|
 E-Mail
This Article
Graciela Iturbide
Throckmorton Fine Art
By Joel
Simpson
If Manuel Alvarez Bravo injected a note of surreality into
Mexican photography, which had hitherto been dominated by
genre studies and reportage, Graciela Iturbide uses it as
her point of departure. This show presents some of her most
compelling work, ranging from the early 1970s until just last
year; most of these photographs were made in the 1980s. She
captures a spiritual intensity which seems to pervade everyday
life, and which is based on a rich relationship with the natural
world — connecting the people intimately and organically
with their environment.
For example, in one image we see a man of Indian origin wearing
a black boat-neck t-shirt; he stares frankly out from the
window opening of a waddle and daub house, holding two hand-length
fish in each hand. The texture of the fish reflects that of
the house and the window sill creates a perfect frame for
the man, but the fish reach outside it. Part of a boy’s
face peers at the man from the lower right of the window.
In another image, a dark-skinned, black-eyed young boy hugs
the sides of his face with the wings of a dead white cock,
whose body hangs in front of him. The head and leg of another
rooster impinge over the border of the frame from the left.
In another, a parked bicycle is loaded with chickens tied
up by their legs. In another, a hefty woman, slightly wall-eyed,
in a flower print dress seen from below, stares serenely out
of the frame while wearing a headdress made of dead iguanas,
seeming to escape in all directions from her brain. In another
image, a blurry boy seems to be kissing a boa constrictor.
This segues into festival and ritual subjects: a girl in a
silk mermaid costume sits on a float bedecked with hanging
cutouts of fish; a boy stands in a conical cap, double mask
and skirt, posing as Janus.
Then there are the intimate scenes suffused with a frank corporeality.
A plump young woman bathes in a brick bathroom, sitting on
a toilet, the water apparently coming from above and draining
out through the floor. A young (presumably Mexican) woman
lies sleeping in Los Angeles, naked on what looks like an
imitation hide, bathed in sunlight. A man in hat and sandals,
dressed in white, and holding onto a sling around his chin,
stands beneath the framed iconic portraits of national heroes,
and the title National Heroes, seems to include him. A girl
dressed in her formal quince dress (the coming of age celebration
at age 15) appears at a doorway inside a modest house. Two
items — the barred window in the rear, and an old woman
in a dark print dress, but with flowing white hair —
provide visual counterpoint.
This show is rife with exceptional images that embody particular
truths about the life and culture of Mexico. Most notably,
in a cemetery scene where the tombs are made of simple adobe,
we see sheaves of palm fronds on the ground, a silhouetted
woman carrying four poles in the center, and everywhere in
the frame swarming locusts. And finally: the iconic artificial
leg of Frida Kahlo stands on the ground against an adobe wall,
dappled in shadow. It is a true relic, a more tangible connection
to the revered Kahlo than eyeglasses or a ring might be, simultaneously
shocking and endearing with the unexpectedness of its physical
intimacy.
Overall, Iturbide has managed to capture the quiet intensity
of life lived close to the body, close to the earth, where
few lines are completely rectilinear; where textures suggest
a rootedness in time and shadings the rhythm of the day. Few
subjects are seen in and of themselves: lateral or background
details, or secondary subjects evoke larger contexts beyond
the frame, giving one a sense, if we are not part of Mexican
culture ourselves, that we are only glimpsing a piece of that
other world. Every picture, like the lady with the iguana
headdress, looks outside and beyond itself, for Iturbide allows
no stereotyping reductions.
4/20 through 6/17.
E-Mail
This Article
Al Hansen
Andrea Rosen Gallery
By E.K. Clark
This small, jewel-like exhibition of Al Hansen’s work
shows the evolution of an artist from 1962 to the time of
his passing in Cologne, Germany, 1995. Al Hansen engaged life
with enormous zest and humor — and his art was inseparable
from his life. He was both a seminal figure and a bridge between
the Abstract Expressionists, Fluxus, Happenings and Pop Art
movements. Credited as the father of the Happenings movement
and one of the first Fluxus artists, in 1946 he held his first
Happening in Berlin, (while still an American soldier during
Germany’s postwar occupation period). This was called
Piano Drop for Yoko Ono. Fascinated by the incongruous presence
of a piano in a war ravaged, bombed out building; he proceeded
to push the massive, iconic symbol of culture towards the
edge so that it fell onto the street. This was followed by
many other “Drops” around the world during his
working life.
