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Interiors

Millree Hughes — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 13:23:58 +0000

Interiors Millree Hughes October 11, 2021 - 09:23

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Art Review

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painters

In the Metabolic No 5, 2019

Karin Davie

Chart Gallery, NY

Til Oct 30th

Karin Davie has a new show at Chart Gallery. It's her first in New York since 2007 and should not be missed

It's unlike her breakout curvy paintings of the late '90s that described the outside of the body. Neither are they like the huge wild, squiggly paintings that she showed in the early '00s, which expressed a volatile inner state. These paintings represent an attempt to go to the deep interior, to the tissues, to the cell wall itself.

In David Hockney's recent article in The Art Newspaper "Abstraction in Art has Run its Course" he claims that everything Abstraction set out to do has already been done.

Karin's paintings do something that mimetic painting can't do. They use the language of formal abstraction to approach a complicated emotional and physical state. Abstraction can talk about ontology without getting distracted by the petty associations of individual people, places or things.

She makes abstract paintings that employ different devices to talk about a subject outside of itself. The way it is painted. Familiar abstract tropes, like "spot" paintings or "stripe" paintings. Or the shape of the canvas. This approach goes right back to Barnet Newman's "Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue I" 1966 Where the colours became an idea in itself rather than being used to express something.

Downstairs in Chart Gallery there are some vibrating, vibrant Guaches from 2007 that were the beginnings of the new series.

Karin's gouache paint marks are finer and gauzeier. The lines follow the border of the paper on each side. Becoming lighter as they reach the middle. Leaving a square of transcendental light. They bring to mind birth or death or even the light of revelation. They are elusively simple until you imagine yourself actually painting one.

Upstairs there are more physical oil painted versions made more recently. These are powerful paintings. Portals, openings, altered states. Each one with a thumb shaped divot cut out of the bottom of the canvas. I imagine this as a space representing a real thumb, on a hand holding the image up to your face. Or perhaps the thumb at arms length framed by whatever is in sight as is sometimes employed to help gauge distance. But I don't know. Her paintings always have this quality of a magic trick, one where you can never know its secret.

While my Painting Gently Weeps No 2, 2019

My favourite of the new works are the two scalloped paintings. "While My Painting Gently Weeps No 2" is rendered in oceanic greens, in sinewy strokes. The scallops work both as little cup like inlets that capture some stray paint marks. Pretending to be, whether you read the edge as positive or negative space, either dippy cartoon waves or cartoony toes or thumbs.

They are like the sea and of the sea. A woman's body locks in to the cycles of the moon and consequently the tides. They see in the sea a mirror of their own vibrations. In dream analysis the sea is also the mother, the source of all things.

In these new paintings a host of associations flood in at different reads and pool around the central conceit of sea-like bodily-ness. They expand her metaphors so that her painting refers to many things. The body, the sea, her emotional state. And disease. Karin has been struggling with Lyme for twenty years. She is deeply familiar with the workings of her body down to a microbial level.

Beyond that, Karin's stroke is her signature. Oily, tubular, like a thick vein or serpent. The line is slower now, moving in a winding cord from one side of the canvas to the other. A loaded large round brush that may hold the colour she's mixed and pick up others along the way,

They can represent dimensionality but not perspective. They seem to respond to light as if it's cast from above but we are constantly reminded that this is not a representational space. More importantly Karin's paintings have an instant quality. They hold something in, they create tension. So much so that the little flashes of broken strokes caught in the scallops of this one are a relief.

Hockney has said that his work is about "seeing" and the history of representation. He does makes great representational paintings n' all but we’re not being asked us to examine his inner life.

Davie's paintings are about her, about themselves and ultimately about the giant moving parts around us.

Its is a kind of poetry.

Proving Abstraction is still necessary when you want to talk about large, complex, 'abstract' things.

Thank u Millree for this…

Thank u Millree for this wonderful descriptive insight towards Karins work.
...very fine indeed.

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Bounty

Dom Lombardi — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 21:36:08 +0000

Bounty Dom Lombardi October 10, 2021 - 17:36

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Art Review

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virtual art show

Jean Rim, August (2021), mixed medium and dried flowers on wood, 36 inch diameter

I have been asked a number of times to write a review of a virtual exhibition, and have never felt quite right about it. In the past, and certainly prior to COVID, I would cover an exhibition that I witnessed in person if it inspired thoughtful contemplation. I never saw that as a possibility in the virtual world, but I never closed the door entirely, as the pandemic seems to be as stubborn as the folks that are choosing to forgo getting vaccinated. So here we are -- my first attempt.

Bounty, the current virtual exhibition featured at rhombusspace.com is designed to offer "the fall harvest, the fruits of earlier seeds planted" as it relates to the time spent in the studio these last 18 months. The exhibition wonders, what were artists thinking before and during COVID, what changed or didn't change, and how did it affect an individual artist's studio practice. There, I’ve already done something I rarely do, I read the first paragraph (after the artist's names) of the press release before I started writing. I usually prefer to just go by what I see and not read the press release prior to my writing, unless I have had some sort of forewarning that I really need some background before I view the work.

