A Blizzard of Paint and Objects: Joyce Pensato Makes Pop Culture Her Own

Feb. 10, 2021 in artcritical

Joyce Pensato at Petzel Gallery

Installation shot of the exhibition under review showing Joyce Pensato, Daisy, 2012, to the right. Courtesy of Petzel Gallery, New York

Joyce Pensato’s 2012 exhibition, Batman Returns, although her third at Petzel Gallery, was greeted by the New York art world with astonishment.  At its core was a large-scale installation titled Fuggetabout It. The gallery was transformed into a simulacrum of Pensato’s work space: toys, posters, photographs, empty paint cans, old furniture, and used paint brushes cohabited with her explosive paintings of pop-culture icons. After more than 30 years in her Williamsburg studio, Pensato had lost a legal battle with her landlord and was forced to vacate. She had literally ripped out pieces of her studio walls and installed them in a pristine white-box gallery. It was funny, alarming, and bold.

Petzel Gallery, which manages the artist’s estate (she died in 2019) has mounted a brilliant exhibition that partially recreates the 2012 installation while adding drawings and paintings not in the original show that amplify the artist’s singular vision.

Fuggetabout It (Redux) situates studio detritus seductively in the entry way while placing a huge drawing of a child’s toy, Daisy(2012), in the first gallery, as if to welcome visitors with arms extended. Vigorous gestures in charcoal and pastel swirl around the figure, both defining it and bursting out of its sides. There is palpable delight in the artist’s mark making as layer upon layer of charcoal is repeatedly applied, erased, and applied again, revealing the drawing’s rich and tactile history. In some places, Pensato erased so aggressively that she went right through the paper. The energy is electric. Both the artist and her subjects seem very much in charge. Though she grins a seemingly friendly smile, the monumental roly-poly Daisy could rip you apart.

Daisy is joined in the first room by Underground Homer and Smackdown Lisa, two characters from The Simpsons that were perennial Pensato subjects. The trio is a canny introduction to the rest of the exhibition. The next room houses much of the reconfigured Fuggetabout It installation, a mad tangle of objects on tables, chairs, the floor—all covered in drips and blobs of Pensato’s paint of choice, black and white commercial grade enamel. It takes a moment to readjust your focus as you are drawn into this compact universe. Stuffed animals, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Muhammad Ali, furniture, a fake palm tree, and dozens upon dozens of paint cans and brushes, milk crates, and rags. It’s a whirlwind of paint and objects, both fun and startling. I watched gallery visitors take a step back at the entryway of the room, alarmed that they had, perhaps stumbled into a hoarder’s den. Installed so that visitors can walk around, peer under and over the tableaux, it’s a maximalist’s dream come true

Underground Homer, 2019, to the right. Courtesy of Petzel Gallery, New York. Installation view.

As we absorb this past view of Pensato’s work, it is important to consider how far she traveled. As a student at the New York Studio School in the 1970s, she aspired to be an Abstract Expressionist. According to her own account and those of her peers, she struggled to find her voice and artistic acceptance. Her ambition undiminished, she turned to pop culture for her iconography, but without abandoning her AbEx roots. The extraordinary energy of her gestural painting and drawing relates directly to the work of Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner and Franz Kline. But while the grit and passion remain expressionist, the iconography is unabashedly pop.

Despite the power and skill of Pensato’s drawing, her use of pop culture sources was seen by some as a gimmick. But a concurrent exhibition at the uptown Petzel Gallery centered solely on the artist’s deep dive into Batman and Spiderman show the extent to which her disciplined and focused work deconstructs and reconfigures these all-familiar superheroes to take full artistic ownership of them.

Joyce Pensato, What’s Next, 2015. Enamel on linen, Set of five paintings, 48 x 40 inches each. Courtesy of the Estate of Joyce Pensato and Petzel Gallery, New York

The third room at the Chelsea exhibition is where the brilliance of both her career and the installation of this show are most fully realized. A clean white room is hung with large portraits of the eyes—and only the eyes—of Pensato’s subjects. In stark black and white, these giant paintings walk the line between representation and abstraction. Informed by Pensato’s drawings and the installation, we know that these are the eyes of Homer and Lisa Simpson, Batman, South Park’s Eric Cartman and other such figures. But at the same time, they read as pure explorations of form, texture and material. Pensato has distilled recognizable traits to their essence. They are convincing portraits and galvanizing abstraction, exemplary as both.

Installation shot of Joyce Pensato: Fuggetabout It (Redux) at Petzel Gallery, New York

Fuggetabout It (Redux)
January 15 to February 27, 2021
456 West 18th Street, between 9th and 10th avenues
New York City, petzel.com

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An Outsider Artist Channels His Demons Into Uniquely Funny and Dark Compositions

Jan. 31, 2020 in Hyperallergic

On display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, works of Benjamin Jones project deep sorrow as well as an unvanquished ray of optimism.

