Author: Ron Scott Page 20 of 26

After Dark @ Detroit Institute of Arts

On November 6, 2016

Installation, Detroit After Dark, Image courtesy of the Detroit Art Review

Photography at night has been around since the late 1800’s when photographers were experimenting with exposing a variety of sensitive chemicals to light, first on plates by Louis Daguerre, followed by salt prints on paper by William Talbot. Later in the early 1900’s Alfred Stieglitz began working at night, and in 1932, Brassai published Paris De Nuit, a collection of black and white photographs of the streets of Paris at night.

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has turned to its collection under the direction of Nancy Barr, Curator of Photography, to produce Detroit After Dark. She says in her statement in the catalogue, “Detroit After Dark: Photographs from the Collection of the DIA takes a closer look at night photographs made in the Motor City just after 1950 through present day—its city streets and architecture, as well as its diverse and often frenetic music scene.”

For the purpose of this review, this writer will draw a distinction between the journalistic photography (mostly the Detroit music scene) and focus on the art photography in the exhibition.

rf-untitled-%22strawberries%22-1955-gelatin-silver

Robert Frank, Untitled, Gelatin silver print, 1955

With a Guggenheim grant in his pocket, Robert Frank bought a used Ford in June of 1955 and began a 10,000-mile journey around the United States. Detroit was one destination where he stayed long enough to capture images from Belle Isle to this Romeo strawberry stand at night, illuminated with a string of party lights. After developing and making contact sheets from 760 rolls of black and white Tri-X film, 83 images would be enough to make The Americans, first published in Paris, then eventually the United States. Frank didn’t set out to address the issues that faced the country, but inadvertently became an incontestable witness, using his 35mm Leica Rangefinder, to the solitude of American society.

Scott Hocking, Jefferson at Dearborn, Pigment Print, 2012 Courtesy of the DIA

Scott Hocking, a Detroit artist who has created site-specific sculpture installations and a variety of photographic projects, provides the viewer with a stark image of a lonely building on Jefferson Avenue, formally centered with time exposure that provides a lit building against a Windsor backdrop. The exposure is possible because of the stillness in the frame. Detroit Nights is an ongoing project, documenting the streets, railroads, quiet corners and unpredictable public lighting of Detroit at night. In a statement, he says, “I am interested in forgotten places, and things kept out of sight. I don’t know if this is because I’m from Detroit, a city that has become known for urban prairies and empty factories; but I try to work the same way no matter where I am.” Scott Hocking is represented by the Susanne Hilberry Gallery.

Jenny Risher, Image courtesy of Jeff Cancelosi

Jenny Risher, shown here holding her book with her photograph from the exhibition, is a commercial photographer with a collection of personal work. Known for her book, Heart Soul Detroit, where she interviewed and photographed 50 iconic Detroiters, including Smokey Robinson, Jack White Eminem and Lily Tomlin. Here in this image is Ms. Risher holding open her book, revealing the image from the exhibition, Mr. Porter.

Jenny Risher, Mr. Porter, Pigment print, Courtesy of the DIA

Dave Jordano, Abandoned Brush Park Building, Pigment print, 2010, Courtesy of the DIA

Dave Jordano first established himself as a successful commercial photographer in Chicago working with national print campaigns, before turning his lens to personal work here in Detroit. Jordano was born in Detroit and graduated from the Center for Creative Studies in 1974 with a BFA in Photography. His large image, Abandoned Brush Park Building, dominates the exhibition with its scale depicting the contrast between this abandoned building and the lights of Comerica Park. He says in a statement, “These photographs represent a visual document that speaks to the quiet determination of Detroit residents, both as independent shop operators and as home owners who have survived the long and difficult path of living in a post-industrial city stripped of economic prosperity and opportunity. These photographs speak truth without casting an overly sentimental gaze.” Like other photographers in Detroit, there seems to be a trend in capturing a still image using a tripod to provide the ability to depict a large depth of field and focus, highlighted by a light source.

The Detroit Institute for the Arts and its permanent collection bring powerful imagery in the Detroit After Dark, exhibition. DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons says in the catalogue, “The DIA is indebted to the photographers committed to their practice in the city and who have contributed to this exhibition. I am grateful to those artists who have gifted their work to the museum and to the patrons who have donated art and contributed funds for the purchase and acquisitions of photographs for the permanent collection.”

Detroit Institute of Arts

5200 Woodward 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue. -Thu., 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

Exhibition free with regular museum admission. Admission to DIA is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. Others: $12.50 adults, $8 seniors, $6 ages 6-17.

