs contemporary Symbolist, albeit with a ly dressed, suggesting the heroines of glitzy that she survived a “tumultuous child- somewhat darker vision. Depicting scenes popular novels. However, the artist pene- hood” also invests the face of the deter- that resonate with shadowy sturm und trates their sleek facades and captures some- mined-looking woman in another painting drang like a visual equivalent of the thing of the the human vulnerability called “The Eye of the Beholder” with Wagnerian opera, her work has been aptly beneath the mask of makeup, as seen in her impressive grace and dignity by virtue of her compared to that of Hieronymus Bosch. In painting of a young Asian woman with dyed empathetic vision. her oil painting, “Nord,” for example, the platinum blonde hair and an expression that In contrast to how both Lu and Smith disembodied face of a stern, sage-like pres- is trying too hard to appear defiant. She Jordan subvert the superficial conventions of ence with a white handlebar mustache, the resembles a modern version of “The White- the posed portrait to unveil the naked tips of which trail off into the clouds, is sus- Haired Demon” in an ancient Chinese myth human soul, two other artists subject the pended above a grim nocturnal landscape about a beautiful young woman with pure human visage and figure to radical alter- where a sea serpent swims between craggy white tresses who is possessed of evil pow- ations in order to evoke meanings of a cliffs. In another painting called ers. But the title of Lu’s painting asks, “Is it more symbolic kind: “Flaschengeist” van Hoek again reveals her Evil, Or Is it a Wounded Soul?” Nina G. Nahkala, who was born in the fertile imagination with a formidable figure Less ambiguous in meaning but equally Republic of Georgia, grew up in five coun- of a woman, appearing suspended like an effective is Lu’s poignant painting “Foolishly tries of the former Soviet Union, and now apparition in mid-air, who could be a lapsed Waiting,” in which the forlorn female subject, lives and works in Finland, employs pale saint escaped from a religious icon . wearing a black silk slip and seen from behind, colors and softly diffused brushstrokes to Like the other artists in this gem of a rests her head on her raised knees, apparently evoke graceful, wraith-like female figures show, she has evolved a personal language lost in a reverie of a lover who has jilted her. enveloped in luminous atmospheres sugges- with which to manifest the human spirit. Sydnei Smith Jordan also employs the tive of unearthly landscapes. The world that –– Alyce Siegel

12 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 At Carrozzini von Buhler: Visions of Awakening he young Italian artist and curator common a love of sumptuous color, rich and torso serving as the letter “I,” its TStefania Carrozzini, who creates exhi- texture, amorphous form, and overall com- spinal column exposed in the manner of an bitions under the auspices of D’Ars position descending from Jackson Pollock X-ray. While one would not hazard a guess International Exhibition Projects of Milan, by way of Jules Olitski. Each in their differ- as to the specific meaning of the piece, its New York, and Beijing, has an unfailing ent ways generates a sense of untrammeled highly allusive complexity is at once daunt- instinct for what is “in the air,” so to speak. lyricism: Aresca with a swirling composi- ing and compelling. Since she organizes exhibitions on three tion of predominantly blue and red hues; The notion of still photography as a continents, her role requires a broad world Thula with a tactile intermingling of earthy form of performance art is conveyed in the view and she is, of necessity, in touch with tonalities and glittering gem-like high- work of two artists: in an engaging image developing trends in diverse artistic com- lights; Sgro with bold areas of liquefied by Nicoletta Casali, we see the figure of a munities. Carrozzini has made her reputa- color that woosh and flow like violet ocean woman in virginal white garb casting her tion by reflecting the eclectic climate of waves. Taken together their work suggests, shadow on the wall in a circle of light, global art in the postmodern era. By and if not a nascent movement, a renewed faith while two wing-like forms hover above her large, her exhibitions have been clamorous in the kind of pure painterly head, leading one to assume that she is samplers of a wide variety of contending endeavor once espoused by Clement being visited by angelic apparitions in a tendencies, reflect- dream. By contrast ing the vital Alessandra Spranzi uncertainty of the shows us a toy sol- present moment dier aiming his rifle in art history. out of a coffee cup However, if which has apparently Carrozzini’s most shattered as an egg recent exhibition, does when a chick is “Awakening,” is born, an impression any indication, enhanced by the yel- something new low coloration of the may be in the air. tiny figure. In the It would be background the premature to fore- blurred image of a cast that the art woman whose world may be breakfast table has turning away from apparently turned the post-Pop into a battlefield irony and sensa- raises her hands like tionalism which a prisoner of war. has prevailed for Here, the suggestion the past several of motherhood as a years, setting a form of domestic tone of hype and captivity invites the feeding the vora- Nicoletta Casali conclusion that cious appetite of awakenings can as the market without, as yet, resulting in a Greenberg as a moral imperative for often be rude as enlightening. significant movement. However, advanced abstract art. Annamaria Chiarvetto, on the other Carrozzini assembles an exhibition of Equally uncompromising in another hand, creates an unambiguous mood of artists who approach painting, installation, manner is Rosaspina Buscarino Canosburi’s utmost serenity with her softly diffused photography, and sculpture from a refresh- neo- minimalist oil in which a darkly paint- abstract photographic image of possible ingly introspective direction in the recent ed shrouds of canvas are wrapped loosely as floral origin, suffused with soft pink, green, group exhibition “Awakenings,” at The the perennial mourning garb worn by tra- and white tonalities, perhaps suggesting a Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery/CVB ditional Italian widows around a stark black heavenly awakening. And a bronze sculp- Space, 407 West 13th Street. panel. The piece has the grave presence of ture by Gianfranco Meggiato, while creat- “In practicing art we are not trying to a monumental meditation on mortality, yet ed in the most substantial of materials, just live up to some kind of ideal––just the its force derives more from the artist’s han- comes across nearly as ethereally, with an opposite,” Carrozzini states in her essay in dling of materials than from literary associ- intricate web of shapes surrounding a cen- the extensive exhibition catalog available at ations or the type of literal interpretations tral orb like fragments of cloud or mist par- the gallery. “We’re just being with our in which writers such as yours truly are tially veiling the moon. experience, whatever may be.” sorely tempted to indulge. As is her practice, Stefania Carrozzoni As befits the subject of consciousness, An intriguing amalgam of painterly and contributes an image for the cover of the the experiential thrust of the show is over- photographic elements comes into play in exhibition catalog that encompasses the whelmingly abstract. Painters such as Dino the work of Roberto Franzoni, who layers theme from a curatorial perspective. This Aresca, Thula, and Rosy Sgro reinvigorate images intricately in his photos printed on time it is an exquisitely simple image of a color field and gestural modes of expres- canvas. Here, a woman (or possibly a doll single flower, set like a logo against a gold sion with a passion that indicates more like effigy of a woman) is seen in the lower field to evoke the proverbial Buddhist lotus than a passing infatuation with or nostalgia portion of the composition, as though of awakening. for the subjective stance of Abstract through a shop window on which the ––Ed McCormack Expressionism and its European counter- word “LIKE” is written in splashy graffiti part Tachisme. All three artists share in style with the rough outline of a male head