John Cage’s composition class at The New School in New
York, which Hansen joined in 1957, became a catalyst for improvisational
performances, short films and the sharing of ideas that characterized
the artist’s community of kindred spirits. He also participated
regularly in performances at the Judson Church; and was included
along with Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine
and Alan Kaprow in a group show at the Ruben Gallery, in New
York,1959, in addition to non-traditional venues such as subways,
beaches and city streets.
Collage was one of Hansen’s favorite non-ephemeral improvisational
techniques, which he adopted in the 1960s with his signature
Hershey Bar wrappers. He stated that collage was the closest
thing to Happenings in that much the same process applied
in combining disparate materials to make them live; he used
that same process, as well, in his famous Venus collages and
sculptures made from burnt matches, cigarette butts and used
cigarette papers. Hansen was also obsessed with the female
body as a motif and ikon in his search for “timeless
beauty” going back to the pagan goddess, the Venus of
Willendorf.
In his innovative use of text -— the endless ecstatic
repetitions, the sexual innuendoes such as HEY, OH, OH, SHE,
HER, LICK ME; (in the Hershey Bar collages) -— he anticipated
how words and images were going to be used some forty years
later; perhaps this is why the work in this show seems so
fresh today.
4/1 Through 4/29.
E-Mail
This Article
Amanda C. Mathis
James Nicholson Gallery
By Chris Twomey
In her solo debut, Mathis recreates a thirty-foot,
full scale facsimile of an interior wall, door, and corner
of the gallery, and then suspends this in the center of the
exhibition space on its side. Dramatically tilted and fully
integrated with the gallery’s architecture, the smooth
white wall becomes a cantilevering ramp, pierced through by
a structural pillar. The corner distorts, as rectangles become
planar quadrilaterals; and what was once a door is now transformed
into a treacherous prop.
Bold in scale, given the modest size of the exhibition space,
this hovering wall replica also carves intimate spaces within
the gallery, forming nooks and crannies on its opposing side.
Revisiting a quintessential sculptural interest in the body's
physical relationship to space, in some aspects this piece
recalls the sculptural strategies of Richard Serra. Her work
echoes Serra’s gravity-defying mega sculptures, creating
a precarious structural and personal congruity. Unlike Serra,
however, the significant details of the wall, such as the
base molding, the framed door, and even a patched up mouse
hole, give this work the shock of recognition and the subsequent
disorientation of reality unmoored.
The familiar “wall-ness”evident here allows formal
appreciation for the meticulous sculptural details, as well
as immediate recognition of its conceptual reframing. The
cantered placement displays an elegant formalism, while its
implied instability serves as a metaphor for 21st century
anxiety. Although Mathis is still in an MFA graduate program,
this site-responsive installation which so successfully incorporates
architectural space as part of its structure, is a promising
debut.
4/6 through 5/6.
E-Mail
This Article
Judy Glantzman
Betty Cunningham Gallery
By Ola Manana
Judy Glantzman's Post Expressionist abstractions swoon beneath
their many layers in these paintings; her habit of painting
surfaces over and over, using an iconography of heads, hands
and feet as abstract elements, is unique. She deconstructs
the human figure and employs its signature element —
the hands feet and head — as a means to construct images
that depict emotional states. First coming to prominence in
the 1980’s as an abstract painter, some twenty years
later she began to combine elements of both abstract and figurative
painting in her work. This show, which includes wall mounted
sculptures, represents a departure from her earlier work in
that she steps outside of herself to observe human emotion.
Nevertheless, there is an autobiographical thread that runs
through all of her work. For example, over the past decade
her work has changed, from using the figure as an element
of portraiture to its use as an element of abstraction.