Thomas Berding @ Oakland University Art Gallery

By Ron Scott

On October 29, 2016

In Paintings

Thomas Berding, Command Tree, 44 X 48″, Oil on Canvas, 2013, Courtesy of Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum Collection

Oakland University Art Gallery opened an exhibition, The Berding Memorandum, on September 15, 2016, with a collection of abstract expressionist work by Thomas Berdling, Professor of Studio Art at Michigan State University. His abstract expressionism has obliviously evolved over several years where earlier work has more reference to the real world, be it landscape or figures. While his work is not a literal translation, there is no mistake the paintings are a response to a particular situation, often referenced in work’s title. An example is the painting Command Tree, 2013, where you find a reference to an orange-yellow tree that comes forward dominating the composition over a re-shuffled landscape with background structures.

He says in an interview with Dick Goody, Director of the Oakland University Art Gallery, “While my paintings are not literal translations of the reference material I use, the paintings of the last five years have indeed been made in response to sources like the ones you intuitively feel are in the work. This includes the screen-based and two-dimensional schematic constructions that visualize this making and unmaking of the world, such as explosion views common in assembly manuals, flow charts, diagrammatic schemes, encrypted texts, among others.”

Thomas Berding, Breakage, Oil on Canvas, 70 X 76″, 2014 All Images Courtesy of Oakland University Art Gallery

Abstract Expressionism, born in the mid-1940s and lead the way for ten years as part of the New York City art scene, made a deep and lasting impression on artist Berding’s age group. It’s not hard to see the remnants of early Pollack, de Kooning, and color similarities with Matisse in Berding’s work. In the work Breakage, we experience a landscape that has a busy foreground, making way to a mid-ground of larger shapes, and upward to a sky with transparent building like shapes. His tools are less brush, and more palette knife and tape removed. Through out his work there is a unified effort to create a color feel, often a thematic color arrangement for a particular painting where a sense of mapping, charting or sorting is taking place.

Many historians feel the AE period was cut short as society sped towards change that was mirrored in daily life of the 1960’s and embraced Pop Art, Minimalism, and later conceptual art that thrived on installation. Looking back over the millennium, movements in art typically lasted longer, and this could be why artists of a certain age still want to explore the qualities they relate to in abstract work as if to say, the period wasn’t yet finished.

Thomas Berding, By Land and By Sea, Oil on Canvas, 70 X 76, 2008

With a palette dominated by green in Land and Sky, this abstraction seems to have an elevated point of view, as if the viewer is located high across the river overlooking the cityscape that leads to a horizon of buildings. The converging yellow shapes create an unreal type of perspective that takes the eye back towards the mid ground of complex color and shape. Richard Diebenkorn started out as a realistic artist, and gradually became an abstract painter that used the landscape in the 1950’s to create his Ocean Park series that depended deeply on his dependence with the local landscape. Here too, Berding give us his distinctively intense yet aloof rendition of his landscape experience, producing an ambiguous degree of abstraction that makes us wonder where he is going with this personal pandemonium?

Thomas Berding, Turning Tables, Oil, Acrylic, Flashe on Canvas, 24 X 24, 2016

In a gallery full of smaller square 24 X 24” work, we experience a work process that some would describe as studies. Here in Turning Tables, Berding gives us a painting that shares a sensibility with Matisse, both in using shape and color. Because smaller work can move along faster, it might be that the artist is using this process to become more spontaneous and intuitive with his internal tools. It’s as if he has said to himself; I need to loosen up and work a bit faster, at least conceptually and see where it goes?

Thomas Berding, born in Cincinnati, Ohio and received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, has been recognized with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pollack-Krasner Foundation, and over his career has exhibited in many venues through out the mid-west. He has obviously been educated and influenced by modernism with its reductive style, drawn to abstraction, resulting in a personal narrative that expresses a kind of controlled explosion of color and shape. For those living in the Metro Detroit area, the OUAG provides their students, and us with a fresh experience in the abstract expressionistic work of Thomas Berding.

Oakland University Art Gallery

35 Years @ N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art

By Ron Scott

On October 5, 2016

In Paintings

George N’Namdi stands next to work by Detroit artist, Charles McGee, Noah’s Ark # 8, 60 X 45 1984

George N’Namdi opened the current exhibition, 35 Years in celebration of all the N’Namdi galleries since 1981, when he opened his first gallery, Jazzonia, on Harmonie Park in downtown Detroit. I remember that location because the Detroit Artist Market was on Randolph street and myself, and many friends were part of those DAM exhibitions. This exhibition features works collected by George N’Namdi before and after 1981, which includes over 40 artists spanning many genres and mediums.