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 13 Bugatti: A Work of Art Finds its Proper Context arcel Duchamp really started some- er’s showroom or even auto show would do er, it is not the reason the vehicle caused a Mthing in 1917, when he attached the for these creations of Ettore Bugatti (1881- writer for Vogue to have a hormonal reac- title “Fountain” to a urinal and scandalized 1947), a Milanese aesthete, inventor and tion and come up with the phrase “Italian everybody by sticking it in an exhibition. automobile manufacturer who grew up in a stallion.” But to these critical eyes the lean Elevating ordinary objects to art status gleaming machine at Allan Stone is a hell simply by declaring them art has been a of a lot sexier than Sylvester Stallone. staple of Conceptualism ever since. And And it certainly doesn’t have that plastic now that we’re all shockproof, all kinds “new car smell” that so many people of people get away with elevating all seem to get off on. Inside, it has that kinds of things. If it’s in a gallery, it must mellow old leather fragrance, like my be art...right? wife’s family’s tack room before they sold Well, no, Sparky, not really. Like their Virginia horse farm. Duchamp’s famous pisspot, most of the Allan Stone’s obituary in The New “readymades” exhibited today remain York Times, earlier this year, told us “At mere gestures, nothing more. Not that one point he owned untold numbers of anybody is knocking gestures; wasn’t it de Koonings and nearly 30 Bugatti auto- William Butler Yeats who said “A poem is mobiles.” At the time, it struck me as made with a mouthful of air?” (Maybe almost blasphemous to mention cars in he should have said “hot air,” but you the same breath as de Koonings. get the drift.) family of artists. Ettore had artistic ambi- Then I went over to the gallery yesterday However, there are certain “found tions himself, but felt outclassed by his and was much taken with the big Bugatti objects” that really can be seen as works of younger brother Rembrandt (no kidding!), and the “Baby Bugatti” (a child-scale work- art ––at least now that the term “multiples” a gifted sculptor. So he went to work in the ing model so named because Ettore built has entered the parlance. But in order to motor business from 1898 to 1909, and the first one for his five year old son, before appreciate them as such, we still have to put later, after opening his factory in France, wealthy Europeans started demanding them them in an art gallery. This is one of the rare turned out to be an artist in his own right. for their own little pamperlings). I even instances when the concept that context is From 1910 to 1939, the gallery press ogled the elegant grill and the shiny crank- everything suddenly means something. release tells us, “Bugatti cars swept the rac- shaft, displayed on pedestals like the elegant I’m talking about the two Bugatti auto- ing car circuits of Europe, amassing an sculptural objects that they are, and finally mobiles on view at Allan Stone Gallery, 113 overall victory total that has yet to be sur- arrived at the conclusion that a work of art East 90th Street, through June 28. No deal- passed.” Impressive as that record is, howev- is a work of art. Period. ––Ed McCormack The Adventurous Aesthetic of the Spanish Painter Javier Iturbe “ have been searching for a subjective and always to look for new adventures.” This is Iintimate message among different an especially intricate canvas, in which the shapes and images, so that the spectators forms, figures, and such details as old-fash- create their own idea,” states the Spanish ioned sailing ships, winding bodies of water, artist Javier Iturbe, whose paintings are on and a majestic landscape suggest Ulysses’ view at Agora Gallery, 530 West 25th long and arduous journey, described by Street, from June 1 through 21. (Reception: Homer in the Odyssey, home to the island Thursday, June 7, from 6 to 8 PM.) of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. However, it As his statement indicates Iturbe’s can also be interpreted as a reminder of the method is deeply intuitive. Reversing how artist to himself to keep soldiering on and most other painters proceed, he apparently discovering new methods and subjects for begins with abstract forms that evolve into his art. Ulysses, after all, was renowned for complex figurative compositions, as he dis- his ingenuity and his daring, qualities which cerns recognizable subject matter among Iturbe has already cultivated in his painting. the areas of line and color that he lays down By contrast a more carefree mood comes on the canvas. across in another oil on canvas by Iturbe Although self-taught, Iturbe cannot be called “Carnival in Venice,” where the inter- classified as an “outsider,” since he was “Like Ulysses did, we have always to look for mingled figures, objects, and forms take on a trained in a related field, architecture, and new adventures” more abstract aspect, clustered on an aque- his paintings are highly sophisticated, both the fractured planes of cubism. Then the fig- ous green background. And while a more in overall structure and refinement of tech- urative elements come into focus and the somber atmosphere dominates the large can- nique. Iturbe has also mastered anatomy to painting takes on new meaning, the energetic vas called “Life squeezes ourselves and...also the point where each of his figures is con- flow of figures and symbols suddenly seeming chokes,” it is one of Iturbe’s most powerful vincingly detailed and possessed of its own reminiscent of Baroque and Rococo art. compositions in formal terms, with its deep unique characteristics. However, due to his The plasticity of his forms can also call to blue hues and angular geometric forms con- skillful color modulation and the fluidity of mind El Greco, as though Iturbe has looked tained within a long horizontal format. his forms, each element in the composition long and hard at the master’s paintings in Aphoristic titles, some more explicable melds harmoniously into an essentially The Prado and discovered how to adopt than others, add a literary (but not too liter- abstract whole. some of their qualities to a more contempo- al) dimension to the work. However, it is At first glance, seen from a distance, his rary form of expression without sacrificing finally his ability to invest symbolic subject paintings could almost appear nonobjective: his own originality. He manages this syn- matter with a visual impact to match its configurations of shard-like shapes given thesis especially well in the complex compo- mystery that makes Javier Iturbe an artist to overall unity by a contemporary variant on sition entitled “Like Ulysses did, we have be reckoned with. ––Francis Kiesler 14 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Alberto Jiménez: A Young Spanish Realist Comes to New York or a long time, when we thought of More typical of this artist’s characteristic affecting social statements when moved to Fmodern Spanish art, the name of manner, however are paintings such as do so). Rather, Jiménez is generally attract- Antonio Tapies came most immediately to “The Square” and “Meeting Point,” where ed to that which is beautiful, rather than mind, and one would have got the impres- impressive architectural structures and statu- that which is anecdotal. The American poet sion that “Informalism,” as it was known in ary are rendered with photo realist preci- William Carlos Williams expressed it well the United States, was the only movement sion. And that Jiménez can evoke the when he said, “Not in ideas, but in things.” worth noticing. This was never totally true, human figure every bit as convincingly can For even the most inanimate subject comes of course; for while they may have been less be seen in paintings such as “The Desire” fully alive under Jiménez’s brush in his still publicized, many life, landscape, and other schools of art architectural paint- existed simultaneously ings. in Spain and continue It would appear to thrive today. that, with the resur- Realism, for exam- gence of interest in ple, is alive and well, realist painting world- judging from the wide, Alberto Jiménez paintings of Alberto has emerged at pre- Jiménez, seen recently cisely the right at World Fine Art moment in art histo- Gallery, 511 West ry. While modernism 25th Street. Jiménez increasingly devalued harks back to the great representational skills, classical tradition of the postmodern era Goya and Velasquez, has seen art such as albeit from a modern his given its proper perspective that due. Among the cur- enables him, in one rent crop of realists, instance at least, to Jiménez is in the first verge on Pop by rank for his ability to prominently including combine objective a can of Coca Cola in observation and sub- the oil on canvas enti- jective vision in a tled “Daily Still Life.” thoroughly satisfying A simple paper bag synthesis. For he pos- also becomes the focal “Paper Bag” sesses an unusual point of another painting, in which its folds and “In the Dumps.” The subject of the ability to invest what he sees with subtle and shadows are so meticulously delineated former painting is a rear view of a lithe nuances of feeling that are absent in the as to lend this common object a symbolic young woman nude from the waist up with work of many realist painters today. significance akin to a loaf of bread in a still a white clothe covering her hips. Here, Indeed, many contemporary realists seem life by one of the Flemish masters. At the Jiménez displays not only his skill in anato- to deliberately play down the subjective ele- same time, as this painting perhaps illustrates my with the graceful curve of the model’s ment in art in order to achieve a deperson- most clearly, Jiménez is as fully cognizant of spine, as she raised her arms to adjust her alized quality that they hope will align them the abstract qualities in art as that other well blonde mane, but also his mastery of classi- with the “cool” aesthetic of geometric known realist Andrew Wyeth, who once said cal drapery in his handling of the folds and painting and minimalism. Quite the oppo- that, contrary to popular belief, his paintings shadows in her makeshift sarong. site, however, is true of Jiménez, who is are “full of little abstractions.” The latter painting, “In the Dumps,” is more than willing to put a good deal of per- Indeed, strong abstract qualities are pres- another matter entirely, for it depicts a sonal feeling into the most ostensibly imper- ent in all of Alberto Jiménez’s paintings, but young man kneeling on a city sidewalk, a sonal subjects. And his work benefits they are particularly evident in his architec- handkerchief tied around his arm, as he immensely from it, in terms of the emotion- tural subjects, such as “The Night is apparently injects himself with heroin. Here, al connection that the viewer is able to make Living,” a dramatic composition focusing too, the artist’s dramatic use of shadows with his paintings. on a magnificent old house lit up like a heightens the drama of the subject, as does Indeed, the reactions that his work has birthday cake and glowing out of darkness, the setting, which suggests an area near received in exhibitions in Madrid (where he and “Metropolis,” where the piece de resist- some rundown tenement stoop. Various has thus far exhibited most widely), as well ance is a dome set against a luminous sky. comparisons can be made to Jiménez’s as in Holland, Sweden, and now the United Then there is “Las Rozas,” a somewhat treatment of this contemporary social prob- States, as well as the prizes he has been anomalously expressionistic departure for lem, ranging from Goya’s great paintings of awarded from prestigious art museums and Jiménez, in which the stucco structures of a outcasts and grotesques to Walker Evans’s cultural organizations, indicate that Alberto sleepy little town bend and sway in a rub- powerful photographs of Depression-era Jiménez is a young painter thoroughly in bery fashion, taking on a tipsy, almost America. Indeed, Jiménez makes of this tune with his times. One can only look for- anthropomorphic quality. Similarly, in a can- abject figure, kneeling in the shadows to ward to his future exhibition here and vas called “Madrid,” he demonstrates that indulge his addiction, a monumental symbol abroad with the certainty that he is an artist he can also loosen up when he cares to and of human weakness. whose career will be well worth watching. adopt a vigorously “gestural” style with a That said, it would appear that such sub- composition, predominantly in earth colors, jects are relatively rare in the oeuvre of this ––Peter Wiley in which the city is evoked in slashing artist, who is not primarily a social realist strokes. (although he is obviously capable of making JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 15 On the Dilemma of the Rembrandt and the Little Old Lady and the Everyday Tension Between Ethics and Aesthetics by Ed McCormack with the kind of journalism that had always ods of anxiety by not informing me too made both drinking and flying necessary. In early of trips she is planning for us, although ver the years I have learned that when fact, I never knew how phobic I was about I always know that they are looming some- Omy wife enters the room where I write flying, socializing, and a lot of other things where up ahead, along with impending den- and clears her throat she usually has an until I was faced with having to do them tal appointments and other things that keep announcement to make that I am not going without benefit of my customary anesthesia. me in a state of low-level angst a good deal to like. This time it was that her favorite Granted, my phobias are nowhere near as of the time. While my wife does insist that I aunt, who had been ailing for some time, severe as those the composer Allen Shawn visit the dentist for regular checkups and had taken a turn for the worse, and we describes in his recent memoir “Wish I cleanings, guilt-tripping me into it by bring- would have to take a brief trip to Virginia. Could Be There.” Unlike him, I don’t have ing up the many thousands of dollars my The good news was that there was an to prepare myself for a short walk by carry- past neglect of my teeth has cost us, under Amtrak train that stopped in the same coun- ing such “safety items” as a supply of Xanax, ordinary circumstances she does not pres- ty as the hospital, and if we left early enough a bottle of ginger ale, a cell phone and a sure me to visit Virginia with her. I do so in the morning, we could visit for an hour paper bag of the type Shawn once had to voluntarily, however reluctantly, because the or two, then turn right around and be back breathe into to calm himself after suffering a self-induced guilt I would feel about not in New York the very same night. concussion. But I can certainly identify with accompanying her, along with my concerns Flying would have made the trip faster and his confession that the prospect of taking for her safety (besides being unsettling, trav- less arduous, but that was out of the ques- any trip, however short, makes him “almost el really can be dangerous, I tell myself, try- tion. Jeannie’s one phobia had always been a frozen with anticipatory anxiety for weeks or ing to put my phobia in a logical light) fear of flying, and I swore off it several years even months in advance.” would make me even more uneasy if I ago myself when I gave up drinking, along Jeannie generally tries to shorten my peri- remained behind. At least if there were a 16 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 fatal train wreck, goes my codependent rea- Scene painter by Guy Davenport (which I agoraphobia normally prevents me from see- soning, we could continue our journey to was hoping would help make me better able ing. To someone who regards Manhattan whatever comes next together, rather than to appreciate the charms of nature and out Island as the center of the universe, even a separately. of the way places); “Walter Benjamin: few cows in a field can seem like some exot- So there I was, grumbling as usual, as we Selected Writings, Volume Three,” because ic revelation. boarded the train before sunrise in Penn Benjamin, who enjoyed such a rich inner life But my pastoral epiphany terminated Station. In the bag with my tea I was carry- before being driven to suicide by the Nazis, abruptly when a woman I took at first to be ing a muffin as well as a bagel, because this never fails to remind me that intellectual Dolly Parton decked out in train conduc- imposition gave me the right to rigor can be bracing even in the worst of tor’s drag came down the aisle announcing overindulge, and my backpack was bulging times; and “World Poetry,” a hefty antholo- in a hog calling drawl that we would be fac- with more books (most of them review gy of verse from antiquity to the present, ing major delays due to a derailment outside copies sent by the publishers) than anyone since reading poetry, for me, is like mentally of Charlottesville. could possibly read during a train ride sever- fondling secular rosary beads–– an almost * * * al times as lengthy as the one we were about prayerful activity that can fill the agitated “How in the world did you-all get so to undertake. moments between nervewracking distrac- old?” Jeannie’s aunt exclaimed faintly, the Along with the aforementioned “Wish I tions and sometimes allay dread. tears of reunion still wet on her cheeks, as Could Be There” (which I had skimmed But even with my own “safety items” we hovered over her hospital bed hours later and found of little literary interest but was aboard, I couldn’t stop obsessing about not than we had expected to arrive. carrying as a kind of fellow phobic’s being home at my writing desk, although Frail, stuck with intravenous drips and amulet), I had the Australian critic Clive the deadlines into which I normally try to plastered with uncomfortable-looking med- James’ nearly 900 word doorstop of a tome consolidate all of my other anxieties were ical suction cups though she was, her eyes “Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories hardly so near as to cause serious alarm. still twinkled and her sly sense of humor had from History and the Arts”; “Charles Three or four hours into the trip, howev- not deserted her. Burchfield’s Seasons,” a profusely illustrated er, I had finally relaxed enough to almost Nor did she betray even a hint of self pity, monograph on the underrated American enjoy gazing out the window at all that my after we had been there for awhile, when she

