group show

Art of the Collage

Dom Lombardi — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 01:06:25 +0000

Art of the Collage Dom Lombardi October 17, 2023 - 21:06

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Susana Blasco (Spain), Lapsus, 2023, Paper Collage, 13 x 7 ¾ inches, 33 cm x 19.6 cm, Photo by artist

Altered Logistics: Contemporary Collage and Appropriation Art

October 30 – December 8, 2023

Curated by D. Dominick Lombardi and Maximo Tuja

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, 1919–1920, collage

As a method of creating art, collage has been gaining in popularity and importance since the early 1910's. There are numerous examples of the use of pieces of paper in a more utilitarian, decorative or playful way before the 20th century, however, when thinking of its beginnings in fine art, the Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque come to mind. They elevated collage to a fully realized modern aesthetic. A few years later, such luminary Dada artists as Kurt Schwitters and Hannah Höch, who specialized in photomontage, created collages using photographs, paper and a variety of found materials pushing the boundaries of collage even further. Additionally, I agree with a number of international art historians and critics that one of, if not the most significant work of the Pop Art movement decades later is Richard Hamilton’s collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956).

Richard Hamilton, Just What is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, so Appealing?, 1956, collage, Photo: smarthistory.org

With ensuing generations, and right up to the time of this writing, collage has evolved into many forms, most recently digital collage, adding to its exposure and understanding as a prominent form of visual expression. And if you think about the theory behind collage, which is the combination of previous unrelated images, text, patterns and textures, you begin to see it as akin to the dreamscape, whereby various bits of 'reality' form a nonuniform 'Surreal' narrative -- just like the stuff that invades our sleep. This disjointed reality during sleep, which clearly references a 'collage mentality', can also be seen in other forms of Contemporary Art in the works of Neo Rauch, Faith Ringgold and Gilbert and George, while artists like Wangechi Mutu and Kara Walker continue to expand the possibilities of cut paper in Contemporary Art.

Kevin Mutch (Canada), The Artist’s Brain Paints a Picture, 2023, Digital Collage color print, Photo by Artist

For this exhibition, Maximo Tuja and I selected over 50 artists to represent a multi-national overview of the state and the influence of collage in Contemporary Art. In thinking about the selection process, I primarily chose art and artists that push both the boundaries of what one sees as the theory of collage, while still maintaining a clear link to the basis of the genre. What is collage but an open, and at times random process built on the assembly of discordant pieces -- a method of creatively juxtaposing visual elements that can be applied to all forms of expression from two dimensional art to filmmaking. For me, I look for works of art that apply a fresh way of thinking and applying the 'collective' theory of collage or assemblage, especially the types of images or narratives that seep through the filter of unconscious aesthetics in profound ways.

Jeanne Tremel (USA), Surfer Girl, 2021, hand-sewn fabrics, beach-combing finds/landfill items, found objects, Photo by Artist

The following are some thoughts from Maximo Tuja.

As I understand it, collage is already much more than an artistic technique.

In our present society, collage has long been embraced as a means of engaging with reality. From memes and social media feeds to music production, fashion, and even our own identities -- which often comprise a blend of diverse elements drawn from various contexts -- the collage mindset subtly permeates our lives. However, within the realm of art, definitions tend to resist change, and the concept of collage appears to be anchored in its past, predominantly associated with its glorious revolutionary beginnings.

Alvaro Naddeo (Brazil/USA), Quantum Entanglement Computing, 2023, Watercolor on Paper, Photo by artist

In contemporary art, collage extends far beyond its historical context. When selecting artists for exhibitions or projects, I explore the boundaries of collage as a medium, seeking its connections with other artistic practices that embrace the notions of appropriation and recontextualization, paying little attention to rigid labels and traditions. I am always drawn to that which lacks a definitive name and to the areas where definitions remain elastic and practice precedes discourse.

Miko Hornborg (Finland), The Spaces In Between, 2023, Paper Collage, 8 ½ x 13 ¾ inches, 21.8 cm x 35 cm, Photo by artist

Whenever I ask myself, "Is this collage?" I know I am on the right path, for it is at the frontiers where the definition of this practice is negotiated, and where the boundaries of acceptance shift gradually yet continuously.

Participating artists:

Alvaro Naddeo (USA/Brazil), Andrea Burgay (USA), Andrea Mortson (Canada), Ashkan Honarvar, (Norway), Carl Van Brunt (USA), Catalina Schliebener (USA/Chile), Charles Wilkin (USA), Cless (Spain), Creighton Michael (USA), D. Dominick Lombardi (USA), Daisy McGowan (USA), David Henry Nobody Jr. (USA), Dennis Busch (Germany), Donald Fodness (USA), Eduardo Recife (Brazil), Etty Yaniv (USA/Israel), Gary Emrich (USA), Goster (Peru), Hilary Kliros (USA), Isabel Reitemeier (Germany), James Gallagher (USA), Jeanne Tremel (USA), Jeron Eerosie (Netherlands), Joel Carreiro (USA), John Whitlock (USA), Jules Grace Berger (USA), Kevin Mutch (Canada), Lee Hoag (USA), Lola Dupré (Ireland), Margaret Roleke (USA), Mario Zoots (USA), Max-o-matic (Spain/Argentina), Miko Hornborg (Finland), Moses Hoskins (USA), Nicola Kloosterman (Netherlands), Pablo Serret de Ena, (Denmark/Spain), Paul Henderson (Canada), Samplerman (France), Steve Datz (USA), Steve Rockwell (Canada), Stratco Art (Germany), Stuart Bradford (USA), Susana Blasco (Spain), Tamar Cohen (USA), Tobias Fike (USA), Todd Bartel (USA), Yeon Jin Kim (USA)

