Caroline Ramersdorfer at Opalka Gallery

Installation view of Gravity & Light at Sage Colleges' Opalka Gallery

all photos provided by Opalka Gallery

A world-class sculptor is on view at Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery  - so please go see the wonderful retrospective solo show Gravity & Light: Caroline Ramersdorfer Sculpture, 1985-2016. It opened on Dec. 2 and will be there through March 5, so no excuses.

Ramersdorfer has great international credentials, both in her development and in the exposure of her art - yet, she is also local, having a home and studio in the Adirondacks town of Wells, which she shares with an equally prominent sculptor, John Van Alstine (see my brief review of their two-person show at Lake George Arts Project in 2014). A native of Austria, Ramersdorfer studied art in Paris and Florence and then learned marble carving in Carrara (where else?), and has produced commissioned work for permanent installations in places as fur-flung as China, Iran, Egypt, and Abu Dhabi.

One extraordinary feature of this exhibition is its inclusion of numerous maquettes and sketches for some of Ramersdorfer's major projects, and they are as skillfully crafted as their larger progeny, while also being charming in their tininess. The beautifully produced catalog of the exhibition features lavish illustrations of each foreign installation (plus one on the Sage campus in Albany), telling the story of these remarkable and ambitious creations.

But no number of pictures can substitute for the experience of sculpture in the flesh (so to speak), and this installation of about 30 years of work is an unforgettable opportunity to visit with each piece, large or small, move around it, and see how it works in three-dimensional space, as the artist intended.

The gallery's open floor plan and high ceiling augment the uncrowded arrangement of the show, which presents about 50 individual works (counting models, sketches, and very small finished pieces) in grouped relationships, in cases and on pedestals, or freestanding. It is not strictly chronological, but the earliest work is seen in the far, back corner of the gallery, set off just a bit by a dividing wall, which allows for a sense of discovery in going backward in time to sculptures that evoke very early times with arrow and axe forms in stone and wood.

Ramersdorfer's newer work is thoroughly modern; however in some instances the primitive shapes remain, such as in a large piece sited near the entrance, called Nexus_Open, which reprises the axe handle and blade in polished and rough marble.

Inner_View 5 2002, marble and steel

Mid-career work, some of it much smaller in scale and carved in alabaster, marble, and other stones, explores simple geometry such as cubes, but also incorporates organic forms that suggest body parts or even microscopic life. These pieces can be flowingly beautiful, as in the 2006 carved marble Wave Wing, which marries an open cube with the form described by its title in a delicate game of balance.

Most of Ramersdorfer's later work is part of an ongoing series titled Inner View, which uses layering to develop complex visual and spatial relationships among planar carvings with molecular and geological structures. These stacked sculptures pull the viewer's eye into their center, mesmerizing and fascinating with the play of light and shadow on and between their surfaces.

It is innovative and masterful work by an artist at the peak of her powers.

Inner View_Open 2009, marble

Breathing Lights

A Breathing Lights house in Schenectady

photo by Cindy Schultz, stolen from the Times Union

On  a recent Saturday night I took a truncated bus tour of a few of the Breathing Lights houses in Albany, offered as part of Historic Albany Foundation's annual Built fundraiser. It was good to finally get out and see some of the illuminated vacant houses, and I plan to go again soon - on foot for the real experience - and hopefully in all three participating cities (adding Schenectady and Troy).

In case you have been living under a rock, Breathing Lights is the local winner of a $1 million grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies, part of its national "Public Art Challenge," and comprises a collaboration among three city governments, several nonprofits, and numerous neighborhood organizations. It is the brainchild of UAlbany art professor Adam Frelin, in partnership with architect Barbara Nelson, and consists of a very elegant, broadly distributed installation of glowing panels in the windows of more than 200 vacant houses, which represent less than 10% of these three cities' unoccupied housing stock.

photo: hyers+mebane

The installation is (obviously) very ambitious, but it is also simple, which I can't help but like. And it passes the "Is it art?" test quite easily, as the work transforms the subject matter and gives viewers a new experience of something old. All the better that this new experience comes directly out of one's own presumably familiar local raw material. (Those who know my personal photography of some of these same neighborhoods will understand this approach is not unlike my own as an artist.)