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 17 pretty, guileless young artist who reminded features, ventured tentatively, “Mrs. me of my own wife, from whom I was sadly Braverman?” separated at the time, due to my own lousy “Eddie?” she said just as uncertainly, now male behavior. And I didn’t see how I could seeing vestiges of the punk kid she once write this piece truthfully without bringing knew through the gauze of years and gray her to grief. hair, and getting out of her chair to embrace Call it a failure of professional nerve me. “Eddie McCormack! Well, I can see aggravated by my own emotional turmoil, you’re still as uncooperative as ever!” but by the time we were standing in that Then, turning to my wife, she said, television studio and Geraldo made his char- “When I taught at Seward Park High School said,“Well, you always know it’s coming...” acteristically mawkish remark about little old on the Lower East Side, Eddie was my most And then, following a long, thoughtful ladies, I had already decided I would proba- gifted student. I still have one of his paint- pause, during which she presumably looked bly have to just give up on this story. ings of jazz musicians on my wall at home. “it” right in the eye without flinching, she And while I would have liked to have felt But he only went to two classes: Art and said, “I’ve had a long, good life.” noble about having made this difficult deci- English. At the end of every term his English * * * sion, what I really felt was fear that, by put- teacher and I had to go around to all the Who was it that once said to me, ting someone else’s feelings before my own other teachers and beg them to pass him. “Wouldn’t this be a much better world If ambitions, I myself might be starting to They’d all say the same thing: ‘Who is he, I all of us thought like little old ladies?” think like a little old lady. don’t even know what this kid looks like!’” Oh yeah, Geraldo Rivera, several years * * * Though shrunken and stooped, she still had ago, during a commercial break in a TV stu- I had already been drawing for as long as her hearty laugh. “Do you remember, Eddie, dio, after we had watched one of his fellow I could remember when I read somewhere, how I went to bat for you when Mr. Nanis newsmen interview an elderly woman who as an adolescent, that Queen Victoria had was threatening to kick you out of school?” had somehow found it in her heart to forgive once said, “Artists are dangerous; they can Mr. Nanis, the principal, was a whiny, a man for conning her out of her life savings. mix with anyone.” self-righteous little guy, of whom I am By then, I had already invested over a This made a strong impression on me reminded whenever I see and hear our bil- week in following this showboating media because it suggested that an idle habit of mine lionaire mayor, Bloomberg, on the news. sob-sister around, collecting his sanctimo- might become a means of escaping what I “Why do you stay in school anyway?” he nious pronunciamentos for a profile that I considered to be my lowly origins and joining would ask every time he summoned me to had been assigned to write for Rolling Stone. the only aristocracy that still seemed to matter: his office. “Why bother even making me But even after I had warned him that noth- that of the creative intelligentsia. expel you? Why don’t you make things easier ing would be off the record ––it was my Although my childhood ambition had for both of us and just quit? Why did you practice, indeed a point of principle with been to draw and write a syndicated comic bother getting transferred back here, after me, to write about whatever I heard or strip, buoyed by the praise of public school getting that scholarship to Music and Art? A saw–– he brazenly made me privy to an art teachers I began frequenting museums boy with your talent... A boy who throws extramarital dalliance he was having with the and thinking of myself as “an individual away such an opportunity...You know what I wife of a prominent politician. with a special, quasi-divine gift,” to employ call such a boy? I call him a meshugena!” In fact, from the way Geraldo flaunted Andrew Martindale’s term for the status In fact, it had not been easy getting trans- his affair with this elegant older woman artists (previously on a par with armorers, ferred back to that Blackboard Jungle hold- ––inexplicably taking me along on an assig- shipbuilders, and tailors) attained in the late ing pen from the prestigious High School of nation in her Park Avenue apartment and Middle Ages. But rather than owning up to Music and Art. It caused a lot of head shak- answering her questioning glances by intro- feeling snobbishly superior to my working- ing and head scratching on the part of the ducing me, not as a reporter, but as his “my class relatives, I preferred to feel that I was pencil pushers at the Board of Education, friend Ed”; retiring with her to some distant rejecting their “bourgeois values.” where I had to appear in person to earnestly part of that palatial pad for much longer Perpetrating this self-deception, I might plead the case for my backwardness. than it took me to view the politician’s have realized had I thought about it, Of course, I didn’t tell them that I hated impressive art collection; then joking on the required elevating my entire family almost as having to get up an hour earlier and take way down in the elevator about having far above our actual social station as I had the subway all the way uptown to 135th needed to have his “pipes cleaned” ––one recently placed myself. Street and Convent Avenue; or that I would almost have thought that the * * * missed cutting classes and spending most of Willowbrook whistle-blower subconsciously Sitting by wife’s aunt’s bedside while she the school day smoking cigarettes, drinking wanted to have the whistle blown on him- and Jeannie reminisced about things too Cokes, and sketching in my notebook at the self. Either that or his boastful male ego was familial to hold my interest, my mind wan- Grand Dairy Restaurant, right across the recklessly out of control. dered to another elderly woman whom we street from Seward. Nor was I about to Why else, having been forewarned, had encountered recently in the atrium at confide that I didn’t like being in a school would a media-savvy type like him have Citicorp Center, on Lexington Avenue, where talented kids were a dime a dozen trusted any journalist––much less some where we stopped for a cup of tea. and there was no one like Mrs. Braverman hippy loose cannon from Rolling Stone, a I had been vaguely aware of her at a doting over me and telling me what a prodi- publication notorious for exposing the nearby table, looking up at me from time to gy I was. And I certainly wouldn’t admit, sleazy underbelly of the establishment time, then frowning and working furiously even to myself, that I might have felt a little ––to ignore such a scoop? in a large sketchpad. Finally, she asked if I outclassed among all those Music and Art The only thing standing in my way was would mind staying still for a few minutes preppies, most of whom were obviously that Geraldo had also introduced me to his while she drew my portrait. from more affluent and cultured back- then wife, Edith, with whom I had spent a “I’d really rather not, since I’m naturally grounds than my own. pleasant couple of hours in their home. The antsy and we’re gonna be leaving soon any- I simply made a threat that never would daughter of the novelist Kurt Vonnegut, way,” I told her; then, suddenly recognizing have worked with Mr. Nanis: “If you don’t “Pie” (his fawning pet name for her) was a a look of disappointment flickering over her let me go back to Seward, I swear to God,

18 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 I’ll quit school the minute I turn sixteen!” certain this has to do not only with the gut- been about * * * knotting tension of being wrenched from making this “We had such a good time when Maddy my natural habitat, but also with having to simple trip. and I visited you all,” my wife’s aunt was leave most of my many hundreds of books Although saying now in her hospital bed, referring to behind. (Strange as it may sound, there’s no longer a few years earlier, when she had still been something about the smell of books, partic- young, I well enough to come to New York with her ularly old and musty ones, that actually has a sometimes daughter to attend Jeannie’s graduation laxative effect on me.) remind from N.Y.U. You could see how proud she Anyway, I was so cranky and miserable myself of was of her grown niece for going back to that Jeannie finally had to ask her aunt if Garrison school and getting her degree, as she helped anyone was available to drive us into town Keillor’s out in the kitchen at the party in our apart- to a drugstore, although matters relating to ludicrous character “A Young Artist Named ment after the ceremony. the lavatory are generally avoided in that Bob.” I, too, often feel beset and wax petu- It had to be the first time this elderly genteel, practically antebellum area of the lant when everyday duties stand in the way woman, who had come of age in the segre- Virginia horse country. But my wife’s aunt of my assumed artistic destiny. Blame it on gated south, had ever fraternized with peo- told her that there was no need to go into Mrs. Braverman and every other early ple of so many different racial, religious, town, reached up into a kitchen cabinet, enabler who made me feel special and political, and sexual persuasions. And surely and, feeling around behind some cereal exempt from responsibilities such as attend- some of the snippets of sophisticated New boxes, produced a large can of Metamucil, ing class or visiting sick relatives. York conversation she was hearing had to which she slipped to me discreetly with a Now, however, chastened by seeing my seem alien, even profane, to her southern, commiserating smile. And while I felt slight- wife’s aunt facing the transfer from hospital churchgoing ears. Yet she seemed altogether ly humiliated, like some geezer with “tired to hospice care with such courageous good at ease, as she busied herself doing what she blood” in a 1950s TV commercial for cheer, I cringed to recall that moment on had done so well for so many years: bustling Geritol, I was deeply grateful to the dear old the train when Dolly Parton came flouncing about, getting food and drink for people, girl for sharing her private stash with me. up the aisle to inform us of the delays up and doing her level best to make everyone Indeed, it is for the memory of countless ahead. Childishly annoyed at this new incon- feel at home. She did so in our narrow, such kindnesses, administered unselfishly venience, the first thing that ran through unconventionally furnished, art-crowded over the course of a lifetime, even when my mind was that old question: What would railroad walk-up on the top floor of a tene- they strain deeply ingrained notions of deco- you save first from a burning building, a ment in Yorkville as naturally as she had rum, that we cherish such women. Which is Rembrandt or your grandmother? always had in her own rambling Norman why seeing my wife’s favorite aunt again, For while I was not as remorseless an aes- Rockwell house in rural Virginia. lying in her hospital bed with such brave thete as W.H. Auden, who immediately The last time we visited her there, a few and good humored acceptance of the lonely answered, “A Rembrandt is worth any num- years earlier, I had been been constipated for journey we all eventually must take, finally ber of little old ladies,” I did ponder the dilem- days, as I invariably am when I travel. I’m made me ashamed of how churlish I had ma longer than any decent person ought to. Contrasts in Black and White Make for a Bold Photo Exhibition urists who still believe that black and The wildlife scenes of Jennifer Holst stress Departing slightly from “noir et blanc” Pwhite is the most artful form of photog- the intimate integration of her animal sub- with sepia tones that still qualify as mono- raphy could take heart from the recent exhi- jects with their environment. Especially strik- chromes, Alice Ng creates a lyrical frieze with bition “Noir et Blanc,” curated by Jean ing are Holst’s images of a lioness alertly four adjoining pictures of tree limbs that cre- Prytyskacz at Broadway Mall Community guarding her cubs and an elephant herd ate a calligraphic effect. In one panel, a single Center, the exhibition space of the West Side rhyming visually with the mound-like forms bird, its beak open in song, adds a note of Arts Coalition, on the center island at of the surrounding hills and foliage. magic to the whole. Broadway and 96th Street. Scott Weingarten’s prints on etching Texture is the focal point in the pictures Janice Wood Wetzel employs digital pho- paper of locations in Brooklyn and of Deena Weintraub, in which closeups of tography creatively in her floral studies, alter- Manhattan distort and warp architectural wheat grass, wildflowers, weeds and other nately blurring edges, casting details in high and sculptural forms from vertiginous growing things reflect the rich tactility of the contrast, or employing pixilation to produce angles. Dynamically, buildings sweep sky- natural world. The human presence is felt a plethora of intriguing abstract effects. ward and cobblestones and old trolley tracks but unseen in Weintraub’s eerie image of a Harry Peronius does the opposite, opting for loom as though reflected in a funhouse mir- migrant worker’s cabin almost engulfed by crystal clarity to bring out the textures in ror. Conversely, curator Jean Prytyskacz’s its overgrown surroundings. closeups of a leathery face studded with painterly photos approach scarred and A veritable carnival of grotesque masks white whiskers or the prominent veins in a scrawled city walls with the eye of an and actual human faces (one wearing an bony hand. Abstract Expressionist or Jean Michel- elaborate headdress) emerges from the pic- Walkways between buildings and the Basquiat. Eschewing illusory perspective, tures of Eliud Martinez, suggesting an exotic shadows that they cast create all-enveloping Prytyskacz emphasizes the two dimensionali- orgy of nightmarish visions. Martinez seems spaces in the pictures of Irmgard Kuhn. ty of the picture plane to complement the a photographic counterpart of the Belgian Pedestrians traversing them appear trapped matter-of-fact flatness of her subjects. Symbolist painter James Ensor. in Escher-like mazes, suggesting the deper- Jeff Kwan evokes more mystical urban Glamour and art’s playful embrace of arti- sonalizing aspects of modern urban life. scenes with nocturnal images of illuminated fice are sent up in Richard Zapata’s photo- Brunie Feliciano’s gelatin prints focus so phone booths and storefronts glowing out of graphs of a beautiful woman with dark eyes microscopically on bubbling oozing sub- darkness, as pedestrians flit between the and full lips striking a variety of self-conscious stances that they create an unearthly sense of shadows like phantoms. Or else he focuses poses to evoke predetermined moods. One abstraction. Flowing forms and areas of light on square columns outside an empty office of the most witty shots shows her wearing a and shadow evoke a mysterious realm of tower to create a mood as silent as an fur vest and leather boots to impersonate a liquescent special effects. Egyptian tomb. chic modern cave woman. —Maureen Flynn