Benjamin Jones, “Isolating the Disease” from the Isolation Series (2003), graphite and colored pencil on paper, 18 x 23.5 in.

ATLANTA — I think of the artist Benjamin Jones as a kind of art superhero. By day, Jones stocks supermarket shelves near his home on Tybee Island, Georgia, a quiet barrier island off the coast. After work, he ascends into his own universe and creates artwork that is emotional, passionate, funny, and dark. Benjamin Jones Speaking at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia (MoCA GA) is an exhaustive retrospective of the artist’s unique career and a much-deserved honor for someone who has flown under the radar for decades.

Born in 1954 in Atlanta, Jones faced many challenges in his life. Called “sissy boy” as a child, he started drawing at a young age and channeled many of his internal (and external) demons into his artwork. His early drawings often feature a solitary central figure (possibly the artist himself) who seems both put upon by the world and is screaming back at it. The artist’s name, written in an idiosyncratic script, is always prominent in these compositions, as if to declare his existence and his value. The work projects deep sorrow as well as an unvanquished ray of optimism.

Benjamin Jones, “Sissy Boy” (2005), graphite on paper and collage, 14.25 x 10.5 in.

As his work developed over the years, Jones began including other figures, as well as animals and collage elements culled from his voluminous notebook and ephemera collection. Many of these private source materials are on display in the exhibition. Color, used minimally in the early work, later became a central element in his images. The transitions between his early and later works echo a life-stage metamorphosis, and indeed this is redoubled in Jones’s autobiography: After a hiatus of several years, when he tended to his ill mother and dealt with his own health issues, Jones came roaring back to the studio, almost reborn.

Tinged with a sense of humor, Jones’s work of the past decade has become both funnier and darker, as well as more overtly political. The maturity of his vision is matched by the sophistication of his drawing. Lines, both subtle and strong, render figures imbued with deep psychological resonance. His compositions often have an off-center focus, a quality that represents his subjects and self-image. Animals peep in from the edges of the drawings, or drop in unexpectedly from the top, while dramatic scale shifts amplify what I see as the psychological stances underpinning his work: feeling like the outsider looking in and standing tall in a world that makes us feel small.

Installation view of Benjamin Jones: Speaking Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia

Benjamin Jones, “Scream” (2000), graphite and colored pencil on paper, 12.5 x 41 in.

Jones is also a collector of vintage toys and action figures, many of which are on display in a large case in the show. And he is an extraordinary correspondent, through that quaint, old-fashioned thing called “mail”; a huge gallery wall is covered, salon-style, with the envelopes and drawings that he has sent to friends, dealers, and collectors all over the world. Each one is a work of art. I dearly wish that I had been his pen pal.

Benjamin Jones is an outsider artist who has come in from the cold.

Benjamin Jones, “Notes from Journal” (2003-2004 -2005), graphite on paper, 30.25 x 22.75 in.

Benjamin Jones Speaking continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia (75 Bennett St. NW, Atlanta, Georgia) through February 15. The exhibition was organized by Barbara Archer.

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Testing ( yet again)

Hey folks!

This blog has been broken for the past six months. That’s why you haven’t gotten anything Did ya miss me?

Here we go … Please let me know with a comment if you get this email.

Many thanks-

Melissa

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Testing one- two-three !

This is a test, this is only a test. No need to duck and shelter!!……

Running a test email to check on the site health here.

 

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Hermannsburg Potters

Reposting from March 2016. Originally in Hyperllergic

Aboriginal Women in Australia Celebrate Their Football Heroes with Pottery

Rona Rubunjta Arrente’s “I’m Black” (2015) (left); Ngala Wheeler’s “Brotherhood” (2015) (right) in ‘Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters for Kids continues’ at The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

MELBOURNE — The desert of Central Australia might seem like an unlikely place to find an art cooperative making potent and beautiful pottery. But an exhibition at Melbourne’s Ian Potter Centre is featuring a moving display of hand-painted pottery by the Aboriginal women of Hermannsburg — a tradition not indigenous to the area — celebrating, of all things, their football heroes. What gives?

Settled by colonialists in the 19th century, the town of Hermannsburg is 80 miles west of Alice Springs and home to just 700 people. The indigenous Arrernte/Luritjapeoples here were subject to a radical and often violent disruption of their lives and lands — a sad story common to many countries and native cultures.

