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Intersection,
Chambers Fine Art
by
Nicolette Ramirez
This group show, called Intersection, features six contemporary
Chinese artists who work in oil painting and photography.
Juxtaposing tranquil landscape scenery with scenes of debauchery
and murder, the show affects an uneasy tension between classical
notions of beauty and the aesthetic allure of romanticized
violence.
Among the most compelling work in the show, Liu Zheng's
tableaux photographs of staged scenes that incorporate the
imagery of ancient Chinese illustrated texts evoke the theatrical
power of Medieval illuminated manuscripts. In the work,
Four Grand Beauties (2004), a tumultuous cross section of
humanity unfolds in a bigger-than-life storyboard tableaux;
we see men and women, the old and the young, interact in
a deadly mix of murderous passion and stonefaced indifference.
Their facial expressions and body language cut across all
cultural lines, conjuring images of domestic violence as
well as warrior battles that intimate submission and dominance.
On a softer side, Han Lei's series of hand-dyed black and
white photographs, in a circular format, gives the impression
of looking though a magnifying glass with the outer edges
of the circle darker than the center. Both the Landscape
and the Portrait series are triptychs. The Landscape series
(2002), depicts a hauntingly eternal landscape; we see blurred,
grainy, mountains, a flat sandy shore with a pagoda and
the banks of a river with trees far away.
Hong Lei utilizes technology to create fantastical scenes
that reflect the influence of Song Dynasty paintings. Spring
Outing (2003), for example, depicts small, dimunitive girls
walking among trees in a landscape of hills and lakes, against
a starry and lightening filled night.
Shi Chong's painting, Untitled (2004), shows the body of
a woman, foreshortened from the top down, as if we see her
through a layer of water.
The texture of the paint, rough and chunky around the edges,
has a delicate layer of white which produces an illusion
of light reflecting. The female figure is prominent in many
of these works; both held up in reverence as well as subjugated
in sadistic excess.
Chen Danqing's triptych, Body Language (1992), presents
a perfectly balanced composition that belies its ultra violent
subject matter. Red, earthy tones dominate the two side
panels, while the center painting is largely grey. In all
three paintings, we see contorted figures in conflict with
each other; a woman is sexually assaulted by other women
who are dressed in suburban 1950's style dresses with gloves,
one wears a fake nose. The woman being assaulted is central
to the scene, and set dramatically diagonal with her mouth
open and eyes shut. Her assailants are cut off at the edges
of the painting.
In another context, much of the imagery that defines this
show might seem intended only to shock, but the highly developed
technical virtuosity shown here, and the art historical
references employed, sets this work apart.
Through 6/27.
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Lois Connor,
Plum Blossoms Gallery
by
Joel Simpson
Lois Connor's
photographic series, panoramas of dying lotuses and their
detritus, suggests an epic battle. To be sure, dying flowers
and leaves have long been a cliche of Western nature photography,
but Connor proves that the subject is far from exhausted.
She treats this natural subject with a sensibility that
could be construed as skewed Chinese baroque. Imagine a
three-yard long shelf of 18th century Qing Dynasty porcelains
diabolically tilted onto a stone floor, their smashed fragments
photographed in long panorama.
But this is just the start. Connor's images have a power
that transcends her subject matter. For example, Zengshou,
a 9 x 96 inch visual buffet feast for the eyes that satiates
then heaps on more. The viewer scans variation upon variation
of thin, bent stalks, wrinkled splaying leaves that dip
into the water, the characteristic rounded and pocked empty
seed pods on their stems, all perfectly reflected in the
still water. The bent stems and their reflections make bizarre
geometric figures that fascinate endlessly. Collins riffs
on these themes in other, shorter versions of the subject,
some with cloud reflections, but this one is the strongest
of the series.
Through 6/19.