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 19 Spanish Artist Miguel Sansón Makes His N.Y. Debut at Gelabert ngelic imagery goes related pieces on gold-leaf halos are intact; beams of light Aback a long way in view at the Lucía often emanate from their long, tentacle-like art history, from medieval Bosé Museum in arms, and the rainbow-colored feathers of manuscripts to the New Los Angeles. The their wings seem an especially heavenly Age craze of today. Few quality of these touch. Other symbols with which the angels artists, however, have pieces inspired Lucía are juxtaposed, such as a stylized eye and embodied this time-hon- Bosé to call Sansón skillfully juxtaposed abstract geometric ored subject as imagina- “the poet of works shapes, add to the somewhat surreal feeling tively as the Spanish in metal,” and the of Sansón’s paintings. painter and sculptor description is accu- From the earliest days of culture, angels Miguel Sansón, whose rate. For the formal have figured in artistic iconography as sym- solo exhibition is on view metaphors that he bols of invisible forces. Gothic art expresses at Gelabert Studios creates in metal are the protective aspects of the angel-figure, Gallery, 255 West 86th indeed as poetic and while the Romanesque tends to put the Street (at Broadway), buoyant in their main emphasis on its otherworldly nature. from June 5 through 23. own manner as the Miguel Sansón’s paintings and sculpture (Reception: June 5, mobiles of Miro’s appear to encompass both aspects of this 5 PM.) American friend enduring symbol in equal measure, for his The theme of show is Alexander Calder. angels appear at once benign and sublime. “Angels and Masters: One of the more In the final analysis, however, it is primari- Movements that Elevate whimsical aspects of ly for their aesthetic attributes that the works the Spirit,” and the title Sansón’s work is in this exhibition should appeal to a sophisti- seems especially apt, “Conexion” –detalle that––to this viewer, cated New York art audience, and these are given the uplifting at least––his angelic considerable. Chief among them are spirit of Sansón’s art, which can only be figures often resemble giant insects as much Sansón’s graceful and spare sense of form compared to that of his fellow countryman as they do human figures. In his paintings, and space in both two and three dimensions. Joan Miro. especially, where he employs a sinuous line, Renowned in Spain and elsewhere abroad Comprised of paintings, sculptures, two bright primary colors, and fanciful stylized as an artisan as well as a fine artist, Miguel of the thirty-four of his unique “chair sculp- forms can appear to have some of the physi- Sansón has won numerous international tures” that Sansón created for the interna- cal characteristics of the preying mantis or the awards for his innovative furniture designs, tionally exhibited Sent-Arte collection, and centipede–– albeit with only the prerequisite including the prestigious Medallion of twenty preliminary studies, this is the first number of human limbs! Extremadura. This first solo exhibition at New York exhibition of this celebrated They could also resemble extraterrestri- Gelabert Studio Gallery gives New Yorkers Spanish artist who has a sculpture of an als––which angels technically are, although a comprehensive sampling of his multiple angel measuring 8 meters high and other not of the science fiction variety. Yet their talents. ––Byron Coleman G&S NYC GUIDE opportunities MANHATTAN ARTS INTERNATIONAL HEALING POWER OF ART 12 YEAR ESTABLISHED CHELSEA GALLERY. Quality exhibitions, Currently seeking artists for our “Healing Power of Art” juried online exhi- location and marketing. Currently reviewing artists. Online information bition beginning September 1. Download prospectus at http://www.man- requests: http:// www.worldfineart.com/inforequest.html hattanarts.com/Gallery/Healing2007/Details.htm or send SASE with request for Healing prospectus to Manhattan Arts International, 200 East WEST SIDE ARTS COALITION (WSAC) established 1979, welcomes 72 Street, 26th floor, New York, NY 10021. Tel: 212.472.1660. Email: new members from all geographic areas. There are approximately 14 [email protected]. Deadline: August 1. exhibits per year for Fine Arts, Photography, and Craft Arts. Music, Poetry, Theater and Dance programs available. Contact information: Tel.- 212- CALL FOR ENTRIES - INTAGLIO PRINTMAKERS 316-6024, email- [email protected] or website- www.wsacny.org. Or THE ETCHING SALON 2007 send SASE to the West Side Arts Coalition, PO Box 527, Cathedral ELIGIBILITY, Artwork produced in New York by artists currently living or working Station, New York, NY 10025. Visit our ground floor gallery at 96th in New York State. ELIGIBLE TYPES OF WORK, Only original intaglio prints including etchings, aquatints, mezzotints and may be submitted. Maximum Street & Broadway (on the center island) New York City. Open: Wed. paper size 222x302. METHOD OF SUBMISSION, By slide one submission only 6-8pm, Sat.& Sun. 12-6pm. Slide Due: September 7, 2007 ENTRY FEE, A non-refundable entry fee of $40.00 is required for submission of your slide. CURATOR, Mr. David Kiehl, 20 YEAR ESTABLISHED MIDTOWN GALLERY seeks new artists for Curator of Prints, The Whitney Museum of American Art Exhibition Dates: next season. Street level. Tel. 212-315-2740 [email protected] November 4th through November 14th 2007, The National Arts Club For an email version of the entry prospectus write: [email protected] Or mail a self ESTABLISHED CHELSEA GALLERY reviews artist portfolios monthly. addressed, stamped envelope to: New York Society of Etchers, Inc 120 West Send sase or visit www.noho gallery.com for application form. Noho 86th Street, Suite 7A New York, N.Y. 10024 Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001. 212 367-7063 GELABERT STUDIOS GALLERY PLEIADES GALLERY Join our community of artists at this prestigious artist- offers artists the opportunity to showcase run gallery to exhibit your work and advance your career. Memberships their work in a unique, elegant Upper West now becoming available. www.pleiadesgallery.com – or SASE to Pleiades Side setting. Fully equipped gallery for rent Gallery, 530 W. 25 St., 4th fl. NY, NY 10001-5516, Tel.- 646-230-0056 on weekly or yearly basis. Top quality lighting. Call 212-874-7188 for rental MONTSERRAT CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY is reviewing artist details or visit our website: portofolios for its new Chelsea Gallery. National and International artists www.gelabertstudiosgallery.com. are invited to submit. Sase, slides, photos and brief artist bio. Send to: Gelabert Studios Gallery, 255 W. 86th St. Montserrat Contemporary Art Gallery, 547 West 27 street NYC 10001 (at Broadway), New York City 10024.

20 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Weimar Dreams: “From Berlin to Broadway” at The Morgan Library & Museum by Ed McCormack ularly, it is interesting to speculate on the apparent light-hearted whirring fun on the question of influence, since Fred Ebb, surface, by the nightlife and the so-called nlike Aubrey Beardsley, who reveled who bequeathed the forty-three drawings freedom and flowering of the arts. But Uin and modeled his persona on the and watercolors in the exhibition to the that was really nothing more than froth. decadence of England in the 1890s, Otto Morgan in his will, moved in the same Right under that shortlived, lively surface Dix held the decadence of Germany in the theatrical circles as the illustrator. A suc- of the shimmering swamp was fratricide 1920s up to ridicule at arm’s length. cessful Broadway lyricist who collaborated and general discord, and regiments were While Beardsley employed an ornamental with the composer John Kander on several formed for the final reckoning.” line to celebrate what Camille Paglia called hit shows, including “Chicago” and “Kiss Even more vividly descriptive than his “the tainted flora of the late phases of cul- of the Spider Woman,” Ebb started col- prose, however, is Grosz’s watercolor ture,” Dix stabbed at the paper as if to lecting expressionist drawings and water- “Barberina” (1925), in which grotesquely impale the pretensions of his era with his colors in the mid 1960s, while researching made up and overdressed patrons of a real pen. life Berlin cabaret posture Yet Dix as much as like animated cadavers. Beardsley demonstrates While Grosz captures the Havelock Ellis’s thesis social preening and the “The difference between a “lively surface of the shim- classic style and a decadent mering swamp” in lumi- style is that the first is nous watercolor washes, beautiful because the parts Otto Dix skewers its sub- are subordinated to the terranean lowlife in “Pimp whole; the second is beau- and Girl” (1923), where tiful because the whole is his linear treatment of the subordinated to the parts.” mustachioed ponce with Nowhere is this more dangling cigarette and his clear than in “We Want languorous naked hooker Bread” (1923), an ink owe something to Grosz’s drawing by Dix in the ferociously satirical portfo- exhibition “From Berlin to lio of drawings “Ecce Broadway: The Ebb Homo,” published a year Bequest of Modern earlier. German and Austrian Along with Max Drawings,” at The Morgan Beckmann and Rudolf Library & Museum, 225 Schlichter (represented Madison Avenue, through here with the ca. 1922 September 2. watercolor “Neapolitan Not only does Dix sub- Street”), Grosz and Dix ordinate the whole to its were leading figures of the parts in this depiction of Neue Sachlichkeit (New stark social contrasts Otto Dix (1891 –1969) We Want Bread! 1923 India ink over traces of Objectivity), a movement between the ostentatious graphite pencil on wove paper 15 1/4 x 16 3/4 inches (387 x 426 mm) The initiated between the two patrons of a Berlin cafe Pierpont Morgan Library, Bequest of Fred Ebb, Photography by Joseph Zehavi, World Wars by a group of (their features ranging from 2006 © 2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Berlin artists disillusioned Aryan-simian to Semitic- with the disengaged distor- aqualine) and a ragtag procession of the team’s hit musical “Cabaret,” which tions of the Expressionists and dedicated impoverished protesters passing outside its takes place in Germany in the twenties and to a more pointed social realism. window, he also supplies stylistic templates thirties. Also included in the group was Jeanne for two distinctly different later draftsmen: But don’t be deceived into idealizing Mammen, who combined an acidic vision the New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg the demimonde of Weil and Brecht by the with an especially refined watercolor tech- (an exhibition of whose drawings preceded smarmily seductive invitation to “Come to nique and was to gain a belated cult fol- this show at the Morgan) and the theatri- the cabaret” that Ebb wrote for Joel Grey, lowing among feminists in the 1970s for cal illustrator Harry Hirschfield. For while whose character could have been inspired her lesbian subjects. In contrast to her ten- the features of a woman seated at a table by the sallow-faced, tux-clad master of cer- der depictions of love between women, on the right hand side of the composition emonies in Emile Nolde’s watercolor the title of Mammen’s watercolor “The are strikingly similar to those of “Conferencier” (ca. 1910-11). Joy of Nature” (ca. 1930) calls ironic Steinberg’s anthropomorphic felines, her In the chapter of his long out of print attention to the obvious discontent of a male companion could easily pass for one memoir “An Autobiography” entitled frumpy heterosexual couple languishing of Hirschfield’s caricatures, from his exag- “The Weimar Republic,” George Grosz on a park bench. Another picture, “Cafe gerated profile right down to the stippled recalls: “It was a completely negative Reimann” (ca. 1931), originally created as textures of his tweed jacket, which trails world, with gaily colored froth on top that an illustration for a gay and lesbian guide off in an elegant linear manner at the many people mistook for the true, the to “Immoral Berlin,” depicts a more fash- shoulder, compelling the viewer to com- happy Germany before the eruption of the ionable and perhaps more jaded pair of plete the figure through visualization. new barbarism. Foreigners who visited us male and female voyeurs sitting at a cafe In the case of Harry Hirschfield, partic- at that time were easily fooled by the table, smoking and surveying the sur-

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 21 rounding scene of a compact through slitted and applying eyes. lipstick, while While the neighbors gawk barbed realism of through the the Neue chain-link fence, Sachlichkeit may their haggard have initially jibed appearance more harmonious- seeming a pre- ly with the literary sentiment of bias of a Broadway future newsreels lyricist researching showing con- local color, Ebb’s centration camp taste apparently victims behind broadened as he barbed wire. encountered earli- That same er German art. year, George For, along with Grosz, realizing Nolde’s it would be “Conferencier” (a dangerous for rare urban subject him to remain for an artist better in Germany, known for primi- accepted an tive themes), he invitation to also collected pre- emigrate to World War I draw- Max Beckmann (1884 –1950) Nightclub in New York, 1947 Pen and ink and watercolor on New York and ings and watercol- laid paper 10 1/4 x 14 3/8 inches (260 x 363 mm) The Pierpont Morgan Library, Bequest of Fred teach at the Art ors by Ebb, Photography by Joseph Zehavi, 2006 © 2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Students Expressionists such Bild-Kunst, Bonn League. Later as Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Klimt’s slender, graceful figures have a he would quip, “I left because of Hitler. Otto Mueller, Max Pechstein, and Karl brazen yet aloof allure that contrasts He is a painter, too, you know, and there Schmidt-Rottluff, as well as their disaffili- sharply with the awkward matter-of-fact- didn’t seem to be room for both of us in ated contemporaries Ludwig Meidner, ness of Oskar Kokoschka’s “Reclining Germany.” Christian Rohlfs, and Karl Hofer. Female Nude” (ca. 1911-12), the abject Apparently, the Weimar sensibility was a Kirchner’s watercolor “Figures on a Busy nakedness of the stocky subject in Max portable state of mind, judging from the Street” (1914), with its tension between Pechstein’s gouache “Kneeling Woman” leering female guitarist in Grosz’s water- geometry and gestural energy, and (1909), and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s angu- color “Musicians” (1932), painted on Heckel’s “Seated Man (Self-Portrait),” lar “Seated Nude” (ca. 1915) with its arriving in New York, where he found 1912, showing the influence of African oversize head, symbolizing, according to faces to rival those in his Berlin scenes. In masks, are among his most outstanding Schmidt-Rottluff “the seat of the psyche.” another watercolor by his fellow exile Max Expressionist acquisitions. Although nudes are well represented in Beckmann, “Nightclub in New York” Perhaps influenced by Barbara the collection, Ebb purchased only one (1947), the floor show features two sinis- Streisand, a fellow collector for whose film landscape: Otto Mueller’s “Landscape ter clowns in dunce caps, each gripping “Funny Girl” he wrote lyrics, Ebb also with Trees and Water” (ca. 1923). Not one leg of a female performer, as though acquired works by the Austrian artists surprisingly, this mundane work in col- about to sunder her like a wish-bone, Oskar Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt, and ored chalks and gouache was an unin- while a jazz combo fiddles and thrums in Egon Schiele. In fact, along with Streisand spired choice, given the antipathy toward the background. Come to the cabaret! and other showbiz types like Billy Wilder, nature that caused the lyricist to turn right Other unexpected pleasures of the col- Ebb was among Schiele’s first American around and make a beeline back to lection include “Railroad Workers II” collectors. He purchased eight of his draw- Manhattan the one time he visited his (1915), a watercolor by the German- ings, including “Self-Portrait” (1910),” in writing partner John Kander’s country American artist Lyonel Feininger, in which which the artist’s head is set eerily afloat house. (He may still have been recoiling the angularly abstracted figures toting a tie on an otherwise bare sheet of paper, as from the visit when he penned the lyrics could be taken for pall-bearers carrying a well as several figure drawings in the spare, “Sties and stables sure are smelly / Let me coffin; “Savior’s Face with Open Eyes” sinuous linear style for which he was sniff some kosher deli / Brightly lit by (1923), a geometric composition by Alexei known, some with an expressive emphasis pretty city lights.”) Jawlensky; Paula Modersohn-Becker’s on disproportionately large hands. With the rise of fascism, the Weimar “Half-Length Portrait of a Peasant Although Schiele’s drawings are often era was in its last gasp by 1932, the year Woman” (ca. 1899), a charcoal and col- overtly erotic, here he is upstaged in that the Neue Sachlichkeit draftsman and print- ored chalk drawing combining classical regard by his early mentor Gustav Klimt, maker Karl Hubbuch produced his India realism with the darkly evocative quality of whose two exquisite line drawings,”Seated ink drawing “”The Film Star Spends Two van Gogh’s “Potato Eaters; and Nude”(ca. 1907) and “Seated Woman Minutes in Her Parents’ Garden.” Like a “Rheumatics” (1927) a characteristically with Raised Skirt” (ca. 1909-10), are both butterfly alighting in a garbage dump, the scratchy pen drawing of a stooped old provocatively posed, with parted legs and blond bombshell appears to be slumming man and his equally decrepit hound by the the pubic patch prominent for being the in her own past as she sits in the cluttered eccentric draftsman Alfred Kubin, who was only filled-in area of the composition. little yard, admiring herself in the mirror a contemporary of the Weimar artists but

