NYC Art Shows 2017

Art In Manhattan, 2017- And Then There Were Five

It was a year of discovery. A year where I discovered some great Artists I previously hadn’t known, finally caught up with some I knew about but hadn’t gotten to see much of their work, and got lost exploring some remarkable Retrospectives- for Raymond Pettibon and Robert Rauschenberg, both accompanied by memorable satellite shows. Most of these are represented in my monthly NoteWorthy Show selections throughout the year. But? There was more! So, I’m going to take this moment to pause and look back at the revelations of 2017, look at some memorable shows I didn’t write about at the time, and finally, highlight a pair of men who, I feel, had an exceptional 2017 in Manhattan Art.

No doubt about it- the biggest discovery this year was a long overdue deep dive into the world of Contemporary Photography. From seeing well over 100 Photography shows, to spending five long days at “AIPAD: The Photography Show” (with well over 120 galleries from all over the world showing work), to going through hundreds of PhotoBooks, and meeting many Photographers, legendary, famous, or not quite yet, along with the staffs of two of the world’s leading Photography organizations- Aperture and Magnum, both celebrating major anniversaries this year. Rarely did a week pass when Photography wasn’t in the the picture. Of course, in a world were there are now more cameras than people it’s impossible to get to see everyone who’s doing great work. As happens each year, NO matter WHAT I do to prevent it, this year too, there were shows I didn’t find out about until they closed. UGGGH!!!! Along the way, there were quite a few revelations, and a good many other things solidified…at least for the moment.

First, the revelations. In Photography, particularly among those younger than 50 (I say 50 only because I seem to know/have heard of many of those over) and unknown to me, Gregory Halpern was the biggest revelation I had this year. His book “Zzyzx” won the prestigious Aperture Best Book Award for 2016, but I didn’t know that when I discovered his work at Aperture’s booth at AIPAD. I had never heard of him.

Gregory Halpern, “Untitled,” 2016, from his “Buffalo” series. Click any Photo for full size.

The work, “Untitled,” was a Photograph Aperture had run in the Spring, 2017 issues of it’s excellent quarterly magazine, in a pictorial by Mr. Halpern, titled “Buffalo.” I didn’t know that then, either. I simply saw the work, and then couldn’t get it out of my mind. It now hangs a few feet away. Out of everything I saw at AIPAD, particularly by those younger than 50 and unknown to me, this work grabbed me and didn’t let go. I went home that night with one thought on my mind- “WHO is Gregory Halpern?” After researching him most of the night, (including finding his incredibly honest and insightful answer to one very important question), serendipitously, I got to meet him the next day, and spoke to him about his book. It turned out to be a classic case where some things are better left unexamined. Gregory was so forthcoming in his answers about specific images I came too close for comfort to losing some of their mystery.

Gregory Halpern standing next “Untitled,” at Aperture’s Booth at AIPAD, March 31st.

In addition to being, in my eyes, one of the most talented Photographers of his generation, he is, also, one of it’s best writers. He’s the co-author of one of the most popular and respected Photography Manuals of 2017, “The Photographer’s Playbook,” and his occasionally published articles always enlighten and leave me wanting more. A Harvard grad, he’s now a professor in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology for some very lucky students. As if all of that isn’t enough, his wife, Ahndraya Parlato is, also, one of the revelations of the year as a Photographer. Her Photographs “glow”- in one way or another. Her most recent book, “A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,” is ethereal…mesmerizing…magical.

Leaving aside age or era, the work of Fred Herzog was, also, unknown to me. Early pioneers of color Photography have taken decades coming to the attention they deserve, such was the disdain color held among the Photographic cognoscenti for color Photography. With the publication of “Fred Herzog: Modern Color,” in February, 2017, an Artist who was fairly well-known, and appreciated, in his native Canada finally began becoming wider known in the USA. His work was memorably shown by Equinox Gallery of Vancouver at AIPAD this spring, where, I felt, it stood out.

Fred Herzog, “Main Barber,” 1968, seen at Equinox Gallery’s AIPAD booth.

Fred Herzog considers Saul Leiter THE master of early color Photography, and even with a giant like William Eggleston to consider (who’s 1976 MoMA show, “Photographs by William Eggleston,” which can be “visited” here, is widely credited with making color Photography “acceptable” in the world of “Fine Art”), it’s hard to argue with him. No Photographer new to me, regardless of age or period, had a bigger impact on me this year than Saul Leiter.

Saul Leiter, “Through Boards,” Circa 1957. This image appears (cropped) on the cover of the now classic book, “Saul Leiter: Early Color,” 2006, which launched the “Saul Leiter Renaissance.” It’s, perhaps, my very favorite Photobook. Sadly, now out of print, it would take real diligence to find a very good copy for less than $100. But, there are many worse uses of time. Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation.

It took until 2006 for Saul Leiter to be recognized- FIFTY EIGHT years after he started taking color photographs. As with William Eggleston, Mr. Leiter was, also, a devoted Painter. I can see it in both of their work, and I believe it’s part of the reason their work speaks to me, perhaps, more than the work of any other Photographer of any period. It was his friend, no less than the great Artist Richard Pousette-Dart (who’s also an under appreciated Photographer), to encouraged him to pursue Photography.

“Walk with Soames,” 1958, This was 20 YEARS before William Eggleston’s ground breaking MoMA show “legitimized” color Photography in the Art world! Photo by Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Mr. Leiter saw and used color in his Photography in ways no one else has, achieving effects that today’s finest digital manipulators can only dream of. Saul Leiter didn’t need Photoshop to get his results. As very good as his Black & White work is, like Turner or Van Gogh, Saul Leiter was a true Poet of color, perhaps the greatest Master of Color in Photography, though it’s, of course, impossible and pointless to qualitatively compare.

“T,” Circa 1950(!).Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation. Daring. Gorgeous.

A number of established Photographers had terrific shows in NYC in 2017 that I didn’t get to write about here. Among them are Mark Steinmetz, Mike Mandel, Raghubir Singh (though marked by controversy), Richard Avedon, Herman Leonard, Michael Kenna, and Edward Burtynsky. But, I’m going to address one I simply can’t let pass, because I continue to think about it.

Richard Misrach’s Photo, “Effigy #3, near Jacumba, California,” 2009, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, right rear, with Guillermo Galindo’s Musical Instrumet/Sculpure “Effigy,” 2014, center2014. Barely visible are two strings between the forearms. The grey rectangle on the lower left side of the pedestal is where a speaker is mounted.

“Richard Misrach: Border Cantos,” (at Pace, 510 West 25th Street), was an utterly remarkable and serendipitous collaboration between renowned Photographer Richard Misrach & Composer/Sculptor Guillermo Galindo on the subject of our southern border, those protecting it, and those trying to cross it. To accompany Mr. Misrach’s large, atmospheric Photographs, Mr. Galindo created a whole orchestra of Musical Instruments out of objects found along the border, and proceeded to compose and record a 4 hour score that was looped in the show’s back room to meditative effect, ingeniously installed so that the music being played was coming from speakers mounted inside the display of the specific instruments that were playing at any given moment. (The Artists have an excellent website for this show where you can, also, hear these remarkable instruments.)

Instruments, like this. Guillermo Galindo, “Tortillafono/Wall Vibraphone,” 2014, Metal. The discarded metal cap of an electrical box from the failed SBInet (Secure Border Initiative) surveillance program was turned into a mallet and string instrument sits in front of Richard Misrach’s “Artifacts fround from California to Texas between 2013 and 2015,” 2013-5, 86 x 57 inches, Pigment prints mounted to Dibond. Photos of items found along the border.

And this- Guillermo Galindo, “Teclata,” His description- “On this keyboard, empty cans, bottles, and a plastic cup act as piano strings. The surface of the instrument is decorated with Border Patrol ammunition boxes.”

The surround sound effect was like sitting in the middle of a small chamber music group. The instruments, themselves, were beautiful as sculpture, and the music, which sounded to me like a cross between Harry Partch (who, also, made his own instruments) and John Cage, on instruments that looked like Rauschenbergs, had me asking if it had been released on CD. Why not?

Richard Misrach, “Playas de Tijuana #1, San Diego,” 2013, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, 42 x 160 inches.

Mr. Misrach, who has spent forty years working in the American Desert on his renown “Desert Cantos” project, showed a remarkable selection of images taken since 2004, but more intensely since 2009 (the collaboration with Mr. Galindo dates back to 2012), that told the story in slices. The effect of the music, the images and the sculptures (musical and non) was hypnotic, and ultimately meditative on the situation, the people protecting the border, and the refugees, while at the same time, even for those directly untouched by this story, the show spoke to a larger sense of walls, borders and refugees, and resilience. The Artists found, or created, beauty in this situation, reflecting the very perseverance that is at the essence of survival.

Richard Misrach, “Wall, east of Nogales, Arizona,” 2014, 68 x 84 inches, Pigment print mounted to Dibond

On the Painting & Drawing front, the most important Painting/Drawing gallery show I haven’t addressed was Kara Walker (at Sikkema Jenkins and Co.). Before it opened the buildup was downright intense. First, these posters began appearing, which certainly raised eyebrows until you notice (along the lower left side) that the text was written by the Artist. The show was also featured in a cover article in one of the last print issues of the Village Voice. I can’t remember the last time an Art show made the Voice’s cover, but this was the last time one did.

 Kara Walker sounds a bit weary in the poster, and particularly in the “Artist’s Statement” that appears on the show’s page on the Sikkema website.

“Dredging the Quagmire (Bottomless Pit),” 2017 Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen, 18 feet long, seen in the show’s first room. A “bottomless quagmire” is what the history of and current state of race and gender relations does feel like at this moment in time.