Altered Logistics: Contemporary Collage and Appropriation Art will be at The Dowd Gallery, SUNY Cortland from October 30 – December 8, 2023. https://www2.cortland.edu/departments/art/dowd-gallery/

Add new comment

Loss Aversion

Millree Hughes — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 17:34:51 +0000

Loss Aversion Millree Hughes November 18, 2021 - 12:34

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Micaela Carolan, We don’t believe in myths, we’re the voices of the moment’ 2021, Memory Blanket and plaster

Kai Matsumiya: Missing Target

153 1/2 Stanton Street, NYC

Kai Matsumiya’s group show Missing Target at his gallery on Stanton Street in New York is up until this Sunday. He's showing artists working in a wide range of mediums. They include: Atticus Bergman, Craig Kalpakijan, Thomas Laprade, Mira Putnam, Irina Jasnowski Pascual, Micaela Carolan, Jessica Wilson, Pedro Wirz, Tracy Molis, Jan Kiefer, Elliott Jamal Robbins, and Robert Sandler.

Craig Kalpakjian was an early adopter of the computer made image. They were dystopic interiors often office like. Rid of human presence, cleaned of human residue.

This new piece "Untitled" (Natural Beauty #006b) is bucolic in comparison.

It shows a floor made of alternating mauve and pink lines that almost become beach like, meeting a glowing wall. I particularly like how the edge of the room (if that's what it is) is rippled. Small decorative touches go a long way in this work

Pedro Wirz is a Swiss Brazilian artist. His piece looks like an iron dragon, a Pre-Enlightenment talisman. Jessica Wilson's print shows, perhaps, ET's hand emerging from a murky background.

Micaela Carolan's piece (top) "We don’t believe in myths, we're the voices of the moment" 2021 made from Memory Blanket and plaster is a beautiful sculpture. It's an image of her legs but with her body missing. The fabric cast and then worked and polished so that it reads like Neo-Classical drapery.

It reminds me of a cemetery memorial separated from its moorings. And Marizio Cattelan' piece, "All," from 2007. It's of sculpted sheet covered bodies, washed up maybe or gunned down, thrown over what has become the remainder, the flesh left behind, all re realized in Carrara marble.

But Carolan’s work is not distanced from her in the way Cattelan’s workers are from his. They’ve been given the stone, the design and a promise of payment. Her piece represents her commitment to an idea. A double description if you like, the representation of a thing and an image of the making of the representation of the thing. We imagine her sitting there making it and then leaving it behind.

Few artists can make themselves understood in as few lines as Elliott Jamal Robbins. He goes right back to the roots of African American cartooning. The black kid character he frequently depicts is like an art world version of Jackie Ormes' Patty Jo. Ormes created the Patty Jo and Ginger cartoon for the Pittsburgh Courier in 1946, she was the first black female cartoonist. Patty Jo was a little girl with a smart take on the world’s foibles (and racism) Only in Robbins’ work there's no need for words.

Untitled, (Left to Right 6 of 8) 2020 Watercolour on paper

The three drawings in the show have reduced the kid to some lines and bleeding watercolours in blues, yellows and reds. His jaunty step is all that’s left but it’s plenty.

The show's theme of studied absence is prescient. It's tempting to see everything cultural, Post Covid (if that’s really where we are) as being about Post Covid. It's not just the absence of certain people but walking through New York you notice the restaurants, bars and businesses boarded up and more people on the street.

Add new comment

Three's Company

Dom Lombardi — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:11:33 +0000

Three's Company Dom Lombardi October 3, 2021 - 20:11

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Donald Fodness, The Champ (Homage to Schwab and the Winner that Lives in Each and Everyone of Us) (2021), ink, graphite, colored

3ism (Group Show)

Alto Gallery, Denver

In transition, is the formidable Alto Gallery in Denver, Colorado. Once located on West 41^st Avenue, the gallery has temporarily moved to the old stately schoolhouse at 1115 Acoma Street where you will find the group exhibition 3ism, curated by multi-media artist Peter Yumi. Two of the artists in the exhibition, Brent Hayden and Zack Searcy, hail from San Francisco, while Donald Fodness resides locally in Denver.

With respect to content and aesthetics, these three artists could not be more different. Hayden's sculptures and mixed media reliefs have as much to do with the character of the materials used as they do with any specific aesthetic, as the range of his art moves from oddly statuesque to highly tactile reliefs. Polystyrene plastic and acrylic dominate these multi-dimensional meanderings that come to life with proposed gesture and movement, as the colors may remind some of cotton candy or sugary cereal. In particular, Kaktos (2021) has a "psychedelic seashell by the psych shore" thing going on, while Goddamn I Miss The Rain (2021) speaks both of the current drought situation in western Colorado, and the much needed colorful bounty the missing rain would bring to the wild flora of the nearby plains and mountains. Additionally, there is translucence in much of the materials Hayden employs giving his entire presentation a general feeling of buoyancy or airiness, resulting in something of an otherworldly affect.