22 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 eschewed their cafe society have a monetary value. However, they for the darker haunts of his have not been shown publicly in thirty gothic imagination. years, making this an especially valuable Most of the German exhibition. painters in the Ebb collection Like “Glitter and Doom: German who held teaching posts in Portraits from the 1920s,” which closed art academies and universities earlier this year at the Metropolitan were fired from them, had Museum, “From Berlin to Broadway” their works confiscated from offers glimpses of a fertile artistic epoch on museums, and were forbid- the verge of being abruptly aborted. That den to paint after Hitler took in some unsettling ways it resembles our power in 1933 and snuffed own era makes this show as timely as it is the artistic freedom of the provocative. Weimar period. Many were driven into exile and some * * * had the dubious honor of being included in the infa- mous “Degenerate Art” exhibition held in Munich in Karl Hubbuch (1891 –1979) The Film 1937. Presumably these Star Spends Two Minutes in Her drawings and watercolors Parents ’ Garden, ca.1932 Reed pen and survived only because they India ink heightened with white on wove remained well hidden or paper 25 1/4 x 20 7/8 inches (640 x 531 because even Nazis and mm) The Pierpont Morgan Library, philistines are reluctant to Bequest of Fred Ebb, destroy anything that may Photography by Joseph Zehavi, 2006 “Art from Detritus:” Funky and Fabulous t is hardly earthshaking or even original to of The Stepford Wives. plastic skeletons. And a dollhouse regurgi- Iliken art to alchemy; yet the analogy One can only wonder at the private tates shredded paper in Kathy Smith’s applies so literally to the exhibition “Art meaning that the date “May 14, 2007” has “White Trash,” hinting at secrecy and covert from Detritus: Recycling with Imagination” for Ed Herman, whose wall assemblage of activities in a more”down home” environ- that one is obliged to forego cleverness and that name, composed with wire mesh, long ment. state the obvious. metal poles, and a pair of women’s suede Eric Stanley’s “AM Wizdum 1” suggests Partially funded by the Puffin Foundation, boots, comes across as a kind of portrait. A the mind-bending babble of early morning and on view through June 24 at Synagogue notorious supermodel doing community radio of the abrasive Imus/Stern variety, for the Arts Gallery Space, 49 White Street, service for the Sanitation Department comes with intricate swirls that turn a flattened, the show was curated by Vernita Nemec, most immediately to mind––a subjective blackened Cheerios box into a psychedelic Grand Dame of the Art from Detritus move- reading, admittedly, but an apropos theme mandala. By contrast, innocence is embod- ment. Also known as the performance artist for a detritus show! ied by a tiny dress covered with miniature Vernita N’Cognita, Nemec has brought Don’t even get me started trying to deci- Hershey’s candy wrappers and juxtaposed together over 40 of her colleagues in the pher “Another Story,” by Joan Criswell, a with balloons and toys in Lynda Andrus’s movement for this stunning survey of creative veritable Valentine of unsettling debris that “Childhood Days.” recycling. Not only do they practice what includes a partially decomposed animal skull Other artists exploit the formal properties Nemec refers to as “aesthetic ecology” but and a pair of real, ritualistically crossed, dis- of refuse to create intriguing abstractions demonstrate that some of the most trenchant embodied deer hoofs and projects a mood such as Elizabeth Morisette’s color field statements on American society seen any- of curdled romance as morbidly engaging as composition of vertically stacked pink, pur- where today are being made from its abun- The Rolling Stones song “Dead Flowers.” ple, and green zippers; Kathleen King’s bub- dant waste materials. Less mysterious but just as ingenious for bly “Flotsam Fantasy,” created with acrylic, Nemec herself shows a characteristically their transformation of found materials are plastic, and metal circles; Marjie Zelman’s powerful piece called “Don’t Shoot.” Lisa Gross’s “Jonah in the Whale,” in which semiotic word/image symbols on torn Poignantly juxtaposing a delicate painted the mouth of a plastic pouch with a zipper scraps of newspaper affixed to transparent bird with a grainy newspaper photo of a for teeth morphs into the monstrous maw plastic; Kazuko’s graceful calligraphic config- hand gun on a long vertical field of pat- that swallow’s Jonah and his boat; another urations of tree branches suggesting land- terned security envelopes, it combines the fanciful sea creature called “Shimmering marks for lost travelers; and Ursula Clark’s lyrical qualities of an ancient Chinese scroll Swallowtailed Bubblebelly” constructed by mobile incorporating found plastic, coated with the jolt of today’s headlines. David Edgar from colorful plastic contain- wire, feathers, and expired MetroCards. Rachel Leibman comments acerbically on ers; and “Linoleum Landscape with Also including other excellent and highly suburban domesticity in “Postpartum Eclipse,” a by May de Viney, in which the entertaining works too numerous to men- House,” an intricately crafted collage assem- common floor covering and costume jewel- tion here, this 17th Art from Detritus exhi- bled entirely with images clipped from mail ry add to the surreal atmosphere of a bition places Nemec and her colleagues not order catalogs. It’s a two-dimensional cut- Washington D.C. cityscape. Apparently, only in the forefront of aesthetic ecology away dollhouse with every piece of furniture Carol Quint is also haunted by events ema- but in the vanguard of all that is funky and and utensil in place, every bug snug in the nating from the Nation’s Capital, judging fabulous in contemporary art. shrubberies, and a “lady of the house” who from “The White House,” a spooky archi- ––Ed McCormack looks as trapped and as wigged out as one tectural construct of real chicken bones and

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 23 “The Female Gaze” Takes Center Stage

or several centuries today differs from the myopic Fwe have looked stereotypes of the centuries-old upon the ordinary mir- Male Gaze, but also of how acle of the human women have redefined their sexu- female form though ality. For unlike most women of the licentious distort- centuries past the women that ing lens of what art Ekatherina S photographs and historians refer to as then envelopes in luminous, the Male Gaze. Only translucent veils of color via relatively recently have hand-painting, display their bod- women artists begun ies proudly. to examine their own “They enjoy very much to be bodies and give us a beautiful woman,” she assures more intimate and us in her Russian-inflected truthful images of one English, and indeed it is obvious of art history’s most that they see their beauty not as familiar subjects. something to be exploited solely Characteristically, for the pleasure of men but as Ekatherina something to be explored for Savtchenko, who has their own enjoyment and ulti- dispensed with her mate empowerment. Given the surname for artistic bodily shame traditionally purposes and prefers imposed upon women, with the to be known simply as dubious quality of “modesty” Ekatherina S, comes at elevated as a virtue and serving this subject from a not only to salve male insecurity unique angle in her but also to instill humility in two photographic matters of intellect as well as projects “Mystery of dress and deportment, this is a Woman” and “Unity: far more potent expression of Identity,” on view at selfhood and, somewhat paradox- A. Jain Marunouchi ically, a far more androgynous Gallery, 24 West 57th statement than if women were to Street, from June 21 eschew makeup and adopt mas- through July 5, with a culine modes of dress in the reception on June 21 manner of some earlier feminists. from 5:30-7:30 PM. For these women are most defi- (The exhibition will nitely feminists, albeit modeled travel to Oslo, more on, say, the proud self- Norway, in August and assertion of the pop personality Madonna than the political to the Museum of “Nymphe 1” Contemporary Art in activism of Kate Millet. Shanghai, China, and the Imperial City gions.” This is a postmodern strain of femi- Art Museum in Beijing in September Ekatherina S herself was born in nism that does not find it necessary to and October. Russia, holds a German passport, lives repudiate eroticism; rather it embraces Working in the hybrid medium in New York, works in Spain and the erotic aggressively, as seen in the that she calls “painted photography,” China. She calls herself a “citizen of sequence Ekatherina S calls “Passion,” her exploration of issues specifically the Universe” and, in the nude auto- in which a voluptuous brunette model related to gender began with a series of portraits of her “Identity” series, she is who bears a more than passing resem- male nudes entitled “Mystery of Man” seen holding her passport behind her blance to the young Sophia Loren is in which, as she puts it, “I was interest- back in a picturesque Spanish land- engulfed in auras of a red hue so viscer- ed in the feminine qualities of the man, scape. Very much in the pluralistic spir- al they could suggest the inner environ- like a fragility, emotional depth, fantasy it of postmodernism, this embodiment ment of the womb itself. Call it, if you and narcissism.” Conversely, in her of multiculturalism within a single indi- will, the Female Gaze, for no longer is female nudes, she is inspired by what vidual, like her hybrid medium, and the the model represented languishing in she calls “their masculine sides”–– the merging of male and female personality some innocuous setting such as a forest qualities of “energy, power, individuali- traits that she celebrates in her work, is or her boudoir as a passive object for ty, and independence” normally attrib- expressed in the title “Unity: identity,” the voyeuristic delectation of the male uted to men. The vehicle through which she states “is about the national viewer, as she has habitually been seen which she explores a synthesis of and international aspects of the person- down through art history. Here, she is androgyny and classic female beauty is ality.” at last an active participant in the her own nude body as well those of her The androgynous element in her dynamics of desire, neither a bovine female friends, of whom she says, work is one of its most profound mani- innocent like Renoir’s rosy milkmaids “They come from different countries, festations for what it tells not only of nor forbidden fruit like the pubescent continents, cultural traditions and reli- how the way we view women’s bodies Lolitas of Balthus, but a being fully

24 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 in the Painted Photography of Ekatherina S

aware of her power to both inspire and enjoy passion on equal terms with men. And it is equality rather than exclusion that these pictures seem to invite, a world in which the power games of the past are absent from the relations between women and men, both in and out of the sexual arena. Indeed, equality was already an operative principle in the large paint- ings that Ekatherina S showed at Westwood Gallery in Soho a few years ago, before photography came to play such a prominent role in her work, in which angularly stylized male and female figures both exhibited the same lithe athleticism as they engaged in exertions of an ostensibly mythic nature harking back to the graceful hunters in prehistoric cave paintings. And while in the present pictures, the message has become more explicit and urgently contemporary, there is still a mythic component to the work that comes across particularly in the sequence of images “Dance of Earth,” which takes on a Dionysian dimension, with the artist as a blond nature sprite alternately surrendering her nubile nakedness to the earth, swinging from a tree branch, or straddling a sapling as though about to mate with it. Documenting an outdoor dance per- formance that she gave in Spain, accompanied by the Chinese pianist Tian Jiang, the sequence, intended to reenact an “ancient ritual of fertility and symbolize the connection to Mother Earth,” As an expression of natural unity, the sequence has a primi- tive directness that strikes one as refreshing and intrepid, given the cal- culated climate of our present cultural environment. Yet that Ekatherina S is also capable of classical restraint when she abandons her vibrant yellows and fiery reds for more subdued blue and greens in the sequence she calls “Nymphe,” where light and shadow flickers over shapely torsos, buttocks, and limbs, lending liv- ing flesh the cool quality of marble statues viewed through the translucent waters of a shallow lake. Only the “Identity 5” navel-ring and the pubic hair in “Nymph 1” and what appears to be a would have to be either a politically identity” photo projects. And since art black thong bikini bottom entwined correct prude or simply dead to deny!), is all about raising questions, rather around the knee in “Nymphe 3” there is an ethereal––one dares say even than answering them, that is as much as removes these timelessly comely images a “spiritual”–– quality to this sequence we can expect from any exhibition. from antiquity, locating them firmly in that may or may not be indicative of the present. the superior Female Gaze. ––Ed McCormack At the same, despite the suggestive- This is just one among several inter- ness of such details and the palpable esting questions that Ekatherina S rais- eroticism innate to any image of a well- es in this sequence and others in her proportioned naked body (which one “Mystery of a Woman” and “Unity:

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 25 María Faraone Views an Eternal City he Argentinean artist María Faraone ers. She obviously relishes painting men in Tapparently has a special relationship with powdered wigs and pantaloons and women Venice, Italy, judging from the paintings from in elaborate beaded, sequined, and brocaded her “Carnaval de Venecia” series, on view in ball gowns festooned with glittering jewels the year-round salon exhibition at Montserrat and colorful feathers. And when they don Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, in Chelsea. their ornate masks, her canvases take on Faraone, who has exhibited widely in even more fantastic qualities akin to the Buenos Aires and around the world, has macabre compositions of James Ensor. painted memorable pictures of other exotic In “El Cafe Florian,” for example, several locales, as well as acclaimed portraits of his- costumed figures, most wearing masks, torical figures such as Eva Peron. However, mingle around cafe tables set up near a stag, Venice seems especially well matched to her overhung with a white tent, on which a aesthetic sensibility. For it is among its ubiq- tuxedo-clad orchestra serenades them. In uitous canals, baroque architecture, and this painting, given the elegant setting, grand public plazas that Faraone finds some everyday reality and fantasy mingle in equal of her most fanciful imagery, especially dur- measure. By contrast, a more eerie atmos- ing Carnaval, when throngs of costumed phere attends the composition called revelers from all over the world turn the pic- “Coloquio,” where four figures wearing turesque city into a fantasyland where white masks that resemble skulls and finery dreams overlap with daily life. Venice pro- liberally decorated with gold congregate in “Figura con pollera a rayas” vides Faraone with a perfect vehicle for front of a massive steel door like spooky sen- youth and the care she has taken with her merging everyday reality with a form of tries guarding the portal to another world. costume suggest that this young woman will readymade surrealism that auspiciously suits A more down-to-earth mood comes soon get a “second wind” and be ready to her style, which recalls that of the American across in “Figura con pollera a rayas,” a por- join into the night’s revels. painter Florine Stettheimer. Like that of the trait of a pretty young woman with a feath- In choosing to make Venice the setting earlier artist, whose New York salon attract- ered headdress and a pearl-lined black mask for this series, Faraone places her art in the ed the cream of the international avant- that covers only one eye, seated on marble company of masters such as Tiepolo and garde in the 1930s, Faraone possesses a steps leading down to a canal. The sunlight Canaletto, who immortalized it in centuries Rococo manner, at once innocent and gleaming on the water behind her hints that past. However, she does not suffer by com- sophisticated, in which a great deal of detail it may be early evening, an impression parison, since she possesses a distinctive style is lovingly delineated. enhanced by her wilting posture, which sug- and brings something uniquely contempo- Faraone is especially adept at depicting gests the weariness that descends toward the rary to her interpretation of the fabled city. the extravagant costumes worn by the revel- end of a daylong celebration. However, her ––Maurice Taplinger Chelsea Group Show Celebrates the Poetry of Subjective Vision he paintings of Mounia Dadi, an artist Chicago, Page paints thickly impastoed can- formed Tatawy’s sensibility and influenced Tborn in Casablanca, Morocco, exemplify vases notable for their raw power and her art indelibly, lending her earthly evoca- the eclectic pleasures to be found in “The expressive brushwork, whether he is depict- tions of the human figure a rare resonance. Rapture of Form,” at Agora Gallery, 530 ing a stylized vision of an exotic deity held Anyone who has ever driven through the West 25th Street, in Chelsea, from June 26 aloft by beams of light or what appears to postindustrial landscape of upstate New through July 17. (Reception: Thursday, be a field of hemp waving in the breeze. York factory towns like the one in which June 28, 6 to 8 PM. For her choice of sunny hues, the Israeli Michael Hibbard grew up will recognize Dadi’s paintings recall Walt Whitman’s painter Nava Revital resembles a latter-day their spirit if not their actuality in his mini- famous line, “I contain multitudes,” for she Bonnard, particularly in her domestic sub- malist sculptures, which combine steel and fills gracefully delineated outlines of the jects such as “The Living Room 2.” Living ceramics in innovative ways. For while they human form with myriad neo-pointillist in the melting pot of Jerusalem, however, are geometric and completely nonobjective, strokes of color that suggest the intricate she has an even wider range of subjects at Hibbard’s stark looming forms convey an content of our inner lives. Set against her disposal, and she captures them in a elegiac quality, standing as affecting monu- vibrant backgrounds of a single hue, Dadi dynamic style that moves gracefully from the ments to a vanishing way of life, even while “sings the body electric,” to paraphrase figurative into the semi-abstract and back impressing us with their purely formal another line from that great American poet. again, offering us what de Kooning once attributes. Working with steel, bronze, glass, and termed “slippery glimpses” of daily life. As mellow in their subtle intonations as other materials, the California funk sculptor By contrast, Washington resident Bergen sun-bleached driftwood, the watercolors of William C. Mang celebrates lowbrow cul- Rose imbues the everyday with a hint of the Marc van der Leeden evoke the phantom ture, creating iconic tributes to heavy metal surreal in her atmospheric landscapes, where poetry of old New England beach houses music (a carnivorous-looking anthropomor- fields and twisted trees have an otherworldly and lighthouses set against pale, uninflected phic electric guitar with frets culminating in quality akin to the desolate dreamscapes of skies. However, there is more to these pic- a clawlike hand!), goth, sci-fi, dungeons and Yves Tanguy. A sense of poetic melancholy tures than nostalgic Americana. A practicing dragons, aliens––you name it! Wang’s Pop pervades Rose’s paintings, lending them an physician like the late poet William Carlos wit succeeds by virtue of an elegance of exe- unusual emotive quality. Williams, van der Leeden is a homespun cution that elevates even the most debased The Egyptian artist Nadia El Tatawy has modernist, employing light and shadow to subjects to the level of high art. a talent for cramming a complex narrative create subtle patterns on the picture plane A mysterious epiphany in Italy prompted suggestiveness into her boldly brushed, that combine elements of Impressionism Gregory Allen Page to abandon a lucrative darkly evocative figurative paintings. The and Cubism in a highly original synthesis. career in reconstructive surgery and become history of her country, its rich cultural her- ––Maureen Flynn a painter. Now, living and working in itage and its ongoing human conflicts, has

26 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 At New Century: Putting the Emotion Back into Contemporary Art “ motionalists” is a loaded term for a tic power reminiscent of Kathe Kollwitz shoreline suggesting a near-mystical Ebudding art movement, and its by way of Rodin. realm. Then there is Kinga Kolouszek, members obviously mean for it to be. In the gesturally vital paintings of who employs a subtle range of predomi- Formed twelve years ago by the Polish Maria Fuks, the sensual couplings of nantly blue hues to evoke atmospheric émigré sculptor Lubomir Tomaszewski, male and female figures are lent sensual views of Luxembourg that are reminis- the group flies in the face of art world urgency by the the artist’s graceful calli- cent of Lyonel Feininger for the expres- orthodoxy by eschewing fashionable graphic line and sense of classical propor- sive plasticity that they impart to pictur- irony in favor of an art driven by subjec- tions. At the same time, Fuks invests her esque European architecture. tive self expression. This is a radical compositions with a slightly melancholy Perhaps the most ostensibly abstract stance at a time when, in an almost any- humanism that serves as a counter- member of the group is Zbigniew thing goes cultural climate, unmediated weight, giving her pictures a depth of Nowosadski, whose oil initially appears passion often seems the last taboo––espe- feeling that goes beyond mere romantic to be a minimalist color field composi- cially since all of the members of the fantasy. tion consisting of a single vertical slash group are far too sophisticated, both Figurative metamorphosis is central to on a vibrant red and blue background, technically and aesthetically, to be con- the work of three other Emotionalists: until one looks closer and sees that it is sidered “outsiders.” Edmund Korzeniewski merges two neo- actually a slender female figure, pos- Thus their conscious decision to cubistically stylized figures into a single sessed of a lethal, blade-like elegance restore the emotional component to con- towering entity in his painting “Romeo akin to a Giacometti sculpture. temporary art amounts to a critique of and Juliet.” Korzeniewski’s earthy ocher The paintings and drawings of father those contemporaries who distance their forms suggest some surreal architecton- and son artists Janusz and Arthur art from direct confrontation with the ic/anthropomorphic monument to Skowron suggest that Emotionalism may human experience through the formal young love. have intergenerational shelf-life through and conceptual strategies. And whether Nita Sacks-Steketeer’s “Sailor” is a their distinctly different styles. The one agrees or does not agree that such a primal male silhouette set against a tac- father, Janusz Skowron employs a bold critique is necessary, the group makes a tile field of brilliant blue, suggesting the Expressionist manner in his powerful strong case for its position, at very least sea. Sacks-Steketeer’s stark style has qual- oils, wherein vigorously painted forms as an alternative to some of the more cal- ities in common with the Art Brut of morph into ghostly faces and torsos as low tendencies prevalent today, in the Jean Dubuffet for its brash immediacy; harrowing as Munch’s haunted figures. exhibition “Art & Emotions,” on view yet her use of color is considerably more Janusz Skowron’s harrowingly wide-eyed from June 11th through 23rd at New striking. gape-mouthed face “Fright” is one of his Century Artists Gallery, 530 West 25th Then there is Ewa Maslowska, whose most memorable images to date. Street, in Chelsea. (Reception June 16th, style is all energy and movement, with The son, Arthur Skowron, on the from 3 to 6 PM.) vestiges of the figure playing hide and other hand, generally avails himself of a The sculptures of Lubomir seek amid thick ribbons of pigment that more realistic technique to convey a Tomaszewski, the group’s founder and surge and flow with palpable physicality. darkly romantic sensibility in skillful figu- still acknowledged leader, appear more Maslowska combines the painterly rative compositions. Here, however, one influenced by the expressive elongations pyrotechnics of Abstract Expressionism of Arthur Skowron’s most impressive of El Greco than by any sculptor who with a submerged humanism to achieve a works is a monochromatic work in which springs immediately to mind. Indeed, highly personal aesthetic synthesis. he invests an unpopulated landscape with Tomaszewski is a painter as well as a Anita Flejter employs the figure sym- an unusual emotional resonance. sculptor, but it is in his human and ani- bolically in stark black and white linocuts In an accomplished painting by mal subjects in wood and metal, such as examining the relations between the Witold “Vito” Wojcik, the expressively the dynamic mounted figure “Hunting sexes and also creates large landscape exaggerated buttocks and legs of a Indian,” that he achieves a sense of compositions in which shifting shapes female nude, delineated in warm hues, mythic universality, akin to the best work and dark brooding colors convey the radiate a monumental sensuality. By con- of Leonard Baskin. sense of a mysterious terrain where bare- trast, Malina Boreyko imbues a hoary Julia Ambrose also draws upon myth ly discernible vestiges of phantom figures subject with unexpected beauty in her in her hydrocal figures of hybrid crea- seem to glide through the shadows. composition “Old Man,” where the tures with animal heads and voluptuous Lyricism radiates from the oils of craggy face appears to emanate, like that nude human bodies. In one of Basha Maryanska, who evokes mistily of some Blakean prophet, from a white Ambrose’s most appealing relief sculp- poetic landscapes, such as her “Changing cloud suspended in a dark cosmic tures two such creatures with the heads Season,” with subtly simplified forms and expanse. of beasts and anatomies as well formed as soft pastel hues layered in a unique neo- “Art & Emotions” showcases a group carvings on a Greek or Roman tomb pointillistic technique. Relatively new to of artists who, in numerous exhibitions dance a solemn waltz. Ivan Bratko, on the group, Maryanska brings to her work here and abroad, have steadily been gain- the other hand, subjects the human body a quiet power, evoking a sense of dreamy ing ground for over a decade. Their to a formal metamorphosis in his power- nostalgia coupled with uncompromising work suggests that a new humanism can ful marble sculptures, wherein the figure formal rigor. Another landscape painter, at least provide an alternative to much often appears eroded, like a fragment Helen Nana-Sacco combines the rough that is vacuous and superfluous in con- from antiquity. Bratko’s mastery of immediacy of Albert Pinkham Ryder temporary art. anatomy as well as his gift for investing with the strident romanticism of Casper subjects with individuality, even when David Friedrich in “Three Moons,” ––Byron Coleman their faces are hidden, is especially where the three orbs of the title glow impressive in his gaunt male figure from a fiery orange sky above a crys- “Truly Yours,” which has a raw humanis- talline lake mirroring an exotic tropical