Educator and art dealer, George R. N’Namdi was born September 12, 1946, in Columbus, Ohio. He attended Columbus East High School in 1965 and went on to graduated from Ohio State University in 1970, before obtaining his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1974. This exhibition brings together a small selection of work that has been represented in the gallery for a span of near forty years.

Chakiaia Booker, Industrialization, 50 X 59 X 15, 1980

Known for her sculpture made from rubber, and her wearable sculptures, Chakaia Booker was one of the artists supported and exhibited by George N’Namdi in the early eighties. Her work “Echoes in Black, ” was accepted into the Whitney Biennial in 2000. The successful artist exhibits her work at the June Kelly Gallery in New York City and has work in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gerald Jackson, Island People, Mixed Media, 84 X 108, 1985

Born in Chicago, Gerald Jackson gained notice when his work was included in two influential 1970s exhibitions–the 1970 Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, and the 1971 Black Artists: Two Generations at the Newark Museum. Jackson’s Island People is a figurative expressionist work from 1985 where the work outline of figures overlaps within a flatten picture plane.

sam-gilliam-71-x-98-x-10-mixed-media-on-canvas-aluminum-1994

Sam Gilliam, 71X 98 X10, Trade Mark, Mixed Media on Canvas-Aluminum, 1994

Sam Gilliam, the African American artists, who was born in the south, eventually spent his life in Washington DC, where he taught painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and at Carnegie Mellon University. Known for his color fieldwork, and a lyrical kind of abstraction, he often worked with shaped canvas and was early to move away from using stretcher bars for his canvases. In the1980s Gilliam’s style changed dramatically to quilted paintings reminiscent of African patchwork quilts from his childhood. In his statement he says, “Only when making the work can I determine the many languages that form the planes on which it is to exist. Like abstract phrases the many intentions of the work (before an audience) passes through an intuitive sieve… The work was not planned, there are ploys, to the way it was laid out and then put together.”

alvin-loving-dreams-of-amorgos-61-x-51-1998

Alvin Loving, Dreams of Amorous, 61 X 51, 1998

Al Loving (1935–2005) was an Abstract Expressionist painter, and one of the few African American artists recognized for his contributions to the movement. Born and raised in Detroit, he was known for his geometric work using bright color and hard-edge line in his arrangement of cubes and rectangles. Loving receive his BFA from the University of Illinois in 1963, and then his MFA from the University of Michigan in 1965, and soon after moved to New York City. In 1968, he had a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum.

The N’Namdi Collection is one of the finest private collections of African-American art in the United States and combines works covering more than a century of art in many genres. As demonstrated in this exhibition, there as been a commitment by George N’Namdi to the contributions of African art and the discourse surrounding contemporary art in the United States. Looking ahead, N’Namdi said “We are putting together an investment team for restaurants and galleries to create a gallery district on Grand River around Rosa Parks. All this development that is taking place downtown will ultimately begin to spread into our neighborhoods.”

The N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art

Drawn Together @ the Scarab Club

By Ron Scott

On September 18, 2016

In Paintings

Brienza, Bruner, Galbreath, and Carmen-Vian make drawings that engage

Artists, Sue Carmen-Vian, Joyce Brienzia, Coco Bruner, Lynn Galbreath Image Courtesy of Jeff Cancelosi

Drawing has been around for a while. Think: Lascaux cave in Dordogne, France. And drawing is one of the major forms of expression, concerned with the making of lines, tonal areas, black and white or color, representational or abstract, the work in DRAWN TOGETHER is a strong exhibition, curated by Joyce Brienza. She says, “We are a group of artists and friends who have in common an interest in the idea of drawing as end point rather than merely a preparatory act. We are in love with drawing as a direct, no tech and un-electronic media. We see the pencil in some ways as an instrument of nostalgia, recalling the Renaissance quest for virtuosity. Our work ranges from narrative to abstraction but there is a conceptual bent towards popular culture that questions the separation of fine and applied arts.”