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Innocence
Found, DFN Gallery
by Mary Hrbacek
This visually
striking group show, loosely organized around the theme
of its title, Innocence Found, presents the diverse drawings,
paintings and mixed media works of some 33 artists. Each
artist displays a clarity and original vision that goes
beyond what the show sets out to explore. The term, "innocent"
as used here seems to begin by referencing sexual purity,
or chastity.
But its definition
broadens to include multiple allusions inherent in synonyms
like "honest", "natural", "moral",
"irreproachable", "guilt-free", "blameless",
"virtuous" and "naive". Can innocence
ever be rediscovered? Perhaps, if only a memory of some
relative innocence. It seems that the key is to distinguish
the murky remnance of nostalgia from what was actually lost.
Standouts include Julie Heffernan's large (57 x 68 inches)
painting, Self Portrait as Gorgious Tumor, an ironic piece
that is nevertheless honest in its complexity. Hefferman
seems to be poking fun at the exhibition's title.
Her imaginative rendering of herself as a pre-pubescent
girl arrayed in a bustle of clustered fruits refers to the
idea of innocence, by implication, back to the Garden of
Eden. Her rich, warm skin tones contrast with the velvety
dark background where oval windows glimpse European landscape
paintings.
Adela Leibowitz's Incident in the Woods II sets a moody,
sensual tone with its sparse pink and blue palette. We see
two girls, with demonic expressions, digging in a field,
as undulating nearby plants appear to bear witness to some
unexplained event.
Kojo Griffin's Untitled, a monotype work, replicates interaction
through cartoonish human-animal figures. Similarly, Jenny
Scobel suggests the simplified renderings found in 1930s
comic book illustrations. Drawn in the limited means of
black and white (to mimic pre-color printing presses), we
see a girl wearing a shirt with patterns of white, birds
in flight, which possibly signal her desire to escape the
war zone depicted around her.
Innocence and experience intermingle here on a continuum
of peaks and valleys. Depending on the circumstances and
the stinulus, one person's
approach to the topic may seem sincere, while another's
reeks of sarcasm.
The premise of this show proves largely successful in opening
the door to a burst of thoughtful creativity.
6/9 through 9/4.
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Black
Milk, Marvelli Gallery
by
Joyce Korotkin
As subject matter
for a summer group show, suicide may seem a little odd.
But when we consider the Goth inspired installation of Banks
Violette in this year's Whitney Biennial, as well as a recent
spate of TV sitcoms such as Six Feet Under and the chilling
reality of suicidal terrorist attacks around the world,
perhaps this material merits our attention.
Black Milk (the macabre title of the show), presents the
work of sixteen artists who cast a dispassionate eye on
the topic.
Marc Quinn's matter-of-fact installation of a room, Mood
Lighting for the Room Where Dad Should Kill Himself, contrast
with Ian Cooper's sculpture of wreaths, tangled wire and
telephone jacks that loop into the shape of a skull. The
former touches on common escape mechanisms, such as drugs,
religion and sports, while the latter focuses on despair
and alienation.
Less overt, like depression that simmers imperceptibly beneath
a surface veneer, Tim Maxwell's baroquely ornate drawing
in ball-point pen offers an intricate cross between the
kind of trippy, stream-of-consciousness doodles that artists
draw absentmindedly in their sketchbooks (as the psyche
leaks out), and highly accomplished comic book illustrations,
Maxwell's seven-foot drawing is a show stopper. An apparent
abstract melange of vaguely organic things, like Tolkein's
Middle Earth fantasy, under closer scrutiny the work morphs,
as distorted faces creepily come into focus; they seem to
emerge from the shadows, then disappear again back into
their depths.
Elizabeth Gray's gripping video, Cliffwalk, with Molly Smith,
leaves the viewer gasping. One is seduced into witnessing
what might at any point become a death walk by Smith's closely-cropped,
elegant high-heeled sandals and vulnerably delicate ankles,
as she paces, slips, slides and regains her balance, only
to lose it again in the next step, on the sharp ledge of
a rocky cliff. There is the ominous sound of waves crashing
below. No less grim is Angela Strassheim's image of a naked
woman lying spread-eagled across a disturbed bed, either
asleep or, given the context of the work, more likely dead.
