Joan Semmel - a feminist approach to non-objectification of the body (at Alexander Gray Associates)

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“I had returned from Spain looking for the ‘sexual revolution’ and instead found sexual commercialization that mostly showed female bodies for sale. I wanted to find an erotic visual language that would speak to women. I was convinced that the repression of women began in the sexual arena, and this would need to be addressed at the source.” Joan Semmel

To a great extent Joan Semmel, throughout her artistic career, seems to have attacked the paradox that Naomi Wolf brought to public attention through her work ‘The Beauty Myth’. In a society where women have attained a great degree of economic equality, why are they so depressed and anxious and why are they so obsessed with notions of beauty that still leave them as male objects of desire? The more freedom and equality women gain, the more feminine and desirable to men they seem to want to be. In her art Semmel has aspired to present a less self-conscious sense of female sexuality through experiments combining figurative and expressionistic elements as well as cropped images based on photos and images containing mirrors and cameras so that we are constantly aware of the usual ‘object’ of male art and desire finally attempting to view herself ‘through her own eyes’.

The eye-catcher for me in this show, the piece which I saw through the window of the gallery and which compelled me to enter Alexander Gray Associates, is an untitled piece from 1971 of a man performing cunnilingus on a woman. To openly distinguish the piece from any semblance of pornography, the figures are expressionistic and portrayed in unrealistic colors.  We see a man engaged in a type of selfless aggression to bring the woman to orgasm. Indeed, that this is a deliberate and voluntary process is revealed through the open eye looking, apparently, to see whether the woman is responding favorably. His lust or commitment toward this selfless sexual gesture for the woman is, also, unquestionable – he is obviously driven and deriving immense pleasure as he performs oral sex. This relatively early piece by Semmel, during  the early stages of the feminist movement in the USA, turns the normal sexual power-dynamic of both art and pornography upside down. It’s an amazing piece which, basically, modeled or hinted at, in 1971, a possible new type of sexual relationship, or public portrayal of a sexual relationship, between men and women.

Throughout the gallery we also see paintings of women intertwined with lovers or alone, or even lying naked next to a lover in an attempt to reimagine “…the nude without objectifying the person, of using a specific body rather than an idealized form.”  Some paintings with deliberately cropped heads are of Joan herself. Heads are deliberately cropped to connote an autobiographical perspective that subverts the viewer’s accustomed tendency to assume the traditional role of the erotic voyeur. In many of Semmel’s paintings of nudes we get a sense of ease and equanimity instead of anxiety to please or conform – instead of the idealized feminine body we get a body at peace with itself, some bodies engaged in a meaningful emotional and sexual union with an equal and equally loving partner.

Long before the term ‘selfie’ was created, we also see various paintings of Semmel, camera in hand, looking into a mirror, photographing herself as she enters a period of life and the aging process which has been prohibited in art. When we see aging women in the Western tradition, we recall the ‘vanitas’ paintings, warning us of the transitory nature of life and need for greater religious commitment. Old women painted by male artists have often warned other males that every woman is a potential hag, female beauty is a deception and women are evil deceivers and spiritual vampires. Semmel challenges this approach as well – she disabuses the traditional pictorial abuse of women with a basic reality which invites fellow-feeling and compassion for our shared human condition.

As Semmel wrote, “I wanted the body to be seen as a woman experiences herself, rather than through the reflection of the mirror or male eyes. The fundamental problem of subject and object was always present, and using my own body was one method of dealing with this. More importantly, it made it clear that the artist was female, and undercut the stereotypes of male artist and female muse. I wanted to subvert this tradition from within.”

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Landscapes by Eric Holzman at Lori Bookstein Fine Art

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The weathering process is the first thing that grabbed me about Eric Holzman’s amazing new landscape paintings at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.  Holzman literally adds types of dirt, sand and dust to his paints and this achieves a really arresting effect on the viewer. These oil paintings initially reminded me a bit of some of the landscape frescoes that were found on the inner walls of houses in Pompeii. It turns out, however, that Holzman is inspired by various Renaissance artists and it seems (based on previous reviews of his work) that the process he uses is meant to get the feel of that time period.  In fact, if I didn’t know that he was creating his work from rural areas in Westchester and the Hudson valley, I could imagine that he might be engaging in a type of conceptual process, beginning by selecting sections of the landscape from the background of, say, a Giorgione painting (or any number of Renaissance masters) and copying and blurring these landscapes and presenting them separate from any figuration – as if he’s trying to free Renaissance landscapes from the human figure and allow them to be experienced by themselves.  