Joyce Brenzia, Mixed media on Paper, 28″ x 22″

Joyce Brienza’s work, Given Name ll, is a colorful mixture of images that seem to have the feminine as a theme with overlapping figure and design elements. The compositional construction provides the audience with her artful dexterity with the human anatomy. She says, “In dreams and memories fragments are all we have to make up the whole. I work with images the way a DJ samples music to create my own brand of visual hip hop. By employing a collage technique, the works are constructed of layered and juxtaposed elements drawn from multiple sources that possess a particular personal and/or social significance. Among these sources are still life objects, toys, atomic structures, old master works, family photographs etc. This re-contextualization of images is a conduit for the generation of new meanings.” Her patterns are critical elements set within a grid that tell a story which resonates with the viewer. The work is both personal, and societal.

Coco Bruner, Rhymes with Silence, Charcoal and Conte crayon , 30 X 22 – 2015

Coco Bruner’s work, here embellished in Rhymes with Silence, includes a variety of media, in which she manipulates the illusion of space and light. She includes both spontaneous and calculated gestures, while presenting an unconventional composition dominated by this large black circular shape. She says, “Each drawing begins with as spontaneous a gesture as possible. What follows is navigation between control and impulse, the known and unknown. It’s a bit like hitchhiking. You take a risk, not knowing where you’ll arrive, but you’ll probably learn something.” These rather pure abstractions present a sense of mystery that have no definable meaning. An MFA graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and recipient of a Kresge Visual Arts Fellowship in 2013, Bruner works in drawing, painting, sculpture and photography.

Pony Boy, Graphite and gold leaf on Paper, 60″ x 50″

Here in her drawing Pony Boy, Lynn Galbreath juxtaposes a realistic rendering of two toy pistols against a background of line drawing and creates a young boy’s world filled with imagery and costume. She says in her statement, “I am born to create and cannot function on a daily basis without making something. I create to communicate. To me, art is the conversation we’ve been having since the beginning of time, the one that’s always probing the human condition.” In this drawing, it is the scale that works so well. If it were 8 X 11″, it would feel more like an illustration. Given its size 22 X 40″, the power of scale makes the work stronger, which is not always the case. These toy objects are rendered with such contrast and detail, they take on a life of their own.

Sue Carmen-Vian, Way Out, 34 x 42 Graphite on Paper, 2016

In her work, Way Out, Sue Carmen-Vian, an MFA graduate from Wayne State University, provides a collection of stylized Van Gogh-like drawings that introduces her audience to a figurative type of surrealism that is personal and at times autobiographic. At a distance, these heavy black and white pencil drawings can have a woodcut feeling with her textural markings. In her statement she says, “The challenge of retirement from teaching is to continue to feel useful. As this part of my life fades my art has become more defined and developed. These drawings contain costumes and props from my on going performance art and teaching days.” On her way out in her new canoe, she seems to be navigating between herself on the right, standing up straight and balanced, versus herself hanging upside down in a quandary. I am sure, since she’s in charge of the canoe, everything will turn out just fine.

On September 9, the first Friday of the new fall 2016 season, there were six openings in Detroit (perhaps more). As I visited each, it wasn’t until I ended up at the Scarab Club that I experienced a loud and joyful community of artists, friends and family, who all had relationships with these four artists. If you’re a painter or a sculptor, it is likely that drawing is at the core of your work. We can look back in history and see the preliminary drawings made by Michelangelo, da Vinci and Rembrandt. Certainly, as demonstrated by these four artists, drawing as an art form is alive and well in history and present in Detroit. The Scarab Club, under the leadership or Treena Flannery Ericson, is the perfect home for DRAWN TOGETHER.

August 31-October 15, 2016 , 7-10 pm  Gallery Talk: Saturday, September 24, 2 pm

Scarab Club

Colnaghi @ Wasserman Projects

By Ron Scott

On September 11, 2016

In Glass, Paintings, Sculpture

feast-of-the-gods-frans-francken-oil-on-panel-727-x-1575-cm

Frans Francken, Feast of the Gods, Oil on Panel – A landscape with Theseus and Achelous, with the Triumph of Poseidon and Amphitrite beyond Frans Francken the Younger / Antwerp, 1581 – Antwerp, 1642 Joos de Momper the Younger / Antwerp, 1564 – Antwerp, 1635 Signed lower left :Dᴼ FFRANCK. IN.E.F. Oil on panel, 72 x 157 cm. (28 ½ x 61 ¾ in.)

The Wasserman Projects opened a new exhibition, Old Masters / New World from the Colnaghi Gallery of London, for a limited time, September 7-11, 2016. The work includes major painting and sculpture by such artists as Frans Francken, Gaetano Gandolfi, Jusepe de Ribera, and Pedro Duque y Cornejo.