Around 1900, a group of Lutheran missionaries built a mission house and school in Hermannsburg, offering food, water, and protection from other white settlers to the local people if they converted to Christianity. Given their other options, it’s understandable why the Arrernte/Luritja people would embrace their European “saviors.”

The Lutherans proved comparatively benevolent occupiers. Among the many crafts they introduced were Western art-making in the form of pottery, watercolor painting, Western “women’s” skills such as crochet and knitting. (In the mid-1930s, a local watercolor style emerged and Albert Namatjira (1902–1959) became the most famous Aboriginal artist of his generation.) It’s a little unclear why the missionaries decided to introduce these arts to the Arrernte. I suspect they thought the sale of pottery to tourists could generate income.

Installation view of ‘Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters for Kids continues’ at The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria.

In 1975, the land was officially given back to the indigenous inhabitants and the town became dually known as Ntaria/Hermannsburg. Shortly afterward, the local government built a ceramic workshop and the Hermannsburg Pottery cooperative was officially founded. Locals not only continued but developed the pottery tradition into artwork that has real resonance.

Initially, all the work was done by men. The pots, depicting local flora and fauna, were pretty, if not exceptional, and sold to tourists passing throughout the central desert. But in 1990, senior lawman Nashasson Ungwanaka invited a potter named Naomi Sharp to come to Hermannsburg and teach a workshop, and soon thereafter the women of Hermannsburg took over. No longer quite as passive as the male potters, the women of Hermannsburg began to make pots that reflected their lives in a more meaningful way than the “tourist art” had done.

 

Pot by Rahel Kngwarria Ungwanaka “Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer” (
2015), installation view, Northern Territory
 earthenware, under glazes.

It turns out that the women of Hermannsburg, by their own admission, are fanatical fans of Australian rules football, a rough and tumble team sport played only in Australia. Founded in 1908, the game has been traditionally a white sport and for many years the leagues (unofficially, of course) mirrored the racist attitudes of their nation. Aboriginal and other ethnic minorities faced discrimination and outright racism as they slowly integrated into the leagues. Famous and accomplished Aboriginal players such as Nicky Winmar, Michael Long, and Chris Lewis have publicly stood up against racism, and this, in turn, has given an enormous boost to the Aboriginal rights movements.

While the Hermannsburg women potters still continue the tradition of lyrical pottery depicting the natural world in which they live, it is their dynamic football pieces that reflect the personal and political victories of the players that pack a visual and emotional punch. One of the most famous moments in Australian football is portrayed in a piece by Rona Rubunjta that recreates the image of celebrated player Nicky Winmar lifting his shirt and proudly pointing to the color of his skin in 1993. The piece, entitled “I’m Black,” is a triumph of identity, and one can only imagine the empowerment that this gesture conveyed to his country folk.

Photograph of Hermannsburg Women Potters fans

The Ian Potter Center exhibition consists of 20 pots, with animated scenes from famous football games painted (in fired underglaze) around their exteriors. Each is topped with a sculptural finial portraying one or several athletic figures in three dimensions. The drawing and modeling is loose and fun; the pots self-assured in their design and fabrication, and bold in their statement of ethnic pride. Each pot tells its story in a circular way, the narrative traveling around its exterior, though each maker has a different portrayal of space. In some, the figures are foreshortened and slightly warped, as their bodies conform to the undulation of the classical ceramic shape. Others tell a visual story in space that is compressed, both horizontally and vertically, so the story reads more as a band of images. The color is universally bold and opaque. The individual drawings are personal and idiosyncratic; there is no mistaking the work of one potter for another.

Because this is a significant political and cultural exhibition, I was slightly dismayed that the curators decided to design it as an exhibition primarily for children. Officially entitled Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters for Kids, the show is set up like a football field: a red floor with boundary markings delineates the gallery and the pots are placed in vitrines that mimic the official football starting positions. The gallery is hung with the banners of Australian Football teams. It’s lively for sure, but also a little chaotic, and I fear decreases the social import of the artwork. I am all for enticing children into museum shows, but this one feels a little like an amusement arcade. I’m not sure why the giant wall text needed to say “For Kids.” The art and the message presented in this exhibition is in no way childlike. I could see adults read the signage and turning away from the exhibition, which would be a loss for everyone.

Lindy Panangka Rontji, “The tackle” (
2015), installation view, Northern Territory
 earthenware, under glazes

While I had no idea of the personal significance of the pots and their various scenes of football triumph to those who made them, the exuberance and joy need no explanation. The exhaustive wall text connects each pot to its episode and makes the pieces feel even more important in a larger context. And while each of the 20 pots stands on its own, there is something very moving about seeing them all together — like a team whose individual players collectively create a new and powerful entity.

Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters for Kids continues at The Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) (Ground, Federation Sqaure, Flinders St & Russell St, Melbourne, Australia) through April 10. 

 

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The Urgent and Necessary Images of Shahidul Alam

Published Jan. 8, 2020 in Hyperallergic

At the Rubin Museum of Art, ” Truth to Power” spotlights Alam’s tireless documentation of over 40 years of struggle and change in his native Bangladesh.

Shahidul Alam, “Smriti Azad at Protest at Shaheed Minar ( Shaheed Minar, Dhaka, Bangladesh)” (1994), photograph (all images courtesy of Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World, unless otherwise noted)

Shahidul Alam did not set out to be a photographer, a social justice activist, or a political leader. He wanted to be a scientist — a chemist, to be exact. While working on his PhD in London, he purchased a camera by chance, for a friend who turned out to be too broke to pay him back. Stuck with this thing, he started using the camera himself,  capturing images of London street life as he was finishing his degree.

Alam returned to his native Bangladesh in 1984 during a time of political turmoil and hit the streets to document the lives of his countrymen and women. Capturing on film the myriad dimensions of Bangladeshi life proved to be his calling.  Alam has documented over 40 years of struggle and change in the country and in the process, founded some of Southeast Asia’s most important photo agencies and photography programs. 

Shahidul Alam, “Protesters in Motijheel Break Section 144 on Dhaka Siege Day (Motijheel, Dhaka,Bangladesh)” (1987)

A retrospective of his career is now on view at the Rubin Museum of Art where it will run until May. Truth to Power is arranged chronologically, and starts in the 1990’s, when Alam’s photos first began to be picked up by the international media and circulated worldwide. As a photojournalist, he has chronicled flood, war, famine, joy, refugee migrations, street life, and political oppression. Select images also allude to his work as the founder of the Drik Picture Library, the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography (now the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute) and the Chobi Mela International Photography Festival, each dedicated to free speech and self-expression. These institutions are actively training  future generations of photojournalists in Southeast Asia. Alam’s is an extraordinary career of commitment to capturing and telling stories that matter.

Shahidul Alam, “Woman in Ballot Booth (Lamatia, Dhaka, Bangladesh)” (1991), photograph

Alam’s early photographs are very much in the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos of India from the 1940’s. High contrast and dramatic framing heighten the narrative. In his photo from 1987, “Protesters in Motijheel Break Section 44 on Dhaka Siege Day,” he presents a formalist view of an urban street, a wide and long expanse framed by buildings. Backlit, the figures of the protesters are sharply thrown into shadow. They appear as dark cutouts  in a brilliant haze of light. Everyone in this photograph is moving. There is an air of expectancy, unrest; at the same time the elegant lighting and composition reads simply as a beautiful moment captured on film.

From this section of early work, the exhibition moves us into a grouping that addresses Alam’s social justice practice head-on. In the 2010s Alam produced three bodies of work addressing the disappearance of feminist activist Kalpana Chakma, who was kidnapped in 1996 and of whom no trace has since been found. Entitled Kalpana’s Warriors, Alam’s series ventures into a realm of imagery that is abstract and artistic, rather than journalistic. Bits and pieces of women’s clothing are photographed in color, as well as Kalpana’s journals and shoes (shot in black and white). They depend heavily on their labels for explanation, and although I think that Alam was attempting to create an atmospheric portrait of the missing activist this grouping does not have the power of his straightforward documentarian work. 

Installation view of “Shahidul Alam: Truth to Power,” presented by the Rubin Museum of Art, November 8, 2019 – May 4, 2020 (courtesy of the Rubin Museum of Art, photo by David De Armas Photography)

“Red Orna” (2013), is  a photograph from this series presents what appears to be a piece of deeply saturated woven red fabric (an orna is a woman’s garment common to Southeast Asia). It stretches across the entire picture plane, light streaming across it accentuating the richness of the color.  The extensive wall text explains that this is part of Alam’s interest in how a photographer and their viewers “interpret the truth” about an image. Personally, I prefered the photographs that are more straightforward, which allowed me to experience his vision without conceptual explanations.  However, as the exhibition is arranged chronologically this part of Alam’s body of work is important to consider. 

Shahidul Alam, “Airport Goodbye (Dhaka Airport, Bangladesh)” (1996), photograph

It is fascinating to see the evolution of Alam’s work and vision. From the early black and white film photos, to the later digital color work one can see both the continuity in his work and the changes that new technology have brought. At the terminus of the show, which focuses on Alam’s imprisonment, the museum has mounted several terminals that show, in slideshow mode, his most recent photographs taken on an iPhone. I wish that they had given this work a bit more prominence. These new photos carry a sense of energy that is fresh and captures Bangladesh right now. They would have made a great counterpoint to the vintage images in the show.