Brent Hayden, Goddamn I Miss The Rain (2021) polystyrene plastic and acrylic

Fodness offers two powerful assemblage type sculptures and one 2D piece that is comprised of a heavily altered LP record jacket. Nativity Scene Mandala (2021), which wildly connects the iconic participants in attendance when Christ was born, has all the figures anchored in place at their base or feet, creating a circular pinwheel of passionate believers looking to radiate outwards. Tilted on an angle and accentuated by two overhead spotlights, this new take on such recognizable individuals bizarrely becomes even more celestial. Goddess (2021) by Fodness, is a multi-mammary mash up of mugs that suggests both the single-mindedness of the male ego and the mindlessness of pure kitsch. The title Goddess could also imply that this assemblage is an updated version of the fertility goddess Diana from the period of the Roman Empire, as I am sure there are many other ways to find meaning in this most unexpected expression.

Donald Fodness, Nativity Scene Mandala (2021), blow molded plastic, clay and wood

In the heavily defaced and altered The Champ (Homage to Schwab and the Winner that Lives in Each and Everyone of Us) (2021) we come face to face, literally, with the artist's ability to go off into a realm that teeters on the edge of consciousness. In this instance, flashes of images enter the picture plane from all angles and dimensions, spilling out through the artist's hand, forming a wildly rebellious route.

Conversely, Searcy borrows from one notable, multi-faceted non-objective artist, Sonya Delany, in presenting a new take on colorful, geometric abstraction in a sizable portion of his mixed media works. This new dimensional spin on past perceptions is most apparent in works like Collider (2020), where the intricate design the artist has put forth wraps systematically around the edge and sides of the canvas. Other times, like in Surface Tension (2020), there is more of a Roy Lichtenstein sensibility in the composition, while At Window (2021) is far more theatrical and centralized, suggesting a lone soul performing on a surreal stage. In the end, Searcy's art enters the realm of discernible versus imperceptible movement, the multiple dimensions of cognition, and all the resulting pattern shifts that keep the viewer engaged.

Zack Searcy, Surface Tension (2020), mixed media on linen

Alto Gallery's next location will be 1900 35th Street, Suite B, Denver, Colorado.

For more information about 3ism visit https://www.altogallery.com/

Add new comment

The End is Near

Dom Lombardi — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 12:24:18 +0000

The End is Near Dom Lombardi September 8, 2021 - 08:24

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Susan Copich, Happy Days (2014), Pigment print on Epson Ultra Premium Luster paper, edition of 15, 20 x 30 inches

With or without a pandemic, it is natural for many of us to often think worst-case scenario in a number of situations. It comes with the territory as we go through life exposed to news broadcasts, social media snippets or through casual conversations that direct our attention to worrisome weather, nearby violence, or the articulation of horrific scenes from faraway countries devastated by natural or man-made disaster. So we suppress those negative thoughts, or so we think, and live as best we can, guided by acceptable common behaviors. On the other hand, visual artists can 'play out' otherwise unspoken thoughts, impressions or conclusions, representing those pent up anxieties through symbols or scenarios that express how one’s brain can filter, then forward staged or actual visualizations through the lens of a camera.

London Amara, Desert Medicine (2019), Ambrotype original, archival pigment print, 50 x 40 inches

London Amara utilizes an early photographic process that employs wet negatives that demand only a 15-minute window to create a print. This collodion process produces highly contrasted soft-focus images that often have defects in the dark edges, giving the overall appearance of this work its dreamy quality. The coloration and lack of clarity also suggests a time long ago, inspiring thoughts of land-bound spirits or haunted havens. Then there is the feel of the artist's photographs in works such as Flowering Magic (2019), with its v-like ghosts, or Desert Medicine (2019) with its looming dark phantoms, where you begin to sense something may be wrong. Portrait of Two Stones (2019) creates a level of personification that takes the landscape to another level suggesting the artist is actually forming a future vision, flipping the narrative toward an uninhabitable landscape in a new age.

The narratives in Susan Copich's photographs are far more direct, as we see in the main character, a Stepford Wife-type homemaker on the edge rebellion, plotting her payback to a life defined only by the responsibilities put upon by others. In All American (2015) we see a woman putting the finishing touches on an apple pie while her husband sits lazily in front of the outdoor grill. The handgun on the counter and her troubling stare at the camera intensifies the suspense regarding what happens next. Similarly, in Bath Time, where we have two young children sharing a bath with mommy, who also happens to be holding a hair dryer that can electrocute them all. A tinge of humor lightens the mood in Happy Days (2014), as the juxtaposition of the hangman’s noose intensifies this otherwise happy moment. In the end, the wife and mother in this scene, who cannot ever do enough to fulfill her role, will one day get her revenge.

Kaethe Kauffman, Neck 28 Red Yellow Blue (2021), digital print on silk, 112 x 36 inches

Kaethe Kauffman’s art shows hands, feet and toes bound, suspiciously marked by ink soaked rope -- bodies constrained from movement or expression -- as patterns emerge to create a distraction. In projecting gesture through rhythmic changes, the artist changes the trajectory of the narrative, albeit for a moment -- as we see with Muscle Movement 1 & 11 or Knee Tree, there is the promise of transcendence in the design, yet there remains the disturbing details. In Neck 28 Red Yellow Blue, the bondage remains as a reminder of the past, a burden that will inevitably reverse the rights or progress achieved by countless brave souls. The age-old message here: if we do not learn from the past we are destined to repeat the same mistakes in the future, as the cycle of oppression that has no moral basis continues.