But Breathing Lights is also so much more than an art installation. It seeks to help correct the widespread social and economic problems of vacant and deteriorating inner-city housing in our region, by raising awareness as well as energizing the grass roots of these communities. And this is where I start to get a little uncomfortable with it.

So, I'll ask a few more questions:

1. Is it the job of art to make our world a better place?
2. Should art be a community organizing activity?
3. What would be the best use of $1 million for art in the Capital Region?

1. My answers to these questions are not off the cuff - when I was a young artist growing up in the turbulent '60s and '70s, I wished that art could make the world a better place. I thought it could open people up, make them more sensitive to their surroundings, maybe raise their conscious levels and even change their harmful behaviors.

from Breathing Lights website

But, as time went on, I recognized that big business and politics, and education and religion were the forces that made things go, and that art in American society was an afterthought, a decoration, an entertainment. Yes, art can make you think, it can make you feel, it can make you understand. But I decided it can't change the world, and neither should it try to.

Instead, it is the job of art to be the best it can - as art - to reach the viewer and then to let the rest of the process go as it may.

2. When I see artists out there working with kids and community members, I get thinking about time and money. Many artists and arts organizations are struggling financially, and they often turn to the relatively abundant cash cow that is education for financial relief, and to build an audience.

So a dance company, for example, does a lot of reasonably well-paid school visits throughout the year, designed to enlighten the kids as to the wonders of dance and its creative potential. Or an arts center offers classes in pottery and jewelry making and drawing and creative writing, thereby bringing in some cash, and some interested bodies, as well as providing a little income to the artists who teach those classes.

from Breathing Lights website

And, truth be told, I've done a fair amount of that stuff, myself. But it did nothing for me as a creative artist, and it did nothing at the time for my real work, either (which would be - you got it, making art). This is the sort of thing that nonprofits call "mission creep": You set out to cure cancer but, along the way, in order to raise money, you find yourself spending all your time organizing road races.

Arts in education should be a normal part of the curriculum. But, instead, it has become the mission creep of everyday artists and arts organizations. I say get back to your core mission and leave the community organizing to social workers and political activists.

3. If I had to decide what to do with $1 million for art in the Capital Region, I would want it to have the most impact. And I think that would be best suited to a myriad of projects, rather than one ambitious project.

What about $50,000 each for 20 artists? Or $10,000 each for 100 artists? Do you think that the 100 best Capital Region art projects that could be done (or at least carried significantly forward) by a $10,000 grant would potentially have more impact and broader appeal and be more lasting than one (admittedly very nicely done) project that is essentially about real estate?

You already know what I think.

Find out more about Breathing Lights here. The lights are on from 6 pm to 10 pm nightly, through the end of November.

From Breathing Lights website

Catching up with the Albany Institute

A view of the Small + Seductive installation

We’ve all been there – you’re aware of a show you know you want to see, and it has a long run, so you leave it till later because you know you have plenty of time to catch it before it closes … and then, inevitably, time goes by and, in the best of circumstances, you catch the show on its last day – or, more likely, miss it forever.

Pink Hat - Gayle Johnson, gouache on paper

That’s how, on Sunday, I caught the last day of a fine show of five photographers at the Albany Institute of History & Art, and then took the opportunity to peruse an ongoing exhibition called Small + Seductive, which continues through Sept. 28. Featuring about 50 works of art (a few of which are multiple-piece series) by 37 artists, Small + Seductive is the third in a recent series of shows from AIHA’s collection of contemporary art. The first of that trio included only photographs (full disclosure: two of those were mine) while the second was made up of large-scale work in more traditional fine art media.

From Here to Eternity - Wendy Ide Williams
ceramic sculpture

This latest exploration of the archive is, as the title suggests, made up of smaller works, all but a few of which are from the late 1980s on, and consists mainly of paintings, sculpture, and prints. Like the other two shows, Small + Seductive provides the viewer with an excellent overview of the Institute’s collecting proclivities and a good cross-section of many of the region’s most beloved and influential exhibiting artists. It is also very helpfully labeled with descriptive information and “According to the artist” statements from the living as well as some of the dearly departed.