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 27 Exploration and Rapture in the Paintings of Anowar Hossain ainters who grow up in the United is the very armature on which his composi- to say that “foolish consistency,” according PStates, particularly in New York City, tions are built. This draftsmanly facility also to Emerson, is “the hobgoblin of little often experience the legacy of Abstract enables Hossain to escape the trap of same- minds.” Expressionism as something that they must ness that many abstract artists fall into when Indeed, the indelible quality of Hossain’s react against, rather than an inspiration. they repeat the same motifs again and again, painterly personality is such that it is possible Growing up in a family of artist scholars and allowing him to impose the stamp of his to recognize his “touch” in even so radical a supporters of the arts in Bangladesh, the individual sensibility on every line, form, departure from his more familiar abstract painter Anowar Hossain was spared this and gesture that he commits to canvas, no mode as “My Relationship.” In this rare fig- burden. Although steeped in the writings of matter how various. urative work, three images of what appears Rabindranath Tagore and the music of Ravi He is free for example, to move from to be the same voluptuous female nude are Shankar, Hossain, who says, “I believe that angular, almost geometric forms such as the depicted on the same canvas in a kind of a true artist does not contemporary update belong to a race, reli- on the timeless theme gion or ethnicity” also of The Three Graces, read Western poetry. here seen as bathers in He was particularly a deep blue stream impressed by a poem amid fiery red foliage. by Milton called “On For even while con- His Blindness,” in vincingly evoking the which the poet, who play of light on the went blind in his later curvaceous bathers in years but continued a manner that makes writing, passionately them palpable, sensual exhorts artists to entities, Hossain’s adhere to their voca- heightened palette and tion at risk of being vigorous brushstrokes punished by God for are instantly recogniz- abandoning their able. responsibility to That Anowar humanity. Hossain appears to Obviously, another have an infinite variety significant encounter of expressive means at with Western culture his disposal becomes was Hossain’s discov- even more obvious ery of The New York Anowar Hossain in his studio when one compares School. Whether or different examples of not he was already aware of Pollock, de ones in “Open Center,” to looser, more his abstract output, the more copious aspect Kooning before arriving in the United lyrical configurations such as the ones in of his prodigious output at present. For States in the 1980s to study painting at the “Horizons.” In fact, these two paintings these range effortlessly from the almost School of Visual Arts and the Art Students offer an especially enlightening example of somber drama of “My Way Out,” with its League, he came to their work from a fresh how Hossain is able to maintain stylistic deep dark thickets of interwoven gestures perspective, bearing his own cultural bag- coherency without having to cultivate a so- and shapes relieved here and there by sinu- gage, and rather than imitating or being called “signature style,” which for too many ous calligraphic strokes of brilliant red; to intimidated by its magnitude, has been able artists serves as sort of a corporate logo. the sweeping lyricism of “Neither Sea Nor to embrace and add to the vital spirit of a “Style is character,” as someone once Sand,” with its complex yet buoyant config- mode of painting that is by now an interna- said––or at least real style is: something urations of sunny yellows and bucolic tional language. And, indeed, Hossain has innate to the individual rather than con- greens, evoking the lush salad of landscape made an international reputation by virtue trived, and Hossain seems to know this without submitting to specific imagery; to of his fluency in this language, entering instinctively. the boldly delineated forms in “Layers,” important collections in Europe and Thus it is equally possible for him to where paler blue and purple-violet hues sug- Scandinavia, as well as the United States. employ sharply angled, shard-like, compact- gest the movement of windblown clouds. In a review of his exhibition in Chelsea ed shapes and an icy palette of blue, gray, The latter composition harks back to the last year, Maurice Taplinger wrote in these and frosty whites in “Open Center” (its title formal innovations of abstract pioneers such pages about Hossain’s unique ability to presumably alluding to the vigorously as Kupka and Kandinsky, who endeavored to enrich his abstract paintings by virtue of his brushed patch of white at the center of the apprehend in form and color the unseen firm grounding in figurative art. One must composition), and to create a painting like forces beyond the visible world in modern concur; on the strength of a recent preview, “Horizons,” in which sinuous forms and painting’s initial forays into the spiritual it is safe to say that Hossain’s draftsmanly fluid drips predominate in a palette that realm. This seems worth mentioning abilities are still very much in evidence in consists of brilliant cadmium reds, yellows, because, quite from his obvious painterly the paintings that he will be showing in his greens, and other vibrant hues. While the prowess, Anowar Hossain’s greatest strength new exhibition in the same venue, World former painting combines the geometric as an artist is that he has not abandoned the Fine Art Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, and painterly elements with considerable search that began with those early masters. from July 3 through 28. restraint, the latter is a rapturous chromatic Indeed, he still appears passionately commit- In terms of his integration of drawing explosion. Yet both are united by the over- ted to making those vital connections with into his paintings, Hossain is more akin to riding force of the painter’s character, which the unknown out of which abstract painting the classically trained de Kooning than to allows him to depart from what might be was born. ––Byron Coleman the cowboy, Pollock. For fine draftsmanship considered merely “characteristic”––which is 28 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Stephanie Rauschenbusch Finds Fertile Aesthetic Fellowship in Old Haarlem “ eiteration is a privilege of still life street blessed with flowering pear and plum round loaf of bread rhyme visually with the Rdenied many other modes,” Guy trees, blazing with autumn leaves, or blan- patterns carved in the wooden turtle’s shell, Davenport writes in his beautiful essay on keted in falling snow. hinting at the harmony hidden in that tacit- still life painting, “A Basket of Summer Being a true child of the postmodern ness whose depths, Davenport warns us, we Fruit,” pointing out that “a Roman mosaic century, fully cognizant of video and all the may never be able to plumb. of a basket of apples and pears, as in the other “new media” with which painting Stephanie Rauschenbusch has discovered Vatican’s tessellated floor, is wonderfully like must now compete, Rauschenbusch not and delineated this hidden harmony in the baskets of apples and pears of all ages. There only introduces an element of time via the most disparate places, from the craggy rock is the same nakedness of presentation, the changing seasons, but also toys with the formations and roiling clouds of Cape same mute hope of and Cornwell, off the confidence in the clarity rugged coast of of the subject, a tacit- Southwest England, ness so deep that we to the more mani- may never get to the cured environs of the bottom of it.” Brooklyn Botanic Stephanie Gardens, nearer her Rauschenbusch demon- home, to a terrain of strates the veracity of curiously related this statement and then objects created on a some, in her new solo table in her studio in exhibition “After Pieter tribute to a kindred Claesz’s Still Life with artistic spirit in 17th Turtle,” at Noho century Haarlem. But Gallery, 530 West 25th even while taking Street, from June 5 Claesz’s picture as through 30. (Reception: inspiration, she goes Thursday, June 7, from far beyond reiteration; 5 to 8 PM.) for unlike the earlier Rauschenbusch painter, whose virtual- began her career as a ly monochromatic still life painter in the “breakfast pictures” in 1970s, frequently a subdued palette of employing a grid to brownish-yellow tones anchor objects to the were described by a critic of his time as picture plane. The “After Pieter Claesz’s Still Life with Turtle” #3 Photo: D. James Dee device carried over into “unicolored ban- some of the landscapes for which she has ambiguous interrelationship between reality quets,” Rauschenbusch’s bold chromatic become better known in recent years, intro- and representation so prevalent in our age contrasts are akin to those of other distin- ducing a sense of neo-cubistic fracture and by including not only a catalog of Claesz’s guished contemporary painters of still life spatial ambiguity that played off intriguingly paintings but her own open sketchbooks such as Audrey Flack and Jack Beal. And against her accomplished realist technique, and smaller paintings within some of the most important: she fills her compositions animating her compositions in fascinating paintings. Along with the carved turtle, an with a sense of light, space, and minute inci- ways. However, for this return to still life, equally ubiquitous patterned ochre and dent, suggesting a world infinitely more far- inspired by Claesz’s 1623 painting in the brown cloth serves as a unifying motif for reaching and layered with complexity than Louvre (actually called “Still Life with the series, further intensifying its complexity, anything Claesz could have imagined, even Musical Instruments” and incorporating a and is variously juxtaposed with a blue pat- in 1623, as Dutch Settlers landed on real turtle, among other objects), terned William Morris cloth, an embroi- Manhattan Island and made “New Rauschenbusch eschews the grid as a visible dered Greek tablecloth, or a Venetian cloth Netherlands” a formally organized province. element. Yet the taut organization of a com- with gold threads. Yet, in an even larger sense, what plex array of objects in each of the sizable oils On and against these fabric backdrops, a Stephanie Rauschenbusch’s enterprise on canvas in the new series suggests that it violin, a lemon, a bowl of persimmons, a reminds us is that all serious artists are col- may still play a role, albeit submerged within plate of mussels, a goblet of wine, a cherry leagues in the breadth of their concerns, the smoothly unified surface of her oils. pie, vessels of various sizes and shapes, intrepid explorers traversing the centuries With characteristic visual wit, among other objects, are juxtaposed. In one for new aesthetic territory to colonize in the Rauschenbusch substitutes a wooden painting a sheep’s skull adds a stark sugges- context of their own age. So it stands per- Nigerian carving of a turtle for the real tor- tion of vanitas amid an almost antic abun- fectly to reason that a contemporary artist, toise in Claesz’s picture. But even more ger- dance. In another, sardines in a bowl of educated in her craft at Harvard and mane, in terms of both her more complex olive oil suggests a ritual offering on an Columbia, much exhibited, collected, and layering and symbolic expansion of the sub- altar; yet a pair of dice on another part of accomplished as a poet as well as a painter, ject, is her substitution of the bay windows the table seems to mock it with the capri- should find such fertile aesthetic fellowship in her Brooklyn studio for the plain dark cious wink of chance. Meanwhile, as the with a minor master of old Holland and background against which the German-born “eyes” of the brownstones across the street, parlay it into the splendid series of still lifes Dutch still life painter usually set his framed in the bay window, return our gaze on view in Stephanie Rauschenbusch’s new arrangements of objects on a table-top. The through the snow-dusted tree-limbs, the solo exhibition at Noho Gallery. views through the glass alternately show the crisscross incisions in the brown crust of a ––Ed McCormack

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 29 Sidney Harris WS C West Side Arts Coalition 1979

SummerA fine arts exhibit Fling June 20 - July 8, 2007 Artists: Jeanette Arnone • Meg Boe Birns Cartoons Paintings “Midtown” Joseph Boss • Jutta Filippelli July 10-30 Aug. 1-31 Pamela Flores • K.A. Gibbons Linda Lessner • Shirley Z. Piniat Reception: August 7, 2007 5:30-7:30 pm Anne Rudder • Meyer Tannenbaum • Julie Tersigni The Berkeley Gallery Broadway Mall Community Center 96th Street and Broadway, center island, NYC 3 East 43rd Street, New York City Gallery Hours: Wed. 6-8pm, Sat./Sun.12-6pm for information Contact Bob Keiber 212-252-2065 [email protected] 212-316-6024 www.wsacny.org

17th Art from Detritus Recycling with Imagination Curated by Vernita Nemec Through June 24, 2007 Synagogue for the Arts Gallery Space 49 White St. Tribeca, NYC (3 blocks below Canal betw. Broadway & Church St.) Hrs: Mon, Wed & Thurs 1-5 pm Tues 1-7 pm & by Appointment 212 966 7141

Miguel Sansón “Angels and Masters” Bugatti June 5-23, 2007 cars and paraphernalia 2.00 PM 7.00 PM through June 28, 2007 OPENING 5TH JUNE 5.00 PM Gelabert Studios Gallery Allan Stone Gallery 255 West 86th Street (at Broadway) 113 East 90th Street, NYC 10128 New York, N.Y. Tel. 212.987.4997 Fax. 212.987.1655 212-874-7188 www.allanstonegallery.com www.gelabertstudiosgallery.com