Nancy Macko, Azure 2 (2010), Archival Digital Print mounted on shaped sintra faced with Plexi, 30” diameter

Nancy Macko brings to light with her alluring photographs, the fragile beauty of nature. At first glance we are drawn to the ceaseless beauty of nature as exotic colors and captivating shapes abound. Through close-up images of plant life, and by placing the images in a circle, Macko adds a level of intimacy that the smallest of our planet’s creatures experience daily. That intimacy, in turn, reminds us of the dire situation of how the insect population is declining and what affect that would have on any and all animal life that depends on certain bugs for food, not to mention the pollination of crops that we so dearly depend upon. Science Daily reports that "Pollinators affect 35 percent of the world's food crop production…," and if we lose that we are in dire straits.

Lee Saloutos, Sun Room, Wyoming Frontier Prison (2007), photograph, 32 x 40 inches

In capturing the decaying prison system, and a variety of decrepit industrial settings largely hidden throughout the U.S., Lee Saloutos brings to the fore the hellish fate many have endured as punishment or employment. Dangerous, dismal spaces that immediately haunt the minds of all comers formed by unforgettable, past atrocities -- places where one’s soul is lost in a system of inhumanity. The deserved, as well as the falsely accused and punished share a common space, while others see the daily grind to simply put a modicum of food on the table as an end in itself. The drama in the natural lighting captured in these images adds to the chill of the cold hard concrete and steel, while the peeling paint, rusted metal and dusty air becomes one organism -– the belly of the beast.

To see this virtual exhibition please visit https://bit.ly/ccpendisnear

D. Dominick Lombardi, Curator

Add new comment

A Horse Is A Horse Of Course...

Webmaster — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 17:16:43 +0000

A Horse Is A Horse Of Course... Webmaster April 19, 2020 - 13:16

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

"A Horse Walks in a Bar"

Curated by D. Dominick Lombardi

Hampden Gallery at UMass Amherst

From 7th March 2020

During the Covid-19 lockdown, artists and their many patrons have had to go completely digital to view any new work. With that in mind, Culture Catch writer/artist/curator D. Dominick Lombardi takes us on a digital stroll thru his latest curated spectacle which examines humor in the world of fine art. Sadly, the show itself was only open to the public for two weeks prior to the entire world's shutdown. But thankfully his narrated YouTube video above offers some historical context to the whit and whimsy represented by many of the artist in the show. It's far more engaging than just a rote history lesson.

"A Horse Walks Into a Bar" features pieces that reflect a very broad range of humor by artists: Isak Applin, Michelle Burdine, Chris Bors, Sally Curcio, Cynthia Consentino, Don Doe, Matthew Garrison, Rina Goldfield, Bill Gusky, Scott Hatt, Todd Herzberg, James Hilger, Amy Johnquest, Maria Karametou, Alex Kvares, Rick Krieger, China Marks, Nicholas Moore, Kirk Nachman, Brian Novatny, Rachel Phillips, David Terry, Brian Turkowski, Hans Van Meeuwen, Lucy White, and Robert Zott.

The video was created by Erin Alzapiedi, Fine Arts Center Marketing Assistant and UMass Amherst Class of 2020 and overseeing the production was Melissa Breor. Footage collected by Rosie Cruz, Director of Operations at the Fine Arts Center, and Lyle Denit, Facilities Manager at the Fine Arts Center.

Add new comment

In The Land of Pink Dreams

Mary Hrbacek — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 16:40:30 +0000

In The Land of Pink Dreams Mary Hrbacek September 18, 2019 - 12:40

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Sara Madandar, Untitled, acrylic, and stitchery on linen, 18 x 19,” 2018

Pink Dreams in a Land with No Name

Elga Wimmer PCC, NYC

9/11 – 9/24, 2019

On view at Elga Wimmer PCC, the exhibition "Pink Dreams in a Land with No Name," curated by Roya Khadjavi, presents nineteen visual art works comprised of twelve mixed media pieces and nine laser cut canvas collages, created by Iranian born artists Sara Madandar and Shahram Karimi, who both currently reside in the U.S. The show explores the strategies the artists have conjured in order to come to terms with their experiences as immigrants living a demanding cross-cultural existence, intensified by the anti-immigration political climate in the U.S. and the social constraints inherent in Iran. Through the creative process of confronting, sorting, and clarifying painful memories and impulses, elucidating notions of place, nation, gender and self, the artists forge the essence of their inner identities and current personas, in works that speak to the feelings and difficulties of displaced people worldwide.

Sara Madandar employs metaphoric gestures of release and reclamation, obliterating and reconfiguring the canvas on which she eventually forges a renewed symbolic sense of national place, as her body itself becomes her newly claimed nation and home. In efforts to regain her unique persona in the context of life in an unfamiliar new culture, she reexamines her body, the center of memories and experiences, by stitching her own contours onto cloth formats in a variety of compositions. The repeated outlines, contrasted with full bodily forms, are split and layered, suggesting discomfort and disorientation as she moves toward integration within herself.

By enduring moves from Iran to Texas, finally settling in New Orleans, Madandar's sense of national identity became eroded in the process of adjusting to new cultures. She began to question the meaning, borders and symbols that relate to place, eventually arriving at a renewed sense of home centered in her own body. Madandar began to picture her own body as her homeland, as a free land without nationality or borders which she could redeem as the center of herself. She has reconciled the pain and loss that result from immigration through the creative process. Her art speaks to all people, especially women, who experience loss of their identities by the act of migration.