Wall text explains that most of these works were acquired by the Institute via annual purchase prizes from the Mohawk-Hudson Regional, though others arrived by donation – and even commissions – from artists, collectors, and supporters of the museum’s mission. Still others were acquired during the transition out of the art field by the Schenectady Museum and Planetarium and the concurrent de-accession of its art collection.

Catskill Creek - Judy Alderfer Abbott
 oil on board

In addition to revealing the taste of Directors past and present, this selection shows the overwhelming influence in this region of the fine art program at the University at Albany. Though I didn’t take a head count, it’s clear the majority of artists represented here either taught or studied at the U (some have done both), and many of them continue to teach and show hereabouts, extending that legacy on and on.

While many of the artists have just one piece in the show (whether they have others in the collection is left unsaid), several are represented by multiple works. Among them is Gayle Johnson, a painter who died tragically young, but who left behind vibrant portraits in gouache, twelve of which hang here in a grid. Richard Garrison also shows a grid of colorful paintings on paper (16 of them), while an elegant vitrine displays six of a slipcased set of ten etchings by Thom O’Connor.

Untitled - Dennis Byng, cast lucite

Among the three-dimensional works are a busily and evocatively painted ceramic shrine by Wendy Williams (it looks more like a fountain to me), discreetly aligned with a powerful painted-concrete head by her husband, Allen Grindle. Larry Kagan, a prominent sculptor with a solo show set to end on Sept. 14 at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, is represented by a tiny framed metal relief of a flag; and the great Dennis Byng has a brilliantly decadent-looking cast plastic cube on a pedestal across the room.

Painting dominates the show, fittingly enough for one of the Hudson River School’s best repositories, and landscape features in many of the paintings. Three excellent small views by Marjorie Portnow and a fascinatingly detailed image of a forested Catskill Creek by Judy Alderfer Abbott were gemlike discoveries for me. Other strong landscape paintings include a photographically distorted wide-angle by Tom Nelson and a Fauvist composition by Carol Caruso that depicts a favorite place, the Albany Rural Cemetery.

Albany Rural Cemetery
Carol Caruso, oil on canvas

A few other paintings run far afield from realistic rendering: A mesmerizing field of strips and dots by Peter Taylor; a lush, expressive interior by Richard Callner; a slightly nightmarish fantasy by Robert Cartmell. There are a few stabs at abstraction in addition to Taylor’s, and a couple of real challenges to the status quo in terms of materials, but most of the work here stays well within the bounds of traditional and modern art, as you would expect from one of the nation’s oldest museums.

Equally, from such a venue, you would expect the contemporary art collection to be of high quality – and it does not disappoint at all in that regard. So, catch it while you can – even if it’s on the last day (again, that would be Sept. 28). And get ready for the must-see show up next at AIHA: the 2014 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, set to open with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 26.

View of Shaker Creek - Richard Callner, watercolor and gouache on paper

Body Language and Homespun inhabit public spaces

When Howard Schultz bought Starbucks in 1983, his goal for the business was to provide “a third place between work and home,” where people would meet, work and relax, thereby forming a sense of community in a coffee-shop setting. A similar process goes on in art spaces, which can range from elegant museums to commercial galleries to – you got it – coffee shops, and which also provide the opportunity to form a sense of community. The greater Capital Region offers many options in that range, and they all contribute significantly to a vibrant scene that I think is underappreciated both within and beyond this geography.

Get Visual aims to explore and expound upon that scene (with occasional digressions beyond), and I am pleased to be returning to it after a long hiatus. This post will be the first of many to come under a new plan to write as often as possible around my full-time job – probably just once or twice a month but, at least, regularly. Please spread the word to your interested friends.

Sang Wook Lee: Fork and Knife, 2014, silk, silkscreen
 and hand embroidered cotton thread

Two shows that recently caught my attention happen to share important characteristics, though they are distinct. Presented neither in museum nor commercial settings, these shows each occupy a type of “third place” in the exhibition realm: spaces that are devoted to significant public purposes apart from art, but which also host high-quality, curated exhibitions.