There is little empathy or hope evident in these emotionally
detached works.
While suicide, like pornography and gore, is an inherently
sensationalist subject, there is nonetheless no escaping
the thought that if art reflects the times in which it is
made, this particular group of young, emerging artists is
experiencing some pretty dark times.
6/30 through 7/31
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Other Voices:
New York City Artists Portraits
by
Nicolette Ramirez
A friend recently
commented, derisively, "Everyone's an artist these
days!"
Indeed, we live in a moment in history when the visual arts
are ascendant over the written word, but this is not necessarily
a bad thing; as this comment inadvertently attests to. Not
every artist finds gallery representation, and by the same
token, not all of the artwork that finds its way into the
gallery circuit is edifying.While galleries play an important
role as filters, determining what kind of art will ascend
into the mainstream art world, many artists of considerable
merit operate outside the gallery scene and still find ways
to sell their art. For example, Neil Jenney initially rejected
the traditional route, but still ended up with a show at
the Gagosian gallery a few years back.
Today's art world calls for ingenuity. Here, is this space,
we will take a look at some examples of how artists pursue
their goals outside of conventional art world channels,
by focusing attention on those who work beyond (or along
side of) the gallery scene.
One such ingenue is Virginie Sommet. Sommet, who is is French,
has lived in the United States for ten years. She holds
a salon show at her home/studio the first Tuesday of every
month, from 6-9 pm. This salon attracts artists, collectors,
magazine editors, writers, and, of course, friends and acquaintances.
Virginie creates
assemblages with found objects, such as toys, food, bric-a-brac
and religious artifacts. Dominating her Canal Street loft
is a statuesque male mannequin, clothed in a skin-tight
collage of black and white newspaper cutouts of female escort
ads. A fuzzy, silver Christmas streamer has been draped
around his neck, which trails onto the floor. The piece
is entitled, Shemale, an apparent reference to the mannequin's
broad chest and bulging crotch, combined with small breasts
and photos of female escorts plastered all over the body.
Much of Virginie's work is a process in meditation. Another
piece, Laxmi, consists of an assemblage of Indian candies,
each one laid with tweezers and handglued. The artist recounts
how she spent over one hundred hours completing the work.
Virginie has had her work in group and solo shows both here
and abroad. And yes, she has a website: www.virginiesommet.com.
Another example of artists working "outside of the
box" is Danny Licudl, a New York City native, who is
among several downtown artists that have been awarded free
studio space by the non-profit art organization, Chashama
(located at the 40 Worth Studios in Tribeca). They hosted
an open studio in July, 2004.
Licudl's most recent oil paintings present a twisted version
of reality that combines Francesco Clemente with the Simpsons.
Based on real and imagined people, his subjects (people
of all kinds), are depicted in quasi urban-natural settings.
He often paints from photographs, which he relies on more
for psychological references than for visual accuracy. The
three large canvases on display at his studio were freshly
painted and only tentatively titled.
Cellar depicts an everyday scene of an elderly woman holding
a baby in her arms. The baby's wide-eyed innocence and the
old woman's smile seem at odds with the subtle menace of
the red cellar door that stands slightly ajar. The green
color of the brick walls adds another dimension of weirdness
that is echoed in the green tone of the woman's robe.
The Croatian Resort is a seaside scene with long horizontal
blue-green brush strokes denoting water, white swirls of
paint for wind and a mustard sky that suggests sunlight.
A young man and an old man stand on either side of the canvas.
Between the two figures, an incongruous water tower dominates.
The young man's neck, like Rubberman, is folded over a pole
that could be used for fishing. His eyes are a demonic orange
and his mouth is open, revealing sharp teeth.