Getting back to the exhibition -- there are eight artists: Enrico Gomez, Rachael Gorchov, Adam Novak, Jean Rim, Corrie Slawson, Karla Wozniak, Holly Wong, and Etty Yaniv. Since I am only familiar with a few of these names, I will limit my commentary to the works in the exhibition, and not speculate on any changes due to COVID unless it is obvious in the work or titles.

Enrico Gomez, Cuervo IV Redux (2020) charcoal on paper, 11 x 11 inches unframed

Enrico Gomez's two drawings are from the Redux series. They feature somewhat complex geometric forms that bleed out, as if over-saturated in charcoal pigment and swept, or, are they sucking in errant medium like metal shavings to a magnet? You know, like those Wooly Willy toys with the little metal shavings behind the plastic barrier where you can guide with a little magnet, to add hair and a mustache to Willy's hairless face. On the other hand, if you look at that directional dust as movement, it gives the work a feeling of weightlessness, while the areas left untouched adds more than a bit of finesse and control in these otherwise, curiously formed compositions. Rachael Gorchov's two acrylic paintings on panel are comprised of multiple layers of thinly applied washes and bold brush strokes. Again, like Gomez, movement comes to the fore, while here, we see somewhat obscured faces in both, resulting in a sort of crossing out of any representation with forceful non-representational brushes of abstraction. Perhaps this is the change the press release is referring to?

Adam Novak, Run1 (2021), oil on canvas, 72 x 48 inches

Adam Novak's two oil paintings, Run1 and Run2 feature the word 'RUN' from the title, atop and amongst very loosely suggested bodies that move through the picture plane. The simplicity of the content is complicated by the elusive approach to word and form, while the energetic painting techniques brings excitement to the eye. Jean Rim offers two multi-media works that utilize a variety of techniques including collage and assemblage. I am particularly drawn to August (2021), for its obsessive and meditative approach to the content, while the overall composition, which is in a tondo format, keeps the eye moving and one's interest piqued.

Corrie Slawson, Blue Footed Boobies are endangered; Harlequin Toad, now extinct. Rabbit is distraught (2020), oil and mixed medi

Corrie Slawson has strong concerns for the state of the world. Using oil and mixed media on plywood, Slawson shows the influence of James Rosenquist, and his signature Pop Art panoramas. Conversely, while Rosenquist focused primarily on popular culture and advertising, Slawson broadens the range adding extinct animals and the sadness that ensues, as with Blue Footed Boobies are endangered; Harlequin Toad, now extinct. Rabbit is distraught (2020). Karla Wozniak's paintings are more in the Paul Klee and Adolph Gottlieb realm. Patterns, colors, textures and shapes all compete for our attention, as light brings hope in Fire, Shapes, Silverware (2021), and night brings dreams, as in Egg + Shoe (2021).

Etty Yaniv, Terrestrial 8 (2020), acrylic, ink, stucco, graphite, flashe, gesso, plastic, paper on canvas, 8 x 8 inches

Holly Wong's beautiful mixed media works immediately brought to mind Frank Stella's prints from the early 1990s that were inspired by the cigar smoke rings he blew, captured, computerized, then turned into 3D renderings. In both instances, with Wong and Stella's compositions, there is this seemingly endless level of movement and gesture that is clearly amplified by attention-grabbing color and graceful line. Etty Yaniv's two painterly canvases also have indications of organic forms, only in this instance, the mixes of media and the turbulent techniques are much more mesmerizingly tactile and demanding of our attention. Utilizing a number of curious materials, including the application of bits of plastic, we are witness to a wild ride through the spiritual essence of the natural, as opposed to the literal representations of one's first impressions.

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Three's Company

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

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

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Art Review

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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/

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A Wordless Eloquence

Robert Cochrane — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 14:00:00 +0000

A Wordless Eloquence Robert Cochrane September 30, 2021 - 10:00

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Music Review

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instrumental

John Howard: Dreaming I Am Waking - Piano Music for My Father (self-released)

All songwriters are essentially composers wearing words.

For this album John Howard has stepped free from the verbal constraints of his natural craft, allowing the music to speak, unadorned.

Inspired by and dedicated to his late father Bert, himself a talented pianist. Dreaming I Am Waking is a touching tribute from one musician to another as well as a mournful gesture of the complexities of loss.

It has a natural elegance and poise.

Reflective but never maudlin, it bestows treasures to the ear.

Using an earlier four track release as the springboard for the enterprise, Howard neatly delves and weaves a journey of sorts, a mystery tour for the soul.

