Like Sugar at Tang Teaching Museum

Installation shot of Like Sugar at Skidmore College's Tang Teaching Museum

photograph by Arthur Evans

The exhibition Like Sugar, on view through June 23 at Skidmore College's Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in Saratoga Springs, is an unusually thought-provoking show that, like its namesake, still somehow comes off seeming insubstantial.

Organized by the Tang's Malloy Curator Rachel Seligman and Skidmore English professor Sarah Goodwin, with input from three other Skidmore faculty members, Like Sugar may suffer from the too-many-cooks syndrome, as it attempts many diverse things. Is it about art? Of course. Food? Check. History? Global economics? Advertising? Health? All of the above.

Julia Jacquette, Two Tiered Cookie Platter, 1997
enamel on wood panel

As an art exhibition, Like Sugar is a bit sparse for my taste, but it features some very good work. Unfortunately, several of the best artists in the show are represented by only one piece each, which can be frustrating. On the plus side, while the show has very much to say, it doesn't overwhelm the viewer with didactic panels or unbearable preachiness - it manages to maintain a light playful tone despite the deadly seriousness of its content.

I think the show makes plain just how conflicted we are as a society - and individually - about sugar. It's killing us, but we love it. Historically, the sugar trade drove the creation and growth of the horror of the slave trade. This is delved into through visceral works by Kara Walker and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and alluded to in historical and contemporary documentary photographs also in the exhibition. Even honey bees get some of the blame - or credit - from both the scientific perspective and the creative one, as a video piece in the show records an experiment demonstrating their preference for sugar, and three fascinating sculptures in the show are a collaboration between a human artist, Garnett Puett, and comb-making bee colonies.

Advertisement by Sugar Information Inc.

Among the most shocking materials in Like Sugar are the many mid-twentieth-century magazine ads collected and presented in a grand collage and also individually, where we can see the audacity of Madison Avenue's efforts to sell a nutrition-free, highly caloric product to an unsuspecting and exuberant post-war consumer. As a child of the '60s, I was the direct recipient of the concepts these ads promoted, and it particularly struck me that the majority of the artists in this show were too - born between 1959 and 1965, a rather narrow demographic band to see in a large group show.

Clearly, we were all affected, and the impacts are still seen in the obesity and diabetes epidemics that plague the United States today. These diseases are explored in a display of public service graphics that attempt to scare people straight off the sugar track, and in photographs and paintings that simultaneously seduce and disgust.

Emily Eveleth, Big Pink, 2016, oil on canvas

One of the strongest pieces in the show, which is used prominently in publicity for it, is a six-and-a-half-foot painting by Emily Eveleth entitled Big Pink, which employs scale, gorgeous painterly flourishes, pastry worship, and frankly pornographic effects to drive home several points at once. Like the ad pictured above, which advises eating cookies rather than a healthy lunch as a weight-loss strategy, it's creepy - and irresistible.

All in all, Like Sugar may be overly ambitious, but it got that way for important reasons. More art exhibitions should make such efforts, even if falling short is almost inevitable.

And, while you're in the neighborhood, check out a first-rate three-person show at the Saratoga Arts Center. Passing Time, on view through June 15, features paintings, photographs, and sculptures by Paul Chapman, Harry Wirtz, and Rebecca Flis (respectively). In a happy coincidence, some of Flis's ingenious cast works are made of - you guessed it - sugar. I promise you will like.

Rebecca Flis Ironscapes, cast iron, crushed red stone, steel perimeter

Future Perfect at UAlbany Art Museum

A group of drawings by Alexander Ross as seen in Future Perfect

The exhibition Future Perfect: Picturing the Anthropocene at the University at Albany Art Museum is a grand compendium of ideas
that handily meets its purpose to "explore and inform," but falls a bit short simply as an art exhibition.

Curated by Associate Professor Danny Goodwin, Director Janet Riker and Associate Director/Curator Corinna Ripps-Schaming, the show features significant individual pieces or bodies of work in a variety of media by 12 artists, augmented by 11 additional artists whose prints, drawn from the museum's permanent collection by participants in a class project, create a sidebar exhibition within Future Perfect.

Three sculptures by JoAnne Carson confront
three photographs by Miljohn and Heltoft

The anthropocene is the label now affixed to our current geological era, so named to reflect the changes to the earth's climate and ecology that human activity has caused. Much of the work that has been selected to represent this concept here leans toward the futuristic, including animated science fiction film projects by Colin C. Boyd and Jacolby Satterwhite, and colorful, cartoonish critter paintings by Alexander Ross.