In another painting, On The Tower, the color scheme is again
out of kilter with nature; we see young girls in school
uniforms that are twisted into impossible yogic positions,
but this departure from reality only serves to heighten
the drama of the work.
Dean Radinovsky has a studio space next to Licudl's, at
Chashama. Over the summer he was busy creating a series
of four large canvases that depict the Season Cycle. Working
in oil, he too unites the natural and the urban world with
an abstract vocabulary; branches, wind, earthiness, green,
are all suggested by smooth brush strokes, a build-up of
paint and smaller, quicker brush strokes in tones of grey
for winter, blue for early spring, green for summer and
brown for fall. Dean experiments with the effects created
by pressing the plastic sheets that cover his paints onto
the palette. Random patterns of color and shapes create
highly individual works of infinite delicacy and emotional
range.
Another artist with a nearby studio, Daphane Park, produced
a series of circular format works (oil on board) that looks
like swirling planets where shades of purple dominate, and
the tops of trees are green, with marble tones of brown
and white. Her other works in acryclic and watercolor on
paper suggest topographic symbols of land and water, contours
on a map and atmospheric evocations of the land and sky.
Among the same group of artists, Juri Morioka paints geometric
patterns, pools of color and color blocks. His painting,
Sky Is Endless, utilizes a sweeping pattern of pastel colored
eye-candy that evokes not just the sky, but other forms
in nature. Morioka's website is www.juri.org.
Another enclave of artists still residing in Soho (though
not in galleries) can be found on the streets of West Broadway
and its arteries. Since 1998, Ron Jones has been a fixture
on Prince Street near Broadway, across from Prada (which
used to be the Soho address for the Guggenheim museum downtown).
Jones paints primarily in acrylic on wood, with a polyurethane
finish. Technological imagery, such as electronic circuits
boards and batteries, mix with African tribal imagery, totem-like
figures, and a pop influenced repetition of imagery. Some
small works are mounted on electrical boards that the struggling
artist sells to passersby.
Directly on West Broadway, street artists of considerable
promise sell their artwork far below what they would fetch
in a gallery. There is, of course, a difference between
sellers of street trinkets and artwork. For those with a
discerning eye, however, there are in deed genuine artworks
to be found on the streets of New York.
Sung Yan Tsang, or Azen as he likes to be called, paints
contemporary portraits, still lifes, and fantastical scenes.
His painting, Venice: 100 Years In the Future, depicts a
hazy, underwater scene with a strong white marble horse
head in the foreground. Azen uses long flowing brush strokes
taken from a tradition of Chinese painting that imbues his
work with an aura of serenity.
Sharon Pell is the creator of "S*Pellbinders"
and "Shenanicats", a trademarked series of paintings
of feline femmes and cute cats. Some of her paintings of
women are actual portraits, while others are drawn from
imagination, or from female superheroes such as Wonder Woman.
While the women are sexy, seductive and strong, the cats
are charismatic and cute. All of the works are colorful
and happy, painted in bright acrylics (pinks, blues, greens)
with an outline of grease pencil. Often the backdrop to
these adorable women and cats are newspapers on which Sharon
creates a collage effect with stamps.
Heart icons figure
strongly in the works too. Sharon was recently commissioned
to create large paintings for Tommy Hilfiger's showrooms
in New York City, as well as for Hilfiger's denim stores
in abroad. Moreover, she has two of her works in an upcoming
film Alfie, starring the actor Jude Law. She may not have
a dealer, but it certainly appears that this artists can
take care of herself. Sharon's website is www.pellmell.com
Another artist
in the neighborhood, Gia (who comes from Georgia) applies
acrylic on canvas to build up thick layers with heavy brush
strokes, creating swatches of color. Women and men in contemporary
and country-innocent garb, pose whimsically with a bird
in the hand or one on the shoulder. The work is informed
by a rough primitivism that recalls the paintings of Dubuffet.
