So Cliché

Glenn Fry, Snap out of it, hand-pulled serigraph on paper, 38” x 30,” edition of 8. Courtesy of Gallery Plan B.

Serigraphs by Glenn Fry
Gallery Plan B
1530 14th Street
Wed – Sat 12pm-7pm Sun 1pm-5pm

Sometimes it seems that the art world has become so jaded that it can only accept work that is depressing and antagonizing. This is not entirely the fault of art professionals; there is a lot in the world that is antagonizing and depressing, and artists as observers tend to notice the problems that exist in this world in a more acute way. Glenn Fry is a rebel against this tradition. Glenn Fry might even be labeled an optimist. It is not that Fry’s work denies the evils and temptations that threaten human existence, but he still has faith in humanity’s ability to overcome such obstacles.

In his current exhibition, Serigraphs by Glenn Fry at Gallery Plan B, Fry presents to us a collection of hand-pulled serigraphs, which look like a combination between advertisements and inspirational college dorm posters. Although it might look like Fry has taken his images from old ads, he actually carefully stages each work with models and then photographs them. Fry then pairs these carefully constructed compositions with his own words. Snap out of it is an image of a young black man wearing a suit and tie, snapping his fingers. The man is blue, the background is brown and orange with a small stripe of bright green in the upper right for balance, the word “snap” is yellow (according to the rules of design this is always the first color we see) and the rest of the text is black. The image is taken from below, making the man seem authoritative and confident. His expression is intense, but concerned and kind. Fry uses every design and advertisement rule in the book, but instead of manipulating us into buying things Fry uses the rules to reach out and offer a friendly slap in the face.

It would be easy to discard Fry’s prints as cheap corporate attempts to make some corny cash… if they were sold in a bookstore. The time and effort put into each of these hand-crafted prints, coupled with the fact that they are exhibited in a gallery, are crucial to classifying these works as fine art. The artist Marcel Duchamp made the point that exhibition in a gallery elevates objects to a godly status that they would not otherwise possess. Most art critics have always believed that this is a bad thing, but in fact, the position that the gallery holds is very important and can be used for good. Love is a framed print that contains a red heart with the word “love” in yellow letters on a gray background. This is a prime example of how Fry’s works share knowledge that might otherwise be written off as cliché and intuitive: many times when we are deep in our own worlds, we lose track of the fact that we do frame “love,” and put it on a wall, and never consider what that means. Duchamp put a shovel in a museum and called it art to remind us that even a shovel has beauty and deserves reflection—Fry offers cliché moments.

-Ophra Paul

Serigraphs by Glenn Fry is on view at Gallery Plan B until July 18.

Creation

Untitled (gestation). 2008-09, 100 hand-carved alabaster sculptures, dimensions variable. Photo by Brandon Webster.

Ami Martin Wilber: gestation
Flashpoint
916 G Street NW
Tuesday—Saturday, 10—6pm

Ami Martin Wilber’s recent show gestation at Flashpoint features one hundred alabaster stones installed directly on the floor to form a circle. The gallery is fairly dark upon entering as the installation is lit by a single light. The word gestation refers to the carrying of an embryo inside a female animal’s body, otherwise known as pregnancy. Wilber worked daily on the stones and completed them over a period of nine months.

Untitled (gestation) encourages both movement and mediation. Visitors are encouraged to sit down on the floor to observe the work. The minimal installation also allows visitors to comfortably move throughout the space to view the work from different parts of the gallery.

From a position on the floor, the stones appear to be light, cloudlike and closely positioned. This view emphasizes the installation as a whole and the layered texture of the stones created by the Wilber’s arrangement. However, standing beside the installation and looking downwards drastically changes the texture of the stones. From this position the space between each stone becomes part of the sculpture and the irregularities in the material are emphasized. For instance, all the stones initially appear to be same soft white, but different tones of gray, pink and brown emerge.

Wilber’s installation is remarkably beautiful and, overall, encourages a peaceful, contemplative state. Wilber, however, creates a tension by making the stones rather approachable. The approximately 5 x 3 inch size of each provokes the childlike desire to grab a stone and disturb the order of the work.

