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ARTS VISION: THE 8TH SHOW
April 13th - June 9, 2000
Time & Life Building PART II ISz They spring, bounce, dance; perhaps within the canvas there are even giggles. And even at their most bizzare, there is a benevolence about the vast majority. They are the paintings and drawings of ISz, who in his statement calls them "artwork/play... in the tradition of Klee, Einstein, and Marx (Groucho)." In his book, The Mind (Bantam: 1988), neuroscientist Richard M.Restak quoted and summarized the work of Dr.Michael Gazzaniga of Dartmouth College:
ISz seeks through his art to extend such an 'interpreter' beyond individuals; "to express the simple, yet complex awareness of mental, physical and spiritual existence within all humanity." He calls it "Spiritual Realism," "oneness with all that isz." ("IS" for existence; "z" as an emphatic tail). A viewer remains uncertain as to how anything can be "simple, yet complex," or whether the art truly reveals "the constant connection with all things in our universe," but if the desire produces these works, all the better. A unity among mankind is a laudable inspiration. But, with art, it is best to trust the art, not the philosopher. The work more often harkens to the 'subselves' of Gazzaniga. But Isz's art does capture, perplex, intrigue and delight. The foremost impression which comes to mind, and one not necessarily prompting the artist, is the imagery of 60s and 70s underground comics such as Zap, and particularly the work of Rick Griffin. Paul Klee (cited by ISz), Joan Miro and Wassily Kandinsky also seem akin to ISz's genre; but foremost there seems a Chicago spirit: something of the commercial style, hard outlines, stark patterns of "The "Hairy Who" artists or the Chicago "Monster School." ISz does note Jim Nutt of "The Hairy Who" as a creative guide, and one also senses sympathies with Chicago expatriate, Peter Saul. (The latter particularly influenced the French and Italians, artists like Bernard Rancillac and Valerio Adami, as Lucy Lippard observed in Pop Art [Thames and Hudson: 1994]). But, Peter Saul was noted for political , 'new Humanism' in his art, often a harsh critique: ISz's work is whimsical and exuberant. And Rancillac moved from 'animated cartoon' paintings (also somewhat akin to Zap comics) into nouvelle figuration. ISz's oils, acrylic and ink works, and pen and ink renderings seem animations telescoped into single frame. As with many of these artists, ISz employs a strong "Pop" vocabulary of graphic linework, bright color, cartoon-like figuration -- but with a quasi-Expressionist, Surrealistic flair; and with no noticeable 'citation' of identifiable popular artifact: 'All ISz, All the Time.'
In part, the sense of a 'Pop' idiom may result from the use of ink with acrylic, and from assimilating illustrator techniques. Some pieces revel in the definition and display common to scientific illustration; but if so, it is an alien science of this world's sight. And much of the Surrealist spirit is certainly abetted by the artist's working methods. ISz's often starts with a basic image form, which then accumulates at will appendages and satellites as the mind throws them forth. It jells into lively, colorful, wonderfully coherent, if inarticulate, pieces. Frequently the pen and ink rendering comes first, then the color is developed. The culmination, ISz's art, and its titles, as much delight as they perplex -- rubber tinkertoys of the instinctual and subliminal mind: multiple personalities, animate and inanimate, disciplined by the artist/interpreter. unified FeeLed of playGROUND (40"x60"), an ink & acrylic work, is an eye-catching example. Centered against a yellow to red ground, within a box environment, one sees what might well be a festive Looney-Toon brain cell, endowed with bristled roots or... dendrons, and, inexplicably, well... perhaps balloon-tipped antennae, or... pendulums. It does seem a quantum field, a thing alive; a particle and a personality. sub-MissionAerie (40"x60"), another ink & acrylic, might well have landed in Orson Well's War of The Worlds production, had the Martians sent a USO rather than an army. In these works, body parts, objects, and vegetative forms are chimerical clones. They come in Peace. hand n' handheld hope (60"x40"), an homage to Miro, Euclid and Hellenic dance, underscores that spirit. The art is fun. The paintings are one the first floor; additional drawings in the sculpture room, second floor and accessible by elevator. ISz's art may also be viewed on the internet: http://www.iszone.chicagonet.net and also http://www.worldsbestart.com. A T-Shirt by ISz is featured at http://www.art-teez.org/artists/isz1.htm
Sheila Oettinger Sheila Oettinger is represented by a number of figurative stoneware sculptures in the second floor exhibition area. These pieces have a Romantic, almost Neo-Edwardian sensibility, which recalls the vitrine, cabinet sculpture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Grand Palais at the turn of the last century: the work of Jean Baptiste Carpeaux or Leonetto Cappiello. Most of the pieces range from 22 inches to 35 inches in height, and many display an exuberant lyricism in motif. Art historian Albert E. Elson cited the view that earlier precussors such as the Ecole des Beaux-Arts salon sculpture "closed the gap between serious sculpture [by which he meant the monumental and the public] and the lesser, purely decorative objet d'art...." (Origins of Modern Sculpture, George Braziller: 1974).