Other improbables, in the form of fantastic plants, are presented in sculptures by JoAnne Carson and silver-print photographs by Miljohn Ruperto and Ulrik Heltoft. But not all the work shown in Future Perfect is obsessed with the future. I found the more interior-looking artists in the show were more effective.

An altered photograph by Letha Wilson

Several altered landscape photographs by Letha Wilson and three freestanding resin-bound sculptural montages by Amy Brener are both elegant and thought-provoking - the fact that these two groups are installed together suggests the curators also see a connection between them. I really liked seeing four leaning painted planks by Jason Middlebrook, an artist I first encountered in a 2007 solo show in this same space; and a quasi-narrative photo series by Dana Hoey that uses naturalistic subjects to evoke a chilling future.

A photograph of salamanders by Dana Hoey

The best part of the show for me, however, was the students' effort to make a statement along one long wall, where they sequenced photographs and prints in a way that clearly communicates a point of view and clearly articulates unanswered questions. This part included outstanding works by both widely known and local artists such as Marilyn Bridges, Michael Marston, Robert Smithson, and Ken Ragsdale.

Future Perfect: Picturing the Anthropocene, which runs through Dec 10, has featured a busy schedule of related events, including weekly programs in the gallery, since it opened in July; the next event is a poetry reading and discussion at 7 pm on Nov 29 - check here for more details.

Colin C. Boyd works on an animation project on-site at Future Perfect

Jim Shaw: Entertaining Doubts at MASS MoCA

Jim Shaw - The Rinse Cycle 2012 acrylic on muslin

Have you ever tried to describe a crazy dream you had, or tried to follow someone describing such a dream? Then you will have some idea what it's like to experience the large exhibition Entertaining Doubts by California artist Jim Shaw at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. Shaw draws a great deal from his dreams, and attempts to manifest them physically through sculpture, painting, and installation.

Alas, it is not an entirely successful effort, just as none of us has ever really adequately articulated our own dream or understood another's, but a lot of compelling and enjoyable art is created along the way, so it's also not a failure. Shaw has great skills in drawing and painting, and a good understanding of the theatrics that go into effective installations, and MASS MoCA gives him plenty of space to spread out in.

Jim Shaw - Frank Frazetta Figure 2013 - installation view

A signature of the show is Shaw's re-use of discarded painted theatrical backdrops. The worn texture of these huge curtains of muslin, and their time-softened colors, are very appealing, and Shaw makes the most of this appeal by limiting his interventions to partial overpainting or, in some cases, simple reinterpretation by the placement of flat figures in front. Shaw also takes smaller cuts of the backdrops and paints on them like stretched canvases. These are some of the best works in the show, perhaps because it is easier to digest them, or because smaller works can concentrate the idea better. (Mind you, in this context, small is relative: say, six feet rather than forty.)

Jim Shaw - Blake/Boring 2010
ink on paper 

Another key feature of Shaw's work is his impressive mastery of comic-book style inking, which he applies to various obsessions. Clearly, he is a child of the '50s and '60s, and is completely, unabashedly in love with Superman, whose image is captured, transformed, fractured and fragmented in many ways here.

Sources as disparate as William Blake and Walt Disney are blended into the Superman myth as processed by Shaw, connecting the visionary's Songs of Innocence and Experience to the Seven Dwarves and then linking it to Kryptonite.

Jim Shaw - Fire Female 2012
faux hair wigs with airbrush

Again, I think these elements come across best when simplified, as when Shaw groups giant cutout drawings of Superman's body parts into a wall-mounted installation, or in another installation where the black-ink area of the superhero's costume shorts turns out to be a portal into a plastic dreamworld of glowing colored crystals (shown below).

Shaw also shines in book-page-scale drawings of vortices, swirls of hair, and others of his many obsessions (architecture, the human body, American Indians, snakes, and Wagner's Ring series among them).

Shaw's sculptural forays include architectural dioramas, amusing surrealistic furniture designs (such as a nose-shaped wall sconce), and bizarre wigs, which also appear in a series of paintings made over inkjet prints, rather than discarded muslin. These paintings extend Shaw's technique of altering given imagery and introduce a self-conscious reference to art history in the form of a white rectangle cut out of the colorful image, then replaced outside it as a gray-toned expressionist swirl.

Meaning what? As with the dreams, I couldn't quite get inside Shaw's head to understand the point. But I'm grateful that it's such an active place, and that an artist of Shaw's ability makes the effort to take us there. Entertaining Doubts continues through February 2016.

Jim Shaw - The Issue of My Loins 2015 (installation detail)

In addition to Jim Shaw, MASS MoCA is currently featuring several other exhibitions. Two that are particularly worthy of note:

Eclipse is a remarkable, immersive video installation by Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris in collaboration with the ecological writer Elizabeth Kolbert that commemorates the passenger pigeon on the 100th anniversary of its extinction (image at left).