In the lower right side, this almost submerged head seemed to echo Ms. Walker’s weariness in her Artist’s Statement. “But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of ‘having a voice’ or worse ‘being a role model.'”

After all the anticipation and buildup, at the packed opening, Ms. Walker, herself, was only to be seen for a little while, at least while I was there.

Kara Walker at the opening, September 7, 2017, with part of  “U.S.A. Idioms,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, almost 15 by 12 feet, in the background.

While she continues to create her signature Silhouettes, showing a gorgeous 2017 work titled “Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” that’s almost 18 1/2 feet long, the bulk of the show consists on her ink and collage works, that have increasingly come to the forefront of her shows as time has gone on, most recently in her Cleveland Museum show, “The Ecstasy of St. Kara,” 2016, and at MoMA’s “Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection,” which closed on July 30, 2017, where her “40 Acres of Mules,” a Charcoal Drawing on 3 sheets totaling almost 18 feet long that was acquired by the Museum the year before, was on view in what was something of a one-work preview for her Sikkema show.

“Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” 2017, Cut paper on canvas. For me, one thing Ms. Walker’s Silhouettes all seem to ask is “Why do you see, what you see?”

Whereas it’s hard for me to imagine the care, patience and deliberation it must take for Ms. Walker to create one of her silhouettes, her Drawing & Collages look like they are done in bursts of raw energy and passion. At times the images approach the quality of a caricature of an event. No matter the differences in creation, when you see her Silhouettes and Drawings side by side they’re unmistakably by the same Artist.

While the Silhouettes, mostly, seem to leave quite a bit to the imagination, including the race of each character, her Drawings & Collages do not, especially when it comes to violence. Nothing is held back, hinted at or hidden. In the Drawings and collages, she has taken away the curtain inherent in Silhouettes in depicting racism and gender crimes. We see the faces, skin color, eyes, and what each one is involved in doing.  You can choose to look away, but otherwise, it’s pretty hard to “miss” what’s going on. The results are shocking, though they have precedent going back to Goya’s “Los Caprichos,” and “The Disasters of War,” and Daumier through Warhol, as well as in the work of Photojournalists and “Conflict Photographers” from all over the world. In Kara Walker’s work, though, the time is centered between 1788, when slavery was legalized in the US, through post Civil War “Reconstruction.”  Where the Silhouettes present a shadow of the figure, and the actions, the Drawings shine direct light. In fact, there are almost no shadows in her drawings- there’s no where for the perpetrators to hide.

“The Pool Party of Sardanapalus (after Delacroix, Kienholz,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, Almost 12 feet long.

Eugene Delacroix, “The Death of Sardanapalus,” 1844, Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. Kara Walker is, also, an astute student of Art History. In her work, Sardanapalus lies horizontally near the upper left corner, apparently, taking no interest in the orgy of death going on, as he does, lying arm on elbow on a huge red bed in Delacroix’. Her Ed Kienholz reference is a bit harder to track down, but it might be this one.

In “Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, the ground is, also, gone. The figures hang in the space of the paper, though some sense of perspective remains- as you get closer to the top of the sheet, they get smaller.

“Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, 140 x 196 inches.

In this work, Ms. Walker’s figures cut across time, with some appearing to be contemporary. To the right of center, a figure “rocks the mic.” In the lower center is a figure that appears to be a modern riot trooper, in a helmet with face shield and body armor. He appears to have clubs in each hand. Right next to his left hand is what appears to be a black head, in a hoodie, on a platter, being carried by a woman, who looks away, while others nearby watch, some with shock on their face, some pointing to the scene. Just behind them, an extended arm holds and American flag, while above them a figure gives a Nazi salute with one hand while holding a Rebel flag with the other. Up top, a lynched figure hangs from a tree branch while women on either side of him perform acrobatics, with Klansmen standing next to them. In front of that naked black women are attacked by a group of men, while, again, others see what is going on. In the center of the work, the decapitated hoodied head looks straight across at a Civil War soldier pointing a gun at him, across time. Is this 1863? Or 2016?

“Storm Ryder (You Must Hate Black People as Much as You Hate Yourself),” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

The primacy of Drawing in her work was reinforced with the recent release of one of Ms Walker’s Sketchbooks from 1999, when the Artist was 29, as a book appropriately titled, “MCMXCIX.” It contains Drawings that, in style and subject, visitors to the Sikkema show will immediatley recognize. Interestingly, as Raymond Pettibon does in his shows (the latest concluding on June 24th, shortly before Ms. Walker’s opened), she prefers her larger works be tacked to the walls.

“Future Looks Bright,” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

Kara Walker may be growing tired of being a “role model,” of being “a featured member of my racial group and/or my gender niche,” (as she says in her Artist’s Statement referenced above). Of course, I can’t imagine being Kara Walker, but I can understand that it gets to be “too much.” I’m not sure, however, what her other choice is. I mean, I’m sure she COULD do something else if she REALLY wanted to. After seeing all the work and passion she put into this show? I guess I’m just not convinced that she really DOES want to do something else. Yet.

Finally…Looking back on 2017… Last year I wrote that I felt Sheena Wagstaff had the best year in NYC Art. She’s had a very good 2017, too. But, this year, I think that The New Museum’s Massimiliano Gioni & Gary Carrion-Murayari. had special years, highlighted by the truly exemplary, and revolutionary, “Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work” retrospective, which they then remounted simultaneously in Maastricht and Moscow. I feel it was “revolutionary” because totaling an unheard of 800 works, including brand new works created by the Artist for this show (some on the very walls of the New Museum), they gave an exhaustive look at Pettibon’s career, yet the show never slowed, never failed to keep and even raise interest. It even included work Pettibon did as a small child that he has now ammended in his own, unique style. Word has recently come that Gary Carrion-Murayari, who kindly answered my questions on the Pettibon Moscow show he co-curated, has also been named as a co-curator for the New Museum’s 2018 Triennial, so he could be ready to have another “big” year. Stay tuned!

The end result is that Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and the New Museum have served to put the “Big Four”1 Manhattan Museums on notice that, on their 40th anniversary, we are going to have to get used to saying the “Big Five.”

———————————–
A Special “Thank You!” to all the Artists who gave me their time and shared their thoughts with me in 2017, and to David White & Gina Guy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Gary Carrion-Murayari and Paul Jackson of the New Museum.
“Thank you!” to the Hattan Group and Kitty for research assistance, and to The Strand Bookstore for being open until 10:30pm seven nights a week. R.I.P. Owner, Fred Bass this week.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Heroic Elegy, Op. 36,” (1918), by Ernest Farrar, in honor of the 100th Anniversary of WW1, which was featured in another memorable show, “World War 1 & The Visual Arts” at The Met this year, as a way of honoring it, and all the Artists, and Musicians, lost during it. Shortly after “Heroic Elegy’s” premiere, Second Lieutenant Farrar was ordered to the Western Front. Two days after he arrived there, he was killed at the Battle of Epehy. He was 33. I first heard it while I was driving in Florida on September 11, 2002. The classical station there played it in honor of the first anniversary of 9/11. So taken with it was I that I pulled over and listened to it with my eyes closed, then immediately set about researching it’s composer. Though he wrote other fine works, “Heroic Elegy,” is special. It’s lightning in an 8 minute bottle. As beautiful as it is, there’s a quality, a confidence, in it that seems to promise so much more to come that he, tragically, never got the chance to give us, like the other Artists & Musicians lost far too early in this most senseless of wars.

“On The Fence, #17, The Good Riddance” Edition.

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  1. With all due respect to The Frick Collection, who the powers that be that came up with “the Big Four” left out. ↩

Ellen Harvey’s Global Beautification Project

A few weeks back, I walked across West 22nd Street after visiting Gary Hume’s show, “Mum” at Matthew Marks, lost in the whirlwind of emotions, past and present, it elicited, barely cognizant of the traffic, weather, or time. Luckily, Thanksgiving week in NYC tends to be on the quiet side. As I crossed the street, bright lights, like those seen in a carnival, beckoned from inside the front window of Danese/Corey Gallery. Reaching the sidewalk, I could see the lights made a sign that was attached to the frame of a wooden shack. They read “ARCADIA.”

The view from the sidewalk outside Danese/Corey. Click any Photo for full size.

Hmmm…”Arcadia.” A word that evokes simple pleasures. In need of some cheer, I stepped inside. While I can’t say I found “cheer,” I found Art.

Installation view from inside the “shack.” An extraordinarily imaginative vision, stunningly well realized.

The show was “Ellen Harvey: Nostalgia.” Inside the wooden framed shack, the carnival-like atmosphere of the sign outside quickly faded into darkness, pierced with lines of white light. Looking closer, the lines turned out to be etched on mirrors lit from the back. The light they emitted was reflected back by more back lit mirrors on the opposite side of the shack, as was the viewer, which made the design they held frustratingly hard to see. It was like “seeing” through a haze, a bit like walking around Times Square (I hear). Taken by the beauty I knew was there, I wandered around the space, enthralled and puzzled. Scenes of buildings, waves, and sky lined both sides culminating in a large panel showing the moon over the sea. Making my way to the gallery’s desk, I found that the work, titled “Arcade/Arcadia,” 2011, contains 34 hand engraved mirrors mounted on light boxes to form a 360 degree panorama of the town of Margate, England as seen from the beach. Hmmm…

Intentionally hard to see the amazing engraving on the mirrors.

Then same mirror, without anything in front of it. From the show’s catalog.