In her canvas and cloth-based collages Madandar employs a laser cutter in a calibrated process, in which she carefully cuts the canvas without setting it on fire, or breaking it. In the work entitled "Persian Fall" (acrylic on canvas, 34 x 66," 2019), the artist unravels thread from the edges of a canvas stretched on wooden bars, destroying portions of the surface to expose the stretchers that support it. She retains part of the intact canvas, allowing the ends to remain unraveled. The piece suggests the deconstruction of remembrances of the past as it recedes from one’s consciousness. With this action she generates a basis for rebuilding a life that has fallen into tatters from the stresses engendered by manifold relocations. The bars function as a metaphoric structure that supports her explorations. In the masterful piece entitled "Through Roots" (acrylic, stitchery, collage and laser on canvas, 36 x 65," 2019), Madandar multiplies her body form in overlapping outlines, turned right-side up and upside down, eradicating its contours to make space for the symbolic voices of those engaged in simultaneous processes of self-reinvention.

Sara Madandar, Through Roots, acrylic, collage, stitchery and laser on canvas, 36 x 65,” 2019

Madandar has recently turned from her primary medium of painting to a sewing machine, using thread and cloth on canvas in order to challenge herself with an unfamiliar speed and freedom of movement. At times she stitches repeated layered silhouettes of her bodily form on cloth embossed with flowers or traditional Iranian texts, to retain traces from her background. The artist incorporates outlines of her nude body while pregnant, to bring those physical adjustments into a coherent whole. Her signature silhouettes may express loss, while the solid cloth forms indicate stages of growth in a new vision of herself.

"Window #1," built as a traditional Iranian window, with green, yellow and red panes that each displays a delicately painted nude woman, allows the viewer to control the LED light source. The piece lends insight into the tension inherent in a dual culture. At home in Iran, Madandar is free to be nude, to reveal herself to herself as she is by nature. This freedom, as fulfilling as it is, may induce a sense of isolation. The strain that arises from conflicts between a hidden but free private life and a socially exposed but impersonal public persona, creates an agonizing divide. The delicacy of Madandar's two-toned female form symbolizes the tenuous hold she has in Iran on the luxury of privacy that makes existence worth living. Madandar focuses on her personal issues to find resolution which has universal parallels. She speaks through her art to new immigrants and all disposed and displaced persons, as she integrates her life in America with memories of Iran within the realm of her own body, herself.

Global artist and film maker Shahram Karimi instills his paintings with touching imagery culled from personal experiences of village life, such as roses and poppies that decorate clothing of women in his native homeland of Shiraz. In a courageous effort to retain memories that stamped his early persona, he moves forward in his present cross-cultural existence as an artist who resides in both Germany and the U.S. Karimi's paintings empower his identity by allowing him to bring his feelings into images that cement them in his consciousness. In this positive way he reclaims his past by inventing his own iconography, in heartfelt narratives which accentuate recollections of his cherished history. He has been exposed to the Western genres of abstraction, minimalism and conceptual art, yet in an authentically global vision, he depicts recognizable figurative human forms engaged in enterprises and rituals, such as weddings and funerals, that relate universally to the ongoing concerns of people everywhere. In this way he recognizes and respects the spectrum of his life as a whole, with the realization that there is no way back to the past from a frenetic and fast-paced life in the West.

Despite or because of the fact that Karimi is an autodidact, his technique is skillful, confident and sensitive. He paints freely from his heart without gimmicks or formulas, in works which occupy the picture format frontally, without perspective or traditional spatial pictorial depth, inspired by the mysterious visual poetry of Persian miniature paintings. Karimi is a humanist whose broad view of life encompasses activities and celebrations, births, travels and rituals. His reality is immersed in a broad sense of the human predicament, its joy, its pathos and its limitations and longevity. Karimi's exuberance has enabled him to create shimmering narrative tableaux inspired by his formative years in Iran, highlighted by emotionally charged pink tones that stress the present, contrasted with cool blue hues which denote reminiscences.

Shahram Karimi, Looks, mixed media on cnavas, 71 x 53,” 2018

In many works such as "Angel" and "Untitled" Karimi employs lines to delineate forms and features, while in other works such as "Sisters," two broad faceless figures merge to become one entity which commands the entire space. The artist is especially engaged by female forms in repose, whose enigmatic shapes are reluctant to reveal their specific content. In "Angel" Karimi stresses the coexistence in Iran of the Roman Catholic religion with Islam, by depicting the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, surrounded by angels. Karimi expresses his humanistic perceptions in the video-painting entitled "Red Poppy," inhabited by poetically painted, frontally posed individuals set next to the national Iranian flower which, enhanced by video, sways with life.

In many of his deep, serious works the artist employs glazing techniques by applying thin veils of color over underpaintings of figures and flowers. The technique enables him to subtly project the past into the present, creating a mood synonymous with memory and instilling a sense of time passing. In the picture entitled "Looks" (image above), the artist creates depth that hints at recollections of incidences of the past, by painting characters strewn over flowered brocade fabric, in visions of faces that appear to materialize as witnesses. This augmented dimension aids the bright pink flowers on the surface to visually and symbolically bridge the artist's past with his present life.

Karimi appears to be grappling with the jarring realities of his current existence, but seems cognizant that returning would be unthinkable. He imprints his works with bits of Iranian poetry (a source of national pride), concealed in hidden corners, that enhance his remembrance of historical events. Karimi struggles with the multiplicity of the life he faces in Germany and the U.S. by channeling cherished growth experiences into narrative paintings that forge a personal iconography. He expresses a unique, global vocabulary which employs, and transcends, the Western genres of abstraction, minimalism and conceptual art.