The weathering process is important because it makes many of Holzman’s paintings look as if they were done during a time before the onset of industrialization and our reliance on science to understand and exploit nature.  It’s as if he is announcing through his process that he is hearkening back to an older vision of and engagement with nature. So we are engaging nature, first, in what seems to be a somewhat removed historical sense, but then through Holzman’s experiments with color and form we are brought back into a hyper-enriched engagement with nature.  

Science has replaced the ‘ancient’ belief in transcendence through engagement with nature with the belief that what is useful about nature can be grasped with good math skills and that this shell of reality suits our purposes just fine. Holzman’s paintings attest to the belief, perhaps, that a union with nature is still possible and might lead to a greater understanding and acceptance of what underlay perception, which might then lead to greater spiritual development.

The Romantic painters, of course, thought that if you gave yourself enough time and stood in the presence of old ruins, or huge trees or expanses of ocean etc. you could enter into a type of trance that would obliterate the distinction between the outside and inside world and bring about a type of communion with nature leading to a heightened sense of the sacred or spiritual. So I believe that when you reach a state where you can be so deeply influenced by nature, Holzman’s paintings might be what this experience looks like. At times he preserves many of the formal qualities of trees and forests and at other times these become more indistinct as colors seem to almost melt into each other, representing, perhaps, a union which shows that the mind is not separate from nature but a part of nature to be influenced and changed by nature.

  

Peter Blume (1906 - 1992) at ACA Galleries

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One of the must-see shows, as this year draws to an end, is a sampling of work by Peter Blume at ACA Galleries. This show is in conjunction with a larger show at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and that show seems to be the first major retrospective of Blume’s work since his death in 1992. Blume was born in Belarus, of Jewish heritage, but was brought to Brooklyn as a child. He was one of the first American artists to embrace surrealism and his style seems to be a blend of various types of painting incorporating techniques that range from the Renaissance to Folk Art and, of course, to Surrealism. 

Blume is represented in virtually all the major American modern art museums but it seems that he has never adequately received his props – these concurrent shows demonstrate that he had created a unique style from his eclectic influences and was dealing with themes of significant cultural and historical relevance.

One of the aspects of this multi-faceted artist’s work which I enjoyed at ACA was his fascination with the presence of rock formations and the effect rock formations still have on us. Huge, complex rock formations, either natural or altered by humans (dolmens, megaliths etc.) were huge in the history of our religious, spiritual and cultural development, and they still resonate with us.  

In one of Blume’s most popular paintings, at the Art Institute in Chicago, you see a grandiose rock with several peaked and contoured projections surrounded by less magnificent construction projects and partially destroyed buildings.  The implication seems to be that underlying the rationalist approach under which our society is constructed is an ancient and direct experience that dwarfs our normal approach to our lives. 

(Blume - Rock - Art Institute of Chicago)

In the current ACA show there is a wonderful painting of a couple literally picnicking among an amazing rock formation.  One figure is sketching the formations – so at the same time this couple (a la Caspar David Friedrich?) is basking in the ineffable effect the rocks provide while also realizing there is some difficult to grasp significance and trying to capture it through imitation.  

Actually, they are not trying to ‘realize’ anything, they seem to have moved beyond interpretation and are wholly comfortable and in union among that aspect of nature which probably first engendered the sense in us that there was something more to nature and our lives that could be slowly but surely discerned but not spoken of directly.

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Alex Gross at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Chelsea

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What if Abbie Hoffman had been cryogenically frozen after his suicide in 1989 and was then brought back to life again now?  I’m pretty sure this icon of counter-culture idealism and integrity would simply kill himself again, and Alex Gross’ amazingly engaging and sardonic paintings at Jonathan LeVine Gallery would help explain why.  

Branding seems to be the focus in this show and branding has become the core of the new world-wide ideology, superseding all forms of humanism and creating its own faux humanism – the humanism of the satisfied and pacified buyer of expensive ego-stroking crap. Since the 1960s we’ve been riding the moral curve downward and consumerism has been the gravitational force.