The thirteen tracks are essentially mood pieces for piano that will bring forth something different from each listener, a spiritual response free from the guidance of speech.

It is a brave and audacious venture.

"First Steps" marks the prelude, a suggestion of frost, the charm of an ice-laced dawn, catching natural sparks in early light.

It neatly ushers in the rather meditative but assuredly named "Distances" which in turn introduces "Contemplating" a piece that beguiles.

"Moving" possesses a certain jauntiness whilst "Aloft In The Arms Of Papa" is a delight of sun-drenched remembrance.

"Pour The Cup (For Sleep To Claim You)" betrays the conceit of no vocals, but only briefly as it delivers a wonderfully apposite consideration of his father's involvement as a chorister in the cavernous majesty of churches, with a few monastic choral motifs.

Bell-like and mesmerising.

"The Emergence Of Understanding" counterpoints a certain fleetingness against more sombre tones.

"Theme For A Lost Love" has all the ache inherent in a profoundly affecting lament.

"Crossing" heralds an insistent restlessness which fades like a slow goodbye.

"Emerging" reveals a brief burst of sorrow whilst "Empty Rooms" presents an achingly considered moment.

"Time And Tide" holds a certain panache that reflects upon the endless cascade of decades.

"Growing" marks the resurgence of the earlier "First Steps" a reprisal as conclusion to this musical journey.

Dreaming I Am Waking represents a work of profound yet effortless sensitivity, bravely unadorned it allows the listener the luxury of a natural response.

There are elements of Keith Jarrett, Satie, and Chopin.

Never cloying or overtly romanticised it is the perfect chill pill for dusk or for dawn.

A gentle exercise in emotional exorcism that deserves to be revered and cherished.

A considered intimation of love and respect.

A slight change of direction.

An effortless consolidation by a man at home with his craft.

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The New York Times' "Cringeworthy" Review of Dear Evan Hansen

Brandon Judell — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 03:08:08 +0000

The New York Times' "Cringeworthy" Review of Dear Evan Hansen Brandon Judell September 29, 2021 - 23:08

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Film Review

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drama

The New York Times' Jeanette Catsoulis is not a big fan of the film Dear Evan Hansen. She's not alone there. Others have grumbled that the 28-year-old Ben Platt is a bit long in the tooth to be playing a high schooler who hasn't been left back at least ten times. But that incomparable voice of Platt! Who'd want to miss out on that?

And to be able to see the actor who created a major role on stage recreate it on screen does carry some resonance. Who wouldn't saw off their left pinky to see Ethel Merman belt out "Everything’s Coming Up Roses" in Mervyn LeRoy's Gypsy (1962) as opposed to Rosalind Russell's slightly more phlegmatic take?

Yes, the screen can be unforgiving when it comes to hiding age, although Jesse Royce Landis played Cary Grant's mother in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and she was less than eight years older. Lucille Ball apparently was shot through heavy gauze for Mame, and who can forget Robert DeNiro's non-Botoxed youth-enizing in The Irishman?

What's problematic here is Catsoulis's analysis of Evan's character. She writes:

"Dear Evan Hansen is the story of a liar, an accomplished fabulist who uses a troubled classmate's self-harm to gain popularity. Yet the movie . . . wants us not only to sympathize with this character, but ultimately forgive him. That's a very big ask."

Catsoulis ends her assessment with: "Treacly and manipulative, Dear Evan Hansen turns villain into victim and grief into an exploitable vulnerability. It made me cringe." Kudos to director Stephen Chbosky for that.

Now anyone who has experienced the Broadway show or the film is immediately aware that Evan is a highly medicated, introverted, friendless youth lacking any socializing abilities. He is seeing a shrink who asks Evan to write letters to himself to help the teen break out of his shell and live his life at last. (Note: Evan sports a broken arm, for a reason that further shatters Catsoulis’s defective assessment of the tale.)

One day, a belligerent, emotionally challenged fellow student, Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), the brother of the girl Evan has a crush on, forcibly signs Evan’s cast, steals one of Evan’s letters, and within two days commits suicide. Connor’s parents discover Evan’s missive and falsely believe Connor wrote it to Evan.

Did Connor really have a friend? How come he never mentioned Evan? Why is Connor's name in big broad letters inscribed on Evan's cast?

The tongue-tied Evan keeps trying to tell the truth that he was not Connor's buddy, that he barely knew him, but Connor's mother (Amy Adams) wants none of that. With her sad puppy-dog eyes, she pleads with the teen to tell her the truth as she wants it to be. Consequently, he tells one lie about Connor and him spending a day in the woods together, climbing trees. This eventually leads to Evan creating more tales and correspondence supposedly between him and Connor, all done to salve the Murphys's grieving.

So where is Evan being a villain? Does he know his actions will transform him into a national hero for wounded souls once he makes a speech about Connor that goes viral on the Internet? Can he predict he will be taken in as an emotional replacement and given a seat at the table by the dead boy's family?