Karimi and Madandar both resiliently face the dilemma of the cross-cultural displaced individual by reconciling the grief that arises from relocating, especially into a new land hostile to immigrants. Madandar envisions her body as a new homeland, and Karimi narrates images of individuals engaged in historic rituals that rekindle and enhance his present engagement with his past life in Iran.

Add new comment

Dramatic Constructs

Kathleen Cullen — Sat, 30 Jun 2018 01:58:53 +0000

Dramatic Constructs Kathleen Cullen June 29, 2018 - 21:58

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

The Parallel Fields exhibition takes place at Lichtundfire. It is a different sort of space in which curators, artists representatives, and the community can present new ideas and mount exhibitions. Having looked at some of artist D. Dominick Lombardi's projects for a few years I was hoping that he would maintain the same passion in moving forward as curator. Yes, I believe he has ventured in a new direction to formulate Parallel Fields using the exhibition as a dramatic construct. It's a tale to inspire us about life lessons and focus "on the mundane to the miraculous (which) is what leads to exceptional thought, creative foretelling and compelling art in modern and contemporary times."

Plutarch's Parallel Lives was a work of considerable importance held up to illuminate the lives of famous men. Such biographies illuminated the common morals or failings of their lives at the beginning of the 2^nd century. A passage from Plutarch's Life of Alexander reads:

"I write not histories but lives: the showiest deeds do not always delineate virtue and vice; the showiest deeds do not always delineate virtue and vice, but often a trivial action, a quip or a prank , will reveal more of character than the fiercest slaughters, or great parades or sieges of cities. Thus just as portrait painters attempt to establish a likeness through the features or a look in the eyes (where character is revealed), taking far fewer pains with the rest, I must be allowed to devote myself mainly to the signs of the psyche."

Lombardi creates a discourse that makes a complexity about the three artists. This is an ideal case scenario -- to balance the work of three artists and try to create a habitat around the issues. There is a broader field here and Lombardi takes a broader stance with the title and alternatively the political, the painterly, and the wider scope of the food chain.

The three artists in this exhibition Kathleen Elliot, Kaethe Kauffman and Bobbie Moline-Kramer have each defined themselves over the course of the last four or five years by their particular subject matter and accurate portrayal of people or subjects pertinent to our time. These three artists have mined the issues that were important to each of them in their own voice outside the cacophony surrounding the marketplace.

When you paint from photographs you create a stylized version and you present as much as you can about the truth of the image without giving the viewer the whole of it. With these newest works Bobbie Moline-Kramer is in a relationship with the paint and not the underlying image. The series originally started with intense portraits, electric eyes that go straight for the viewer and keep their eyes straight on them. The portraits are small and intense is as if the sitter is seeking to bust out of the painting.

Abstraction is a curious paradigm in postwar culture and has its own sense of beauty very different from virtuoso painterly execution of realist painting. I want to guess that Bobbie Moline-Kramer starts with the idea of the mood that she is trying to create. She takes these very academic realist paintings, and then paints over the figures giving them a strangeness and otherworldliness. Wrestling with abstraction and the momentum of it Moline-Kramer allows herself to let go and combines both modes of expression in these latest works. Moline-Kramer states:

"The elaborate decorative backgrounds in my portraits work with the faces they frame. It's a structure that allows me to create a drawing, which is also about mark-making, color, pattern and texture. I like using the immediate recognition of a face as a starting point. I like the fact that you literally have eye-contact with a portrait."

In works like the Guilted Cage (shown above) Moline-Kramer uses plastic wrap and squeegee to paint in a manner like Richter. It's the great smear effect (by using plastic to blur the abstraction in a more mechanical way). She thus creates a tension between the real and the abstract. This is what's exciting, especially if you make a mistake. Mistakes are often the best moment -- you have to creatively deal with them, and that's when you often do something completely new.

My favorite work in the show -- A Garden Smiling -- looks like a tribute to the great painter Joan Mitchell's palette and technique. Who is this a figure of? What is the relationship of the artist to this individual and the painting?

Having immersed herself in alternative spiritual practices of Carlos Castaneda and multiple dimensions of reality, Kathleen Elliot's work has evolved over the last 6 to 7 years to address the issues of food production. To paraphrase the exhibition press release: "The sensitive issue of food production is an interdisciplinary field that provides ethical analysis and guidance for human conduct in the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food.”

The masterpiece in the exhibition is the Glyphosate Corn, which calls out the evil found in our processed foods. Genetically modified corn has been sprayed with Glyphosate in products like Doritos and Cheerios. The work has become so much more conceptual than her glass fruits and flowers of 2012. Is the giant strawberry sculpture symbolic of the struggle of the Mexican farmworkers? Much like Claus Oldenburg, Elliot repeats her motifs, working with persistence, with serial accumulation and multiplication.

Like Orozco, Elliot comments on the status of object production with works such as Questionable Foods #3 (2013) where she tries to extract the magic of assimilated exchange value in the massive object experience of strawberry production because all objects are subject to the same principles. As with the work of Gabriel Orozco, objects belong to a specific place and have to do with accumulation. As a result, we have a dramatic redefinition of object because it's no longer relevant. It has become something else.

Kaethe Kauffman's Muscle Movement Meditations range from macro photos of thumbs, backs, knees and toes which look as if they have been bound or cauterized. Kauffman translates her experience with the real world and her spiritual studies, analyzing the body as a beautiful thing and transforming it in a serial progression of images that analyzes the taxonomy of that particular part of the body. Kauffman speaks to the modalities of mind in pursuit of a message -- in Buddhism the mudra activates other parts of the body to communicate with the divine. The mudra links the individual self with the universe as evidenced in one's experience of the body.