According to Skye Ferrante, some of the artists on West
Broadway come out as early as 4 a.m. to secure their spots
on the streets. The unspoken rule is that regulars are given
priority. Ferrante is a regular. He started sculpting with
wire, while convalescing from an illness. He uses 18-guage
dark annealed steel wire for his sculptures, 15-25 feet
of continuous wire for each one, which he mounts on canvas,
or sometimes on a nearby wall (with a discreet nail).
In the past, Ferrante
danced ballet, and this probably influences the forms that
he creates today; his figures pirouette, stretch, walk and
jump. He does portraits and private commissions, and his
work is on permanent view in the window of Sushi-Ann, a
Japanese restaurant on 51st Street, between Park and Madison.
His work has also been in group shows in New York City,
sold at auctions, and he takes commissions. Ferrante also
has a website, www.skyewire.systes.net.
Paul Richards is unique, among street artists, in that he
has a gallery space for himself. He started selling his
paintings on the corner of Spring and Crosby Streets, near
Balthazar, in the spring of this year, and caught the attention
of a local resident who, taking a liking to the work, offered
Richards his backyard space to work out of. Now there is
a sign on the north-west corner of Lafayette, near Spring
Street, announcing The Courtyard Gallery. Some weekends
Richards earns enough from sales to passersby that he can
catch up on the bills.
For art collectors who are truly passionate about art (not
merely commerce), these unconventional artists of New York
City offer a range of artworks that rival the best of the
chosen few, whose work we know from gallery receptions.
Sometimes you have to step outside of the white box to see
what's going on. The good news is that the art world (like
the universe) is probably much bigger than what anyone of
us could have imagined.
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Pierre Molinier,
Patricia Laligant
by
Joel Simpson
Known for his
erotically charged, surrealist photographs, Pierre Molinier's
collages, as well as some of the more explicit erotic fantasies
(featuring the masked ithyphallic artist himself), are presented
here in this modest selection of works. The erotic fantasies
referenced here were created when the artist was already
in his mid-sixties. Interestingly, Molinier's most famous
black and white compositions of "women's" legs
actually depicted his own legs; the artist donned net stockings
and posed himself, repeating the image, then cutting them
out and pasting them around an image of his cherished doll.
He then re-photographed the collage, making a photographic
montage that looked cleaner than what would have been possible
using traditional darkroom montage techniques. This show
presents the original cutouts, as well as several of his
re-photographed images.
If exhibitionism was a constant theme in Surrealism (think
of Dali's paintings which featured his own neurotic obsessions
and how iconic these have become), Molinier was perhaps
excessively unabashed. What distinguishes these images from
everyday pornography is the artist's absurdist twist. In
nine step-by-step cutouts he exhibits himself, masked and
showing off his erection ? against kitsch wallpaper ? attempting
intercourse on the image of a female figure, that is in
fact a pasted-on cutout of his ubiquitous doll.
In the final composition of the series, he adds a second
image of himself (still masked and aroused) in position
behind the first, making a do-it-yourself daisy chain.
Through 6/26
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Folding
Screens From the 19th Century Korea, The Korea Society
by Jessica D.
K. Park
Korean folk art,
called Minhwa, is comprised of everyday pictures that are
typically used by people in 19th century Korea to decorate
their homes.
Korean folk paintings, which often take the form of folding
screens, were displayed in the main living areas of nearly
all Korean households. Specific types of screen paintings
were used at important occasions such as weddings, birthdays
and funerals. In a utilitarian sense, Korean screens were
used as space dividers, and to help keep out drafts inside
the home during Korean winters, which are often quite harsh.
This exhibition, Whimsical Vitality: Folding Screens from
19th Century Korea, shows five examples of such Minhwa screens;
four paintings come from the Kang Collection and one from
the Korea Society in New York.
Folk paintings, which are usually unsigned, often employ
the same motifs as those of the so-called "orthodox"
paintings, which often depict landscapes, flowers and birds.
They differ, however, in that they abound with humor and
simple, innocent ideas about life and the world.