Evan is trying to be good, but he's a teenager. He's battered into celebrity. Events overcome his ability to control them. He's suddenly popular. He travels from unseen dweeb to applauded hero, and for a moment Evan is no longer a misfit.

Similarly, the aspiring drag queen in the other current teen-based musical in town, Everyone's Talking About Jamie, has his flaws. Jamie's continuously, at times aggravatingly, self-involved. For instance, he insists his best friend stop studying for her finals to help him with his eyebrows . . . but he's only 16, Ms. Catsoulis.

Of course, adults suffer from trying to be nice, too. Stefan Zweig wrote a great novel, Beware of Pity (1939), detailing how a single act of kindness based on an untruth can lead to tragedy. Radu Muntean's Intregalde, which is being showcased at this year's New York Film Festival, argues that without limitations, good intentions can sometimes lead to near-dire consequences.

But for an insightful response to Evan's journey, just read the 2016 critique from the Times's former theater critic Christopher Isherwood of the musical:

"As the title character in Dear Evan Hansen, a lonely teenager who inadvertently becomes a social media sensation and a symbol of the kindness that is often cruelly absent in high school hallways, the marvelous young actor Ben Platt is giving a performance that's not likely to be bettered on Broadway this season. . .

"His Evan is a startling jumble of exposed nerve endings. His eyes blink in continual embarrassment at the twisted pretzels of words that tumble from his mouth whenever he has to interact socially, which isn't often. He quails at the thought of having to make small talk with a pizza delivery guy. Underneath the thick layers of insecurity, however, Mr. Platt transmits the yearning heart and the desperation for affection -- or even just attention -- that ultimately gets Evan into deep trouble."

Mr. Isherwood ends his review with: "The show 'should . . . appeal to just about anyone who has ever felt, at some point in life, that he or she was trapped 'on the outside looking in,' as one lyric has it. Which is just about everybody with a beating heart."

With any film, folks can disagree with the casting, the direction, the screenplay, its length, and so forth, but to call Evan Hansen a "villain" makes one wonder what's beating within Ms. Catsoulis's chest.

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Sacred Sculptures

Webmaster — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 21:13:54 +0000

Sacred Sculptures Webmaster September 29, 2021 - 17:13

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Art Review

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sculptor

Tony Moore, Children of Light III 2017, Wood-fired ceramic, porcelain, steel, 62 ½’ x 29” x 29”

Tony Moore: Sacred Structures

Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Kleinert/James Center for the Arts

Woodstock, New York

Through October 3, 2021

"Paddling" is a term used by ceramic artists referring to the gentle patting and shaping of malleable clay forms with flattened wooden tools. The six large ceramic sculptures by English-American artist Tony Moore centering the two person exhibition Sacred Structures, curated by Osi Audu and with photographs by Kenro Izu at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, were whacked into shape using a 2 x 4 piece of wood. Displacing the masses of the six four hundred and fifty pound lumps of clay that were beaten, wire-cut, and stamped into the pieces on view, was an immersive process for Moore; one of passion and discovery grounded in his awe of Nature, which he has come to experience as an all-encompassing reality. Made during the cauldron of events that was 2017, these are works that were ultimately brought to life in the elemental fire of Moore's hybrid Anagama-Noborigama wood-fire kiln. He came away with an injured shoulder and nine monuments (six of which are in this show) inspired by a quote from Martin Luther King: "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."

Children of Light III 2017 (detail) Wood-fired ceramic, porcelain, steel, 62 ½’ x 29” x 29”

Monuments are typically larger than life and often commemorate heroes and achievements of the past. Moore's, which include steel pedestals of his own making, are scaled to human proportions and are, on one level, calls to action now. At the same time, the internal geometries of the formal elements of the finished pieces create relationships that intimate much larger structures. In them, viewers with creative imaginations will see huge natural and architectural configurations in their minds' eyes. There is an aura of timelessness emanating from these pieces summoning up echoes from the past... dwellings, hermit caves, ancient cultures and civilizations. Also summoned up are probing themes of evolution, justice, and the crises that currently face humanity.

Moore says that his approach to making this body of work was related to a seventeen year hiatus from sculpture beginning in the early 1980s when his creative focus was painting. Working on large canvasses on the floor, he came to view his paintings as "arenas of activity" where his art played itself out moment to moment. While the ongoing socio-political situation was an aspect of his awareness as he worked, many other factors entered in: personal history, prior works, and above all Nature, manifesting as growth, vitality, and energy as well as imagery.

