Jamie Rodriguez at the ACCR

Totenkopf, Die Werbung, The Invisible Enemy - installation by Jamie Rodriguez

Jamie Rodriguez is one of the more interesting artists to have emerged on the local scene in the last decade or so, and his current solo exhibition at The Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy is a well-earned showcase of his latest work.

A frequent prize winner in the annual Mohawk-Hudson Regional, Rodriguez has distinguished himself with challenging, multilayered installations that combine painting, drawing, and sculpture, often to a confounding effect, and this show, entitled Warenfetischismus: Commodity Fetishism is no exception.

Montserrat Landscape #1
oil paint on canvas 2019

I noticed from the first time I saw his work that Rodriguez is a very skillful painter, and this exhibition showcases that aspect of his art by featuring 15 oils on canvas, most of them sun-washed landscapes in an Impressionist style that clearly evokes Cezanne and Van Gogh. The four large mixed-media installations that comprise the remainder of the show all incorporate similarly executed paintings, a stylistic innovation I don’t recall having seen employed by any other artist.

So, labels aside, Rodriguez is a creator who ably applies whatever materials he needs to make his statements – and those statements are ambitious, on a global scale. These installations evoke international politics, with references to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China and capitalist America; environmental issues, including water shortage, habitat loss, and pollution; economic matters such as the commodification of food; religion, via icons and altars; and historical references in the form of architectural elements, decorative tilework, and weaponry.

Argumentum ad baculum, (Fact Check:
To The unhinged and useful idiots, the
Revolution has been canceled as part of
culture, No Justice, No Peace for Wendy's,
The Rubicon has been crossed) - 2021
(detail view of installation)

The last item is perhaps the crux of this work, which openly concerns itself with war and conquest. But the naturalistic concerns are also central, as Rodriguez deploys multiple animal figures - foxes, lambs, raccoons, and various rodents among them - as avatars. His statement accompanying the show offers clear insights into his intentions, while welcoming viewers to make their own interpretations of the work. In part, it says: These narratives can draw attention to many different topics, that can be interpreted in any way the viewer connects … I want to evoke emotion and awareness of the individual to confront the issue of how art functions within a particular set of social and cultural patterns, historical perspectives, and belief/faith systems, while maintaining a sense of humor and humility.

That’s a lot to pack into any work of art, and Rodriguez gives it a good shot. My overriding response to this show is that it has a potent sense of urgency. The sprawling, highly detailed tableaux incorporate a great many carefully constructed elements, which undoubtedly have taken a lot of time to create, yet they still feel improvised, even slapdash in a way, as though the artist feels too pressed to add even the slightest extra bit of finish to his product. Only the paintings appear polished, serving as a counterpoint to the roughly representational sculptures into which they are integrated.

It’s enough to make you breathless.

Warenfetischismus: Commodity Fetishism - Artworks by Jamie Rodriguez will remain on view through April 16.

Polarity Integration: The Universal Game, Zwischenzug, Spiritual Algorithm, end game-"Transcension", Think, Think Tank? Paradigm Shifts
mixed-media installation by Jamie Rodriguez, 2021

Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence at Opalka Gallery

Terry James Conrad adjusts his musical installation at the Opalka Gallery.

all photos provided

We’ve all heard of the three Rs - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – and most of us know that the first two are the more effective approaches to problems associated with waste. But they’re also harder to do, so we’ve tended to focus on recycling, which, also known as remanufacturing, has more and more clearly been revealed as not much of a solution at all.

Tin cans reduced to essential shapes

It’s admirable to try to reduce our production and consumption of stuff, but there’s a conundrum in it: Doing things – which often means making things – is what gives our lives meaning. And that goes double for studio artists. Just try to imagine all your favorite creators having built their careers without leaving behind a trail of stuff. Not at all likely.