Over the course of his career, Alam has tirelessly produced bodies of work documenting the movements of migrant laborers, sex workers, environmental devastation, and most recently the forced migration of the Rohingya people. His photos are urgent and necessary. There’s an interesting line that activist artists must walk — having your social justice bonafides in the right place and making great art are sometimes different skill sets. It can be complicated to have to critique journalistic images that are timely but sometimes don’t work as well from an aesthetic perspective. Luckily for us, Shahidul Alam is an important humanitarian with a beautiful aesthetic sensibility. This exhibition will move you on both levels; Alam bears witness to troubled times and people. And he makes beautiful photographs.

Shahidul Alam, “Rohingya Refugees After Having Just Landed in Bangladesh (Shah Porir Dweep, Teknaf, Bangladesh)”
(2017), photograph

Shahidul Alam: Truth to Power continues at the Rubin Museum of Art (170 West 17th Street, Chelsea) through May 4, 2020. The exhibition is organized by Beth Citron.

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WEIRDEST YEAR EVER

A rant about 2020……..

Housebound- 2020. Oilstick, graphite. 10 x 8

I haven’t posted a rant or a rave in many years. But man, oh, man, if ever there was a time in the history of the Universe to post a rant, this would be it.

I left NYC on March 13 for a normal weekend at my house up in the Catskills. Little did I know what was about to come down. The Spring up here in the mountains was long and cold. Unusually so. Time slowed down as the days slipped by. Disoriented and scared I  tried, like so many, to wrap my head around what was happening in the world. Jobs disappeared as the art world closed down and everyone hunkered down, just trying to be safe and be sure that those we loved were safe.

My studio here in Shokan NY is in the stable of an old barn. It’s a Summer studio, not heated and it was cold. But I cranked up the music, put on five or so layers of clothing ( no exaggeration) and even if I couldn’t make anything, I forced myself to spend the day out of the house and in the studio. Slowly, drawings began to emerge. For the first time I was making work that was more directly autobiographical than ever before.It was unsettling. but then again everything was unsettling.

Curfew 2020- paint, pastel. 20 x 17.50

Slowly I worked on pieces- drawings, sculpture and assemblage- the figures were lost, locked down, locked out, broken.. and yet they contain with a glimmer of hope.

Broken. 2020. Clay, glaze, ink, encaustic, object. 20 x 8 x 3

You don’t need me to go through the list of what has battered us this year. You know. I just wrote a huge impassioned paragraph listing every assault upon us that has happened this year (and it’s still October). I deleted it. You know, we all know……

Luckily I had a show to work towards. My solo exhibition -DOES SHE OR DOESN’T SHE? will open at Firecat Projects in Chicago on Oct. 23. (2019 N Damen Ave.,Chicago, IL 60647. see link). I had deadlines and people who were waiting for me to finish new work. It’s been a godsend, and I am deeply grateful to the gallery and Stan Klein.

I will go to Chicago. I hope that people come to see the show. I hope that we win and win big in November. I hope that a safe vaccine is found quickly and I hope that the brutality and hatred that has been unleashed in America will somehow be contained….. that’s alot to hope for. But I’ve always been an optimistic pessimist.

Eight months later,and I’m still in the Catskills. Trips to NYC once a month to pick up mail, art supplies have shown me that my beloved city is bent but not broken.

And the beat goes on…….

Good night and sweet dreams to you all.

Sweet Dreams. 2020. Ink, collage. 18 x 23.5
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A Memorial to Crimes Against Women and Children in Ghostly Glass

Published in Hyperallergic August 22, 2019

Northern Irish artist Alison Lowry addresses the 200 years of crimes perpetrated by the Catholic Church in collaboration with the Irish state.

Alison, Lowry, “Instead of the fragrance there will be stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding (Isaiah 3:24)” cast glass, rosary beads, human hair (2019)

DUBLIN — How do artists respond to the institutional horrors of the world? This is a huge and urgent question in our tumultuous time. I found a deeply affecting case history in Dublin, Ireland.

Northern Irish glass artist Alison Lowry has mounted an exhibition that addresses well over 200 years of crimes against women and children perpetrated by the Catholic Church, in collaboration with the Irish state. It is a devastating exhibition.

Alison, Lowry, “These are their names (Numbers 13:4)” Screen printed enamels, found objects (2019)

A brief background: In 2012 a mass grave holding the bodies of 796 children was discovered in Tuam, Ireland on the former site of St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, an institution run by the Bon Secours Sisters order of nuns from 1921 to 1965. Mother and baby homes (a tragically ironic name) were homes for unwed mothers and their children, many of whom were forcibly taken from their mothers for adoption, and the women forced into manual labor to “pay” for their care. The hygienic and medical conditions were abysmal; as a result, many of the babies, children, and mothers died.