Although his lengthy foray into painting was influenced by the sacred geometry of Newman and Rothko among others, his overriding goal has consistently been to supersede prior concepts and ways of expression. During his transitional period of the '80s and '90s, a new form of expression began to germinate -- one very much his own -- as Moore began seriously collecting ceramic art, eventually prompting a friend to ask, "What is this with you and clay?" One thing led to another and in 1997 he was offered a four and a half month ceramics residency at Byrdcliff. Having spent decades in the art world of Brooklyn, the experience was revelatory on many levels. Gone was the competitive, hustling environment of art in the city. Here was natural space, mind space, a supportive community, and the visceral process of sculpting with clay and fire.

While he was working his way through all this, Moore was also engaged in a psychological rite of passage, fending off depression and disillusionment through seeking wisdom and healing in Zen, Insight meditation, and various other therapies and disciplines. He states that from the beginning of his self-identification as an artist as a teenager to the present day, there has always been a spiritual dimension to his work. Though he earned a Masters Degree in Sculpture at Yale, and is well versed in art history, theory, and contemporary art developments, wrestling things out conceptually is only part of his practice; it is not the core. It is not unlike
the difference between being a scholar of spiritual traditions and an active practitioner who has internalized the essence of the teachings and put them into daily practice. He points out that ceramic art has its masters that pass down traditions. Moore has built upon and reinvigorated them to actualize his unique vision. So while Moore's sculptures can be decoded in various ways, they not only evoke but embody the trans-conceptual truths they convey. The artist's process is one of discovery rather than creation.

Injustice of Silence 2017 Wood-fired ceramic, porcelain, glass, steel 63” x 25” x 25”

Moore's piece "Injustice of Silence" bears the striated marks of the 2 x 4 which was used to pound its twisting and ascending form upwards. Stamps punctuate its surface, the letter forms silently intoning "Children of Light." The square imprints also punctuate the surface of clay building blocks that were literally hurled by the artist at the emerging writhing shape in a kind of madman's game of Jenga; the cubes and their message distorted in the energizing process. Working in this way is risky, there is no armature, the whole thing could have collapsed at any moment of misguided action. Yet Moore reports: that never happened.

Apparition 2017 Wood-fired ceramic, porcelain, glass, steel 60” x 29” x 29”

In another of the works in the show, entitled "Apparition," a reddish wave rises ominously above a small abstracted figure -- might it be a seal? Perhaps. The artist acknowledges the inevitability of visual associations while rejecting mimesis as limiting "ambiguity, aliveness, and engagement." The wave remains frozen in a moment of stasis, like the sculpture in its making, evoking the future forever emerging and calling on us to engage. - Carl Van Brunt

Mr. Van Brunt is a writer and independent curator, former owner of Van Brunt Gallery Beacon, and former gallery director of the Woodstock Artist Association and Museum.

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A Lost Way of Listening

Robert Cochrane — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 21:48:42 +0000

A Lost Way of Listening Robert Cochrane September 28, 2021 - 17:48

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Literary Review

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music

God Is In The Radio: Unbridled Enthusiasms 1980-2020 (Omnibus Press)

by Barney Hoskyns

Over the past four decades Barney Hoskyns has been a consistent chronicler of music, an arbiter of taste and a beacon of consistency. He writes with the passion of a true fan and the discretion of an astute critic. A perfect amalgam of the heart and the soul. This appositely entitled compendium of his musings. borrowed from The Queens Of The Stone Age, God Is In The Radio - Unbridled Enthusiasm is fifty pieces culled from forty years of sifting and discerning. Both an Aladdin's cave for the curious and a benchmark for the already initiated, it cuts through the years with an incisive enthusiasm as a crash course on the pitfalls and joy of the music industry. Hoskyns is equally at home writing of Frank Sinatra and Television. Steely Dan to Mary J Blige. Music to him is a universal force and categories are there to best ignored. Quality is paramount, and despite the variety of sounds he presents his readers with, they do not jar when collected under a single cover. A deft act in itself.

As a guide to appreciation he is the perfect scribe. Of that generation when music was a physical thing, something to be sought out, discovered and pondered over, his book is also an elegy to a disappearing way of listening. The digital age has reduced appreciation to a verbal demand. Evenings spent engrossed in album sleeves and the small print on 45s, the design of record labels and covers, are no longer a unifying experience. The presence of music is now a small speaker in the corner. Vinyl and compact discs are stored away in attics or cellars or given to charity shops, deemed as the physical clutter they sadly represent to a clinical mind. The relationship most now have with music is a fleeting one, new songs played as background, or listened to on phones. Like fine art reduced to a photocopy, something has been lost. A death of passion is evolving. If sex was a listening thing it would be a far less beguiling experience.

Hoskyn's passions are deep and committed. The title of the book encapsulates the loss. Before we were chained emotionally to keypads, the aural glimpse of a song from a radio, the waiting for something to arrive was enough, was all and was sufficient. It became something akin to possession and had to be found. A quest would evolve. Journeys would be made to listening posts and record stores. The object was one of desire and there was a kind of love at play. A need to own a song. Now everything is uber available much of that almost religious passion has flown. Hoskyns is the embodiment of such a fervour; his articles are prayers, hymns and parables, be their subject Tom Waits, The Beach Boys, Sly Stone, or Stevie Wonder. He desires music as a life enhancing force, something to share and inspire. Something to live for.