All of which makes the unusual approach to making art that Terry James Conrad has pursued so fascinating. Currently the protagonist of a solo exhibition and series of events at Sage College’s Opalka Gallery in Albany, Conrad has taken that second R to heart, and made Reuse his raison d’etre. The result is both intriguing and – perhaps a surprise - esthetically appealing.

One of Conrad's presses in use - the paper
is at the bottom, under the cans

Conrad is essentially a printmaker, though this installation also includes numerous small sculptures, four handcrafted wooden guitars, and a large musical apparatus, in addition to three homemade printing presses that are being actively employed during the exhibition. The level of skill involved in all these works is extremely varied, from pounded, foil-wrapped tin cans that evoke outsider art to fancy woodworking and metalcraft on the guitars. Somewhere in between is the Rube Goldberg-esque music machine, which Conrad set into sonorous motion during my visit. (He’s in the gallery every Thursday adding a residency component to the show.) Unlike many sound installations, the contraption’s rhythmic emanations were not unpleasant or intrusive; rather, they suited the room and the other art in it quite nicely.

It’s worth trying to explain about those presses. Conrad has invented a unique method of printing, which uses gravity to create downward pressure on a matrix of folded, joined, and grouped tin cans that are placed on top of the printing paper. Each press is a multilayered stack of found stuff, not all of it functional, but all of it adding to the overall visual and symbolic effect of the conglomeration. After homemade inks are piped into the interior spaces of the cans, where they pool and soak for several days, an embossed and colored image will be permanently impressed upon the page, formed of deep lines from the cans’ edges and flowing colors within and around them.

Conrad has embellished these found cans with colored foils 

Conrad makes his inks from everyday sources like walnuts and rust, and uncommon ones, too, such as silt taken from 565 meters below the ocean. Many of the more than 30 finished prints in the exhibition are displayed without frames or glass, making it easy to examine their soft textures and subtle variations in tone. Others are shown in frames, most notably a suite of black-on-white lithographs embellished with pastel-colored frames - but the unframed works are the stars of the show.

Four Conrad prints

The prints are abstract and have equally abstract names, and they are fun, funky, even stylish, with geometric forms and an array of mostly muted colors. Their method of display appears to be yet another Conrad innovation: Angled out from the wall on painted wooden supports, and placed well below the usual eye-level of gallery art, they invite relaxed intimacy and close examination. The experience is enhanced by the opportunity to also examine the tin-can constructions that made these prints, as they are also on view in the gallery, along with a number of simpler transformations of tin cans that evoke early Modernist minimalism.

The show is billed as a survey, with prints ranging throughout the last 10 years. Most of them have white backgrounds, but a triptych entitled Benthic is brown and soft like suede, fully stained with walnut ink around its other colors and floating shapes. Benthic is also larger than the other prints, and super-fresh (dated 2021), suggesting a strong current direction.

Terry James Conrad: Object Permanence will remain on view through March 13. The Opalka Gallery is open to the public, with generous visiting hours that include Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons. I highly recommend that you make time to see this outstanding show by a uniquely dedicated and talented artist.

Benthic 2021 - monoprints by Terry James Conrad

Kingsley Parker: An artist who cares

A Single Vine Invades
the 70-foot Canopy, Kinderhook, NY
acrylic on re-used drop cloth

The artist Kingsley Parker is unusual in a number of ways.

For one, he adeptly works in a wide variety of media – drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking among them. Few artists can pull this off (two examples that come to mind: Michelangelo and Picasso), but Parker does it with aplomb.

Parker also works at wildly different scales, from quasi-miniature to monumental. Additionally, his style can range from detailed realism to total abstraction (including forays into the teasingly humorous), all of which he does, again, with apparent ease.

Finally, Parker has a habit of engaging with a subject, wringing the life out of it (in a good way!), and then moving on to something entirely different - yet another approach that few artists can successfully navigate and most would be well advised to avoid.

Against these odds, Parker throws caution to the wind. And, though there is a thread (I promise you) that binds it all together, I’m not sure that is uppermost in his mind. He just seems to plow ahead with a relentless singularity of focus.