Not only a powerfully moving experience of what the incredibly numerous birds were once able to do (i.e. blot out the sky), Eclipse is a brilliant example of digital technology put to an innovative purpose as art. It also offers a beautifully produced oversized publication free to visitors. Eclipse is a must-see; it continues through Sept. 1.

Bibliotecaphilia is a group show curated by Allie Foradas with support from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute that brings together six very diverse artists around the theme of books.

It includes a complex interactive installation by Jonathan Gitelson that invites visitors to spend time with a great variety of books annotated by their former owners; Dan Peterman's wonderful sculpture titled The Polymer Catalog - one ton archive, which looks like massive stacks of books but is just slices of colorful recycled plastic boards; Meg Hitchcock's painstaking and beautifully transcendent collages made of individual letters cut from holy books; and a large-scale carved wooden screen by Susan Hefuna.

Also included in Bibliotecaphilia are Jean Prebe's site-specific sculpture titled The Secret Lives of Books (pictured below), and an adults-only series of nine videos by Clayton Cubitt titled Hysterical Literature, in each of which a woman sits at a table and reads aloud from a book of her choosing until she has an orgasm (you don't see what's going on below the table, but it apparently involves a skillfully wielded vibrator).

Bibliotecaphilia continues through the end of 2015.

The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art

A detail of the Ringlings' home

If you find yourself within striking distance of Sarasota, Fla., any time soon, be sure to check out the Ringling Museum. Originally built as a lavish estate by John Ringling (of circus fame and robber-baron fortune) and his wife Mable, it was then donated to the local municipality in 1936 by the childless couple. The gorgeously lavish seaside site offers changing shows of contemporary art; a significant permanent collection of both circus art and fine art; free and guided tours of the Ringlings’ jazz-age, neo-Venetian villa; parklike gardens; and more.

My friend (and Florida native) John and I went there to see two shows in particular: One was a traveling collection of cutting-edge Chinese photography and video, titled Seeing the Unseen, which we found disappointing; the other is a new Ringling-curated contemporary group show titled Re:Purposed that was outstanding.

Li Wei, Mirror

Why were we disappointed by the Chinese contemporary work? Well, disappointment hinges on expectations, and I admit mine were a bit higher for this conglomeration that featured eight artists but was so narrow in scope as to seem almost a solo show. I’ll blame the curators, not the artists, for that, but it is certain that out of the vastness of the Chinese art scene there had to be more to work with that would have captured our attention. Instead, we moved on fairly quickly, our appreciation for the contemporary Chinese art world somewhat diminished.

Re:Purposed, on the other hand, provided a delightful overall experience and featured, for me, both old friends and new discoveries. The two best-known (and oldest) artists in the mix, Nick Cave and El Anatsui, do carry the show with conceptually sound, brilliantly colorful, exquisitely crafted pieces. But they also have some fine company, especially in the case of Aurora Robson, a Canadian collage assemblist with delicate sensibilities, wry wit, and 21^st-century wisdom.

Robson’s pair of works on paper with magazine cuttings and deftly drawn curlicues cleverly celebrates and subverts our ubiquitous advertising media and its unsubtle consumerist messages, while offering playful and meaningful alternatives. Another artist with a message, Alyce Santoro, presents tapestries and dresses made from woven magnetic tape (pulled out of old cassettes), working not just with the shiny material but with the vestiges of sound that they contain and which can still be pulled up by a tape head. I found this aspect of the weavings equally intriguing and creepy – visually, though, the work fell a little flat.

A Nick Cave Soundsuit

Daniel Rozin’s moving wall of fragmentary detritus is probably the most innovative piece in Re:Purposed – via computer technology and little mechanical motors, the work looks back at the viewers and makes a shadow image of the figures it sees. The interaction is a valid way of communicating that we are directly connected to the trash he’s tricked us into looking at.

Ringling curator Matthew McClendon gave a big space to Jill Sigman for a site-specific installation of a hut constructed out of stuff culled from local Sarasota trash (including some discarded Ringling signage). Colorful and unsurprisingly chaotic, the hut felt forced – too artificial to be truly engaging. Visitors showed their discomfort by hesitating to enter it (despite a clear entrance and no prohibitive warnings) until I broke the barrier and walked in. This lack of audience interaction is symptomatic of the sterile, churchlike environment that museums have cultivated, but it also speaks to an absence of excitement about the Sigman work presented here.