At the front of the gallery, Wilber also has several small drawings on view, which replicate the shapes found in Untitled (gestation). Like the installation, the repetition of shapes suggests order but the drawings are not exact. The implied movement found in the installation also appears in the drawings.

Wilber’s installation succeeds when given ample amount of viewing time. Like her process of working, the installation requires a patient and thoughtful approach and, fortunately, Flashpoint quietly caters to this method.

-Alison Reilly

Ami Martin Wilber: gestation is on view at Flashpoint until July 18.

Home Sweet Home?

new. (now)
Hamiltonian Gallery
1353 U Street NW
Tue – Sat 12pm – 6 pm

Transitioning from the structured guidance that colleges and universities offer, to the real world where everything is what you make of it, can seem an impossible mountain to climb. Hamiltonian Gallery offers a hand to a few lucky artists. Every year Hamiltonian accepts portfolios from emerging artists—the majority of whom have recently graduated from an MFA program—and has a panel of experts in the arts choose the most promising individuals. Hamiltonian provides their ‘fellows’ with a small stipend, guaranteed exhibition space and mentors to guide them into maturity as artists.

The current exhibit at Hamiltonian “new. (now).” showcases selected works from the submitted portfolios of the five new fellows. Although there is no requirement for unity in theme or media between the fellows when they are chosen, it seems that all of this year’s fellows have chosen to deal with space and the human relationship to space in some capacity.

Magnolia Laurie, she said: "The extremes are easy, only the middle is a puzzle," 2008, 24 x 24 inches, oil on panel. Courtesy of Hamiltonian Gallery.

Magnolia Laurie’s soothing, earthy-colored thin layers of paint construct abstract landscapes that are subtly cataclysmic. Laurie’s lyrical titles are often derived from things she has been reading, and she likens her small and intimate paintings to poems. Laurie believes that humanity has an innate desire to build, a desire which often ends disastrously. The hard dark geometric lines in the otherwise soft compositions represent, for Laurie, human construction in the landscape. Building on her interest in symbols, Laurie has recently begun to incorporate signal flags into her paintings. Since they are such a new development, there are no signal flag paintings in this exhibit. As Laurie continues her fellowship with Hamiltonian it will be exciting to see what the signal paintings add to these earlier works.

Jonathan Monaghan, Who Art in Heaven, 2009. 33in x 19in x 2 in, digital image on photo paper, ABS plastic, wood, chrome bolts. Courtesy of Hamiltonian Gallery.

The dense, hyper-real works of Jonathan Monaghan address the unbalanced and precarious relationship that people have to nature, to human bodies, and to spirituality. Monaghan uses 3D computer graphics to construct his works. His paintings are irregular shapes that are reminiscent of religious icons, and he paints spaces that look like altars and cathedrals but also contain wildly out of place elements. Monaghan incorporates plastic that takes on the shapes of the intricate wood and ironwork that is found in religious spaces. The cleverly titled, “Who Art in Heaven” depicts the inside of a cathedral-like space. The colors are blues, reds and whites and the space is eerily clean. The large windows reveal a blue sky. On the floor of the space, on either side of a pathway, are strange lines of what seem to be blue colored pools and flesh colored pools of unknown substances. Rising from a blue pool in the center of the pathway is a flesh-like substance that seems to lead to the altar at the back of the painting. Layered over the piece is white plastic ornamentation. The piece is sterile and surreal.

Katherine Mann, Filigree (detail), 2008, 80 x 80 in., Acrylic and watercolor on hanging cut papers. Courtesy of Hamiltonian Gallery.

The large, layered acrylic works by Katherine Mann investigate the dichotomy of order and chaos that exists in nature. Underlying the work is a pencil-drawn grid that shows through the ambiguous natural forms and geometric shapes that she has collaged seamlessly together. Her work has an epic character in its size and scope. There is a sense of purging and cluttering in the work. Mann’s paintings not only seem to capture the unfathomable construction of nature but also a personal life. Things seems to happen all at once, piling and colliding together, but there is some underlying grid that manages to hold things together, however precariously.

