Post-Oscar comments

Jacob Tremblay, left, and Brie Larson star in Room.

This year I did not run a "best films" post before the Academy Awards because I hadn't seen enough of the contending movies (yet) to offer much in the way of useful commentary. Sorry about that!

But I did honor my personal tradition of going to see a nominated film on Oscar night by catching the early show of Room, which received four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress, and for which its star, Brie Larson, took home the golden statuette.

So I missed Chris Rock's opening monologue completely, which I understand did not disappoint in skewering the players on all sides of the black-artists-matter controversy. This discussion is far from over, but I'm glad at least this phase of it is behind us. Adding a lot of politics into a public process that is, still, primarily about two things - art and business - just doesn't really help. 

In the end, for whatever reason, ABC got lousy ratings (no thanks to me!), and several films, especially Mad Max: Fury Road got a boost to their bottom line. And that's what Oscar's really all about. 

Room is, in a word, harrowing. I assume the critics have been enthusiastic about the film (though I'm waiting to read reviews until after I've fully processed my own reactions), but I can see why it did not win Best Picture.

The film that did win Best Picture, Spotlight, remains my own pick as the best of 2015 (as noted here in early January), so it is gratifying to share in the surprise of its come-from-behind victory over The Revenant (which I still haven't had the strength to face). I loved two basic things about Spotlight - terrific ensemble acting and the perfect fulfillment of the old-fashioned simple formula for a great movie: A good story, well told.

I also loved the fact that Spotlight got the newsroom details right, which is the sort of thing that done wrong can very easily ruin even a really good movie for me. Having worked for years at a daily newspaper, I was anxiously scanning every scene in Spotlight for a wrong note - and it passed with a perfect grade.

Not so Room. This film also involves a depiction of journalism, as a sidebar to the main focus of the story, but with very significant impact on the arc of the film and all its characters.

What happens is that an apparently top professional television news interviewer is shown asking leading, accusatory, and inflammatory questions of the extremely fragile subject Ma, and the people supposedly there to protect her do nothing. To describe what happens next would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say things don't exactly get better for Ma.

I reacted to this scene like any audience member was supposed to - feeling angry at the bad media exploiter who used this poor young woman for ratings. Then I stepped back and realized it was the filmmaker actually doing the manipulating here - so I'll redirect that anger. I don't think this was a fair depiction of a working journalist or fair treatment of an audience that has allowed you to take them this far into the world you've created. Not OK.

Maybe this is the essential difference between working with a true story (as in Spotlight) and embarking on a dramatic foray into fiction. In the true story, the drama is what it is - you can try to present it in a ramped-up fashion or not, but you can't change the facts. And it will be the facts - the story - that ultimately convince the audience of the experience they are having. In the fictional Room, I found myself retreating from the story because it did not add up to seeming true. (There's also a throwaway performance by William H. Macy as Ma's father, who disappears with nary an explanation.)

Playing with the audience's emotions may create an effect - but, ultimately, it doesn't win them over. To accomplish that, I think you need to be better than the writer and director of Room have proven to be. As for Larson winning the Oscar - it was a brave performance by a very promising young actress. But I think Cate Blanchett was far better in Carol - and, no doubt, many others already agree.

Cate Blanchett, left, and Rooney Mara star in Carol.

A new direction for Get Visual

When Get Visual began in late 2008, I purposely included the words "and beyond" in the tagline, so its mission would not be unnecessarily restricted - I wanted to retain for myself the possibility of writing outside the lines of Capital Region visual arts.

Until now, I have used that freedom sparingly - most often to address something in the arts realm beyond our regional geography or, even more rarely, to venture into a topic area not focused on art at all. This is about to change. The reason? I'm questioning the worth of art criticism in a time of economic, political, and social changes so vast (and fast) that it is simply impossible to keep track of it all, much less keep up.

So, in addition to the usual art criticism, I will use the pages of GV to explore my voice as a social critic. There are a lot of things on my mind - no doubt they are on your minds, too. Let's talk about them.