Unable to get the work out of my mind while I was looking at other shows, I went back to Danese/Corey later and bought the monograph, “ Ellen Harvey: The Museum of Failure1,” which has the backstory and images of the mirrors without reflections, (which, while defeating the point of the installation, allows appreciation of her amazing technique). I learned that the project was commissioned by the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate, England for it’s opening in 2011. The shed is a remimagining of JMW Turner’s London gallery (in 3/4 size) and the mirrors are arranged in the way Turner displayed his work- “salon” style, as seen in George Jones  “Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his Works,” 1852. Along with another Painting George Jones did of it after Turner died, they are the only records we have of what JMW Turner’s gallery looked like.

George Jones “Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his works,” 1952, Oil on canvas, Ashmolean Museum.

Turner loved Margate and lauded it’s natural beauty. So inspired, he is believed to have created around 100 Paintings of it, possibly including this one, given that he began using Margate as a second home around 1830.

JMW Turner, “Margate(?), Seen From the Sea,” c.1835-40, on loan from the National Gallery, London and seen in The Met Breuer’s “Unfinished” show in 2016, which I wrote about, here. Possibly one, of hundreds, of works he did depicting Margate.

In addition to finding inspiration, he, infamously, “shacked up” with his landlady there. The town eventually became a tourist mecca which led to it’s (over?) commercialization. When it fell on hard times, the amusement park, called “Dreamland,” (who’s sign Ms. Harvey pays homage to in her “Arcadia” sign, using the same font), closed and became a blight on the natural beauty which led so many to want to come there in the first place. In the piece, Ellen Harvey depicts a more recent view of Margate as seen from the beach, in apparent complete desolation.

The work is like an onion in it’s many layers. There’s the Turner layer, the Margate/nature layer, the Dreamland/commercialization layer, the mirror layer (with it’s funhouse effect, seen earlier), and the layer of light being distorted, which could be a reference to the light that Turner loved, and what’s become of it, with the addition of so many electric lights and buildings blocking sunlight. There’s, also, the layer of the styles of the two Artists, Ellen Harvey and JMW Turner, in dialogue. With the large shadow of no less than Turner looming, this is, certainly, a daring undertaking. Ms. Harvey’s mirrors contain many passages of sky and sea, crescendoing in the large center rear panel, that can’t help but remind today’s viewer of the English Master, though in decidedly her own style. Though “Dreamland” has recently reopened, the metaphor, and the warning, in the work is powerful, and both specific and universal. Experiencing it was a highlight among all the Art I’ve seen in 2017.

The rest of the show impressed me just as much. Adjacent to “Arcade/Arcadia,” was a Painting that depicted what looked to be a rough surface that seemed like it should be in relief, but was, in fact, flat. Hmmm…Is this the same Artist who just gave us all those meticulously engraved lines on those 34 mirrors2? It was closer in style to the Photographs of Aaron Siskind than the style I’d just seen. When I saw the title, I got it. “Crack/Craquelure.” Craquelure is a term referring to the cracking patterns seen in many old Paintings. “Nostalgia,” in another sense.

‘Crack/Craquelure,” 2017, Oil on wood panel.

There are other instances of “nostalgia” for the craft of Art in the show, like “Picture(esque),” 2017, Antique “Claude Glass,” float glass mirror, hook and plywood. A “Claude Glass,” (or “Black Mirror”) is an 18th & 19th century device, which Ms. Harvey is fond of.

“Picture(sque),” 2017. The “Black Mirror” was, also used for magic, particularly for seeing the future. Ellen Harvey’s work often contains images of ruins & destruction…images of a dark future.

They have been used by landscape Artists aiming for that special quality achieved by the great landscape Painter, Claude Lorrain (c.1604-1682), who it’s named after.

Claude Lorrain, “Pastoral Landscape: The Roman Campagna,” 1639, seen at The Met. A classic example of the much admired, and copied, “dark” landscape, which inspired the “Claude Glass.”

Beyond the other themes present in this diverse show, there is the theme of mirrors. Since Robert Rauschenberg, I can’t think of another Artist who uses mirrors as frequently to such wonderful effect. Hand-engraved, without engraving, or with “Black Glass,” above. I asked the Artist about her use of mirrors, and specifically when it started. She replied, “I’ve always loved mirrors — but the first mirror piece I really made was in 2005 for the Pennsylvania Academy — aptly titled “Mirror” because I wanted to show the space and comment on their collection of paintings…and then I got hooked. Before that, I was all about Polaroids.” She’s referring to her monumental installation where she reinvisioned the entrance hall of the landmarked Furness and Hewitt Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art Building, Philadelphia, as a ruin, using video and four 9 by 12 foot hand-engraved mirrors. Ruins are part of the “dark future” Ellen Harvey believes we are destined for. Rogier van der Weyden’s “The Last Judgement” was the first painting she fell in love with. “That red-hot sword is coming for us all,” she said3, referring to what looms above Christ’s left hand. If it’s coming, I hope it gets here before I have to file my “new” taxes.

Further on, “Nostalgia” takes on more of a traditional meaning in “Ghost of Penn Station,” 2017, Oil on wood panel, where we see the tragically lost Architectural masterpiece, rendered in oil, as if seen through a haze or in a dream. Whereas Ms. Harvey has created a number of works showing existing buildings (even creating an “Alien’s Guide to the (future) Ruins of Washington DC“) in ruins, this is a rare case where a building that was ruined is shown before, in all it’s glory. In the rear gallery, “New Forest (The I.R.S. Office Reforested),” 2013, Gesso, oil, acrylic, and varnish on wood,  about 13 1/2 feet long, shows a part of the I.R.S. offices (speaking of taxes) in a deserted state with the area in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Interestingly, the I.R.S. bought a sister work on the same subject, titled “Reforestation,” that, also, depicts their new offices in ruins, being reclaimed by nature, rendered in mirrors which, now installed, reflect those very offices! Fact is stranger than Art. When I asked Ms. Harvey about this, she replied to the effect that they have a, surprisingly, good sense of humor.

“New Forest (The I.R.S. Office Reforested),” 2013, Black gesso, oil, acrylic, varnish on 20 wooden panels. Overall- 13 1/3 feet long by 7 3/4 feet high. There is a social/political/economic conscience, or awareness that runs through Ellen Harvey’s work that I find most tastefully handled.

Finally, there is another, spectacular, engraved mirror work, the fascinating “On the Impossibility of Capturing a Sunset,” 2017, 16 Hand-engraved plexiglass mirrors, 16 Lumisheets, plywood. Ms. Harvey lets the wires for the light boxes dangle down in front…Yes. In front of the work,  another way of adding an obstacle to the “pure” appreciation of her image. They fall to a jumble of power strips on the floor, where they look as intricate as the engraving above them. Perhaps they’re a metaphor for the huge effort it took to get this close to the “impossible” task she refers to. (In earlier engraved mirror works (like “Destroyed Landscape (Cloudy Moon),” 2012, she scratched over the finished engraving, graffiti-like, making it almost impossible to see the underlying composition.)

“On the Impossibility of Capturing a Sunset,” 2017, 16 Hand-engraved plexiglass mirrors, 16 Lumisheets, plywood.

Close-up.

As I considered “Nostalgia,” over multiple visits, this work became something of a touchstone for me as I learned (and still learn) about her work. In it, her gorgeous technical achievement becomes subservient (in a way) to her “larger point.” Across her career, it seems to me that that “larger point” is her vision. About this, she said-

“What is it that all these viewers might want in this situation? That’s really where all of this work comes from. It comes from my desire to take particular situations, either physical or social, and say, ‘What is it that people want from Art in this situation?  What can Art do here?’ And of course the answers are often completely ridiculous. When you think about it what people dream of, it’s like falling in love with someone, it’s all projection. It’s a sort of mad fantasy that’s very hard to understand.” 4

“495 West 37th Street at Ninth Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, From The New York Beautification Project,” February, 2001, Oil on Wood(?) Wall. Close-up, right. Photos from ellenharvey.info, which has it’s backstory.

This “What can Art do here?” approach can be seen all the way back in 1999, in her remarkable “New York Beautification Project.” In it, the Artist hand painted 40 five by seven inch oval oil paintings on top of existing graffiti, over the course of 2 years! During the project, she was mugged once, and had encounters with the NYPD. While her remarkable Paintings were influenced by classic (and classical) landscape Paintings (WHAT could be MORE out of place in the world of NYC graffiti?), what floors me is the map of the locations she created them.

Map of locations of the Paintings in Ellen Harvey’s “New York Beautificalion Project,” 1999-2001. From ellenharvey.info

She almost circled the entire City! Ok, she did this without permission, or renumeration, as the works were affixed to non-movable locations, to the displeasure of gallerists, which might make you wonder…”WHY???” I chalk it up as an early sign of the scale of, the dedication to, and persistence of her vision. It was a taste of things to come.

Her “What is it that people want from Art in this situation?” reached, perhaps, it’s ultimate expression when only a short time later she got a chance to do public art “for real.” Actually? Two chances. The NYC MTA commissioned her to create the Art for TWO NYC Subway stations. She is one of the very few (perhaps, the only one?) to have been commissioned to do more than one. In 2005, she created “Look Up, Not Down,” in 2,000 square feet of the Queens Plaza Subway Station. This MTA video provides a look at it, and the backstory, and also includes rare glimpses of the NY Beautification Project’s Paintings, which are now long lost.

Then, in 2009, she was commissioned to do the Art for the (new) Yankee Stadium Metro North Station. Typically, she took a Yankees ad logo, “The Home of the Stars,” and flipped it in a way everyone could relate to- Yankee fan, or not.

Someone once said that mosaics are the most durable medium. There are gorgeous examples in The Met from 200 AD. So, it seems fairly likely that her work in the subway (at least) will last for at least the next 100, if not 1,000 years. I’ve lauded the MTA on their choices of Artists to create Art for the Subway before. Here is another case where I think they made an excellent choice. Both of these works are related to the sky and stars theme that continues in “Nostalgia.” Well? I’m not sure even Ellen Harvey is going to find a bigger stage than the stars.