The other artists in the show (Matt Eskuche, Vanessa German, Emily Noelle Lambert, and Mac Premo) all are well represented by a good sampling of work that ranges from elegant glass reproductions of crushed cans to mechanical constructs. The show is augmented by a few items from the Ringling’s permanent collection, including a first-rate wall relief by Robert Rauschenberg and several Marcel Duchamp readymades.

Also on view at the Ringling is a permanent installation by James Turrell titled Joseph's Coat that is a super-flat 24-foot-square aperture in the ceiling of a courtyard, through which viewers can see the ever-changing sky above. Periodic nighttime LED shows designed by Turrell are the real event, but just to stand under the opening during the day and look up through it is a transcendent art experience well worth the effort.

Seeing the Unseen ended on Feb. 28; Re:Purposed will be on view daily through May 17.

Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City - Bird's Nest

Mike Glier at Opalka Gallery

December 29, 2008: Stream, Hoosick, NY, 30ºF, 2008 Oil on aluminum, 24" x 30"

The title of the current show at Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery - meander, because you can't see much while marching - could simply express a philosophy, but I feel it also aims to serve as a sort of explanation. This 35-year survey of Mike Glier (extended till Feb. 8) features several rather disparate bodies of work - the titular meandering - each of which displays technical mastery, intellectual rigor, and engaged passion. Glier paints, brilliantly. Glier draws, with consummate ease. Glier conceptualizes, deeply and effectively.

Satisfaction: Untitled, 1989

Charcoal on paper
12.5" x 9.25"

But there remains the sticky problem of Glier's diversity, and it can't be overlooked. We want our artists clearly recognizable - the market dictates this, and people's overworked minds and hearts demand it. How then do we view an artist who refuses to present a unified vision, who is - inconstant?

I'm not very familiar with Glier's career history, but I expect this variability - or the appearance of variability - has plagued him. I also assume he has chosen not to let the perception of others affect him very much - otherwise, why run the risk of changing tracks? In this very ambitious presentation of great swaths of his best work, Glier and curators fearlessly place portraits next to abstracts, text-splashed sticks next to landscapes, and political commentaries next to familial musings.

Garden Court: Summer, 1994
Acrylic, charcoal on canvas 120" x 90"

The overall effect is impressive, but confusing. While Glier's skill and commitment are undeniable, one must read the wall text and label details to grasp the singularity of his vision, which is more about ideas than images. In the end, his message is primarily as an environmentalist, expressed by a talented painter who is as deeply sensitive to humans and other creatures as he is to the land they inhabit, who is worried about political and economic power-mongering, and who strives to make these concerns apparent in his lushly beautiful art.

Rather than try to describe it all to you, I offer a few choice examples here (leaving out the overtly political work, which I find caricaturish) and urge you to go see for yourself what Glier does so well, and has done for all these decades.

Also, at 3 p.m. on the last day of the exhibition (Sunday, Feb. 8), the gallery will host a talk by Sage professor Steven Leibo on the effects of global warming in this region. After the talk, Glier will be on hand to answer questions about his work. That should provide a great opportunity to understand this complex artist a little better.

Shade Turf with Nine Mice, 2001
Charcoal, oil on aluminum panel  60" x 60"

Patricia Johanson lecture at HVCC

Patricia Johanson, one of the many internationally-known artists who live in the region, gave a fascinating talk at Hudson Valley Community College on Wednesday, and a good crowd of students and local artists were in attendance. (That's Johanson at right.)

The 2008 Stephen L. Hyatt Memorial Lecture focused on Johanson's astonishing environmental projects, quite a few of which have been realized in places as far flung as California, Utah and the Brazilian rainforest.

With a background that includes a serious and successful early career as an abstract artist and extensive knowledge of botany, landscape design, and water treatment, Johanson combines an impressive array of concerns into the creation of large-scale public works projects that function as eco-parks, restore wetlands, treat raw sewage, co-exist with industrial sites, and - oh yeah - are also massive works of art.

Derived primarily from drawings produced during a remarkably fecund period of brainstorming in the 1960s (that's one above), her ideas take shape through extensive research and collaboration with planners and engineers. The projects then get worked through as newly made drawings (that's one at right) and result in complex sculptural installations that can incorporate extensive plantings as well as industrial plants, but appear to be fun-filled environmental parks for people to enjoy (see photo below).

Here are some quotes from her talk:

It's not about my art - my art is just the framework ... for these ecological communities.

It's all about strategy.

Any way a person wants to look at a work of art and anything they see in it is important and true.

[This is what I'm looking for:] What's the truth of each particular place?

What is the work of art becoming?

There's a lot of art, but there's also a lot of life, and the colors of both work together.

[That purple is created by] nature color mixing with art color on-site.

There's nothing intrinsically bad out there.