An observation on a line for
Henry Chapman

The now untitled piece, as it stands in front of the
studio, looks as if a moment of self-awareness took a
toll on the organic nature of the mark. The space
within the painting has been modify countless of times
since its beginning stage; as it stands now the
texture of the piece, its viscosity and its color make
a harmonious play with the various planes in the
composition. What I notice to be a visual problem is
the top side of the purple-gray plane on the left. The
edge, in this painting being one of the most important
qualities, has been modified in a way unprecedented to
any other mark. The patterns of the wavy brushstrokes,
that are neither sharp nor translucent, have an
attitude in the painting that appears foreign. The
lack of conviction in the sharpness of the line fails
to make the space move or recede, while the more
organic and natural lines of the right contradict its
form.
Whether it is a matter of opinion, I suggest a close
consideration of the purple-gray form. There is a
constant through out the piece and the playfully
fabricated edge is not outrageous enough to make an
impact or modest enough to harmonize.

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The Retrospective

What should a senior show be? This is a common question that has many correct answers, all with legitimate arguments. What causes this question to be brought up so often, then, comes down to the execution, the curation and presentation of the work.

SOFIAPORIA, Sofia Berenstein's show (2nd floor lobby, April 21-26), is an example of the less common Retrospective. She has hung all of her work, from film and digital photography to paintings and etchings, in a novel format involving constructed walls that turn the uncomfortable 2nd floor lobby into a more traditional white-walled corridor. Though some of the construction details are sloppy, for temporary structures the walls work very well, and Berenstein's taking control of the space is admirable and well done. Entering the space by walking up the stairs, one sees that she has even used the walls around the staircase. Guided by the new walls, one then passes through a pleasant hallway gallery of her cleanly presented analog photography. Once the hallway ends the curation becomes immediately suspect. The Retrospective is suddenly thrust upon the unsuspecting observer; an odd etching here, a painting there, a dash of photogravure and a nice large digital photo for garnish. There is a door in the wall – do we open it? I did, and discovered another painting unrelated to the first. Is the door part of the painting? Was that just a convenient place to hang it? Are these recycled walls with a door left in them? Oh, Sofia, what have you done?

Berenstein's exhibit is stuck between two intents, unable to happily compromise. Had she gone with a more focused photography show, the paintings and etchings could go, the photos given a little more room, and it would have been a strong, functional whole. Had she been able to accept her retrospective, the photos could have been edited down and the other work organized a little more carefully, and it would be a successful survey. Even more separation may have worked, to make the analog photos completely and obviously severed from the rest, to save the viewer the confusion of trying to understand their connection. As it is, the confusion remains. 

The Moral

Whether you decide to have a show of recent work, thematic work, single-medium work, violet work, collaborative work, or all your work, remember to consider the exhibit as a whole and resist the urgings of pride.


Will

Note – I'm not sure if the photogravures were in fact photogravures, but they were definitely a different type of work. Please excuse any ignorant mislabeling.

about one of next week's show

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey,

I'm Ben(jamin Santiago) I'm part (1/3) of the show on the 6th Floor
opening on Tuesday (The ORIGINAL NEW ADDITION). I have been following
the show reviews on this site, and I'm interested in what you guys(Will
and Henry) would have to say about our show, especially since I don't
know you guys.

peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeace,
ben

Luke Janson - So Good?

Cooper's house style is made up of things that are "great" for their
absurdity, their outrageous colors, or their vintage pop culture. Giant
Doritos, odes to Michael Jordan, fluorescent 3D paintings, and other
seemingly random things have been exhibited for their "Oh man!" factor -
a combination of "Isn't this silly?" and "That's so funny!" Beyond a
nostalgic giggle, these works have little to give.

Luke Janson superficially seems to fall into this trap as well;
rainbows, cartoons, and joints populate the gallery, various oversized
phalluses humorously interrupt the viewer's space. The first clue to his
ascension over the "Oh man!" mold is that each piece is excellently
crafted: the arm sculptures are very clean; the barber-pole-man could be
from Toys-R-Us, if they stocked that sort of thing; each painting is
fully worked with apparent intention.