Body Language is on view through Sept. 7 at the Albany International Airport Gallery, a large, dedicated area that extends from the airport’s third-floor observation deck. Homespun occupies every available wall in the beautifully renovated Pine Hills Branch of the Albany Public Library, and will hang through Sept. 27. Each show explores the theme of identity as expressed in visual modes, and includes eight to ten artists in a full range of media.

Paul Miyamoto, Ground Work #4 
Oil on canvas, 2014

In Body Language, the human figure is a constant in the work but not the topic of it – rather, the messages the figure imparts through its gestures, activities, accessories and context become the theme of this exhibition. In paintings by Paul Miyamoto and Lin Price, small characters act out their roles within a scarcely described universe. But Miyamoto’s are humble farm workers bent to their tasks, while Price’s act out absurd, pointless motions in a suburban surround.

Also absurd are the mash-ups created by Amy Podmore, who sculpts in plaster, paper and cloth, as are the elegantly crafted photogravures of duo Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. Sean Hovendick’s videos and Leona Christie’s drawings take oddness a bit further, to a place of broad social commentary.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison,

Turning to Spring, Photogravure, 2002

The remaining work in the show is essentially portraiture, including quasi self-portraits by Brian Cirmo that evoke the processes of the brain, sometimes with lovely color notes, and the way-larger-than-life ceramic heads of Sergei Isupov, which are so lovingly stained and glazed as to read as both painting and sculpture.

Sergei Isupov, In the Clouds,

 Stoneware, stain glaze, 2008

Darcie Abbatiello’s tiny collaged drawings of lost girls and women are simply heartbreaking (one is also a self-portrait), while Melanie Baker draws out a sense of subtle outrage with her careful studies of men in the economic “one percent.” Overall, the exhibition is beautifully conceived and installed. Try not to miss it.

Homespun talks about who we are by showing how we live – or how we appear to go about it. Domesticity is on display, but it is not approached head-on. Instead, the connections are more ethereal – a full-scale quilt by Barbara Todd, in stark black and white, represents a single, naive heart, while Kathy Greenwood’s large grid of meticulously canceled Betty Crocker recipe cards forms its own quilt of brilliant paint and pattern.

Kathy Greenwood, How to Feed Your Family for

 Health and Happiness No Matter What...,
 vintage recipe cards, acrylic on panel, 2014

Michael McKay deftly depicts cool architecture in hot colors, but Gina Occhiogrosso leaves only slight vestiges of her architectural sources in paintings that swirl with chaotic energy. Ken Ragsdale constructs a world in white paper, as presented here in a meticulous diorama, then bathes it in warm shades of colored lights to be photographed. Nearby, a similar white world inhabits Kim Faler’s color photograph of a hand-built interior; Faler also presents a framed photograph placed on top of patterns stenciled directly on the wall, confounding the viewer with contrasting decorative approaches.

Martin Hyers and William Mebane: Empire, 2006

28 pigment prints from a series of 100

Sang Wook Lee makes maximum use of a wide beam along the library’s staircase, and comments on his own immigrant experience by projecting a galaxy of red threads from above to form the embroidered shapes of scores of place settings – notably featuring cutlery, not chopsticks. Also deeply cultural are numerous color photographs by the collaborating duo Martin Hyers and William Mebane. Their Empire series documents countless American artifacts – elegant, banal, or crude – with equal impartiality, then presents them in a large grid. It’s really rich stuff mined from our everyday existence – like most important art.

Homespun was organized by Judie Gilmore, who does a fine job within the constraints of a space that was not designed for a coherent art display – be warned, you must wander every nook and cranny of the stacks to see all the work it offers, but the quality of that work will reward your efforts.

Ken Ragsdale: The Hundred Acre Wood, 2014, archival ink-jet
 from photo of fabricated paper sculpture (slightly cropped)

Note: The Airport Gallery is by far the most accessible of art spaces, with open hours from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily and a half-hour's free parking in the short-term lot (and, no, it is not beyond the airport’s security checkpoint). The Albany Public Library Pine Hills Branch is open Monday and Wednesday from 12 to 8, Tuesday from 10 to 6, Thursday and Friday from 12 to 6 and Saturday from 1 to 5. Both spaces are wheelchair accessible.