Lina Vargas De La Hoz, Umziechen Umzug (Change clothes-Relocate), documentation of the performance in Vienna, 2008, set of 3 framed Chromera prints. Courtesy of Hamiltonian Gallery.

Lina Vargas De La Hoz makes installations, sculptures, paintings, photographs and performances that deal with the perception of space. Umziechen Umzug (Change clothes-Relocate) is a jacket, which Vargas De La Hoz created that can be transformed into a tent. She filmed herself walking around wearing the coat and building the tent in Linz, Vienna, and Washington, DC. Vargas De La Hoz believes space is relative and depends deeply on perception. This object she created is both a home and an article of clothing. It demonstrates both instability and an alien quality that seem drive home the loss of connection-to-place that has resulted from globalization.

Jon Bobby Benjamin, from the series you need to save your time, 2008, dimensions vary (5 x 7 x 7 inch base) vellum, graphite, burnt wood, paint. Courtesy of Hamiltonian Gallery.

Jon Bobby Benjamin believes that many Americans’ perceptions of what it means to be American are deeply rooted in industrial nostalgia. Benjamin finds old decaying buildings that are related to America’s industrial past in various cities including Philadelphia and Washington, DC—and he recreates them as small personal objects. His works include photographs, prints, small personal drawings made of graphite and paint on vellum and paper, and sculptures. From the series You Need to Save Your Time, are three small structures made of vellum, graphite, burnt wood and paint. The wood serves as the base with a drawing of a decaying building in the velum and paper wrapped around it. The drawings are rooted in imagination while the wood brings a sense of reality. The tiny size of the pieces (5 x 7 x 7 inches) makes the pieces very intimate, but also make them seem like keepsakes. Interestingly, Benjamin also constructed lines below each base that look like pipes and reminiscent of the roots of dead trees.

Looking at the subjects that these artists have chosen to focus on it seems that the place for humanity in the world is a pressing question. Perhaps being an emerging artist trying to find his/her way in the art world makes the more general question of where humanity fits in the world more acute. Each artist has taken on a slightly different bent of this question but all seem to recognize that humanity’s relationship to this earth, our home, has been severely compromised and is in desperate need of reevaluation.

-Ophra Paul

new. (now). is on view at Hamiltonian Gallery until August 1.

The Sound of Silence

PAUSE
The Stamp Gallery
1220 Stamp Student Union , Adele Stamp Memorial Union, The University of Maryland
Mon–Thurs 10am-6pm, Fri-Sat 11am-4pm

One of the greatest things about art is that when it is given the proper attention, it can stop busy people dead in their tracks and give them a chance to reflect on otherwise unexplored and marginalized topics. PAUSE, an exhibition curated by Alexandra Douglas-Barrera, Fernando Ramirez and Alison Reilly at the Stamp Student Union Gallery at the University of Maryland College Park, features three artists who have chosen to use simple, elegant compositions to express deep, complicated ideas. The quiet nature of the exhibit—there is no color in any of the works—unites the variety of media in which the artists have chosen to work. There is a profound feeling of emptiness in the room, as each artist utilized scarcity and anonymity in both subject and style.

Elizabeth Crisman, Spineless, 2008, ink jet transparencies. Photo courtesy of The Stamp Gallery.

Elizabeth Crisman’s work addresses the types of information that humans leave behind, and demonstrates how little something as deeply personal as an x-ray actually says about a person. Crisman buys old x-rays on Ebay, inverts them, and then prints them as photograms on person-sized strips of black and white photo paper. She arranges the x-rays to look like bones from archaeological digs. The bones reveal nothing about the person they belong to, and the anonymous nature of the x-rays is unsettling. The x-rays are intensely private objects and yet they say nothing about who a person is. Spineless is a series of inkjet transparencies of spinal cord x-rays. They hang from the ceiling in a long line that curls onto the floor. The spine is vital in connecting the brain to the rest of the body, but these spines lead nowhere and connect to nothing but each other.

Lu Zhang, Beard 3, 2007, pen on paper. Photo courtesy of The Stamp Gallery.