No Logo by Naomi Klein is, in my opinion, still a must read. Her book revealed that branding is almost mystical in its effects, yet totally empty in its content. A product’s brand exists to help the consumer lose his or her identity under the rubric of a product identity.  A product’s brand can create an aura that consumers want to connect to and reflect as part of themselves.  I am a Starbucks’ patron, a Mac user, a Gucci buyer, etc. 

Each of these brands confers something extra to the often bland personality partaking of the goods.  By choosing your brands wisely, however, you can exist beyond reproach and, indeed, become the judge and jury of those who simply have failed to realize the importance of dedicating one’s life to competition, greed and self-blindness.

In ‘Drones’ we see the sad effects of a culture dedicated to narcissism and hedonism and oblivious of ethical values or the search for meaning.  The smiling broadcasters cheerily report on the latest drone strikes, Obama experiences a type of ecstasy of self-glory, a sheep passively looks on. 

In ‘Shopaholics’ the brand buyers are sheep-headed and surrounded by vultures, as if the shoppers have little to offer the world other than flesh to be consumed, someday, by carrion. Or are the shoppers ignoring this vanitas theme – recognize your mortality, repent, do penance, prioritize your values, see and engage the world and strive for meaning.

Abject nothingness registers on the face of the girl in ‘Candy Crush’ as she is tuned in to her handy electronic syringe of saccharine junk. In ‘Distractions’ we are confronted by our peers who never learned to say “NO!” and who see little to be upset about.  

In ‘Service Industry’ we see the professional deformation that occurs among those who cater to our needs, as a quite debonair Yul Brynner puffs his way to lung cancer and Bashar al-Assad lurks in the background.  Don’t worry, though, consumerism will destroy all forms of tyranny! We’ve got the drones, baby, and our president knows how to use them.

This is a must-see show.  Gross strikes at the heart of many things that are rotten in our society and does so with wit and moral strength.  This is the kind of social satire that hearkens back to the New Objectivity Movement of Weimar Germany while exhibiting a more Frankfurt School critique of contemporary culture, showing how Gramscian ‘hegemony’ and the cult of consumerism walk hand in hand.      

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Brian Calvin at Anton Kern Gallery

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Sometimes Brian Calvin paints a slightly open mouth against a plain background.  Sometimes he presents an image of this type of mouth cropped beneath a nose and sometimes we see an entire face with this slightly open mouth. He also presents some images of nearly entire human figures which seem to be in a type of cognitive holding pattern. His focus, in fact, seems to be on a particular subjective state of ‘emptiness’ which can best be perceived, apparently, by focusing on a subject’s mouth.

When we look at the pieces that just reveal the mouth, we get a sense of the type of benign aphasia the artist seems to be shooting for (aphasia is a medical condition in which a person has trouble processing language).  We become aware of a state of mind where nothing is being processed – perhaps nothing is going on outside the person and nothing is going on inside at the same time. Or it could be that something is happening outside but we are witnessing that period of time when the person is in a state of cognitive emptiness or transition, that period when the person is just taking things in and waiting for some inner realization or response to kick in.

The artist seems to focus on that mysterious moment where we surrender to the nothingness and rely on something to just pop into our heads. This, of course, begs the question: Where do these responses come from, can we control or alter them, or are we, basically, helpless in regard to our processing and responses to outer-world stimulation?

Actually, the images cropped below the nose seem to provide a more intense awareness of this emptiness.  When we see an entire face in the show, we see that this emptiness can exist simultaneously with different emotional states. With larger eyes, slightly more open mouth and raised eyebrows indicating fear, we still see the moment of emptiness. Or we see sadness or concern or just a blank unemotional stare and…emptiness.

What I found to be really fascinating about the show is how we are challenged to investigate the process of how we perceive the emotional states of others merely by looking at the other’s facial features, and how we are immediately engaged by the facial expressions we see.  The engagement often involves attempts to replicate the same inner experience being displayed.  All of this seems to be an automatic process.

So please drop by Anton Kern and be engaged by this amazing nothingness and feel your own nothingness and come away with a greater awareness of how you have been engaging the world of other’s emotions and responses. 