Not by chance, this change occurred around the time that she
had given birth to her daughter. It seems that her figurative
sculptures, which bare a conspicuous resemblance to new-borns,
were a catalyst to bringing about her new perspective. In
one of her most recent paintings, Untitled, (2006) we see
a multiple portrait of a child, and a hand reaching to caress
its cheek. The portraits, within the same painting, appear
one on top of the other in icy blue, in the center of the
composition. They rise above a salmon pink, oval background
surrounded in a garland of forms that abstract the child’s
figure into a prism. Two ivy-like totems of more heads appear
on either side, further cloistering the subject. This painting
suggests an allegory about the love and protection of motherhood,
as well as the ambivalence of childbirth: the mother’s
lost connection after the child is physically separated from
her own body.
In A Bird in the Hand, there is an immediate allusion to death;
from the horizon line stretches a black procession of mourners.
The figures themselves are absent, but their heads appear
in rows propped, caressed or otherwise interacting with hands
that appear beneath them and from which dangle little green
heads. Looming to the right of this, and above, there is the
bird — a heart shaped human-headed, blood red pigeon.
The swarm of expressionistic heads in the upper half of the
painting suggests the continuous babble of memories that occur
after the death of someone familiar, or the end of a relationship.
In this bizarre ascension, the work offers a narrative about
life, loss, and rebirth. Glantzman expresses these themes
in an instinctive manner. The paintings, having been made
and re-made over time, are conducive to these existential
themes.
Her sculptures, on the other hand, are more spontaneous and
of the moment. For example, in the sculpture, Untitled Supersculpy,
an energetic little red figure is propped, with arms outstretched,
inside what appears to be a diaper. Its mask-like face has
huge red lips and cunning eyes, and the tiny body bulges out
everywhere. This is a nightmare baby, and interestingly enough,
the piece was created during Glantzman’s pregnancy.
The term“SuperSculpy” references the name of the
non-toxic edible sculpting material that she used in making
the sculptures, all of which are whimsically deformed and
smell like Playdough. As such, they suggest the reverie of
an expectant mother’s apprehension about what birth
will bring forth and, at the same time, her readiness to love
and cherish whomever comes into the world through her being.
In a certain sense, Glantzman’s work in this show recalls
the universal themes of William Blake, albeit from a much
more personal account.
4/20 through 5/26.
E-Mail
This Article
Debra Hampton
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
By
Joel
Simpson
Debra Hampton’s large, riveting multi-media collages
transfix the viewer well before they yield intelligible meaning.
The core of many of her images is a cut-out photograph of
a frontal female nude from the thighs up, within which the
artist has cut repeating shapes — tapering rough symmetrical
parallelograms down the center line, with circular fragments
around the pierced nipples. The head and waist are adorned
with swirling symmetrical rivulets in black and grey that
extend beyond the bounds of the figure, and seem to bind various
other shapes to it, mainly shaded pudges. These seem to be
exploding out of the figure in a roughly symmetrical manner.
Further emanations include black splatters above and long
drips below. A density of activity surrounds the face, while
horns seem to sprout from the head.
Here, Hampton’s descriptive title helps: The fire in
her belly grew like a supernova, splitting her in two and
leaving behind unnecessary parts. Aggressive energy? Anger?
Eroticism? Horror? The viewer is pulled in different directions,
fascinated and repelled and ultimately drawn in by the sheer
intricacy of the design, the mixture of photographic image,
intentional form, and random pattern, discovering hints of
weapons and motor parts, jewelry and religious symbols.
These are images of cultural turmoil, presented as frenetic
masks. If monsters and maidens are traditional contraries
in a male-oriented imaginary realm, the suggestion here is
that the feminist sensibility knows that they are coincident,
that they may dwell in the same body.
3/23 through 4/22.
Ed Note: Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is located at 547 W 27,
2nd fl, New York, NY 10001 Tel 212.244.4320. www.priskajuschkafineart.com
E-Mail
This Article
Drawing On The Wrong Side of The Brain
Haim Chanin Fine Arts
By Ola Manana
The intriguing relationship between drawing and the subconscious
is explored in this group show, which moves the discussion
beyond an investigation of materials and technique. These
drawings relate the implements of art-making with the “other”
elements of drawing, such as pressure, repetition, psychological
space and phenomenological astuteness.
Standouts include Harvey Tulcensky’s ballpoint pen drawings,
Notebook IX, (2004) and Notebook XIX (2005), in which the
two works are displayed like the folds of an accordion, end
to end, revealing an inky forest of repetitive scribbling
which fills each of the combined sixty-two pages from top
to bottom and edge to edge. The variance within the drawings
depends upon the multiplicity of the scribbles, from the pressure
of the pen, to the shapes that are formed by this repetition.