This book is a guide for those who wish to listen. A chronicle from an evolving world where hearing has become a fleeting experience, his words make one want to commune with the artistic offerings of someone you know only through their songs, preferably alone in a darkened room, or to animatedly talk to friends about -- to share, discover or remember. Perhaps the tortured briefness of the lives and outpourings of Sandy Denny and Judee Sill, the wistful eloquence of Sufjan Steven, or the grunge dynamics of Nirvana. Read an article at random and then go and buy the album. This is a wonderful swathe cut through the rich world of records and discs. A perfect bran tub of delights. Even as a download, this world of riches can still be yours.

A book that perfectly evolves, an air of suggestion, an index of rewarding possibilities.

An indication that passion yet remains.

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Love Songs

Millree Hughes — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Love Songs Millree Hughes September 27, 2021 - 10:00

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Art Review

Tags

paintings

Scenicscape, 2021 Oil on Linen Courtesy of the Artist and Fredericks & Freiser, NY

Jenna Gribbon: Uscapes

Fredericks & Freiser, NYC

September 9 - October 30, 2021

"In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Laura Mulvey, 1989

In many of Lisa Yuskavage's paintings we often see the female subject reacting to being looked at with detached self-consciousness. It's even more the case in John Currin's paintings where increasingly his women's glassy out-of-it ness seems almost satirical.

Jenna Gribbon's new show of paintings at Fredericks & Freiser are also about desiring a woman. But they are filled with the very present presence of the love object.

In the front gallery are a suite of large paintings on a single theme -- Gribbon's girlfriend Mackenzie Scott, creator of indie rock band Torres. We, the viewer, are in the place of the artist, our Mons Venus rising up to meet the lower third of the painting with Scott looking at/into us from between our legs. It's a moment of cunnilingus interruptus. A deeply intimate moment. On a plateau of desire for both parties with options on how to proceed. This journey from arousal to orgasm is finite for men (the ultimate beginning, middle and end narrative) there's no room for sensually endowed downtime between orgasms. No room for imagining the paint quickened by the Waters of Yin.*

Sometimes the large paintings take on the composition of the Yoni.

Gribbon's legs playing the role of the labia majora while her lover's arms balancing on her knees, completes the diamond shape, turning McKenzie's head into the clitoris. Her mind and the artist's body as one, in the pursuit of pleasure.

Three characteristics intermix to separate her work from the work of other mimetic painters. It is loose; as if working fast and still being accurate proves that figuration does not have to be the laborious re-representation of reality. It could be something new, something fresh. Gribbon's great skill at rendering form makes a beautiful woman magically appear on this glossy surface, like Vivian's^ the Lady of the Lake.

Secondly the camera is constantly in play, not as the replacer of representational painting but as its servant. She exploits how the camera phone has infiltrated our most intimate realities so that we almost don’t notice it. Blorking# the image can push its contrast or light levels. And photos can help an artist speed up choices about form and light from different perspectives.

Thirdly, she has absorbed the lessons of abstraction. A field of yellow splodges a "spot painting" anywhere else, is also blossom here, giant yellow ornamental onion gone to seed. Abstraction's instantness is used so that the image can be read just for what it is initially, loose marks or patterns of marks on a surface.

Full bloom moon, 2021 Oil on Linen Courtesy of the Artist and Fredericks & Freiser, NY Photography by Adam Reich.

Jenna's pallette in the first room -- the statement room -- is flesh, pink and beige. Lilac in the shadows on a leg or saffron yellow reflexive light, bounced onto a tummy. And behind the figure a darkened room in green gray, spot lit by an iPhone flash. Mauve dusk and the first rays of morning after a night of sex

In the back room her color range opens out again. Gribbons is all sunlit gardens and interiors that flash with objects that are sometimes just flickers of colored paint. Mackenzie is still the subject as the artist wonders at all the ways that she can "be."

The show is a love song. Painted in an oily caress. The loved one in your viewpoint, your sights (like a wild doe), under surveillance, in adoration, every way that you can look.

The smaller paintings are not a vision of women behaving badly, not if they're really free to be themselves. What's "bad" about that? Without caveats about tummy fat and saggy boobs and all the murderous demands that the media makes on "the female" form.

The artist doesn't "own" her. muse. This is a woman and a woman after all, the ancient rules of the dominant male and his mate don't have to apply. Jenna Gribbon side steps the detaching or reifing tendency of erotic painting by reducing the distance between the subject and the viewer both physically and emotionally. We know that the subject knows she's being seen but she’s not in thrall to the gaze. She's not posing or acting

The "gazer" has just touched the subject. It just happened, the loved one is in mid touch. And the artist is the toucher not just the viewer. Reification hasn't had TIME to happen.