Horses by Deborah Butterfield at Danese / Corey Gallery

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One of the highlights of the Chelsea opening night last week was Deborah Butterfield’s striking sculptures of horses, apparently made out of drift wood or ‘found’ wood. This was the type of show where people entered the gallery and immediately said, “Wow, this is amazing. How did she do that?”  That’s important, of course.  The artist has to arrest the viewer visually, first, before the person will stop and begin to engage a piece.  If your pieces look boring, people won’t stop and look. Butterfield’s work is so ‘wowing’ on just a purely visual level, that virtually everyone who saw the show stopped and thought about what she was doing and discussed the work with the folks they were with.

The fact that the horses seemed to be made out of drift wood or wood that had fallen from trees was fascinating to most viewers.  Actually Butterfield does use this wood initially to create the sculpture, but since wood decays so easily, she casts the sculpture from the wood and then burns the wood away with molten bronze, creating a permanent sculpture. But it looks like the real thing. I didn’t realize the sculptures were bronze until I went back a second time.

Now, I have to confess, even though I’m a city guy, I’m a sucker for horses and love all things horses. To me, the horse is a symbol of transition.  By transition, I mean transition within our inner reality as well as transition in our external reality.  Traditionally, symbolically, the horse represents what gets you from one (rotten) place to another (better) place.  It takes you from a place of turmoil and conflict to your own hearth.  It leads you into and out of battle; it helps you escape, engage in some adventure or go home.

The horse has, in fact, been one of the most important symbols or images in the history of Western art.  St. George kills that dragon while riding horseback and who doesn’t love Rembrandt’s emaciated horse at the Frick, selflessly carrying that Polish soldier toward his quest? We see a look of dogged resolve on the head of the horse, despite the emaciated state of its body.  It's as if the inner strength or inner qualities of the horse, and not just its outer strength, is what makes the horse such a potent symbol.  The resolve or determination of the horse is contrasted with the calm sense of command and confidence of the rider. More than anything, Butterfield is able to capture and convey this same inner strength of the horse, through her work, using dead wood.

So the big question is, why did this artist make horses out of found pieces of wood?  We can say that the horse is a symbol of transition in Western art. We can also say that these horses are a type of symbol of ‘freedom’ or inner strength, especially since they seem to be wild horses.  What I liked was the fact that Butterfield uses discarded, dead wood to convey the strength and life of these animals.  Wood, although ‘dead’, possesses potential combustible energy.  So the horse represents movement and freedom while wood can represent latent, potential energy – so the artist is combining the two most salient elements of horses and wood to convey movement, transition, freedom, and the captured potential for energy possessed in each piece. We get a sense of a composite creation that incorporates the concept of transition and the potential explosion of energy at the same time.

When you look at these pieces, it’s uncanny that the artist was able to take random pieces of branches and fit them so perfectly into the form of a horse. It’s almost as if this was meant to be and that these discarded and fallen branches should be shaped into horses.

So I’d encourage you to drop by Danese/Corey and just experience these horses.  These sculptures have a presence that affects you immediately and that will stimulate and engage you on many different levels.

Gregory Hayes at Nancy Margolis Gallery - Abstraction as a peaceful transition

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My friend Ekaterina Lishmanova brought the work of Gregory Hayes to my attention and I wanted to pass this work on through Arte Fuse so that it can have a similar effect on you that it had on her (and me).  Indeed, I would encourage you to drop by the gallery in person to see and experience these paintings.

Ekaterina mentioned that this work had an immediate effect on her mood and she felt it was some of the more joyous and uplifting work she had seen in a long time.  She also pointed out that the continually decreasing squares connoted or depicted, for her, a type of transition. Yet, when we think of some type of transition, we often think of some terror-fraught experience – crossing a desert or ocean or whatever allegorical hero’s journey you can think of. 

Hayes’ work implied for her a joyful, gentle and peaceful transition from one place to another.  If you do things the right way, maybe such a transition will be possible.  Or maybe this is the only type of valid transition possible – a painful transition is no transition...it is the suffering before the real journey. Hayes’ work represents, to me as well, the possibility for a safe and peaceful journey forward.

Viewing these pieces as if they depict a transition is like passing through a light-filled tunnel or cave, the walls of which are covered by candy buttons (you know, those types of candy dots that seem glued to long strips of paper).  This candy button effect is obtained by the artist literally squeezing out little drops of acrylic paint from some type of ketchup-like dispenser. 