This technique produces an ambiguous landscape that seems
like a dream or a memory of something lost. Tulcensky uses
universal ideas, starting with the familiar landscape motif,
but then he leaves it to the viewer to decide what lurks beneath
the surface.
Cuban artist Augustin Fernandez’s Small Nipples (1972),
a surrealist composition o multiple nipples which dance flatly
above the surface of the page, suggests raindrops clinging
to a window pane. Because we make the association of anatomical
nipples, the surface of the work becomes like skin, an impossible
dream skin. Its companion piece, Scissors Time, presents an
arrangement of minimal, vertical lines that bisect the surface
into a turnstile, cut by the jabbing blades of the scissors
which reach out from both sides of the central column.
Dan Estabrook employs antique photographic techniques in his
Heaven,(2004). The diptych shows positive and negative versions
of two feet standing expectantly upon a cloud-shape. The work
implies a desire for an idealized life, and as such underscores
the theme of much of the work in this show. In this regard,
Drawing on the Wrong Side of the Brain represents an unusual
look at drawings which are, at once, technically impressive
and yet disconcerting.
4/20 through 5/20.
E-Mail
This Article
Art Chicago 2006
14th Annual International Fine Art Exposition
By Michael
MacInnis
Christo and Jean-Claude, the husband and wife environmental
art duo whose gigantic outdoor sculptures have inspired millions
around the world to appreciate the ephemeral nature of public
art, would surely have been impressed with Thomas Blackman’s
unplanned foray into their genre this past weekend in Chicago.
Visitors to this year’s Art Chicago in the Park 2006,
which Mr. Blackman produced, arrived at the site of a Christo-esque
structure, a 125, 000 square-foot tent, actually two enormous
tent structures, that stood empty.
The entire art fair, which in better days drew some 30,000
art patrons and boasted sales of artwork upwards of 60 million
dollars, was relocated on a moment’s notice to the city’s
venerable Chicago Merchandise Mart. Despite the 11th hour
upheaval, the fair opened as scheduled, even keeping to its
opening night preview on Thursday, April 27. Except for the
slightly lower ceilings of the indoor facility, visitors familiar
with last year’s Art Chicago in the Park would probably
see little difference in terms of the artwork presented and
the roster of dealers in attendance. Reasons for abandoning
the original site are many though now mute; the bottom line
is there was no bottom line.
The new venue and new ownership may well prove to be the right
the medicine, and just in time. Mr. Blackman sold the fair,
including the “Art Chicago” namesake to Chicago’s
Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., which also owns the highly
regarded Chicago Antiques Fair (see News on page 6).
For all of its recent business woes and political turmoil,
the generally decent quality of this fair still attracts the
faithful. From New York: Nancy Hoffman; Forum Gallery; James
Graham & Sons; Susan Teller; Cynthia Broan Gallery; Morgan
Lehman; J. Caciola Gallery; June Kelly, and from London: Flowers;
Adam Gallery; Browse & Darby, as well as Linda Durhan;
Rudolf Projects Praxis International; the Korean Pavilion
and prominent Chicago dealers including Stephen Daiter, whose
gallery was accepted for the Art Basel fair this year, and
Carl Hammer, who showed Timothy Greenfield-Sanders work at
the fair. If these images seem familiar to New Yorkers, it
is probably because Mary Boone showed work from the same series
at her Chelsea gallery.
There is a certain irony that Art Chicago should find itself
sharing the same roof with the Chicago Antiques Fair, given
last year1s short-lived "Chicago Contemporary & Classic",
a rival art fair proposed by Art Miami director and former
Blackman colleague IlanaVardy, that was to redifine the 21st
century art fair, largely by combining high-end antiques with
contemporary fine art in the same venue.
The new owners have already made it clear that they regard
the pairing of the two fairs, which will share the same dates
under the same roof, to be a win-win situation; and they are
probably right. Perhaps next year Christo and Jean-Claude
might even get the idea to "wrap" the historic Merchandise
Mart Building. That would certainly put Art Chicago back on
the art world map.
|