* Each of the Five Elements has a Yin (feminine) and a Yang (masculine). WATER nurtures wood and is absorbed by it (trees and plants). Water puts out fire. The yin (feminine) energy is a lake or pond, deep water or ebbing tide.

^Viviane is a corruption of the Welsh word chwyfleian (also spelled hwimleian, chwibleian, et al., in medieval Welsh sources), meaning "a wanderer of pallid countenance."

#Blorking a slang term used on the FB Page Involuntary Painting about an image, pushed and distorted by the phone's various filters

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Touring with Turing & The Lost Language of Queens

Robert Cochrane — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:02:46 +0000

Touring with Turing & The Lost Language of Queens Robert Cochrane September 26, 2021 - 20:02

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The Turing Monologue - Joshua Val Martin - Manchester, UK

In the centre of Manchester a curious statue resides in Sackville Park at the heart of the city's gay village. A man on a bench, attired in an old fashioned suit is contemplating an apple. The work is life-size and depicts Alan Turing, scientist and wartime code-breaker, 1912-1954, who was given the option of prison on account of his homosexuality, then illegal, or to undergo chemical castration. After a year of horrendous hormonal treatments which ruined his libido and made him develop breasts, he committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple, a neat reference to his favourite film Snow White & The Seven Dwarves and a charming insight into the humanity and humour of a man who has shaped the world of computers and our own via his research. Turing, now a national treasure has been posthumously pardoned for his tragic victimisation, but he was only one of many gay men who were consumed by a society whose disapproval was tantamount to a witch hunt. His portrait now adorns the back of the the UK's £50 note, that and his name on streets would rightly seem rather queer to him, along with his immortalised likeness in an area that celebrates the love for which he was so callously punished.

Writer & performer Joshua Val Martin has for the past six years, every Thursday in sunshine, or the more likely Manchester downpour, sat with Turing at 11 am. An odd couple of metal and flesh. The statue is the meeting point for his guided tours around the city and during these, with his writer's eye for oddness, he has collected a raft of details now woven into a sometimes affectionate, occasionally exasperated, monologue. Via his enterprising initiative he encountered the mother of a Uruguayan rugby player, two tax men on leave from their snooping but with a penchant for rubber wear, and Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher. He has also become a beacon for the dispossessed, the mad and those with nothing better to do, as well as becoming the focus of a rival walking tour with calamitous consequences.

His tales are both small and tall, but very funny as he presents the audience with a series of verbal postcards and polaroids. It is a touching idea that could be done with equal pathos in any metropolis, but for him he has the ghost of the unfortunate Mr. Turing by his side. Wry, enjoyable and laced with pathos, it is a wonderful first half of an unusual but inspired evening.

photo: Lee Baxter

DOUBLE-ENDER - Joshua Val Martin & Jez Dolan

16th-18th September - The Edge Theatre, Manchester

4th September - Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield

30th September - The Met Theatre, Bury

14th October - Oldham Coliseum Theatre

When artist and writer Jez Dolan takes the stage one is quickly enveloped in a lost world and language. Part lecture, part stand-up routine, he unveils the hidden language of Polari, a mixture of foreign words, rhyming slang, and a vast assortment of influences, the coded means of communication gay men used to avoid a consequence like Turing's. It is also rich and illuminating. Words like "vada" meant "look," "eek" was the face, "riah" a back spelling for" hair," and "dolly" was "nice." To steal a line from Quentin Crisp, an icon that crops up in the proceedings, and who died just a few streets away at the start of a national tour, the evening becomes "a straight talk from a bent speaker." Touching and at times haunting, an elegy for a lost world, there is laughter imbued with tragedy. Aids, marginalisation, death and otherness. The way times have for most, thankfully changed. With acceptance though much has sadly been lost because it is no longer necessary to be covert.

Hugely informative and bitingly funny his observations never labour their point, nor does it fall foul of being overtly political. Dolan resembles a rather naughty teacher, the kind we all remember with affection because their classes were something to look forward to.

It can only be hoped that this production is taken further afield.

Both monologues have an ability to transcend their locality being sourced in the universality of human nature.

The audience wandered out with a smile on their faces and a fair few reflections to consider.

A wonderful evening of informative fun, simple, affecting and enriching.

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“Is Mom a Witch?” “Is Twincest Kosher?” and “Why Does That Monk Have an Arrow Fetish?”

Brandon Judell — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:01:15 +0000

“Is Mom a Witch?” “Is Twincest Kosher?” and “Why Does That Monk Have an Arrow Fetish?” Brandon Judell September 23, 2021 - 20:01

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Warning! Humans should tread carefully into the oft inflammatory cinema of Bruce LaBruce. Very carefully. However, if you like your coffee black, your politics darker, and your director Canadian, he might just be your cup of java.