The paintings, in fact, are the simplest way to find the complexity in
Janson. He has developed a vocabulary of styles, each alluding to
specific parts of art history, and collages them in each large canvas to
meet different ends.

There is the "Picture in Picture" canvas, the image shown layered on top
of scale-up versions of itself. Among its historical references are
Holbein's famous skull transformed into a soccer ball, a dripping
Dali-esque appendage, and a pointillist field and figure. These are
mixed with video game details such as the gun-toting hand of a
first-person shooter and floating power-up icons. The other three
paintings might be "Graffiti Interfering With Color-Field/Hard-Edge
Abstractions", "Picasso Gets Metaphysical With Monty Python and Nintendo Basketball", and "Bonnard's Dog Abused By Dali".

The most interesting detail, in three of these four works, is the
sparing placement of colorful globs of paint along the edges of the
canvas. This tiny addition changes the paintings enormously; they are
suddenly active, living, pooling up at the edges and nearly escaping
into the world, to scuttle away or even to capture something new to
bring back. Janson's ability to activate his work (apparent in
everything but "Bonnard's Dog") is the key to this show's success.

Unlike the paintings, which have their allusions to fall back on, the
sculptures in the show rely completely on being somehow infused with
life, so that they are not only observed, but watched. The Great
Galloping Tongue is immediately noticed for its fan and rapid inflation,
but the real interest is at the very tip. Following the gently curved
body we find this curious, wagging end, so eagerly wagging that we fear
it escaping its leash. Opposite is the Nose, the big, rough, drunkard's
nose, gently blurred by its own vibration. Again, this piece feels
restrained, as if it were captured rather than created. Standing near
these works for too long creates a growing sense of foreboding in the
viewer, though it is unimaginable what might happen.

Is Janson's show funny? Yes, but this is only the beginning of its
appeal. He proves that the absurd is not necessarily ridiculous, that
there are greater rewards than a chuckle. Underclassmen, please take
note, everything may not be "so good!"


Will

Leslie Martinez, "Give Us This Day, Our Daily Bread," 7th Floor

I can't offer a credible interpretation of these words from the book of Matthew, "give us this day, our daily bread," from which Leslie Martinez extracts the title of her exhibition. But I did spend a lot of time looking at the painting on the wall opposite from the other work, at the top of which sits a watermelon—a watermelon which is not one, because it is also teeth, or a hole, or a shiny unnamable prize. And it seems like a plausible reading of the work to see this shiny prize metaphorically, to see it as both the daily bread and the daily work in which Ms. Martinez is engaged. In this way, her work speaks of a kind of commitment, attention and care that is hard to ignore.

You get what I mean? 

I doubt very many artists at Cooper would find the source of their exhibition title in the bible, and I know I would find enough reasons not to go there. (First of all, my only copy of the bible is called the "Student Edition.")  But she goes there. And the work goes there, too. Fearlessly. To throw a few adjectives at it, the work is narrative, elaborate, painstaking. It's illustrative. Compositionally, much of the work reminds me of Mark Alan Stamaty's "Who Needs Donuts?" in its cluttered masses of figures and shapes. I don't mean that negatively, as to lower it to the level of a children's book—as if the "level of a children's book" or of "Donut's" were lower— but some might see it as such, and see the work as such.

I don't think it can be ignored that the 7^th floor lobby poses a few problems as an exhibition space, in part because the artist has to battle with John Hejduk's columns and Louise Nevelson's anniversary present, but also because of windows, outlets, strange lighting, size, and other irritating distractions. I think those distractions really take away from the work here but I also can't think of where else the work might go in this building. Certainly the show would feel sparse in the Houghton Gallery, and I've heard the argument about this work that it needs to be very tightly packed. I may just like sparse shows (see: La Mama Gallery) but I'm also skeptical of that argument. How tightly packed do they need to be? Space, and less distractions, might allow the work to breathe in a way that the 7th floor lobby doesn't afford.

Henry