Kauffman's work operates in different ways the duality of the micro and macro structure driven by the desire for elusiveness / the peculiar desire to go onto enlightenment.

The most important issue for Kauffman is the constant question of the body -- multilayered issues and suspended narrative about muscles, energy, containment and the interior body.

The resulting mystical images are neither directly figurative nor abstract. Those leaning more towards abstraction still appear to be something -- perhaps visions experienced by the meditating. Kauffman's work can be seen as a singularly crafted semiotics, and of how meaning is constructed and understood. Heretofore, the human body was considered an embodiment of signs, but with virtual realities, artificial life, and simulated bodies, the disembodiment of these signs is garnering prominence within the field. Kauffman’s notable works stand on the cusp of this transition.

What is her relationship to the photo? It's as much about seeing and using a very simple subject and fixing it or literally tying and containing it. Kauffman keeps coming back to the symbol of the rope or the knot.

The practice of mindfulness of breathing is one of many Buddhist techniques for developing the stability and vividness of attention, culminating in the highly refined state of meditative quiescence (Samatha), in which the mind can remain perfectly focused for hours on end. The development of quiescence is closely linked to three kinds of "signs" (nimitta) that are the objects of meditation. The first of these is the sign for preliminary practice, which in the case of the mindfulness of breathing consists of the tactile sensations of the respiration. The second is the acquired sign (udgraha-nimitta), which may appear to different people like a star, a cluster of gems or pearls, a wreath of flowers, a puff of smoke, a cobweb, a cloud, a lotus flower, a wheel, or a moon or sun disk. All these signs of the breath arise from the space of the mind, and their various appearances are related to the mental dispositions of individual meditators.

I will leave you with this.... The essence of Buddhism sees the world as drama; it is what it is -- to grow to expand to swell. The self plays hide and seek with itself -- each one of us must go ahead and get lost for the fun of it. Wouldn't it be nice if you could wake up to one of these muscle movement meditations? This is stuff that matters... the link between us all.

Add new comment

Free Festival

Millree Hughes — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Free Festival Millree Hughes June 21, 2018 - 10:00

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Electric Mayhem: Caroline Wells Chandler and Jennifer Coates

Crush Curatorial, Chelsea, NY

May 24 - June 23, 2018

In Frank L. Baum's translucent American dream book Ozma of Oz (1907), Princess Langwidere has a chamber filled with heads that she can attach to her body. Jennifer Coates recent work feels like she is able to approach an existing subject or genre of painting but with another head on. Her last show was of trees. But not "of" any where or "of" any species. As if "trees" were just another idea in one of her heads. Caroline Wells Chandler too approaches pop imagery but with a knitter's head on.

These two artists are interesting enough on their own but their collaborations at Crush Curatorial fills this small gallery with a high key, mad, sexiness -- conjoined bodies wearing more heads than the Hydra.

American women appear to be able to carry fond characters from childhood into adulthood. Cats, stuffed animals and cartoon critters are meant to be seen ironically, of course. But they are not gutted of affectionate feelings in the process. American men don't seem able to do this; at puberty their loved cuddly objects remade as kitsch, suffer from sarcastic indifference . Compare Hello Kitty t-shirts on young women and say, the recent use of sloths in memes and on t-shirts. Funny for the oddness more than for the furriness.

In Coates and Chandler's collaborative drawings they push each other to higher and weirder climes in these think-ettes of comics, indie-porn, psychedelic disco covers, '90s rave flyers, and God knows what-all. It's not of a secret act in a secret place spied on by the artists. It's out in the open in an imaginary world (part video game, part children's book, part hallucination) that are on ostentatious display. Vaginas are splayed, creatures dance by in bobbing brightly coloured strap ons. Areseholes are up on view.

The penises are sometimes crayons, sock puppets or rockets. Hilarious dildos, perhaps (dildos can be humorous) Everything is on display. (See image top.)

This drawing reminds me of the Sheelagh Na Gig, the Celtic pussy-opening goddess of fertility seen on Medieval churches.

The artists reject gender binary constructs. Pro forma sexual acts. The immediately non-sexual drawings are filled with eyes.

Look at what your body sees, stop thinking about what you think you want.

"If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender." Judith Butler

This drawing is an extrapolation on a childhood favorite Frog and Toad book series. But here one of them has become a set of brown skinned testicles.

So why is there no penetration, no actual acts of intimacy here? They read more as sigils of sexual energy. The body leading the way.

Jennifer and Caroline's paintings and drawings are displays of sex but not of fucking. They are not about what is desirable as much as they are about what is possible.

They flip the familiar maxim so that it reads: "Free your body and your mind will follow."