30 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Art à porter: Art and Fashion at CVB Space p until the Pop era, most fine artists such as Laura Di Mauro, a model turned Uscorned fashion as trivial and superfi- photographer and painter who produces a cial. Now the two endeavors are such famil- product line, and Christine Walli, a former iar bedfellows that even the lofty model and TV host turned photographer, Metropolitan Museum of Art regularly straddle both worlds. Here, Di Mauro mounts couture exhibitions. Such as the showed a nude self-portrait in a mirror, present retrospective of french designer Paul twisting her fashionably thin body around Poinet who died penniless in Paris and is to aim her Nikon at the viewer, and Walli now being given the genius treatment. was represented by a witty photograph So it seemed inevitable that the intrepid focusing contrasting priorities of an infant Italian artist/curator Stefania Carrozzini, wearing a t-shirt saying “Got Milk?” and a Marina Calamai who interrogates all aspects of contempo- woman sporting one saying “Got Shoes?” leer by the close proximity of a comely rary life in her exhibitions for D’Ars IEP Some artists view fashion from a strictly model wearing only a necklace and coyly International Exhibition Project (Milan, fetishistic angle, as seen in the painter hiding her pubis with her hands. By con- New York, Beijing), would eventually get Roberto Corso’s submissive’s eye-view of a trast, the painter Milvia Botticelli displays a around to examining the relationship pair of shapely calves terminating in red spike- more demure attitude toward fashion in a between who we are and what we wear. heels with flimsy thong undies scattered on semi-abstract composition wherein three Carrozzini’s exhibition “Art à porter, the floor nearby. Then there are those, like faceless, austerely stylized figures, one wear- seen recently at The Carrozzini von Buhler Fabio Savoldi and Marina Calamai, who ing a floral fabric collage costume, stroll Gallery/CVB Space, 407 West 13th Street, transform familiar accessories in weird ways: amid cubistically fractured city buildings. opened with a reception that simulated in Savoldi with a pink soft sculpture of a pink Also included among the unique fashion the former Meatpacking District (now mor- handbag covered with eyes that might give statements in this gem of a show were: phed, miraculously, into “South Chelsea”) Claes Oldenburg nightmares; Calamai with a Giacomo Cavina’s photo-assemblage juxta- some of the chic hubbub that Fashion Week surreal hat that morphs into an elaborately posing a child with a painted face and a brings to once-dowdy Bryant Park. decorated cake dripping puddles of chocolate miniature chair; Sofia Rochetti’s exquisitely Artists became part of the show, perform- all over its broad brim. refined paintings of volumetric abstract ing as “living sculptures,” or, in the case of The widely exhibited veteran book artist forms (suggesting, in this context, bolts of Annamaria Cimbal, being photographed and conceptualist Ruggero Maggi, on the fabric sprouting thorns); Anna Galli’s over- standing ––like a semi-transparent pedestri- other hand, sends up art, fashion, and poli- size necklace incorporating Matisse-like an!–– in front of one of her realist street tics with a collage-doctored election poster nudes cut-out copper; and heart-shaped scenes, wearing a coat on which the very in which the middle aged male candidate’s stone jewelry by the sculptor Franco di same painting was reproduced. Other artists, winning grin is transformed into a licentious Pede. ––Ed McCormack Encountering Beauty in Sometimes Surprising Guises est Side Arts Coalition artists and co- ries, and other fruits actually appear in Central Park against a backdrop of mist- Wcurators Lucinda Prince and Robert enmeshed in elaborately detailed wallpaper shrouded foliage and apartment towers or Schultheis defied the current cult of ugliness and other “backgrounds,” swarming the an elderly couple adrift and forgotten on a with “Observations on Beauty,” seen recent- picture plane. Radjapova’s intense pattern- park bench, Shultheis evokes a poignant ly at Broadway Mall Community, on the ing makes her compositions take on a life mood through his subtle compositional and center island at Broadway and 96th Street. resembling molecular activity. An opposite coloristic gifts. The translucent hues and sensual shapes simplicity is seen in YooKan Nishida’s grid All of Robert Norman Scott’s paintings in Gloria R. Pearl’s abstract oils recall Gorky. of six same size canvases, each featuring a are dominated by abstract lines that call to However, Pearl’s melt-in-your-mouth color single image of a stylized animal or object. mind mysterious tendrils, undersea flora, or combinations and gracefully linear contours Evocative yet essentially abstract, Nishida’s long, breeze-blown strands of human hair. suggest human anatomical and botanical diminutive compositions employ a palette of Flowing in tangled masses, these simple lin- forms, two major sources of beauty. Sacchi muted yet vibrant secondary hues such as ear elements possess an almost musical grace Shimoda, on the other hand, approaches the ochers and olive greens to create subtle in Scott’s oils on canvas. Another strong theme from a more ironic angle in “Power chromatic effects. painter, Elinore Bucholtz proves that the of Beauty,” an emblematic geometric com- In George Ebbinghousen’s series of pure physical and optical properties of lush position in which a pair of exaggeratedly “Streetscapes,” street signs, highway mark- paint application and sumptuous color can full, feminine lips is juxtaposed with a dollar ings, traffic signals, arrows, dividing lines, still provide sensuous satisfaction and create sign, a swastika, and other symbols. and other elements of urban life are com- autonomous beauty. Even while ostensibly (Perhaps Shimoda is pointing out that beau- bined to create geometric abstractions evoking an undersea scene, a kitchen still ty is still a slippery commodity!) inspired by urban life. One is put in mind of life, or a landscape, the subject in Bucholtz’s Lucinda Prince finds beauty in obscure the jazzy early city paintings of Stuart Davis; acrylics on canvas is invariably the immedi- desert spaces, punctuated by the cubist however, Ebbinghousen has a more somber ate pleasures of paint itself. architecture of pueblos, where strong con- color sense, juxtaposing deep reds and blues Breezy brushwork worthy of a Zen trasts between light and shadow lend her to create a grittier sense of today’s metro- painter and a subject of exquisite simplicity realism an austere abstract quality. By con- politan miasma, even while remaining some- combine to lend Rob van Es’s colored ink trast, Prince’s oil of clustered red peppers what aloof by virtue of his strong formal paintings of birds considerable appeal. That casting their shadow on a wall reveals a bent. van Es titles the series “Vanitas,” traditional- more piquant side of her highly refined aes- Like Edward Hopper, Robert Schultheis ly a term for allegorical still life paintings thetic sensibility. is a visual poet of urban isolation, albeit with expressing life’s transience, adds a poignant Pattern piled on pattern animates the a more lyrical sensibility. Whether evoking a note, reminding us that beauty can be fleet- ornate still life compositions of Olga woman and a male runner passing “like ing, too. Radjapova, in which lemons, plums, cher- ships in the night” on an overcast morning ––Peter Wiley JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO 31 Freedom is Foremost in Su Goddard’s Flowing Watercolors he English painter Su Goddard’s family linear in the manner of Mark Tobey and Tcame from Norfolk, a place associated Morris Graves, who practice a Westernized in the early nineteenth century with the form of Asian brush painting. Rather, “Norwich School,” whose most important Goddard’s compositions consist of areas of representative was the watercolorist John color that flow freely over sheets of water- Sell Cotman. Goddard is also distantly relat- color in a full-bodied manner that is more ed by marriage to J.M.W. Turner, another firmly grounded in the traditions of great British artist who, along with his cele- European abstraction. What she takes from brated oils, also produced remarkable water- Asian art is more spiritual than material colors. So she certainly has auspicious ori- ––which is to say, the privileging of essences gins to complement her medium of choice. over appearances as an abiding aesthetic And that she grew up in a home with a spa- ethos. cious English garden, where she felt close to Thus while one might read pastoral refer- nature, could also locate Goddard firmly ences relating to the affinity for nature she “Nimbi” within the British landscape tradition. developed as a child at play in her parents’ However, Goddard has also been English garden into a watercolor such as our best abstract painters, Goddard intends strongly influenced by Japanese and Chinese Goddard’s “Citronella,” with its vibrant her titles more as a handy means of distin- art, as well as the work of the American yellow, green, and blue washes (and these guishing one composition from another, abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, might be to some degree accurate, since the rather than as a way of imposing predeter- and all of these inspirations combine to title refers to an Asian fruit tree that is often mined meanings on them that might inhibit splendid effect in her aquarelles, on view at imported and replanted in Europe), imaginative interpretation on the part of the Agora Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, from Goddard makes no attempt to imitate viewer. Thus, when she titles another water- June 1 through 21. (Reception: Thursday, botanical particulars. She is concerned solely color in which flowing areas of visceral red June 7, from 6 to 8 PM.) with the overall rhythms of nature rather hues predominate “Her Passion,” one gets Her Asian influences, however, are hardly than its details. the feeling that she could just as plausibly be selfconsciously “multicultural” in the man- And while another composition, referring to her passion for painting as to a ner of many artists today. Quite the con- “Nimbi,” could allude, as its title suggests, romantic interlude. Yet that no possible trary, unlike traditional Chinese scroll to the cloudy radiance said to surround a interpretation can be ruled out completely painters and Japanese literati artists, who saint when on earth, it could just as easily seems auspiciously in keeping with Su work mainly in monochromes created with evoke an impression of frothy surf crashing Goddard’s lively and liberating aesthetic diluted black ink, Goddard employs a full against rocks or any number of other things. agenda. spectrum of luminous hues. Nor is her work One gets the feeling that, like many of ––Marie R. Pagano Clowns Are Universal Symbols in the Paintings of Miles Baker lowns and their ancestors, harlequins, who lived near Manchester have a good laugh to Chave long been a popular theme, and painted ostensibly think that anyone might interpreted by a diverse array of modern simple industrial scenes agonize in this manner artists, from Georges Rouault to Alexander that some critics dismissed over the deeper meanings Calder to Bernard Buffet. None, however, as naive and just as many of his pictures. After all, have made them as exclusive a subject hailed as important addi- Baker’s spare handling of as the British artist Miles Baker, whose tions to British art. Like neo-cubistic planes and work can be seen on his website Lowry, one suspects, deft distribution of lumi- www.milesbakerclownartist.co.uk. Baker would persevere nous color areas against With a blithe disregard for the somber whether his work was well expanses of white water- rules of artistic self-presentation, Baker likes received or not. Clowns color paper supplies suffi- to classify himself as a “clown artist” and to obviously strike a deep cient visual pleasure to make such quips as “I’ve suffered for my chord in him, and he justify his entire enter- art, now it’s your turn to suffer it!” invests them with a human prise. These purely formal Although such self-effacement can be a presence that is especially qualities are especially deceptive facet of British humor, one still poignant in his painting striking in “The Two of might be tempted to dismiss him as a prac- “In The Dressing Room.” Us,” where a plethora of ticing buffoon on a par with the characters The first thing one bright patches on the cos- he paints. However, the joke would be on notices about this image tumes of a pair of clown you if you failed to see that Baker’s visual of an old clown seated at musicians, merging with sophistication far outstrips his verbal wit. his makeup table is that the equally colorful back- Indeed, for an artist who appears deter- the large mirror is curious- “In the Dressing Room” ground, approaches mined not to take himself or his work too ly empty. Perhaps this fact abstraction. seriously, Baker is a surprisingly accom- perplexes the clown himself; then again, per- Yet a picture such as “Waiting in the plished painter, working in watercolor in a haps it does not, since whatever sense of self Wings,” where the solitary figure of a shab- technique that can remind one of John he might once have possessed may have by clown with his face turned away from the Marin’s breezy cityscapes and the buoyant long ago been subsumed by the comical viewer evokes an inexplicable emotional little aquarelles that Henry Miller dashed off persona he presents to the world. impact, proves that there is a lot more to when he wasn’t writing his sexy novels. Just as Morandi might have thought it the paintings of Miles Baker than their con- Subject matter and medium aside, how- strange for anyone to read too much into siderable formal attributes. ever, Baker might more accurately belong to his precise arrangements of bottles on a the tradition of Laurence Stephen Lowry, tabletop, one suspects that Baker would ––Marie R. Pagano

32 GALLERY&STUDIO JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 Anowar Hossain

Relief 2006, acylic on unprimed canvas 30" x 45.5" July 3-28, 2007 Reception: July 13, 6-8pm Missy Lipsett

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JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2007 GALLERY&STUDIO Dorothy A. Culpepper Recent Paintings

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