Gary Wasserman, Founder of Wasserman Projects says, “We share Colnaghi’s vision to connect the historic with the contemporary, and to show art in a diversity of contexts and through a wide range of collaborations. To be able to show these tremendous Old Master works in the contemporary, industrial-style setting of our exhibition space is an exciting proposition that highlights the connection between the past and present and offers a new way of experiencing both the art and the space.”

If you look at the trajectory of Wasserman Projects, set in a former firehouse in Detroit’s historic Eastern Market, the work on exhibition there has been contemporary and at times conceptual. The gallery works with artists from across disciplines and around the world, presenting exhibitions and performances that spark a discourse on art, but also cultural, social, or political issues, which are particularly active and timely in Detroit.

In attendance for this opening was Jorge Coll, CEO of Colnaghi, “We are thrilled to build on our long and storied history in America by holding our first exhibition in Detroit, and to be doing so in partnership within many of the greatest American museums and collections, including ones in this city. It is in this spirit of engaging new and existing communities of arts enthusiasts and collectors that we are holding Old Masters / New World in Detroit. We see our vision to present Old Master works across a wide range of locales as parallel to the missions of museums and universities to educate on the arts.”

1342_juan-bautista-maino_the-holy-family_oil-on-canvas_106-x-93-cm-unframed_small-1

Fray Juan Bautista Maíno “The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist” Pastrana, 1581 – Madrid, 1649, Oil on Canvas 110.5cm x 92.5cm

The painting, The Holy Family, reminds this writer of how popular it was in the 14^th through 16^th centuries to paint the Madonna and Child. Here, the artist Stozzi, includes Joseph, the husband of Mary, and the young child Jesus, reminding us of the age difference, and provides the audience with a direct and comforting look from the mother. When I first read and studied the work of Giovanni Bellini, it was amazing how many paintings he made of Madonna & Child. People of wealth during these times, would commission a painting for their home, and because Catholicism was the dominate religion, there was nothing more pure and sacred than this image. One gets the impression there was tremendous status in having such a painting in their home. So the answer to the question is that it was very lucrative for artists to make so many of these paintings. The only question raised here is who is the child at the bottom of the painting who draws the attention of both Jesus and Joseph with the halo? The answer is his cousin, John the Baptist.

giacomo-deruti-kitchen-still-life-33-x-47-milan-1698-1768

Giacomo Ceruti, Kitchen Still Life, 84 X 118 cm, Milan, 1698 – 1767

Still life paintings were popular during this time period. In Kitchen Still Life, the painter Giacomo Deriti produces a classic realistic composition that easily sets the stage for painters to come a century later. These near photo realistic images (before the invention of photography) are composed and lit, which provides the artist with an unlimited amount of time to compose, draw, under-paint, and add reflective details. Elements of illusion are magnified by having the knives come off the front edge of the table, while at the same time create a balance of shape and form with the light source coming from the upper left.

juan-van-der-hamen-y-leon-abrahanm-and-the-three-angels-72-x-110

Juan van der Hamen y Leon, Abraham and the Three Angles, 279 X 181cm, Madrid 1596-1631

The Spanish painter, Juan van der Hamen, was born in Madrid in 1596 and was recognized for his allegories and landscapes during the Baroque period. A prolific artist, van der Hamen painted all his works during the first decade of the reign of Philip IV. As a religious painter Hamen worked for several religious institutions in and around Madrid and Toledo, like the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales, in Madrid, for which he painted altars. The best surviving examples of his religious work are in the cloister of the Royal Convent of La Encarnación in Madrid, painted in 1625 in a naturalistic tenebristic style. The painting Abraham and the Three Angels is known for the stylistic characteristics and the iconographic interest of the scene, by which the artist interpreted the Biblical theme of the apparition of the three angels in the house of Abraham to announce that Sara would conceive a son.

So why is it important for young people today to experience this work, both in galleries and museums? Let me start by saying that many things that are part of human history continue to enrich our lives: Mathematics, Philosophy, Literature, Music and certainly Art. Do we not still listen to Bach and derive meaning that connects us to all music, and can we not still relate to the allegory in Dante’s Divine Comedy? For Wasserman Projects to bring this experience to Detroit creates the opportunity to expose Italian and Spanish Renaissance Painting to an audience that may not have thought of the connection that all art shares.

Wasserman Projects demonstrates that it is guided by a spirit of collaboration, recognizing that art is best realized and most meaningful when it engages the broad range of people such as the dynamic and diverse population of Detroit.

Wasserman Projects, September 2016