Regarding her statement about giving the viewers what they want, I remain to be convinced that many, if anyone else, sees the world as Ellen Harvey does. It seems to me that she takes spaces (or materials) and reimagines them in ways visitors might enjoy, but, perhaps, don’t quite expect, and I doubt anticipated. Her work seems to cut across and through periods, schools, styles- abstract or realistic, to speak to people, and so, it “gives the people what they want.” That’s a pretty rare gift. Christo & Jeanne Claude come to mind as Artists who are/were capable of similar things. Her projects often require her to bring an extremely wide range of talents to bear, in an equally wide range of mediums and scale, to create her visions, though like Rauschenberg, she has said she considers herself a Painter. A Painter, who loves Painting dearly, though she has real doubts about it’s ongoing relevance given many of it’s original functions having been replaced by other mediums. For my part, it seems Painting was in trouble in the 90’s, but I’ve seen any number of very good (and relevant) Painting shows recently, especially this past year. Since Painting is, still, my favorite medium, I remain hopeful.

Looking through the 300 plus pages of “Museum of Failure” it’s very hard not to be amazed at the daring of her work, it’s diversity, as well as the consistent quality of it. In two instances she has taken on Painting reproductions of the bulk of the collections of two museums(!)- the Whitney and the nudes in the Bass Museum, Miami, and rendered them exceedingly well- regardless of the style or period. Yet Painting is just one of the many mediums she works, and excels, in.

With “Nostalgia,” one of the best shows of the fall season, you might think that Ellen Harvey would be satisfied. But, no. On December 13, ANOTHER show, including new work, “Ellen Harvey: Ornaments and Other Refrigerator Magnets,” opened at the Children’s Museum of Art downtown.

The CMA show continues her exploration of ornamentation (a subject near and dear to my heart), which, gets it’s own section on her website, showing work going back to at least 2002. It’s a show that, hopefully, will inspire and instill a love of ornament in a young audience that will grow up to bring it back to a world that sorely needs it. In it, another of her themes, seen in her 2014 installation, “The Unloved,” at the Groeninge Museum, Bruges, Belgium, comes to the fore- the forgotten/overlooked/yes, unloved, in Art. These days? Not much is more unloved than ornamentation in Architecture.

“Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she’s waiting for passion or humour to strike

[Chorus]
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty”*

Appropriately, and prominently, placed around the show were various editions of Austrian Architect Adolf Loos’ essay collection, “Ornament & Crime,” as if saying “Ornament is NOT a crime!”

Adolf Loos’ “Ornament and Crime,”a collection of essays, including the title piece, a lecture given in 1908, appropriately displayed on a lovely, ornate pedestal.

Featured is her 2015 “Metal Paintings for Dr. Barnes,” in which she painted every piece of metal work installed at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, on 826 wood panels with magnets inset then mounted on steel panels so they could be endlessly rearranged, unlike those in the Barnes.

“Metal Paintings for Dr. Barnes,” 2005, Oil on 826 wood panels with inset magnets, steel panels, overall, 25 by 15 feet, left, and “Mass Produced,” 2017, Metal hardware, screws, plywood, and plastic frame.

More recently, much of her work with ornaments has been inspired by her visits to the  American Wood Column Company, in Brooklyn, founded in 1916, and their collection of over 6,000 antique molds. On view was a 48 part visual catalog of samples of their work, which Ms. Harvey had photographed by accomplished Photographer Etienne Frossard, who has been working with her since 2012, in a new work titled “Mr. Lupo’s Collection,” in honor (in a sense) of this man and his company’s devotion to currently unloved work that may be on the verge of being lost.

“Mr. Lupo’s Collection,” 2017, 48 Framed Photographs, individually photographed by Etienne Frossard. (Apologies for the glare in my photo of them.)

Ornaments made by American Wood Column Company were featured in a large, new work that brings them right into the 21st Century. Not being satisfied with creating Art in two Subway stations, here, “Ornaments for the Subway,” 2017, goes further. It attempts to beautify that universal blight of all Subway stations- the ads. The card says, “It used to be that public spaces were covered with architectural ornaments rather than advertising….Here the Artist imagines taking back the public space from which they have been removed.” Bravo.

“Ornaments for the Subway,” 2017, Pressed glue ornaments made by the American Wood Column Co., plywood panels with inset magnets, subway posters and 20 steel panels.

Detail.

I spoke with Ellen Harvey at the opening, and she turned out to be exceedingly gracious, generously walking this complete stranger around her new show, pointing out all kinds of subtle detail that would take me many visits to discover. Here again, some of the themes I’ve seen in her other works are on display- a critique of Art, museums, and the rich, her passion for giving the viewers what they want, more use of mirrors (as mirrors this time!) and yes, “nostalgia,” is a theme, here, too. This work with mirrors includes people I know I’ve seen somewhere before.

“All That Glitters,” 2017. Card and detail below.

Detail of the lower right corner of the right side shows Mr. Putin, right, and Mr. Trump, above to the left of center, who’s wife appears elsewhere.

I titled this piece “Ellen Harvey’s Global Beautification Project,” because looking through her projects to date, they’ve taken place around the world, from California, to Miami to Philadelphia to Ghent, Bruges, Margate, Vienna, Warsaw, and of course, NYC, including the 2008 Whitney Biennial and the two Subway Stations. Together, they make part of a map of the world that will soon start to look like a global version of the map of her New York Beautification Project.

Before I left CMA, I came across “Walk In,” 2005, Oil on plywood and gilded frame, a booth to allow visitors to pose in glamorous surroundings, as if walking into a painting.

“Walk In,” 2005, 005, a work designed to be a background and frame in one for a do it yourself portrait.

Inspired by her work, and her approach, it was at that point that I decided to be a visionary, myself. “Hmmm….What does this picture need? What would the people like to see here?,” I asked myself.

The very gracious Artist graciously poses for yours truly in her “Walk In,” 2005.

And so, “My Portrait of Ellen Harvey” ends…with one.

“Ellen Harvey: Nostalgia” is my NoteWorthy show for November. 

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “All This Useless Beauty,” by Elvis Costello from the 1996 album of the same title, publisher not known to me. It’s rendered here.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. A new edition, which features “Arcade/Arcadia” on it’s cover, is the most complete book on her work and is recommended. Ellen Harvey’s website, ellenharvey.info is, also, a goto resource. ↩
  2. The first question I asked Ellen Harvey was about engraving those mirrors- “What happens when you make a mistake?” “It happens often. I press on,” she said! ↩
  3. “Ellen Harvey: Museum of Failure,” P. 299. ↩
  4.  https://youtu.be/juIqarKNAGY ↩

Gary Hume and The Long Goodbye

“Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?
What goes on in that place in the dark?
Well I used to know a girl and I would have
sworn that her name was Veronica”*

Too many people can relate to this.

Like cancer, almost everyone knows someone who’s suffering, or has suffered, from dementia or alzheimer’s disease. Gary Hume does. So do I. I mention it because that might make me, perhaps, not the most impartial viewer of Mr. Hume’s new show, Mum, at Matthew Marks Gallery. Mr. Hume’s Mum, Jill Henshaw, has dementia. The 14 works on view relate to his Mum, as seen by the Artist as a child, and as an adult. Mr. Hume said in a New York Times interview, “I just wanted to paint a picture of my mum, and I wanted to do it to honor her.”

Knowing the subject before I walked in, the show still blindsided me with its understated power. Though there is only 1 portrait of his Mum on display, the other works leaving it to the viewer to connect them with her, the real strength of the show comes in its sum effect.

It had me close to tears.

Three Leaves, 2016-17, Enamel paint on paper. Falling as part of the cycle of their life. Falling like tears. Or, they could be floating away on a river of rippled paper…Click any photo for full size.

Mr. Hume is part of the “Young British Artists” group that sprang out of the Freeze Sensation show in 1988, though he’s not as flamboyant as some of its other members who were his classmates, studying for their B.A.’s in Fine Art, at Goldsmiths College, London, at the time. Now 55, his choice of subject has led to Mr. Hume’s work taking something of a radical turn, resulting in his most personal show yet. While Artist’s mothers are certainly not an unusual subject in Art, dementia is, in my experience. In Art, perhaps it’s most been discussed by those wondering if they can “see” Willem de Kooning’s dementia in his work.

“Georgie,”(Mr. Hume’s wife), left, and “Mum on the Couch,” right, both 2017, Enamel paint on aluminum, and a perfect place for a bench.

An initial visit to the show gives the impression that Mr. Hume’s Paintings share the quiet dignity of Ellsworth Kelly’s final Paintings that recently hung on these same walls. They also possibly share a similar technique with Mr. Kelly’s Plant Drawings that hung next door at the same time, both Artists being fond of rendering a plant in outline. (I wrote about both Ellsworth Kelly shows here.) But their apparently simple compositions and minimal palette are deceiving.

Mr. Hume has developed new techniques that he has mastered to the point that he can use them with wonderful subtlety. Raised lines of paint lie on the flat surface, and act like the lines in a Drawing, delineating and detailing shapes. Elsewhere these lines are smudged, possibly with a finger, into the shape of a mouth, or an eye. They are executed in the same color as the shape they appear on, making details hard to see clearly, requiring the viewer to stand close to the work to see them. This remarkable effect adds to the “there/not thereness” of the image. Paintings on paper became crinkled and wavy as the enamel house paint Mr. Hume uses (in colors pre-mixed in a hardware store) dries creating marvelous textures and effects. Other works on aluminum have very flat background surfaces, and reflect light making it even harder to see the detail. Using these techniques, and others, Mr. Hume does a remarkable job of making us feel both presence and absence in the same image. They are, also, a meditation on the nature of memories.

