July 2007

(An Appropriate Distance)
FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP
by Piri Halasz

NO. 76: 15 JULY 2007..... HOW TIME FLIES...Well, my back surgery and its ramifications took longer than expected. The surgery itself was done on May 23, and went off just fine, but after having been sent home a week after the surgery, I speedily developed a dangerous infection and had to go back to the hospital for another week. Pronounced cured of that, I couldn’t face going back home again, partly because I’d found it difficult managing my affairs there before in a semi-invalid condition & partly because I dreaded getting reinfected again with that same damn bacteria, so I begged to be sent to a rehab center. This turned out to be an excellent idea, but the rehab center kept me twice as long as I’d thought they would, so I didn’t get home until Tuesday, July 10. Since May 23, I hadn’t seen any art, or read any art books that might be worth reviewing, and my attention to world affairs had been minimal, so alas I don’t have a hell of a lot to write about in this issue, either. The best I can offer is a summary of the more important announcements I’ve received.

First, I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to see Peter Reginato’s “Low Maintenance” at Heidi Cho in Manhattan (June 1-July 7)., Normally, Reginato covers his dense concatenations of flat pieces of organically-shaped stainless steel with brightly-painted acrylics, but this show was all of unpainted pieces, which I visualized as shiny and silvery in color. This idea interested me, because I still remember (or think I remember) an exhibition of shiny, silvery sculptures, also of organically shaped metal pieces, staged by William Noland in SoHo back in 1985. I liked that show a lot. Upon returning from the rehab center, I received a notice (and a CD) of three more recent monumental sculptures by Noland, executed in collaboration with Irwin Kremen, and exhibited in conjunction with “Irwin Kremen: Beyond Black Mountain: 1966 to 2006" a retrospective at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (March 22-June 17). Kremer is actually a contemporary of Kenneth Noland, William’s father, and met Kenneth at Black Mountain College in the 1940s, but in those days, he wanted to become a writer, and when he eventually came to teach at Duke in the 60s, it was as a clinical psychologist (he retired as an emeritus professor in 1992). Shortly after he came to Duke, he began to experiment in his spare time with collages and other paper pieces, and in the 70s, he moved on to sculpture. When Noland arrived to teach sculpture at Duke, a decade or so after that, the two began interacting, and the three joint pieces in the recent show are dated 1997, 1998/2000-2006, and 2000-2002. They are true collaborations in that they represent a synthesis between two esthetics, the modernism associated with Noland’s background, and Kremen’s more nostalgic esthetic, seen in its purest form in his collages. These typically employ what Richard Shiff, in his catalogue essay, calls ”perishable urban detritus,” especially torn and weathered scraps of paper, sometimes with lettering and bearing a certain kinship to the “combines” of another onetime Black Mountain student, Robert Rauschenberg. Similarly, the jointly-executed sculptures, even the one made entirely of steel, offer a variety of surface colors and/or textures that relate them as closely to assemblage as to the integrated sculptures of Caro or even David Smith. Alas, I can’t offer any value judgments on either the Duke show or Reginato’s, not having seem then in the flesh, but the ideas behind them all are certainly provocative.

Another item in my mailbox was a press release from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gloating about how much money was spent in the Big Apple by out-of-towners who came to see the Met’s two big shows of last autumn, “Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde” and “Americans in Paris, 1860-1900.” The dollar amounts left me kind of cold, but I was intrigued to learn that 74 percent of the visitors to these two shows came from outside the five boroughs of New York. Of these, 30 percent were from the Greater New York Metropolitan Area, 46 percent were from other states and 24 percent were from other countries (even though both shows also traveled to other museums). What really delighted me, though, was that “Vollard” drew 490,002 visitors, while “Americans” drew only 311,700. No matter how the Manhattan trendies knocked the Vollard and cooed about ”Americans,” those hicks from the sticks evidently know good stuff when they see it.

Two summer shows in Manhattan of historical art might offer a good excuse to come in out of the heat. The Frick Collection has temporarily hung “Progress of Love,” its great decorative ensemble by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, in its East Gallery, which is partially lit by natural light, while the Fragonard Room is being relit and refurbished for the first time in 75 years (through September 16).....The Morgan Library & Museum is exhibiting “Tales and Travels: Drawings Recently Acquired on the Sunny Crawford von Búlow Fund” (through September 23). My somewhat dim recollection is that the tabloids were saying some years ago that Sunny’s husband was trying to murder her, but hey, if the family wants to atone by allowing the Morgan to acquire more than 80 sheets by draftsmen from the 16^th through early 20^th centuries, including Watteau, Turner, Ingres, Palmer and Delacroix, who am I to complain?

Two summer shows of more recent art, both in Chelsea, offer more possibilities. The one that could be really stunning is “Full Color: Painting and Sculpture from 1960-1980" at Paul Kasmin (July 16-August 17). Included is work by Anthony Caro, Friedel Dzubas, Al Held, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski. The one that is more problematic is another group show called “Color!” at Stephen Haller (through August 3). True, it does include work by Larry Zox, but the names of the other participants were unfamiliar to me and the descriptions of a few of them in the press release wasn’t too encouraging. Still, it’s only a block or so away from Kasmin....

Finally, two out of town shows, one near and one far: Spanierman in East Hampton is showing “Sculpture by Elaine Grove; Paintings by Dan Christensen” (through August 16). And at the Stollery Gallery of the Nina Haggerty Center for the Arts in Edmonton is “Land-lives and Still-scapes” (through July 28). It features Cézanne-like oil still lifes by Nola Cassady and abstracted watercolor landscapes by Jodie Harpe-Lesperance.

A sad note: belatedly and regretfully I must report that Neil Marshall, known in both Canada and the United States for nearly four decades of fine paintings, prints, sculpture and unique "floor paintings," as well as his lively writing, both in hard copy and his recent online journal, took his own life in mid-May (after I’d sent my June 1 issue off to my webmaster and prepared my print edition for mailing) A memorial was held in Manhattan on May 24, and Neil’s website is still online, with many of his journal entries and reproductions of his art: http://www.neilmarshall.com.

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