Lu Zhang’s series of drawings of Chinese opera props was inspired by her recent visit to China. Zhang was born in China but grew up in Oklahoma. She is very interested in issues of race and gender as well as contemporary art in China. Zhang recently took a six-month trip to China where she was exposed to local,  “homespun”* opera. The props that are used can symbolize gender, status and even morality. The idea that people can simply put on an identity is very compelling for Zhang. Zhang’s drawings feature only props, beards and headdresses, and completely leave out the actor who would occupy them. The stark, haunting drawings float on the paper, definitions defining no one.

Laura Hughes, Thaw, 2009, wood, enamel, pinecones, monofilament. Photo courtesy of The Stamp Gallery.

Laura Hughes’ installations have a cataclysmic aesthetic. She works in wood, glass, steel, foam and chalk to create suspended moments of destruction and decay. Hughes believes that memories are stories that become further from the truth of the event with each passing moment. Thaw is an installation of suspended old wood planks stepped upwards towards an explosion of black-painted pinecones. The event that inspired the piece is unidentified, but the ragged chalk-covered wood planks and the black pinecones speak of a dark moment. The steps lead nowhere and hang precariously by transparent plastic strings. The pinecones move slightly in the wind created by the movement of people in the gallery, like a wind chime of deadening silence.

Each artist’s work is a memory of a moment and a person, nameless and concealed. Their works are like artifacts and puzzle pieces. Crisman, Zhang and Hughes force their audience to reconsider knowledge taken for granted. The artists ask for pause and reflection on about how much is actually known about this world and the individual people that inhabit it.

-Ophra Paul

PAUSE is on view at the Stamp Gallery until July 25th.

*Bmore Art, Lu Zhang at Randall Scott Gallery, Interview by Cara Ober.

I am a believer in full disclosure. Alison Reilly who writes for this blog and is a personal friend, was one of the co-curators of this exhibit. I do not believe this inhibited my ability to explain the works in the show but in fact gave me access to more information so I could better understand the exhibit.

Thick Skin

Paint Made Flesh
The Phillips Collection
1600 21st Street, NW
Tue- Sat 10am-4pm (Thur 8:30pm) Sundays 11am-6pm

The body has traditionally been used as a symbol in painting, often representing spirituality, idealized beauty and power. Paint Made Flesh, an exhibit put together by the Frist Collection, which is resting at the Phillips Collection in DC for the summer, highlights a different side of humanity, the dark conflicted and anxiety plagued side. The show is comprised of works by a multitude of artists who painted between the 1950s and the present day. The show is divided by themes, time periods and locations, making it difficult to decide where Modern ends and Contemporary begins.

Lucian Freud, Naked Man, Back View, 1991–92, Oil on canvas, 72 1/4 x 54 1/8 in. (183.5 x 137.5 cm). Courtesy of the Metropolitain Museum of Art, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1993 (1993.71).

Although the two Lucian Freud’s date from 1988-89 and 1991-92, they are still very relevant and noteworthy. Freud painted from life over long periods of time and favored friends over professional models; he wanted to portray people as they are, not as they are posed to be. Hailing from the Tate Modern, Standing by the Rags is a magnificent portrait of painter Sophie de Stempel, who worked with Freud for eight years and modeled for him frequently. She is half lying, her body resting on a giant pile of Freud’s painting rags and half standing, her feet planted solidly on the hardwood floor. The perspective leans upwards and only a glimpse of a wall helps to anchor the space. De Stempel’s head rests on her right arm, which is arced over a bulge in the pile, cradled as if there were another person lying with her. Her gesture and facial expression seem to exude a comfort and trust that only close friends can have, but she does not have complete confidence in the stability of Freud’s rags and keeps her feet firmly on the ground. The second Freud painting depicts the controversial performing artist Leigh Bowery. Bowery’s back is turned and a curtain blocks the view into the studio, revealing only the distant wall that Freud used as a palette—these compositional choices speak of a more guarded relationship.