This grim discovery was coupled with the ongoing investigation of another site of institutional abuse. The Magdalene Laundries, a Catholic institution run by nuns where unwanted women and children worked in forced servitude benefitting the church as a lucrative laundry facility. It is estimated that upwards of 30,000 women and teenage girls lived in slavery in these institutions from roughly 1760 until 1996, when the last workhouse was closed. Children in families where there was domestic violence were also routinely taken by the state and placed in “industrial homes,” also run by the Catholic Church, where the victims’ treatment was cruel and brutal.

Installation view of Alison Lowry: (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths at the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts & History, (photographed 13 May, 2019 by Peter Moloney)

These are the verifiable facts that Lowery used as a basis for her exhibition, titled  (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths. Her primary medium is a form of glass fabrication called “pâte’ de verre,” meaning literally “paste of glass,” an extremely labor-intensive 19th century form of glass casting. The technique is more typically associated with beautiful, ethereal forms than the commemoration of slavery. The aesthetic beauty of the material that Lowery is using serves to amplify the horror that it depicts. The exhibition also employs text, audio, and video to tell the stories of the survivors of these two separate but interwoven institutions.

Housed at the National Museum of Ireland–Decorative Arts and History, near central Dublin, the exhibition is installed in a slightly claustrophobic rabbit warren of small rooms, and painted black. You enter and begin a beautiful and emotionally wrenching journey. The first cases illustrate how women were shorn of their hair, their possessions and even their name; they were given new, Biblical names by the nuns.

The first object one encounters upon entering the exhibition is a life-sized, old-fashioned work apron fabricated of unfired pâte de verre over fabric. The beads of glass are textural and thick, giving the apron a slight fuzziness — like an old-time photograph that is slightly out of focus. The apron is both hard and soft, an interesting visual metaphor for the labor of laundry.

Alison, Lowry, “His clothes became so white they shone. They were whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them (Mark 9:3)” Linen apron (created by seamstress Ann Burrows) pâte de verre (unfired) (2019)

A piece hanging in a glass vitrine has this chilling title, “Instead of the Fragrance There Will Be Stench; Instead of a Sash, a Rope; Instead of Well-Dressed Hair, Baldness; Instead of Fine Clothing, Sackcloth; Instead of Beauty, Branding (Isaiah3: 24)” (2019). Four pairs of giant glass scissors dangle from rosaries in the case, glittering in a very bright spotlight. Piles of long human hair lay in a heap on the floor of the case. Next to the case is a listening device where one can hear the voice of Catherine Whelan, born in 1935, now deceased, who recounts being conscripted to a Magdalene laundry at the age of 14. She describes in detail how she was “punished” by the nuns, in particular the experience of being held down and having her hair cut off.

Almost every work of art in the exhibition is accompanied by audio testimony. The recordings are deeply saddening to listen to. The exquisite beauty of the objects focuses us on the disconnect between what we are seeing and what we are hearing.

Alison, Lowry, “Bridget’s Story” pâte de verre, ceramic decals, ribbon. (2019)

In the piece “Red Cardigan” (2019), Lowry collaborates with poet Connie Roberts to memorialize Roberts’ experience growing up in an industrial home. Taken by the state at age five, along with her 14 siblings, she endured 12 years of incarceration. After her mother’s death, she returned to her childhood home where her father presented her with a red woolen sweater that she had worn before being taken. Its innocent color and the evidence of her mother’s hand mending the frayed old garment inspired Roberts to write a poem about her life that sparkles with crystalline sorrow. Lowry then responded by casting a replica of that sweater — a small artifact of a little girl’s sad life. As with the other pieces there is an audio recording of Roberts quietly reciting her poem.

Alison, Lowry, “The Cardigan” cast glass, ceramic decals (2019)

The showpiece of the exhibition is a group of nine infant christening gowns, made of pâte de verre and nylon fibers. Entitled, “Home Babies” (2017), the gowns hang slightly above our heads and gently turn and move as viewers in the two rooms bear witness and disturb the still air. A voice intones solemnly the names of the 796 babies whose bodies were discovered in the St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam. Like a mantra, the soothing, mesmerizing incantation of names becomes the background sound of the entire exhibition.

Installation view of Alison Lowry: (A)Dressing Our Hidden Truths at the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts & History, (photographed 13 May, 2019 by Peter Moloney)

When I visited the exhibition in mid-May it was the only crowded room in an otherwise almost empty museum, itself a former military barracks. The visitors were mostly women, some weeping openly. There are many survivors of these homes who are still living and this project is an important documentation for them of the abuse that they suffered. It is also gorgeous to look at. Lowry successfully marries the content she is working with to the beauty of her materials, a very tricky relationship to accomplish.