To quote myself, a task leaving me more time for the treadmill: "Mr. LaBruce, for the uninitiated, is a man . . . and a highly subversive one at that with a cult following. Yes, for over two decades, this queer underground filmmaker has shocked and entertained with his tongue-in-cheek-and-elsewhere oeuvre."

His Hustler White (1996) "stars an ex-beau of Madonna's in an ode to L.A. male prostitution that includes a white, very blond boytoy being consensually gangbanged by a very long line of African American hunks. Think of Trader Joe's on Sunday afternoon. Gerontophilia (2013) focuses on a young gent discovering he has the hots for the male geriatric clientele of a nursing home. Then Otto; or, Up with Dead People (2008) chronicles with a gory finesse the plight of a carnivorous, neo-Goth gay zombie."

And please don't forget The Misandrists (2018), an unrestrained tale about a cloistered group of man-haters that includes such telling lines as: "We must tell the world to wake up and smell the estrogen" and "Remember, girls, the closest way to a man's heart is through his chest." Dust off that hacksaw.

While I am at it -- and while you’re not here to restrain me -- LaBruce, who received a career retrospective at no less than Museum of Modern Art in 2015, penned the following exchange between two besotted radicals for his ode to anarchism, The Raspberry Reich (2004):

"Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses."

"I thought opiates were the opiate of the masses."

So much for Marxism.

Politics, however, are pretty much pushed aside in LaBruce’s latest act of celluloid subversion, Saint-Narcisse (SN). Here, instead, the nuclear family, societal narcissism, and religious leaders are pummeled into a tasty brew of nervy eroticism, campy theatrics, and demented mythology.

LaBruce's mise-en-scène is straight out of the Hammer Production/Peter-Cushing films of the '70s (e.g. To the Devil . . . A Daughter). This makes sense especially because the action here takes place in the '70s, and yes, there is cigarette smoking.

The film opens with a full-screen closeup of a black-denimed crotch belonging to a leather-jacketed young gent manspreading at an all-night Montreal laundromat. Seated in front of a dryer, Dominic (the desirable Félix-Antoine Duval) is watching his grandmother's brassiere and other goodies get tumbled-dried. Seated next to our hero is an attractive blonde in a miniskirt. Before you can spell "Downy," the two are madly copulating to the tune "Where Evil Grows" by The Poppy Family. Is this a foreshadowing? Of course.

Soon a crowd gathers on the street outside to watch the carnal carryings-on inside. Dominic sees them but, being a fledging exhibitionist, he doesn’t care until he sees a monk in full getup staring at him, a monk who just might have his face.

Oh, no! Is this a fantasy? As you decide, the opening credits roll by, making what you’ve just witnessed a sort of cinematic foreplay.

Meandering home, Dominic repeatedly takes Polaroids of himself and hands them out to strangers. One is gifted to a rather aggressive, semi-blind female streetwalker. (If you know the Narcissus legend, think Tiresias.) This low-rent sex worker suddenly grabs the lad and prophesizes: "If you want to live a long life, handsome, never try to know yourself."

Then it's back home for quick chat with grandma.

Grandma: When are you going to get married? You need a family.

Dominic: You are my family.

Well, that's true just for a few minutes. Because after Dominic photographs himself masturbating in front of the bathroom mirror, she expires rather quickly.

The distraught grandson doesn't have long to mourn because as he’s going through the papers his beloved relative has left behind, he discovers the letters from the mother he thought was dead. Yes, the mother he never met post-birth has been writing letters to him all along. She's alive!

Quickly, Dominic rides away on a motorcycle in search his parent, who lives in the woods and is said to be a witch by the locals, but she just might only be a lesbian. The two eventually have a reunion and hug while our hero is butt naked, which makes sense because the last time he saw Mom, he was buck naked, too, although with his umbilical cord still attached.

Meanwhile, not far away from this get-together is a monastery run by a pederastic priest (Andreas Apergis) with a Saint-Sebastian fetish who has the hots for Dominic’s lookalike monk. Remember him? But is this young man Dominic or his twin or an unrelated doppelgänger? And when a young gal living with Mom tells Dominic to go "F" himself, are there complex implications to that rather common colloquialism that we have to reconsider? Can Dominic actually F himself . . . or is he copulating with a twin?

With superb period production design by Alex Hercule Desjardins complimented by Valérie Gagnon-Hamel's equally astute costuming, and accompanied by Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux's sinister musical notes, Saint-Narcisse is never less than a hoot and a half. Erotic, mirthful, ambisexual, and rather clever in its use of the past to expose the modern penchant for self-absorption and religious hypocrisy, LaBruce has out-LaBruced himself once again.

(Film Movement premiered Bruce LaBruce's Saint-Narcisse at New York City's Quad Cinema this past month as well as via virtual cinema.)