This exhibition focuses on three categories of screens:
Hwacho, Chaekori, and Monchado. Hwacho screens feature birds
and flowers, in which a pair of birds would symbolize fertility
and a happy marriage. Typically displayed in woman's quarters
or in the bedrooms of newlywed couples, Hwacho romanticizes
love among couples. The Chaekori screens are essentially
still-life paintings that depict scholarly items, such as
books, paper, an inkstone, ink, a pencil holder, and so
on. Displayed in men's quarters, the Chaekori screen conveys
an air of dignity, luxury, and reverence for scholarship.
The Monchado screens are noted for popular themes that emphasize
good charachter, such as loyalty and filial piety, and pictures
depicting the life stories of renowned scholars. For example,
a carp that jumps up from the river, and transforms itself
into a dragon, symbolizes an aspiration towards academic
achievement or a successful career in government.
In contrast to literati ink paintings, or calligraphic works,
whose practice and appreciation were necessarily limited
to those trained in the Chinese literary tradition, Minhwa
was used throughout Korean society, from the royal court
through the aristocrats, to the merchants, artisans and
farmers.
These friendly, informal paintings with their vibrant colors
were easy to understand, and accessible to everyday people.
The same themes and styles are found in all of the paintings
from each of these groups. As such, they present typical
examples of everyday folk art screens, with small scale,
simple compositions, fixed patterns and motifs and less
expensive materials.
This selection of Korean folk paintings offers a glimpse
into another way of life; creations by anonymous painters
of their time, the work expresses a desire for long, healthy
and happy lives. Even though some of the examples shown
here are not as defined, intricate, or flamboyant as other
Minhwa paintings in the Kang Collection, the work nevertheless
depicts the unique lifestyle of 19th century Korea, the
dreams, wishes and artistic imagination of everyday Koreans.
4/27 Through 6/30
Ed Note: The Korea Society is located 950 Third Ave, 8th
Floor New York, NY 10022.
Tel 212.759.7525x316 www.koreasociety.org
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Ryuji
Taira, Fotosphere
by
Joel Simpson
These close-up
platinum print images reveal the miracle of plant form in
exquisitely delicate portraits, mostly of dandelion seed-puffs
on their stems. Their fragile, chaotic symmetry is the pure
product of the unpredictable forces of growth. As such,
they make Blossfeldt's famous plant images, formally provocative
as they are, look like mug shots by comparison.
Taira's smaller images seem to give off a whispered exuberance;
solo long-stemmed vegetal dance performances on a penumbral
stage. He turns up the energy, however, in the16 x 20 inch
prints which punctuate the show with explosions of dandelion
puffs. Each frame is filled with extravagances of plant
silk, and the eye romps on them as on a featherbed.
Through 6/26.
Ed Note: Fotosphere
is located at 511 W. 25th St, New York.
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Chris Twomey,
Tribes Gallery
by Lily Faust
The navel or the omphalos, commonly referred to as the bellybutton,
is what remains of the knotted umbilical cord that is severed
within minutes of a baby's birth. In this exhibition of
seventy digitally altered images of bellybuttons, Twomey
transforms this biological trait into a source of inspiration
that carries over into into political territory, referencing
the controversy over stem cell research.
After taking the opportunity to photograph the navels of
many people who attended last year's HOWL Festival in the
East Village, (It's not clear exactly how she did this...)
Twomey used these images as base material, deriving new
images from the originals by digitally layering filters
inherent to her computer program. In the resulting hybrid
images, a particular navel, unique to a single individual,
mutates into another, suggesting the endless possibilities
(and probabilities) in genetic experimentation.
Hung mostly at
eye-level, the digital prints of dozens of navels offer
eerie versions of our mammalian distinction. Without identity
signifiers, such as a face for example, the navels appear
as abstract studies of the same theme, showing an elliptical
dark center within a swirl of vastness. In some prints,
the digital filters applied to the computer images make
them seem more decorative, resulting in organic or geometric
patterns reminiscent of psychedelic art. The navels ultimately
appear like enigmatic solar systems within undisclosed galaxies.