Even standing in front of the bench, the detail is hard to see.

Close-up of “Georgie,” reveals one of the “drawing” techniques Mr. Hume uses to add still nebulous “details” to these works.

The middle room of the show features Paintings of his Mum, and his wife, Georgie, surrounded by Paintings of plants, flowers and gardens, including this one.

Abstraction of another sort. “Grandma Looks at the Garden,” 2017, Enamel paint on aluminum

“Well she used to have a carefree mind of her
own and a delicate look in her eye
These days I’m afraid she’s not even sure if her
name is Veronica”*

The third and final room seemed to be focused on life continuing. It includes a painting of yellow rain against an orange background that struck me as, possibily, a sunshower.

“Rain,” 2017, Enamel paint on paper. A seemingly “simple” idea that in the context of this show takes it entirely elsewhere.

Contrastingly, next to it, is possibly a garden seen at night, where only the outlines of the plants are visible. Together, they emphasize loss, and memory, being something felt day and night, triggered by almost anything, and manifesting themselves in every situation and time.

“No Light,” 2016, Enamel paint on aluminum. Difficult to see clearly, like many memories are…

On an adjacent wall, a bird looks skyward, its beak closed, without a song.

“The Diver,” 2016-17, Enamel paint on paper.

And, finally in this room, one of two Paintings of berries, “Ripe,” below, bursting with life. (Whiter to, from here?)

“Ripe,” 2015, Enamel paint on paper. Bursting with so much life, the paper can barely contain it.

Meanwhile, the flowers in the show are mostly muted. After all, flowers are, often, symbols of beauty, and loss. Seen at both weddings and funerals.

“Mourning,” 2016, Enamel paint on aluminum

In her article about these works in the New York Times, Barbara Pollack said that Mr. Hume “recoils at any interpretation that reduces the work to merely being a response to his visits with his mother. He prefers to think about the relationship to subject matter as a process of ‘permissions.’…” The thing about Paintings, or Art, is that once it’s been created and put on public display, every person who sees it will have their own “interpretation” of it. I doubt these (especially my own) line up with the Artist’s very often.

Perhaps nowhere here is this better summed up than in “Blind,” a 2016 Painting in the first room. Pale flowers are shown against a white background. A nut seems to be falling towards the lower right corner. Every time I see it, it speaks of something else, but it, also, speaks to loss/impending loss of a mother, with the seed, the harbinger of new life, symbolizing the offspring…himself.

“Blind,” 2016, Enamel paint on aluminum, seen in the show’s first room.

These “ridges” appear in a number of works (like the other flower Paintings above), and are interesting to contrast with the more often than the “softer technique he uses in “Georgie,””Mum on the Couch,” and “Rain.” I haven’t found out as yet how he creates them, but they are stunning and add much to the mystery, and beauty, of these works. The Artist has been trying to replicate them in his prints.

As I said, I may well not be impartial when looking at these works. Ironically, my Mom’s dementia first became apparent one Thanksgiving day. Ironically, this show happens to be up from November 4 to December 22. I was drawn back to it 3 times Thanksgiving week. Now, stepping back from myself, and thinking about the beauty and the power of “Mum,” and seeing other works that Mr. Hume has created recently in the show’s catalog, it seems to me that Gary Hume has made a breakthrough both stylistically, and in portraiture.

“Mum in Bed,” 2017, Enamel paint on aluminum, not on view in the show, from the show’s catalog.

“Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes,
Veronica has gone to hide?”*

Mr. Hume’s work has greatly evolved in the almost 30 years since the “Sensation” show brought him and the YBA’s to wide attention. For years known as the “quiet one” in that group, it’s hard for me not to feel he’s only now hitting his stride. Though I doubt that many will agree with me at the moment, Gary Hume may yet turn out to be the Artist the YBA’s are remembered for. While each work on view is uniquely beautiful on its own, its as a group where each plays a part in telling a larger story, a story of life, love and impending loss (“the long goodbye,” as it’s called), ironically, in slivers that are almost there…like memories.

Human memories may have a finite lifespan, even under the healthiest of conditions. It’s in translating them to other forms where they have their back chance to live on…indefinitely.

Gary Hume, “Mum,” is my NoteWorthy show for November. 
*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Veronica,” by D.P.A. MacManus (aka Elvis Costello) and Paul McCartney,  from “Spike,” published by Universal Music Publishing Group.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Rod Penner’s Neighborhood

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?”*

In 1927, the Painter & Photographer Charles Steeler spent six weeks Photographing the 2,000 acre Ford Rouge plant in Detroit on assignment for an ad agency1. So taken by what he had seen there, over the next 9 years, he produced a series of Paintings of the plant based on the Photos he took. While both his Photos and his Paintings are now seen as classics, that’s perhaps the closest an Artist has come to creating a series of Paintings of a small neighborhood as seen at the same time. Now, the Artist Rod Penner tells me he has completed one such series. “Mr. Penner’s Neighborhood” (with apologies to Fred “Mr.” Rogers) of choice for his series of 2015-17 Paintings is San Saba, Texas, a town of about 3,000, an hour north of Austin, as seen in the source material he collected in various mediums (plural- they consist of more than Photographs he told me), during a trip he took there early one winter Saturday morning. To date, they had numbered 10 Paintings, 9 of which were shown at Rod Penner, at Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery, NYC in May2, (which I wrote about here and here. My follow-up “Q & A” with Rod Penner is here.)

San Saba Butane, 2015, 10 x 15 inches.  All works shown are Acrylic on canvas. The first work in Rod Penner’s San Saba Series, and was not in the AMY show. Comparing this to the smaller work with the same title, I wrote about here, is endlessly fascinating. Photo courtesy Rod Penner and Ameringer McEnery & Yohe.

The tenth, (actually, the first to be completed in 2015), above, gives us a view of San Saba Butane seen from the side, which contrasts with the smaller painting of the same title that captivated me at the show where San Saba Butane is seen from the front. This perspective makes it part of a neighborhood, and not seem to be an island. A neighborhood where the other buildings seem to be in better condition, and most likely still in use. Here, it still looks like a relic, just a relic that is part of a large community, something we don’t often think of relics being. Interestingly for me, the lone car is stopped at a light, the only time this occurs in the San Saba series, as if symbolizing time standing still here.

The new 11th, and final, painting in his series is, interestingly, entitled Welcome to San Saba. I quickly moved past the irony of ending a series with a work that would seem to indicate it was the first work in the series to look at this photo of it.

The 11th and final work in Rod Penner’s San Saba Series, Welcome to San Saba, 2017, 10 x 15 inches. Photo by Rod Penner, courtesy of the Artist and Ameringer McEnery Yohe.

Ah…G & R Grocery (cut off on the right), The Station (dead ahead, left of center)…some familiar sights from their own works in the show…the familiar damp streets… Yet? Much was new to me.  Take the mural on the yellowish wall seen facing us to the right of center, for instance. During the run of the show, I looked long and hard at the miniature version of that mural alongside the G & R in its 5 x 7 1/2 inch painting at AMY, below, where it is seen at a sharp angle, trying, in vain, to see what it depicted.

Flashback. G & R Grocery, 2016, 5 x 7 1/2 inches, as seen in the AMY show in May.

Seeing it now, face on, is “another part of the puzzle.” It’s a picture in a picture that adds a surreal element to this work, especially because we can’t really see all of the storefronts along the side of Welcome to San Saba, and so it seems to ask the question “Is THIS San Saba? Or, is what’s in the mural San Saba?” Well, I hear that hunting is second only to pecans as a business in San Saba, so? They both are. Maybe that’s why the deer in the mural has that “in the headlights” look, which mimics the distant car with its headlights on coming down the street. While we’re busy pondering all of that, one thing’s for sure, besides that car, there’s not a heck of a lot going on.

The perspective giving us this view strikes me as brilliantly subtle. We’re not exactly in the street, or on the curb. We’re not looking exactly straight down the sidewalk, or really, right down the street. Only the mural is seen whole, balanced by the facade of The Station, across the street in the distance. The pavement is masterfully done, as usual. It’s astounding, really. Right down to the varying degrees of wetness, and that horizontal crack breaking things up. While we’re admiring Mr. Penner’s technique, other visual pleasures include what can be seen of the facades of the stores seen in perspective, the peeling paint on the mural wall, and of course, the “Penneresque” skies, as I call them, this one different from some of the rest because it lacks any hint of the sun breaking through, or being covered up, as in the larger SS Butane. The bare tree on the left marvelously balances the piece, and is, like everything else, wonderfully done.

Flashback #2. View of San Saba, 2017, 5 x 7 1/2 inches. Looking down the same street as Welcome to San Saba, which takes place halfway up the road on the right, as seen at Ameringer in May.

Finally, there are the many festive lights, including those that run along the top of all the buildings, reinforcing that it’s the holiday season, which adds more poignancy for the viewer. The lack of people and cars, except for the distant one approaching makes this feel more haunting to me than View of San Saba, above, possibly because we’re not in the middle of the street now, and we’re right among the buildings. Odd for that time of year, there’s almost no activity, no one is shopping, doing errands, etc., save for the headlights of the car approaching in the distance.

It’s more than a terrific Painting. It’s a worthy end to a compelling, unique series.

As importantly, the more I looked at it, the more I realized it was effecting some of my thoughts about the rest of the series, and making me see “more” in them. As I mentioned last time, this series presents different views of much of the same small neighborhood in each succeeding work, with each angle presenting new information, and giving a new perspective. A subtly engrossing concept that adds another layer to the already meditative nature of his work, which takes us from pondering individual scenes to assessing the larger community, seen in the first, and last two works in the series. Assessing them, I’m reminded that I paid so little mention to the “Holiday” aspects I just mentioned that, also, recur in some of these works- Yard Inflatables, and The Station, as seen at Ameringer, (a pic of The Station I Posted previously). This combined with the universal absence of people, the often darkening skies lends a sense of isolation, even lonelieness that feels (to me, at least) akin to that in Hopper. But, that is the real joy of looking, and seeing what they say to you. Your results may differ.