Delicate yet hard-edged, sensitive yet unflinching, deeply personal and yet universal, this show is most worthy of the stories it tells.

(A) Dressing Our Hidden Truths, at the National Museum of Ireland–Decorative Arts and History (Collins Barracks, Benburb Street, Dublin, Ireland) runs through May 2020. It was curated by Audrey Whitty.

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Figural Sculptures That Weave an Enigmatic Story of Disassociation and Isolation

Claudette Schreuders’s most recent show at Jack Shainman gallery, In the Bedroom is perhaps both her most revealing and most enigmatic body of work to date.

published June 17. 2019

Install shot: “School Days” (2019) Lime wood, enamel paint. 10 x 9.) and “Little Table” (2018) Jelutong wood, enamel and oil paint. 20 7/8 x 8 5/8 x 17 5/16 ( all images by the author)

Claudette Schreuders occupies an intriguing place in the contemporary art world. Born in South Africa in 1973, before the end of apartheid, but in the center of its crumbling, her work has always elegantly danced the line between the personal and the political. Mention is often made of Schreuders’s “search for her African identity,” but I’ve always found her work to be firmly grounded in a deeply personal narrative — the political content of her work sneaking in around the sides rather than hitting you full frontal.

Her most recent show at Jack Shainman Gallery entitled In the Bedroomis perhaps both her most revealing and most enigmatic body of work to date. The title hints that viewers will be privy to something intimate. It’s a little titillating, a tad seductive. Yet once you enter the gallery the first thing you see is a wall hung with five drawings, displayed closely together. Drawn in acrylic ink on paper, the five create a powerfully ominous narrative (all of them made in 2017). Entitled (in order) “Mingle”  a close-up portrait of a very intense adolescent boy staring intensely to the left, outside of the grouping. Next to him is “Note to Self” — a young woman staring blankly to her right. She is faced by “Anna in Uniform,” — a young woman with a traumatized expression staring to the left. She is next to “Loved Ones” — a young girl, topless with pre-pubescent breasts. Her body faces us, but her head turns away looking into the distance. This jovial grouping is punctuated by “The Neighbor” —  a middle-aged man grimacing angrily as he stares back at the group, a bloody wound on his forehead. Everyone is avoiding meeting each other’s eyes, as well as ours. This is a portrait of intimacy of the most terrifying sort. Whatever psychodrama has happened here feels like the stuff of the morning tabloids.

Install shot of five drawings (all 2017): “Mingle” acrylic ink on paper, 19 11/16 x 17 5/16; “Note to Self” acrylic ink on paper, 19 11/16 x 17 5/16; “Anna in Uniform” acrylic ink on paper, 19 11/16 x 17 5/16. “Loved Ones” acrylic ink on paper. 19 11/16 x 17 5/16; “The Neighbour” acrylic ink on paper, 19 11/16 x 17 5/17

This show is complex. When I first saw it I thought it looked too small for the gallery. The figures seemed isolated and even a little lost in the big, clinically lit space. But on second viewing I began to understand the almost desperate loneliness that this body of work conveys. The irony of the title is belied by the installation. We may be in the bedroom, but it is a room of emotional loneliness of a primal sort. Even the figures engaged in sex acts (there are two) seem dissociated from one another. This is sad sex. In the show’s title piece of sculpture, “In the Bedroom,” (2019) a couple lays intertwined. The man has his head buried deep in the woman’s neck. We cannot see his expression. She stares upward, her eyes blank. Not a lot of joy in this lovemaking.

Claudette Schreuders, “In the Bedroom” (2019) Jelutong wood. 24 7/16 x 11 7/16 x 8 5/8

Everything in the show is carefully placed to advance the mysterious narrative that Schreuders is telling. Near, but not too near the loveless couple making love, is a large girl or woman; the ambiguity of age is yet another intriguing element of these mysterious tales. Entitled “Guilty Bystander,” (2018) she is the largest figure in the show standing about 51 inches. Alert, she stands, body slightly twisted, looking at us. She seems aware of the couple behind her, but unable or unwilling to look at them, or perhaps they are her dream. She is wearing a jaunty little patterned dress and exquisite vintage shoes. Her ensemble is impeccable. Her painted hair is in a perfect coif. Yet she seems uneasy, unnerved perhaps by what is happening around her. Her eyes seem to follow you around the gallery with a haunted expression.