Shadow Relationship does bring to mind a work such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Adams Memorial; contemplative, direct and with a decorum that hovers between Stoicism and worldly disheartenment. More typical of Sheila Oettinger's work in Art Vision's "The 8th Show" are stonewares such as Dancing on Air (35"x15"x16") or Reaching (28"x15"x13"). Here one finds a clean flow and sense of mass directed in motion. If at times there is a certain heaviness, even where the motif would suggest a more open and lighter handling of the medium, as in Celebration (31"x12"x13") for example, Oettinger's pieces do charm and please. They have an air of a Degas in a pre-Raphaelite mood.
On Oettinger's stoneware the surface texture is allowed to show the presence of the sculptor's hand, and there are planar facetings which lend a feel of figure pressed out of raw earth. Inside-Outside (23"x11"x9") verges gracefully toward analytic Abstractionism, but satisfyingly maintains its figurative reference: it leads, but does not lose, a viewer's attention. However, one notes of many of the Oettinger stonewares that they are often best viewed from a specific arc of vantage: as if two-dimensions, sketches, were translated into standing bas-relief, or intended for an alcove. In this aspect, Boundaries II (27"x14"x12": 1997) stands apart: it works no matter how one circles it. Oettinger's stoneware pieces are celebratory of life -- movement and muscle; well-executed and personable; and they do bridge the atelier with the salon's objet d'art.
Richard Donagrandi Richard Donagrandi's acrylics on paper have been previously noted in www.artscope.net (August 20,1999), and "The 8th Show" of Arts Vision offers new pieces. This current venue, the Lower Concourse of the Time & Life Building, is equipped with narrow-spectrum lighting, which unfortunately tends to flatten and wash out the subtleties of color, a central aspect of Donagrandi's work. Donagrandi focuses on the nuance of color interactions, and in much of his work it collaborates with what at first seems a rather uniform compositional field. Much like artists such as Jules Olitski or Larry Poons in the 60s and early 70s, Donagrandi contemplates color per se, but, like the subsequent canvases of Poons, this artist evolves an echoing, but non-rigid matrix, a wave or grass-like carrier of effect. In Remembrance of a Prairie That Once Was..., and several untitled works here do resonate to a work such as Larry Poons's No. 5 (103 1/2"x74":1972) (Color reproduced in John A.Walker's Art Since Pop [Thames and Hudson: 1975]). Donagrandi's work, however, creates an impression less of art experimentation than of spiritual meditation. His art does not perform... it reposes and reveals.
Mimi Peterson, Judy Roth Peterson, The North Sculpture Room of the Time & Life Building lobby offers works by two artists, unrelated despite their surnames: Mimi Peterson and Judy Roth Peterson. Mimi Peterson gathers fallen logs, branches, even burnt tree sections; surfacing, altering and sealing them with varnish and glaze; and augments her constructions with planes, matts, shells formed and woven together from flexible polymer tubing of the sort used in science laboratories and hospitals. These latter elements, although of synthetic material, strongly evoke large natural webs, shell mantles, even magnified leaf skins. Her Cocoon, a sculptural construction of prepared branches augmented with curved and moulded planes of sewn tubing is particularly gratifying. Painted landscapes by Judy Roth Peterson occupy the display wall of the North Sculpture Room.
Portrait studies by James Kapache's are displayed in the second floor Sculpture Room, together with drawings by ISz, and the stoneware of Sheila Oettinger; a series of paintings by Mary Jane Nolan Kelly, conceptually uniform and a la NeoNaif in expression, join the art of Larry Roberts, ISz, and Richard Donagrandi in the Lower Concourse and first floor areas. Mimi Peterson and Judy Roth Peterson exhibit in the North Sculpture Room. "The 8th Show" is a sampling of diverse artists, each as individual as their fingerprint. Each, whatever their methods or motivations, orders their world visually, bringing it through chaos to a new re-ordering in art. If you are East of Michigan Avenue and North of the Chicago River, "The 8th Show" is worth a visit. "The 8th Show," now at the Time & Life Building, 541 North Fairbanks Court, Chicago, will run until June 9, 2000. The exhibition spans the Lower Concourse, first floor, second floor Sculpture Room (accessible by elevator), and a North Side Exhibition Room (which can be viewed through glass wall, or opened by the reception desk). "The 8th Show" is presented by Arts Vision Inc. in association with Douglas Elliman-Beitler.
Finis Part II --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. |
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