Viewed from far away the colors tend to look bright but faded, which makes them more inviting and accessible.  We are not confronted with gaudy or overly bright and shiny colors…the faded quality is understated and is more alluring.  It gives these bright colors a greater pacifying quality and humanity. It is as if the sharp brightness has been extinguished and a residual calm now endures for eternity.  

Xie Xiaoze at Chambers Fine Art in Chelsea

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In his current show at Chambers Fine Art, Xie Xiaoze seems to combine two major trends in contemporary art. He seems to combine super-realist tendencies with tendencies to incorporate text or textual materials into visual art pieces.

In his “Both Sides Now” series, Xie Xiaoze paints newspaper front pages in which you can see the ink from the reverse side of the page literally seeping through into the images and text of the page facing you.  This is a type of super-realism and language-art combination where the readable text is simply meant to elucidate the central, lurid, image, while the seeping ink serves a more symbolic purpose.  The seeping ink could be serving as a type of graffiti, that not just calls into question the quality of the paper stock, but also impugns the purposes and content of the text presented.   There is a divorce between any act or event itself and the articulation or representation of the act, and this divorce and the consequences of this divorce can be represented by the ink seeping through the page.

The reverse text which has bled through the paper definitely becomes a type of abstraction of language representing a characteristic of language.  Another interpretation could be that the text which has bled through, as an abstraction of language, can represent our subjective responses to the types of narratives and factual information presented in newspapers or other factual sources.   In the process of reading about events, especially terrible events, there is a conjunction of the outer and inner worlds.  The story itself is absorbed as factual information, categorized somehow but it also elicits responses, judgments, motivations, fears, and/or various other possible emotions.  The ink which has bled through the paper represents, perhaps, our inner dialogue and the inner change we go through when we are engaged by text or by any type of narrative (instead of a direct experience).

But Xie Xiaoze also enjoys painting library and archive materials themselves.  You have no idea what might be contained in these materials, but you can see that they are well worn repositories of information felt to be important at that time and waiting to reveal their secrets to anyone motivated to find them again.  As a complete and total book worm, I love looking at paintings of old books and old manuscript materials and I relished Xie’s paintings of these objects.

“Chinese Library 51” seems to contain ledgers of some sort – so you can only imagine the conclusions which could be gleaned by pouring through these.  “Chinese Library 55” shows a stack of printed materials which, as the notes for the show point out, borders on abstraction.  Yet, I love how Xie uses the color red in this painting to tinge the borders between manuscript covers.  My friend Wang Jing said it looks as if the books are “screaming” in this painting. Indeed, the reddish tinges kind of look like open wounds.  To me, the reddish color almost looks like the color in paintings of butchered animal carcasses hanging from meat hooks.  He really conveys the idea, through this use of color, that there was a living source, a living experience that left these materials behind and the materials remain ready to engage a living being again. These are the results of experience but also the beginnings of engaging, living experiences for others.

Finally, Xie Xiaoze did something I thought was very clever.  The super-realist tradition stems from artists who painted directly from photographs.  This was felt to be a type of heresy by some artists, but the super-realists wished to be provocative by painting directly from an indirect source.  They took a representation of ‘reality’ and tried to create something that looked super-real from it.  In many super-realist paintings, a sense of reality often oozes from the canvas more spectacularly than in real life.  Instead of using photos, however, Xie uses Weibo – which is a Chinese social networking tool similar to Twitter.  In the show are images from Weibo postings.  We see, for instance, a typically hazy day in Beijing and, in another piece, some type of house which is labeled as a “nail house” (sorry, I don’t know the back story to that one).  In the super-realist tradition, the paintings are not realistic at all. There is an extra sheen and clarity lacking in reality itself.  Yet, Xie plays with this by not just copying an image from Weibo, but by actually providing the Weibo ‘signature’ on the image as well.  So he uses a type of super-realist technique, but instead of hiding the source for his painting, he openly displays it. The “Weibo” signature forces us to view this image differently – Xie tempts us to be attracted to and to engage the image directly (the image is so vibrant) but at the same time he also forces us to acknowledge that we are divorced from the reality of the image due to its origin from the 

internet.

Chambers has been doing an amazing job of bringing the work of Chinese artists to Chelsea.  This show is open well into April – I would encourage you to drop by to take in these amazing paintings directly.