Install shot: “In the Bedroom” (2019) and “Guilty Bystander”(2018)

Schreuders carves her sculptures from Jelutong wood, a type of rubber tree found in Asia. It’s a soft wood, buttery yellow and smooth grained. The carving marks show, but softly, giving the works an air of gentility. The materiality is obvious, but the edges have been smoothed. The sculptures are painted in mellow, muted colors. Everything is just fine … which to me makes the depth of the psychological content all the more strange and powerful.

The scale of these works is also disorienting. I mentioned the dance that many of them do between ages — girl or woman? Part of this ambiguity is due to most of the pieces being the size of a large doll, or a small child. With adult faces and impassive expressions they can be seen as adults trapped in their childhood memories. Or perhaps they are about the inner “adult” dreams of children.  The consistently diminished scale of the figures, with their slightly oversized heads and feet and impeccable attention to small details of dress (beautiful delicate shoes are of particular interest to Schreuders), create a universe of people that seem benign, even toy-like, and yet their dramas are huge.

Install shot of In the Bedroom at Jack Shainman gallery

Another potent relationship is between the pieces entitled “Little Table” (2018 and “School Days” (2019) “Little Table” portrays a man and woman in the act of sex, the woman bent over forward and leaning on a literal, little table as the man enters her from behind. His head lowered, his expression passive, as is hers. The vibe is one of obligation, rather than passion. The piece is set off by a very small sculpture of a crucified little boy that hangs near them on the wall. The lad in “School Days” appears to be wearing a school uniform, Catholic school perhaps? The juxtaposition of these two sculptures creates a narrative that sets up pieces of a story, but each viewer must provide their own ending.

All the figures in the show are of European origin with the exception of a large formal bust of a Black African man. Simply entitled “The President” (2019), it is, according to the gallery, a portrait of the current South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa. It is an odd intrusion of the outside world into Schreuders’s dreamscape. Perhaps this is a brash reality check about the possibility of real intimacy or privacy? (The government is always watching.) This sculpture is carved out of teak and the wood is obviously rougher and darker. The artist’s carving is bolder than in the other pieces, the deep gestural carving marks enhancing the beauty of the teak. The artist has left the sides of the bust raw, exposing that this is carved from a large block of wood. The figure sports the same passive expression that permeates this show, but her looser carving imbues the bust with a more robust energy.

Claudette Schreuders “The President” (2019)Teak wood, enamel paint. 15 ¾ x 14 3/16 x 14 3/16

There is an admirable continuity in Schreuders’s artistic vision. Whatever odd world or dream we’ve wandered into is completely consistent in its logic. I would posit that In the Bedroom is a journey into our individual psychic rooms, where memory mingles with childhood, desire and loneliness, a potent cocktail that haunts the viewer long after you’ve left.

In the Bedroom runs through June 22 at Jack Shainman Gallery (513 West 20th St, Chelsea, Manhattan).

 

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Claudette Schreuders occupies an intriguing place in the contemporary art world. Born in South Africa in 1973, before the end of apartheid, but in the center of its crumbling, her work has always elegantly danced the line between the personal and the political. Mention is often made of Schreuders’s “search for her African identity,” but I’ve always found her work to be firmly grounded in a deeply personal narrative — the political content of her work sneaking in around the sides rather than hitting you full frontal.

Her most recent show at Jack Shainman Gallery entitled In the Bedroomis perhaps both her most revealing and most enigmatic body of work to date. The title hints that viewers will be privy to something intimate. It’s a little titillating, a tad seductive. Yet once you enter the gallery the first thing you see is a wall hung with five drawings, displayed closely together. Drawn in acrylic ink on paper, the five create a powerfully ominous narrative (all of them made in 2017). Entitled (in order) “Mingle” — a close-up portrait of a very intense adolescent boy staring intensely to the left, outside of the grouping. Next to him is “Note to Self” — a young woman staring blankly to her right. She is faced by “Anna in Uniform,” — a young woman with a traumatized expression staring to the left. She is next to “Loved Ones” — a young girl, topless with pre-pubescent breasts. Her body faces us, but her head turns away looking into the distance. This jovial grouping is punctuated by “The Neighbor” —  a middle-aged man grimacing angrily as he stares back at the group, a bloody wound on his forehead. Everyone is avoiding meeting each other’s eyes, as well as ours. This is a portrait of intimacy of the most terrifying sort. Whatever psychodrama has happened here feels like the stuff of the morning tabloids.

Install shot: “School Days” (2019) Lime wood, enamel paint. 10 x 9.) and “Little Table” (2018) Jelutong wood, enamel and oil paint. 20 7/8 x 8 5/8 x 17 5/16 (all images courtesy Jack Shainman gallery)

 

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