Susan Rothenberg, Crying, 2003, Oil on canvas. 58 1/2 x 63 1/2 in / 148.6. Courtesy of Waddington Galleries. x 161.3 cm

Susan Rothenberg and Tony Bevan paint expressively and reduce narratives to articulate deep, focused feelings of stress and tension. Rothenberg’s “Crying,” an entirely red and white painting—her most frequent colors, because of their fleshy human qualities—depicts a head and neck covered by four hands that seemed to have wiped any recognizable features off the face. The face, hands and arms are red and disembodied, and they emerge from the upper left through a white background that has been layered over red. The work captures the haze and wearing nature of depression. Bevan also uses red and white but in a more restrained aesthetic. The red lines that scar and illustrate “Head” seem to be abstract and cluttered up close, but from far away describe strained, stretched, balloon-like face from a skewed upwards perspective. The face seems to float away, falling apart and coming back together on upon each viewing expressing the struggle to maintain clarity in this complicated world.

Jenny Saville, Hyphen, 1999, Oil on canvas. Private Collection, Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. © Jenny Saville

John Currin, The Hobo, 1999, Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Jenny Saville and John Currin are both technically accomplished painters who deal with female beauty from totally different perspectives. Saville moved around a lot as a child, always having to adjust to a new location and new people. She sees herself as an outsider and is attracted to unconventional body types. Her studies with a plastic surgeon led to a discovery of the ‘object-ness’ of flesh, and its ability to be sculpted and manipulated, strangely similar to paint. She confronts and embraces her anxieties about being different with monumental paintings, often self-portraits, which have been built up with large areas of paint layered with a roller. “Hyphen” is a double portrait of the artist and her sister, who is resting her head on Saville’s shoulder. Saville’s eyes seem to dare anyone to judge her, effectively guarding herself and her sister—who stares hesitantly but hopefully into the distance—from the harsh world. By contrast, John Currin embraces the long history of objectifying the female figure in his satirical, campy and playfully hedonistic paintings. He celebrates the ridiculousness of the obsession with a perfect female form in “Nude with Raised Arms,” daring his audience to try look away and to decide whether this smooth creamy young body emerging from a milky blackness is Venus, pornography or both. Even more bluntly camp, “The Hobo” makes fun of the way that everyone, even destitute, downtrodden people, are inexplicably beautiful on bad television. Currin does not accept any guilt for his pleasures but instead dutifully recognizes and embraces the beauty and depravity that seem inexorably intertwined in his view of the world.

Daniel Richter, Duisen, 2004, Oil on canvas, Image Size: 106 1/4 x 137 3/4 inches. Courtesy of David Zwiner Gallery.

German painter, Daniel Richter is concerned with music, current events, and graffiti culture. The craze that overtakes people when they take drugs and infrared pictures inform Richter’s style and present the point of view of “the paranoid westerner,”* a group which he confrontationally and bravely confesses to be a part of. Richter turns current tragic and violent news events into ambiguous paintings that could be read as celebrations. Using neon energetic colors, he layers the complications of living comfortably as part of first world culture while being surrounded by economic, environmental and military problems, both domestic and foreign. “Duisen” is a painting of a crowd of people with upraised arms, who are melting in violent Technicolor in a black cityscape background. They look as if they could be part of a rave at a concert or victims of some as yet unknown bio-weapon. Duisen is a made-up word that is play between the German words that mean millions and south. Richter is referencing the influx of immigrants to Germany from southern countries, bringing with them political, social and economic upheaval.

Paint Made Flesh includes superlative examples by artists Alice Neel, Francis Bacon, Julian Schnabel, Richard Diebekorn and De Kooning and many others that have come from first-rate museums around the world. The Frist has brought together a phenomenal group of paintings but do not expect to find bucolic and carefree works. This is a challenging exhibit that brings together many different stressful concepts and events. If you leave feeling stressed and overwhelmed than the show did exactly what it intended to do.

-Ophra Paul

Paint Made Flesh is on view at the Phillips Collection until September 1st.

*Schatz, Matthias. “Paranoid Westerner” Daniel Richter Paints Crowds, Harlequins, Terror.” Bloomberg.com (July)

**Although I currently work at The Phillips Collection as a Museum Assistant I was not involved with the planning or implementation of Paint Made Flesh. I am not a Phillips Collection spokesperson; I take personal responsibility for this article.