Next: thanks for the vernissage - my neck has been kind of stiff lately (13)
dorsch gallery, edge zones
Post #419 • December 1, 2004, 11:03 AM • 24 Comments
Observed this past weekend at Dorsch Gallery, Harumi Abe.
Lucas Blanco.
Ramon Fernandez-Bofil, checking in from RISD. I'm not sure about this one - I miss the color from his earlier work, but this guy can sure put material down.
Elisabeth Condon. Enough people make landscapes characterized by the use of elements appropriated from wide swaths of visual culture that we can now consider it a genre, and I believe Condon ranks among its best practitioners.
Jordan Massengale. Whoa. The color idea seems interesting but this painting looks too strange to function.
Alex di Pietra.
Brian Reedy, going Celtic and amping up his color to good effect.
Carolina Salazar. I miss the figures but adore what she included.
Claudia Scalise.
Kerry Ware, working with pegs inserted into the board. What can I say? We got the realest of the deals right here at Dorsch.
At Edge Zones in the World Arts Building, Chad Abel.
I'm almost sure this guy's name is Neil Bender. Correct me if I'm wrong. Churning Gustonish piles of flesh: I was impressed.
David Rohn. I usually like Rohn's paintings, which I liken somewhat to those of Robert Colescott in their deliberate naivete. I just wish he would amp them up to the intensity of his hilarious, consummately convincing performance work.
David Vardy.
Performance by the ladies of Slapdown. We need a term for entertainment that only makes sense in the context of an art gallery. This was a gas. I particularly enjoyed, on a conceptual level, the dueling versions of Frida Kahlo (not pictured).
A good time was had by all.
2.
December 1, 2004, 9:30 PM
Hey! Thanks for mentioning us! -Frida (the one in the black dress)
3.
December 1, 2004, 9:33 PM
Yes, please post one of the Bethea paintings; they are excellent - real painting, for once. The other Ware pic is better by far than the one you posted - also, in the gallery, the orange dowels blend more valuewise and that helps. Congdon is something of a discovery for me - interesting pictures, nicely put together. Show real skill (How often does this happen? Answer: almost never). The Blanco picture is very nice; skill, once again, and a strong feeling of imbued light. There were better Franklin pix in his show. The Salazar painting is insipid. Bofill was onto something with his last paintings; this cloth piece is not well organized. Massengale is so talented and so all over the place; this one should have been left on the cutting room floor. Why do the Abel and Bender pieces look like 2D/3D versions of each other? I could do without either.
4.
December 1, 2004, 10:04 PM
Dorsch Show:
what exactly is the color idea in Massangale's piece?(I'm not being a wiseguy, I really want to know.)
Ware's painting is an interesting use of medium although I haven't decided whether the pegs attract or distract.
Lucas's still lifes are airy and refreshing.
I love Alex's work but why doesn't Dorsch show some of her newer stuff, assuming she has newer stuff.
Condon's colors and swirling shapes keep the eye moving at an entertaining pace and I choose to view it abstractly rather than as a landscsape.
I don't get Bofil's piece. It's raggedy and doesn't feel like it should be. Incomplete and doesn't feel like it should be. Muddy and doesn't feel like it should be. Basically, I rather it just wouldn't be.
It's time for something new from Claudia Scalise.
Harumi does have nice colors.
Reedy's prints are comical, as I suppose they aspire to be.
Salazar would fit in nicely at Rocket Projects, I'm not sure what that means.
Finally, where's Trowbridge? I thought one of his stronger pieces was the one at the show where he incorporated sanding down some of the surface. Giving the piece some age, history and texture. Also where are you Franklin? I saw your pieces their too. And I don't remember Bethea's piece. anyway I guess you have to limit your pics/picks.
Overall it was a pretty complete show, eventhough I've seen stronger work from many of these artists.
Edge Zones:
didn't see it.
5.
December 1, 2004, 10:36 PM
The best piece by Lucas Blanco and and the best one by John Bethea were both tucked away inside Brook's office, where most people didn't see them. Condon's other painting was stronger than the one shown above. Ramon F-B has done much better than the piece in this show, which disappointed me; I hope it's just a passing experimental phase.
The WAB show was suitably Baseloid, assuming that was the idea. A couple of large abstract paintings caught my eye but apparently not Franklin's; I think the artist's name is Rosario Rivero Bond.
6.
December 1, 2004, 10:39 PM
Thank you Guy and Old Pro for requesting the posting of one of my pieces.
Very brief comment on the show: Blanco,Ware, and Condon's paintings held up best for me, probably in that order. Blanco really does something with reflecd light. This is more evident in a couple of the paintings that never made the show but can be seen in Brooks office. Ware is on the verge of really doing something, theses are better than what I've seen lately and make me really look forward to his show in January. Massengale may be the biggest dissapointment, only because I believe he's loaded with talent.
7.
December 1, 2004, 10:42 PM
Jack: John Bethea is my brother/famous neuroscientist. George Bethea is my name, the painter in the show.
8.
December 1, 2004, 11:04 PM
Sorry, George. A little neurologic slip.
9.
December 1, 2004, 11:38 PM
The work shown seems very uneven, which is my take of Brook's exhibits. The overdone bit is very BFA(Abe, Blanco, Bofil) and the underdone is MFA level (Ware, Pietra). The Condon piece seems fresh and lively. I do agree with Franklin about Rohn's paintings, they're average and he's a much better artist than what he puts on canvas. The Salazar is a knock-off Laura Owens, which will probably get her everywhere in these times.