It’s the holidays in the neighborhood. Yard Inflatables, 2016, 6 x 6 inches, seen at AMY.

Yard Inflatables is, also, a charming example of Mr. Penner’s subtle humor. Something that also appears, in somewhat subtler form, in Welcome to San Saba, possibly in the title, itself. Mr. Penner, who describes himself as “an avid hunter, big on wildlife management and conservation,” also had to tell  me (because I’d never have guessed) the mural is a bit of a jab at some of his  some of his anti-hunting friends, and sent this photo of the actual mural along. I’m sure most residents disagree, but I like his version of it much better.

Welcome to San Saba Mural. Photo by, and courtesy of, Rod Penner. Interestingly different perspective than seen in the Painting.

The photo of the mural also puts yet another nail in the coffin of what’s called “photorealism,” something that has less and less to do with Mr. Penner’s work the more I see of it. Just compare it to the mural in the painting. So, if Rod Penner is not a “photorealist,” what is he? He’s an Artist. It’s becoming apparent to me that he is directly in the line of “American Realists”3 that goes all the way back to Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), and extends up through George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), the Hudson River School (including Thomas Cole 1801-1848 and Sanford Gifford 1823-1880),  Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Edward Hopper (1882-1967), and yes, Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) (Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood are among others included by many). Not a bad “neighborhood” to be in. Speaking of those “neighbors,” I find myself wishing the whole series had gone to a museum, like the Whitney, where it would look wonderful along side their Hoppers and Sheelers, while showing that tradition is alive and well in 2017.

Rod Penner’s San Saba Series, strikes me as walking that line between intimacy and distance. Standing in front of someone’s house, especially at Christmas, has an intimacy to it that it probably wouldn’t have seen at any other time of the year. The owners are “letting us in” a little bit into who they are through their decorations. So is the town with its “public” holiday decorations, seen in the streets of The Station and Welcome to San Saba. Yet, there is an undeniable distance and an almost foreboding sense of isolation that’s reinforced by the ever-present, slightly ominous “Penneresque” skies. Works like the smaller San Saba Butane are not at all welcoming. Even if you were to venture inside the crumbling building, you wouldn’t really “be” anywhere. View of San Saba, above, the next to last work Mr. Penner completed, is also not welcoming. We may be risking our lives standing in the middle of that street for long with our backs turned. In Welcome to San Saba, some lights are on, but nobody’s out. It’s a bit reminiscent of those old western movies when the bad guys come to town and everyone’s hunkered down indoors.

As the 9 Paintings at Ameringer McEnery Yohe sold, I now feel lucky to have been able to see that many of them in one place, since their “interaction” adds so much, as I’ve tried to show, and since who knows when that might happen again. Walking through these 11 Paintings, in my mind now, “Mr. Penner’s Neighborhood” still fascinates me and still makes me look deeper. I guess I’ve become a neighbor.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” by Fred M. (“Mr.”) Rogers.

My previous pieces on Rod Penner-
“Q&A With Master Painter Rod Penner,” June 14, 2017.
“Rod Penner: Brilliance, Under Cloudy Skies,” June 10, 2017.
“The Vermeer of Marble Falls,” April 28, 2017.

“On The Fence, #9, The Sitting Ducks” Edition

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  1. Some may be seen here. ↩
  2. The show’s site is here. ↩
  3. With all due respect to great Realists the world over. ↩

NoteWorthy Shows: March Through May, 2017

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Catching up from my March computer meltdown. To recap, AIPAD-The Photography Show, was my NoteWorthy Show for March, “Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work” at the New Museum for April, “Rod Penner” at Ameringer McEnery Yohe for May. Here are some other “NoteWorthy Shows” I saw from March through May (in no particular order). Better late than never…especially where these fine shows are concerned. 

“Elliott Hundley: Dust Over Everything” (@ Andrea Rosen Gallery)- According to Siri there were 41 days between January 1 and February 10, during which Elliott Hundley must have been THE busiest man on the planet creating the 22 works for this show, which opened on February 10. He must not have eaten, slept, or gone to the food store, saving every second of every day to create what are the most intricate works I’ve seen in years, each one of which is dated “2017.”

“the song dissolves,” Paper, oil, pins, fabric, foam and linen over panel, 11 3/8 x 14 3/8 x 2 3/4 inches. Click any image to enlarge.

Side view.

Theatrical…Intimate…Grand…Microscopic…Bombastic…Quotidian…There are as many styles as there are works, and almost as many materials listed having been used on them. Ok. He probably had (some) help creating these. Practically? I get that. But, you can’t see it. Every single detail seems to spring from the same source- a seemingly boundless imagination that shows us a different side of it in each piece.

“Dust Over Everything,” Paper, oil, plastic, fabric, pins, foam and linen over panel. 36 1/4 x 24 1/4 x 6.

And the pins! I feel for whoever has to count them when these works wind up in Museums. “Countless” is how I’d describe them. It must have taken an army of acupuncturists a week to do even one of these works, because they are so extraordinarily well placed I found myself continually looking at the works from a 45 degree angle so I could appreciate them all. They’re such a tour de force as to be, a bit, distracting. I wondered what order they were placed in, which took away valuable moments I should have spent pondering the work as a whole (before getting to the details.) They are a bit like veil on a stage that you have to look through (after you’re done appreciating them) to ponder all that’s under them. But, they are not present in every work here. What’s under them struck me as being a whole life told in episodes, glimpses, memories and relics.

“Gallows Bird,” Oil and paper on linen, 80 1/8 x 96 1/4 x 1 7/8

Suffice it to say there’s, also, a life time’s worth of looking ahead for whoever buys these obsessive works- some of the freshest work I’ve seen in the first 65 days of this year, and among the densest work I’ve ever seen.

“Until the end,” Paper, oil, pins, glass, lotus, plastic, foam and linen over panel, 96 1/2 x 80 1/4 x 8 1/2

Detail of the right side. Mr. Hundley features friends & family in his work, giving them a personal depth he feels comes across to the viewer.

“Seurat’s Circus Sideshow” (@ The Met)- From the first time prehistoric man made a mark on a surface, countless billions of people down through the intervening millennia have drawn. Where is the OTHER one among them who draws, or drew, like Georges Seurat? Seurat only lived 31 years, so he didn’t get the chance to create either a lot of drawings, or a lot of paintings, so this was a very rare chance to see (mostly) his drawings, along with 2 paintings, and works by others, all more or less related to the theme of the circus, with Seurat’s “Circus Sideshow,” from The Met’s collection, as the centerpiece. How fascinating it must have been to watch him make one of these unique Drawings, let alone one of his even more remarkable paintings? So, even the otherworldly presence of Rembrandt’s “Christ Presented to the People” wasn’t enough to distract from focusing on the extremely rare opportunity to see a number of Seurat’s drawings in one place.

Looking down at the entrance for “Seurat’s Circus Sideshow”. Exactly one year ago this Robert Lehman Wing Courtyard was full of scaffolding for the false floor of the “Ghost Cathedral” of the Manus X Machina Fashion Show sat at the level of the upper floor here- a few hundred feet in diameter! Amazing.

“Seurat’s Circus Sideshow” entrance, features the titular work.

“Trombonist,” 1887-88, Conte crayon with white chalk

“At the Gaiete Rochechouart,” 1877-78, Conte crayon with gouache

“Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms,” & “Marsden Hartley’s Maine” (@ The Met Breuer)-

Meanwhile, across town, Sheena Wagstaff , The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Art Chairwoman, continues to give us unexpected shows of M&C Art at TMB, this time focusing on the late Brazilian female Artist, Lygia Pape (1927-2004), and American Painter Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)- two Artists who have almost nothing in common, except, perhaps, Ms. Wagstaff as a champion, and that neither has had a substantial show in NYC, for at least anytime in the recent past (as far as I know). I couldn’t escape the feeling that Ms. Pape has a style not all that unlike the great Nasreen Mohamedi, who Ms. Wagstaff chose to be the very first show of M&C Art at TMB. Mr Hartley, however, does not. “The Painter from Maine” has a strong, muscular style that is worlds away from the from the geometric abstraction Ms. Pape’s and Ms. Mohamedi’s works may seem to be at casual view. His in another part of the story of American 20th Century Art, one that is often, unfortuatley, overlooked, perhaps because it’s rare to see more than one of his works at a time. His place in the long line of important Maine Artists that runs from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer (a key influence on Hartley) through Edward Hopper to the Wyeths and Richard Estes is assured. While the opportunity to see more of these interesting Artists was most welcome, for me, these shows were equally interesting for what “more” they might reveal of Ms. Wagstaff’s direction, which, given the state of flux The Met is in at the moment, I believe in supporting.

Lygia Pape’s vision extended from paintings to sculpture to people, as seen on the screen on the left,”Divisor (Divider), 1968, performed in 1990,, which seems to mimic the effect of the wall sculpture, “Livro dos caminhos (Book of paths),” 1963-76, paint on wood,  on the right.

Lygia Pape, “Tteia, 1, C,” 1976-2004, Gold thread, light and a few staples create a haunting, shimmering vision.

Lygia Pape, “Liver do tempo (Book of time),”1961-63, A tour de force of almost endless creativity & variety in 365 tempera and acrylic on wood pieces in relief.