Add new comment

A Prayer for the Souls in Purgatory

Dom Lombardi — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 15:52:13 +0000

A Prayer for the Souls in Purgatory Dom Lombardi October 2, 2017 - 11:52

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Tony Moore: Sculpture - Children of Light

Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn

Though November 12th, 2017

Fallen empires, lost peoples, ancient cultures and what they once produced -- like fallen leaves and dead trees -- comprise the very ground we walk upon. What has passed before, what Tony Moore refers to as “the relationship of humanity and nature," that magnificent mix of man and mother earth is at the core of his content. There is that sense of monumentality, that massiveness of told and untold history that we might feel, what Moore gathers in through direct experience, cognitive or corporeal, as he builds up and cuts away with and within his earthen clay is his expression. He remains connected, as we all should, to the past as there is an endless life energy that both stirs and cleanses Moore’s thoughts and imaginings. To Moore, all cultures, all systems and societies past and present are part of a continuous need to feel connected and complete. It is also vital that we have hope and that we stand up for unity and understanding so good can triumph over evil intent and oppression. Moore references in his work an inspiring 1965 quote by Dr. Martin Luther King which states: “History will have to record the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and other violent actions of the bad people but the appalling silence and indifference of the good people. Our generation will have to repent not only the words and acts of the children of darkness but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light.” You see this light, that hope in the details with the cut out “windows” that traverse a mass of formed and fired clay in Children of Light 4 (2017), as it brings illumination into the hollowed, beckoning darkness. You see selectively placed white geometric forms in his sculptures like Children of Light 3 (2017), as they enlighten and enliven the ambient earth tones of the step-like forms that first recede then reach upward. At the top is glass, previously molten in the kiln, which offers the life supporting water to the bare terrain. Children of Light 3 also stands as a testament to the growth that accompanies seeking and learning that when left unchecked and protected by wisdom, allows our children to strive for the greatness they deserve.

Everything has memory. Nothing exists outside the cycle of life, even as things change to previously unimagined heights or depths, especially with the current divisive and damaging political climate. Yet, despite the socio-political affront to Moore’s morals and beliefs his art is more about standing firm and undeterred by the insanity than it is a gut reaction to it. His art transcends the riffraff. It grounds us, and most importantly, it roots Moore in his unflinching principles as he stokes the days’ long flame of his anagama-noborigama wood-fire kiln in the production of his thoughtful and inspiring works. There is peace of mind in the process; precision in his methods and pride in the results as his art is part of a time-tested tradition that began over 1,600 years ago in Asia – the same basic tools and techniques perfected in Japan in the 5th century.

Moore often utilizes the cut-away portions or the “fragments” of larger works that are reshaped, glazed and fired as they become more intimate in scale and referential in their form and detail. In Blue And Green #13.11.15 (2015) and Death Of Gods #19.7.15 (2015) we see portions of A Prayer for the Souls in Purgatory the artist happened upon when going through some old family documents. The prayer, which paints a very dark picture with phrases like “…let some drops of Thy Precious Blood fall upon the devouring flames…” also speaks of compassion, while the intensity of those same “devouring flames” is a clear reference to the intense wood fire in Moore’s kiln. With both, we have a level of redemption suggested especially with the toil of creating, that 99 percent of perspiration that follows one percent of inspiration, which is often rewarded with a substantive art.

Moore also offers a different kind of narrative, vignettes more common to two-dimensional art such as painting and photography with Fire Painting #9.7.10 (2010), which has a distinct reference to a Japanese Sumi-e painting with its imprint of a small branch; or something far more western and painterly in Fire Painting #1.7.16 (2016) which has something of the physical and psychological feeling of a late Van Gogh.

What is abundantly clear is Moore’s constant and unrelenting passion to create. He challenges the limits of his medium moving further and further into new territories and iconic symbols. Moore brings the earth and clay to a level of storytelling that is both ancient and forward-looking as he combines tangible and valuable substance with powerful forms and dynamic technique.

Experimental Love

sue woodman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:46:56 +0000

Experimental Love sue woodman July 15, 2009 - 08:46

Topics

Art Review

Tags

group show

Hasnat Mehmood: I Love Miniature I

Debanjan Roy: Experiments with Truth

In recent years, the Asian artists who have dominated the Western museums and art market have been predominantly Chinese. But coming up from the rear now are a generation of young artists from the Indian subcontinent. Like their Chinese counterparts, their work is infused with contemporary preoccupations, particularly the clashes between their traditional civilization and a new, global, hi-tech society.

Just as a new crop of Indian writers has brought modern India bursting onto the best seller lists, so the Indian and Pakistani artists now on show at the AICON Gallery present us with sometimes shocking reconsiderations of past and present in their native lands. In a way, it's unfair to combine Hasnat Mehmood's intricate, delicate miniatures with Debanjan Roy's wham-bam shiny red sculptures in one space. Mehmood's works, principally digital prints and drawings on scratchboard and paper, many composed only of lines and circles, explore an evolving Pakistani art form -- the miniature painting movement -- by copying the work of better-known painters and earlier images.

The work, though small, is full of surprises: braille lettering on each piece explains the image; lines and dots are used to connote everything from figures to psychological traps. The ideas in the works are as intricate as their form. Debanjan Roy is not so subtle. Rather, his images are designed to shock and disorient. Seeing sculptures of Mahatma Gandhi strolling rapt in his iPod, or lying back in a Laz-E-Boy recliner, or seated in his trademark loincloth at a computer station, makes for an uneasy experience. That they're all painted in bright, fire-engine red, the artist explains, is to foreshadow Gandhi's violent death.

Other works on show by Roy feature more of India's famous faces: political leaders Nehru and Indira Gandhi, a handful of deities, and many of its most famous symbols: animals, lotus flowers, the ocean. Then you notice the images worked alongside of them: a convertible with a GPS system, headphones, cell phones, ubiquitous computers. The combinations are strong and provocative, funny and unnerving all at once. They even feel sacrilegious, somehow, as they place the country's most venerated figures alongside its booming, westernized present. Love the sculptures or hate them, the questions they raise about the transformation of a culture are the right ones at the right time.

AICON Gallery, 35 Great Jones St #1, New York, NY, through August 1.