Winter Birch, Mt. Merino, Hudson, NY
acrylic on re-used drop cloth

Most recently, these impressive abilities were on view in a tight solo show at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, which closed on Jan. 3. Other Parker works were included in the 2020 Mohawk-Hudson Regional at the Albany Institute of History & Art, which also just closed. The Regional featured online video talks by many of the selected artists, Parker’s being one of the more engaging choices (you can watch it here), and that’s what really got me interested in seeing more of his work. Catching the Thompson Giroux show on its last day proved to be a very satisfying fulfillment of that curiosity.

Indecisive, Chillmark, Mass.
acrylic on re-used drop cloth

Entitled A World of Hurt, the show featured eight very large acrylic paintings on re-used canvas drop cloths, along with six sculptural pieces of various size and materials, and numerous works on paper, some of them mounted and hung and many more in flat files. All but one of the large works and several of the smaller ones are tree portraits, lovingly rendered in natural settings with a variety of atmospheric light conditions. I was told that an additional piece in the same vein was stored in the back – at 130 inches, too tall to hang on the wall.

People who know me well understand that I’m not a huge fan of electronic media and their ubiquitous glowing screens – I’ve often said I’d rather just stare at a tree. Or I could just stare at a Kingsley Parker painting of a tree. The best of them have sufficient detail to hold hours of attention (as they clearly did for him). These homages are carefully observed and obviously quite deeply felt. As I do, he loves these fellow beings and is heartened by their presence in our world; equally, he laments the threats they face as a result of our presence in theirs.

Thing 2 - Found wood, vines, used coffee filters,
acrylic paint, wire, styrofoam, tar, hay, old bucket

I think Parker’s dedication to the environment and his desire to express that through his art is a strength, despite the potential for such an approach to devolve into insubstantial messaging. Lesser artists over the centuries have tried and failed to maintain the highest standard of artistic quality (however measured) while issuing a pointed message, but Parker succeeds, moving the viewer not with the message but with the transcendent power of the art itself.

That he cares so much only adds to this success, because it drives the work forward. Clearly a sensitive soul, Parker effectively applies that sensitivity to the media he employs. Whether in delicately brushed renderings of undersea fauna, carefully placed hills of tiny twigs representing a clear cut, or hauntingly depicted midnight-dark forests, Parker’s technique wins hearts and - there’s always hope – minds.

I’d only been vaguely aware of Parker before these two exhibitions, and I’m sorry it took so long, but it has most certainly been worth the wait. Check out more of his work at kingsleyparker.com.

Unclaimed Luggage - found luggage, used coffee filters, fabric

Christo and Jeanne-Claude at The Hyde

1976's Running Fence introduced the world to a new kind of environmental artist.

Heads-up! A traveling exhibition titled Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Tom Golden Collection opens today at The Hyde Collection and will run just six weeks, through June 26 - so I recommend you put it on your calendar now.

This event creates many associations for me, most delightfully bringing up the memory of renovations many years ago at the Hyde house that caused it to be fully wrapped in plastic for months on end. I wonder if Hyde administrators remember thinking then, as I did, that it looked just like a Christo project.

It's also always a treat to see work by this curious duo who helped transform our conception of art from insisting on a housed display into a reluctant embrace of environmental installation on a scale beyond most of our imaginations. The fact that they could even conceive of building a curtain across a valley, or skirting eleven islands with pink polypropylene - much less actually doing it - is a testament to human ingenuity and persistence.

Married partners Christo (still alive) and Jeanne-Claude (died in 2009) took seriously the implications of their simultaneous births on June 13, 1935 on two different continents; I share that birthday as well (and add a third continent, though in a different year), so maybe I'm not objective - but I reasonably expect to love this show. Hope you do, too.

Installation view of The Gates,Central Park, New York City 2005

photo by Wolfgang Voltz