I particularly admire these 3 early Landscapes by Marsden Hartley done between 1907-09, with their unique, almost “Pointilistic” technique, (26 years after the Seurat’s death), which is much “softer” than his “muscular,” later landscapes, like the next one.

“The Lighthouse,” 1940-41, Oil on masonite

Perhaps the most “muscular” painting since the Mannerists.

“Romare Bearden: Bayou Fever and Related Works” (@ DC Moore Gallery)- Highlighted by 21 collages from 1979 Romare Bearden (1911-88) created for a ballet entitled “Bayou Fever” that he hoped Alvin Ailey would choreograph, they confirm Mr. Bearden’s place as a master of collage who was ahead of his time. While some works have an overt Matissean influence, everything here is uniquely Bearden, an Artist who is not seen nearly often enough and never seems to fail to impress when he is seen. I mentioned him in in my Post on his friend, Stuart Davis, and my Post on Kerry James Marshall, who selected a piece by Bearden for his “KJM Selects” section of his excellent TMB Retrospective.

Installation view. The 21 collages from “Bayou Fever,” 1979, are seen to the right.

2 works from “Bayou Fever”- “Untitled (The Conjur Woman),” left and “Untitled (The Swamp Witch, Blue-Green Lights and Conjur Woman), both Collages from 1979

“Feast,” 1969 21 x 25,” Collage

“Noah Means A New Day,” No date, Collage

“Prevalance of Ritual/Tidings,” 1964, Gelatin silver print

“Rat Bastard Protective Association” (@ Susan Inglett Gallery)- Who? The RBPA was “an inflammatory, close-knit community of Artists and Poets who lived and worked together in a building they dubbed ‘Painterland,'” in San Francisco, to quote the press release. As I wrote about last year, Bruce Conner was, somehow, new to me when I first walked through the black curtain at the entrance of the utterly amazing “Bruce Conner: It’s All True” at MoMA last year but, Susan Inglett had a long history with Bruce Conner, as I learned in speaking with her briefly, earlier this year. So, her (always excellent) gallery’s show of works by “The Rat Bastard Protection Association,” a group of San Fran Artists that included Mr. Coner was something special, and quite rare. In addition to the chance to see amazing work by Bruce Conner I’d never seen before, the show marked my first chance to see work by his Artist wife, Jean Conner, an important Artist in her own right. Add Jay DeFeo, Wallace Berman, Michael McClue to the roster and this was a small show that packed a punch, and pointed out, once again, that the East Coast needs to become much more familiar with this whole group of San Francisco based Artists, who were associated in the Rat Bastard Protection Association from the late 1950’s to early 1960’s. Up from April 27 to June 3, it anticipated the Robert Rauschenberg show now at MoMA and provides a reminder that these Artists were working strikingly similar veins at the same time, 2570 miles, as the crow flies, apart1.

Bruce Conner, “THE EGG,” 1959, Mixed media assemblage in a convex brass frame. Even his extraordinarily wide-ranging MoMA Retrospective didn’t prepare me to see this.

Bruce Conner “MARY, MOTHER OF GOD,” 1960, Charcoal on paper. Almost “conventional,” it shows little sign of the revolutionary drawings to come.

Two collages from 1960 by the overlooked Jean Conner, both titled “(ARE YOU A SPRINGMAID)

Two assemblages by Bruce Conner, “UNTITLED (DO NOT REMOVE),” 1960 and “FLOATING HEAD,” 1958-59

“Alice Neel, Uptown” (@ David Zwirner Gallery)- An increasingly beloved and respected New York Artist (she settled here at age 27, and lived here for over 50 years), her star continues to rise, though it’s taken a long time (she passed in 1984, at age 84). She always leads with her humanity, and it seems to me that that’s something that makes New York proud of her. Though one of her works was the featured/poster image for The Met Breuer’s 2016 blockbuster “Untitled: Thoughts Left Unfinished,” a perfect choice, IMHO, there hasn’t been an Alice Neel show all that recently, as far as I can recall. This one would still prove itself different even if there had been a few. For one thing it focused on work Ms. Neel did while she was living “Uptown,” in East Harlem (aka Spanish Harlem), from 1938 to 1962, and, as the press release says, it focuses on portraits of her family, friends and neighbors. The results are classic Alice Neel. Though not everything here is a major work, the breath of fresh air it provided only hints at how much pent-up longing I think there is to see more of her work.

The time has come!

The show has moved to Victoria Miro, London, where it can be seen through July 29.

Shown in two adjoining David Zwirner locations, this is one of the two entrances.

“Building in Harlem,” 1945, Oil on canvas. Ms. Neel lived in East (Spanish) Harlem from 1938-62.

“Alice Childress,” 1950, Oil on canvas. An actor who became a playwright and novelist when she found “little dramatic material that represented the lives of black women she knew,” per the show’s curator, Hilton Als.

“Two Girls,” 1954, Ink and gouache on paper.

Georgie Acre, a young Puerto Rican boy who often ran errands for Ms. Neel, seen in 4 Drawings and a Painting from 1950-58. In 1974, Mr. Arce was convicted of murder. He’s shown praying in the second Drawing from left.

“Ron Kajiwara,” 1971, Oil on canvas. A son of Japanese immigrants, he was detained in a California internment camp during WW2. He later became a design director for Vogue before dying of AIDS in 1990.

And finally, Kevin Francis Gray (@Pace, West 24th Street)- I can’t recall encountering anyone who’s doing what Mr. Gray is with “figurative” sculpture.

“Reclining Nude 1,” 2016, All works are Carrara Marble

Does he use a secret laser ray? Has he discovered how to melt marble, then work it in it’s molten state? Somehow, he’s able to make Carrara marble attain the properties of clay!

“Salamander,” 2017

Ummmm…Yes, I had to remind myself continually, after tying my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t touch them to appease my wonder… These are MARBLE!

“Reclining Nude 1,” 2016, front, and “The Aristocrat,” 2017

I find it daring, exciting, and revolutionary. Along the way, he blurs the lines between the representational and the abstract, while adding all sorts of new levels of appearance, meaning, and possibilities to “portraiture.”

Detail of “Reclining Nude II,” 2017

While some of his past works, especially his “Twelve Chambers,” 2013, group of 12 life-sized figures vaguely reminded me of Rodin’s “Burghers of Calais“, these recent works appear, to me, to be a breakthrough. Is Kevin Francis Gray the successor to Rodin? He’s only 45. We’ll see where his new developments lead him. Stay tuned…he said, with bated breath.

“Heavenly bodies…”

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “It’s Quiet Uptown,” by Lin-Manuel Miranda, from “Hamilton.”

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  1. My fine feathered friends (aka “The Birdies”) just smirked when I said that, again, and said they stand by their prior comment on the matter, here. ↩

Q&A With Master Painter Rod Penner

During the recent show, Rod Penner, at Ameringer McEnery Yohe, I was fascinated watching visitor’s reactions to the work.

While it was hard to know if they were familiar with Rod Penner’s work, most seemed taken, startled & impressed with his incredible technique. But then, they lingered. Often for quite a while. I well know that feeling. How well the Paintings are done is a hook that grabs your attention and pulls you in. What happens then? Well…That’s up to the individual viewer.


When you finally step back, you marvel that all of that took place in a space that’s 6 by 6 inches or 5 by 7 1/2 inches. When this first happened to me, in April, 2016, I was left with wonder. I wanted to know more about him and his art. Since I’ve now written about him and this show twice, perhaps others are curious, too. The AMY show answered some of my questions, primarily- Yes. He is THAT good. But, it raised others. I am very pleased to report that, after the show ended, and he arrived safely back in his now long time home in Texas, Rod Penner graciously agreed to answer some of my questions in a very rare Q&A. (For those interested in exploring his work still further, I’ve appended a list of resources known to me at the end of this Post. I welcome hearing about others I don’t know of.) What I’ve learned thus far has confirmed, at least to me, his place as a major Artist. That leaves the other question…

Who is Rod Penner?

“It’s your last chance
To check under the hood
Last chance
She ain’t soundin’ too good,
Your last chance
To trust the man with the star
You’ve found the last chance Texaco”*

Having previously shown his recent, small Paintings, here’s one of his larger works. Farmers Co-op Gin/Anson, TX, 2012, 20 x 32 inches.  All works by Rod Penner, Acrylic on canvas, and are from rodpenner.com and amy-ny.com, unless otherwise noted.

Every work in virtually every show of Rod Penner’s work these past 25 years sold. Remarkable. Those owners are not parting with those pieces, which can be seen in his work not coming up at auction (as far as I know). 8 of the 9 pieces in this recent show were sold before the show opened. I believe the time has come for a closer look at what’s going on here.

Joker Coffee Shop, 2016, 6 x 6 inches.

What’s going on here, succinctly, is that Rod Penner is quietly creating a remarkably excellent body of Paintings, one that provides all the proof needed that he is a Master Painter.

Ranch View, Vaughn MN, 2013, 12 x 18 inches. Compare this with the next two.

Not wanting to take up too much of Mr. Penner’s valuable time, with repetition of things John Seed has addressed in his 3 pieces about the Artist, my questions serve as supplements to those articles (linked at the end). What follows is about his life, and his Art, but I also felt it was important to ask this Master Painter about Art- What he looks for when he looks at Art. Mr. Penner has a deep knowledge of Art History and he is very open minded to styles & periods, perhaps surprisingly so to some. Typically, when I met him at the show’s opening, he told me he was off to The Met while he was in town to see “The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers.” So? Having a great interest in all of this, I also had to ask him which Painters and periods he feels go under-appreciated these days.