The prints' subtle impact is enhanced by the self-consciousness
of our common heritage, the umbilical cord.
Twomey underscores the political implications of her playful
presentation by offering factual/scientific stem cell data,
attached to the gallery walls alongside the images. Hand-written
on a continuous stretch of skin-like material, much like
a genetically coded membrane, they contain footnoted information
that sums up the biological nature of life on earth.
These include
statements such as, "Embryonic stem cells have a much
greater utility and potential than the adult stem cells,
because embryonic stem cells may develop into virtually
every type of cell in the human body," or "Every
human genome is different because of mutations nemistakesi
that occur occasionally in a DNA sequence," or "Everyone
alive on the planet today can trace their maternal ancestry
back to just one woman." By all accounts, this one
woman lived in Africa about 150,000 - 200,000 years ago
and is known as Mitochondrial Eve.
Shifting her focus from the purely visual to the scientific,
Twomey assimilates aspects of an exciting development in
science into the gallery venue. And systematically, through
digital layering, she creates a symbolic, visual framework
for what occurs in science.
The hybrid images
of navels become a metaphor for the interchangeable genetic
potential that could revolutionize life as we know it. By
cleverly assimilating aspects of science into the domain
of visual art, this artist makes known her views on the
current stem cell debate, without preaching to the choir.
Through 7/30
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Lee Bontecou:
A Retrospective, The Museum of Modern Art - QNS
by Tova Beck-Friedman
Fiercely independent,
Lee Bontecou was one of the few women artists to achieve
broad recognition in the 1960s. But she walked away from
this attention at the height of her success, in 1971, beginning
what turned out to be a 30 year hiatus. This retrospective,
comprised of 53 sculptures and 52 drawings, introduces her
work to a new generation. Curated by Elizabeth A.T. Smith,
James W. Alsdorf, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary
Art, Chicago (MCA), in association with Ann Philbin, Director
of the Hammer Museum, the show opened at the Hammer Museum,
and traveled to the MCA, Chicago, before coming to MoMA-QNS.
The exhibition is arranged chronologically and can be divided
roughly into three parts; the early work, the translucent
phase and the current period.
Starting in 1959, Bontecou began stretching canvas and other
scavenged fabrics over welded steel armature. These rough
fabrics were muted in colors, from ochre to shades of gray
to dark velvety black, and stitched together with twisted
copper wire, which was left exposed, looking like little
red curls. At eye level, in the center of each piece, there
was a large black hole. Some regard these black holes as
eyes, others see them as vulva shapes. In a few of the pieces,
the black hole is fitted with saw blades that suggest clamped
teeth.
Evocative of brutal forces, her abstract assemblages draw
on the world around her, employing a hybrid of painting
and sculpture; sewing and welding; of woman's sensibility
and masculine energy. She utilizes a vocabulary that borrows,
philosophically, from an anti war stance and Feminism, while
incorporating industrial materials by juxtaposing soft canvas
with steel, attaching fabric with metal wire to a steel
armature.
1966 marked a turning point for Bontecou. A change of palate,
and the use of back-lit fiberglass, paved the way to a lighter
translucent sculpture of silk and, later, vacuum formed
plastic. Material modification brought about an adjustment
in her attitude towards form; no longer abstract, large
fish forms appear suspended from the ceiling, while in a
nearby display case we see a bunch of strange flowers, fitted
with gas masks.
Her recent work shows yet another significant transformation.
Here, Bontecou employs porcelain pieces carefully connected
by thin wires which, at first, appear to read as playful
spatial drawings. Upon closer examination, however, they
contain similar forms, albeit diminutive. This work is as
much about the physicality of her material as it is a social
commentary. Even some forty years hence, Bontecou's 1960's
pieces still resonate with a vocabulary that connects with
today.
7/30 through 9/27
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