10.
December 2, 2004, 12:16 AM
Frank: what do you mean by overdone and underdone?
11.
December 2, 2004, 12:28 AM
While we're waiting for those definitions . . . I won't be making it to Dorsch or Basel, so I've consoled myself with, among other things, the December issue of Food & Wine, which has a short piece by Jennifer Rubell yes that Rubell about Art Basel. Her first sentence:
"A man and a woman, both bald and dressed in red vinyl suits with matching heels and lipstick, walk hand in hand past a crowd of art collectors, gallery owners and partygoers in the Miami Beach Convention Center."
So I sez to myself I sez, "Franklin, you old zendog, do you have a new girlfriend?"
Toasted Head early today!
And so off-topic. I'll go now.
JdB
12.
December 2, 2004, 12:29 AM
And how can someone be "a much better artist than what he puts on canvas."?
You are only as good as what you do, after all.
13.
December 2, 2004, 12:29 AM
By the way, the comment form looking screwed up is what real computer people call a Known Issue. It works fine.
14.
December 2, 2004, 12:32 AM
Franklin may have a new girlfriend, Jerome, but I don't think he has a red vinyl suit.
15.
December 2, 2004, 2:19 AM
Franklin: Thanks for posting the pic and to the others for commenting about it.
Frank: Being over or underdone isn't the real question to ask of a painting. I wasn't cooking a steak, but making a picture.
16.
December 2, 2004, 4:56 AM
Franklin, Thanks for mentioning Slapdown! I am glad you had fun. -the Other Frida
17.
December 2, 2004, 3:44 PM
op: --And how can someone be "a much better artist than what he puts on canvas."?
David Rohn is an artist that works in many disciplines. I think his performance work is stronger than the paintings he puts out, as well as his sculpture or even his installation work.
The overdone/underdone issue maybe was stated vaguely. Some of the work in the show i feel is overblown; the artist didn't know when to stop and say when. Whereas other work doesn't have enough for me, enough being work, thought, effort, design, etc. It's just an observation.
Did everyone visit the Basel Art Fair? Any surprises?
18.
December 2, 2004, 4:14 PM
Lucas: Making a picture is what you do with a camera. You're making a painting.
And I think your paintings are almost there because you have the skill and show great sensitivity to color choices, composition, and paint handling. Your subject matter is fine too, but with your paint handling it puts you into a Morandi box that you may not wish to be in. Maybe it's the scale...imagine if your still-life was really large, 6'x10' say. Or maybe it's a question of format, the 3:4 ratio rectangle.
19.
December 2, 2004, 5:12 PM
Frank:
When you make a painting you make a picture. That's a hair that doesn't need splitting.
And making a painterly still life hardly puts anyone in a "Morandi box". Morandi did not patent painterly still life, and Blanco's still lifes are hardly Morandian in the first place. He also may feel that the contemporary obsession for stylistic claim-staking is not for him, and that he is not interested in altering his work solely to provide distance between himself and some other artist. If so, more power to him.
20.
December 2, 2004, 5:15 PM
Frank, I'll stay in the "Morandi box" a bit longer until I've exhausted what he can teach me, which is a lot. His is a box that opens out instead of narrows off. The scale and format suggestions are appreciated but in the end negligible.
21.
December 2, 2004, 5:46 PM
op: You're right, more power.
Split all the hairs you want, but for me a painting is an object that occupies space. I think of a picture is an image --picture of health, mental picture, motion picture--something not really there --light, film. So to me they are two different things.
22.
December 2, 2004, 6:19 PM
I think that paintings can be viewed as objects. In Western painting, a good example would be an icon or devotional image from the Middle Ages.
Sometimes paintings are meant to be viewed pictorially. . . like looking through windows.
I think that both are valid. A lot my favorite paintings function both ways.
23.
December 4, 2004, 2:55 AM
with regards to Bofill's work
sometimes its not "merely" about looking
you need to read it as well
24.
December 7, 2004, 11:16 AM
If your a painter and you want to please your buddies just jocky/ look at Olitzky, or Auerbach, or Thiebaud, or Freud or Richter or even Zoomorphic Interlace and emotialy charged culturally specific mark making - or Owens, Brown and other formidable artists and emulate their work in order to make pretty decent wall furnature.
Now Ware has got something - perhaps boring, easily dismissable, and difficult to place. His work demands visual effort - possibly, this has something to do with the use of materials he's chosen to comingle. Yet his paintings provolk rather than please and parch the aesthetic taste buds of most art junkies in search of art that provides a self reflective gratification called (always bias and projected) taste.
- this is good, thats bad, thats allright , this is pretty cool, nice piece, she's talented, thats the best painting, her's is great, he sucks, he's getting better, I like that one, blog, blog blog...
1.
that guy in the back row
December 1, 2004, 9:00 PM
Thanks for posting these. At Dorsch: The Kerry Ware piece is the strongest of the bunch. the Harumi Abe piece seems a bit cluttered up but the sense of color isn't bad. Did you photograph the larger Bethea piece in the show, please post it if you did.
The world arts building show is weak. That space deserves a real show but first they need to find a decent curator. That lady in white and green who is getting tossed around is an old photo professor of mine.