54 Grill, Vaughn, MN, 2016, 30.5 x 64 inches.

Ranch View, Vaughn MN, 2013, 4 x 4 INCHES! These three works show 3 views of the same place, something Mr. Penner would revisit, in a way, in his recent show. This is the work that hooked me- the first piece of Mr. Penner’s I saw in April, 2016. Previously, I associated scenes like this with William Eggleston. Now? I think of Rod Penner.

Kenn Sava (KS)- In reading about your background, you’ve mentioned your folks being supportive of your skill and development, but I haven’t been able to learn if you studied with someone, if you studied Art in school, or if you are self-taught, as well as what road your education and development as an Artist took. Were you Painting when you arrived in Texas? If so, were they the same (general) style as the work we see on your site from 1992, or did you ever work in a different style?

Rod Penner (RP)- Growing up, our family enjoyed camping, hunting, and fishing. I painted wildlife during this time, emulating the work of Robert Bateman and other Canadian wildlife artists.

After graduating from high school, I attended a local community college for one year and then transferred to Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma where I graduated with a B.A. degree in Studio Art, and while I found myself at odds with certain aspects of the theology, overall it was a positive experience. It was at ORU where I met my beautiful wife, Debbie, and we both made lifelong friends among the students and faculty.

Following college, we married in 1986 and moved to British Columbia. when I started intensely studying the work of Canadian realist painters, Christopher Pratt and Alex Colville. I had a lot of wildlife art commissions at this time and even started selling through a well-known gallery in Denver but the animals became less and less important in my paintings. In 1988, Debbie’s brother was killed in a biking accident, so we moved down to Texas to spend time with her family. We ended up staying and I welcomed the change as a way to start over with my art and break away completely from what I was doing. I got a part-time job teaching, but Debbie worked full time so I could paint. She has always believed in me and supported my efforts. The same year that our second child was born in 1991, my youngest brother died in a plane crash. Nine months later, I gained representation by Ivan Karp and his O.K. Harris gallery, allowing Debbie to quit work in order to stay at home to raise our children. I’ve supported our family ever since solely on the sales of my paintings.

American Inn, 2011,  6 x 6 inches.

KS- What inspired you to get into Art? Who were the Artists you liked early on, and which influenced you early on?

RP- Shortly after arriving in the Lone Star State, I rediscovered the work of John Salt and felt an instant connection. I couldn’t drive past a trailer home (and there are many in Texas) without thinking “Salt.” At this point, I wanted to spend more time in the studio and less time searching out subjects to paint, so I started driving around the town we lived in and took photos of these tract houses that were everywhere. I found them visually interesting. As with all the streets and buildings that I paint, these homes, under certain weather and lighting conditions, became transformed. I painted my first tract house in 1989 and it sparked a series of paintings that were later shown at O.K. Harris in NY.

Pink House with Big Wheels, 1992, 36 x 54 inches, is the earliest work in his online Archive.

KS-Your last show at AMY was in 2013. Two of these pieces are dated 2016, the rest 2017. How do you feel your work has changed/evolved since your last show?

Mr W, Lubbock, TX, 2013, 12 x 18 inches, which appeared in his 2013 AMY, NYC show

RP- Up until 2016, all my previous “micro” paintings were square in shape, but for this show, most of the canvases have a 2:3 size ratio.

I’ve also been exploring more towns in New Mexico.

KS- The work on the catalog’s cover, which is dated 2015 (and is not in this show) appears to be part of this series- a fascinating, alternate view of San Saba Butane. Are there others works in this series?

San Saba Butane, San Saba, TX, 2015, 12 x 18 inches, which appears on the recent show’s exhibition catalog’s cover, but which was not in the show. The Painting that was in the show is below.

RP- The painting you’re referring to measures 12 x 18 inches and is based on the photos I took for the series in my show. I’m currently working on a 10 x 15 inch painting of San Saba which will be my final painting in this series. These two paintings will be included in my next exhibit.

KS- I’ve seen you’ve done two views of a same scene in the past, but is this the first “series” of Paintings you’ve done (I know of 10 that are a part of it) of a relatively small area (which feels like it’s within a few blocks), with source material from the same time? Was this a conscious decision- to do a series? Or, is it just coincidental, and the works should be considered independently of each other. (I’m not sure I can do that!)

RP- This show is a first for me in the sense that it is a series of paintings based on photos taken on a single morning of a single town. Most of the locations are in and around the town square of San Saba, TX, and when viewed together they form a more comprehensive “portrait”, both of the town itself, and my personal experiences in this place. That being said, each painting is also meant to stand on its own.

KS- How is your work received locally? Especially in San Saba, if these have been seen there?

RP- I sent a news release for the exhibit, along with some jpegs of my paintings, to a local paper in San Saba but never heard back. Since I don’t show in my hometown of Marble Falls, and rarely in the state of Texas, my work is largely ignored and/or misunderstood. Texas residents have an understandable pride in their communities and my paintings don’t always portray these towns in a cheerful light. However, I’m not interested in painting a romanticized and sanitized version of small-town America. San Saba, along with every town I paint, has its own character, its own curiosities and quirks, its own grit, as well as its own beauty…

So many good memories have been made in this town, but it’s taken almost 16 years for everything to come together in order for me to paint it.

KS- I’m fascinated by San Saba Butane. Without giving away its mystery, is this a place you’re at all familiar with, or is your interest in it purely pictorial?

San Saba Butane, 2017, 6 x 6 inches, as seen in this show.

RP- I first photographed San Saba Butane around 15 years ago and have witnessed its slow deterioration over the years. Who owned it and what it was used for doesn’t interest me.

KS- We’ve discussed people calling your work “photorealism,” yet there is a lot of abstraction in your work- the clouds, the cracks in the pavement, the tree branches, patterns of bricks, peeling paint, and on and on. Of course you know its there. What role do you feel abstraction plays in so-called realistic or representational Art? Do people ever notice it? I also saw you mentioned John Zurier, and that makes me wonder if he’s influenced your skies.?

RP- The formalist qualities in my paintings are important. The placement and shapes of clouds, pavement cracks, branches, etc, is always intentional. I’m good at arranging these components within a picture plane while photographing, but afterward, I edit, so that these elements ultimately serve my purpose which is to create a certain mood and a strong composition. Also, you’ll find smaller engaging areas of abstraction within the paintings which I enjoy incorporating. I think this comes from studying and appreciating a range of different styles of painting.

Regarding Zurier, I’m not consciously thinking of his work while painting my skies, but I’m sure he’s influenced certain elements of my art. He creates this terrific sense of light and weather with just pure pigment and the mood in his paintings elicit a certain quiet meditative self-reflection.

Commerce St, Brenham TX, 2002, 24 x 36 inches. One of two Paintings I’ve seen of his with an actual person in it.

KS- You’ve been in Texas just about 30 years now, would you have been shocked if someone told you in 1988 you’d be here for (at least) 30 years? Does being originally from somewhere else (a city, no less) help you in Painting these scenes you’ve been doing all these years?

RP- The Texas Hill Country is a wonderful place to raise a family. Moving here from Canada allowed me to observe my surroundings with the objectivity of an outsider. I don’t have any memories of these locations before the age of 22; however, they do evoke memories from my childhood, but it has little or nothing to do wth a specific building or street. On the flip-side, living here for almost 30 years has endeared me to Texas, and prevents me from patronizing my subject matter.

KS- In the introduction to the show’s catalog, Mr. Seed mentions your reacting against big (large) Painting by others in these quite small works. What is it about big Paintings that you don’t like?

RP- I don’t dislike large paintings per se, only pretentious, self-serving large paintings that tell me what to think and feel, and much of the current art world seems to embrace that kind of work.

Bertram Supply Co, Bertram, TX, 2016, 36 x 54 inches. One of Mr. Penner’s larger works.

KS- Your taste in art is wonderfully eclectic, ranging from the Dutch & Flemish Masters to the Hudson River School to contemporary Artists including Andy Piedilato. Is there a common thread to the Art you like? When you look at Painting, what do you look for? What makes someone an excellent or great Painter in your book?

Ice Spine, 2015, 102 x 126 inches, left and Pinched Red Sail, 2016, 100 x 117 inches, right, by Andy Piedilato, seen at Danese Corey, NYC, in October, 2016

RP- Someone who has command of their medium and uses it to express mature ideas.

KS- What do you think of NYC? Has anything you’ve seen here ever grabbed you to paint it?

RP- NYC is our favorite place to visit but no, I have never felt an urge to paint it.

KS- Finally, if you were going to suggest to Art Lovers they look at one thing, one style, period or (I’m not a big fan of this word- “school”- unless the Artists themselves put themselves in that group), or the work of one Artist, that you feel has been overlooked, or is especially “important” today, what, or who, would it be?

RP- Perhaps the Tonalists; John Francis Murphy, Bruce Crane, and Birge Harrison are three of my favorites. Contemporary painter Catherine Murphy is in a class of her own. John Salt definitely deserves more attention and credit.

For anyone interested in knowing more about Rod Penner’s Art, as I write, the current resources are-
-Rod Penner has a website, which includes an Archive of his work that goes back to 1992, and includes links to his FB and Instagram pages.
-Ameringer McEnery Yohe has additional info, and details on the past shows they’ve held for Rod Penner here. They also published a catalog for this recent show, and copies of it may (keyword “may”) still be available through them. I’d hurry.
-John Seed’s two pieces may be found here, and here. He also wrote a piece for the AMY catalog.
(And, I have written about him twice previously so far, here and here.)

I’m grateful to Rod Penner for taking the time to answer my questions, for speaking with me at the very hectic opening of his show, and to his wife, Debbie, and their family, for allowing him to take some time away from them to do so. They’ve been married 31 years. I should have asked him what the secret to that is!

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Last Chance Texaco,” by Rikki Lee Jones, from the classic album of the same name, and published by Rikki Lee Jones. You can see her perform it here.

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