Here's some of what to look for in this space in the near future:

Gripes, complaints - and questions

We're living in a culture of complaint. Is there any way to stop the growing tendency of entitled young Americans to try to whine their way to the top? (Example - today's Academy Awards boycott effort by frustrated black actors and their supporters.)

Enough screen time already!

This is my dilemma (definition: a difficult or persistent problem). How to address the issue of too many eyes and brains spending too much time staring at little screens without using the little screens as a way to reach those eyes and brains?

Why can't we all just get along?

A  lot of smart, talented, well-meaning people (including myself) put a huge amount of effort into creating the current version of the Honest Weight Food Co-op, a beautiful grocery store and community pillar that employs more than 200 people and has over 12,000 members - yet, a few months ago, the Co-op was subjected to a hostile takeover of its board by an insurgent group representing a few hundred voting members. This group now behaves like the Soviet Politburo. WTF?

You call that disenfranchised?

In Albany recently there was a second vote on whether to approve bond funding for improvements to the high school. It passed, narrowly, amid some confusion at the polls - apparently, the organizers of the vote underestimated the turnout and were caught shorthanded on ballots, a situation that was eventually corrected, but not before a bunch of impatient brats decided they were being purposely "disenfranchised" of their right to vote. Inconvenienced, yes, but to think there was actually a conspiracy to manipulate the outcome of the referendum? Puh-leeeze! Yet, Albany County Comptroller Mike Connors won't let it go.

Photo Regional comes full circle

The 38th Annual Photography Regional reminds me a lot of the first ones. Are we making any progress? Does it matter? Review to come.

Cut to the video

OK, so it appears some people started a fight on a CDTA bus, then decided to report it as a racial assault on themselves, and eventually ended up getting charged with assault and false reporting to police. So many ways stupid - but the part I can't wrap my head around is how in 2016 did three collegiate 20-year-olds not know this was all being captured on video?

Kate Teale: The Housed at Opalka Gallery

Kate Teale: left, Raft 2009; right Floating World 2010
oil on mulberry paper on canvas and board

While lovers will be enjoying flowers and chocolates this Valentine's weekend, I've got a different suggestion for lovers of art: good ol' drawing and painting. In a world overstuffed with postmodernist theorists, it's a tonic to walk into Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery and see graphite on paper and oils on board by the extremely talented Kate Teale, an English artist now established in New York City, who should be a household name, but was a new discovery for me.

Outside There is Raging Chaos 2014
oil on mulberry paper on canvas and board

Teale's exhibition of six graphite drawings and 18 oil paintings, titled The Housed, was curated by Don Desmett at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and is on tour. It also includes a couple of extremely long (about 30-foot) digital prints from original drawings and a large direct wall drawing that was executed on-site with student help. The installation suits the high, open space of the Opalka perfectly, allowing the larger works and groupings to breathe, while melding into a cohesive whole that the viewer can digest in reasonable bites.

Teale's style and technique border on photo-realism; however, she also flirts with formal abstraction, as she explores her subjects of rumpled beds, seascapes, windows, and the human form nearly as dispassionately as a scientist studies a lab rat. Not that the work is cold - in fact, it feels intensely personal - but that Teale takes the position of an outsider looking in at herself and her intimate surroundings.

All In #13 2013, graphite on paper

Conceptually, the title of the show is almost a tease. The artist is making a reference to a term the homeless use for the rest of us - to them, we are "the housed" - yet she takes her statement no further, leaving us to muse on the political or social implications of this quiet, contemplative, largely self-referential body of work. Actually, it's several bodies of work, which many would view as distinct, yet they do hold together, in part due to Teale's meticulous technique, in part due to the reduced palette that largely removes the separation between painting and drawing.

Through the Night 2006-2010
oil on mulberry paper on canvas and board

A series of eight unframed paintings titled Through the Night, all vertical compositions 32" by 38", dominates the show, with its detailed representation of the artist asleep in bed with her husband, as captured at half-hour intervals by an automatic camera. The series is characterized by detailed rendering and extremely muted shades of a limited range of pinks, greens and greys, with large areas left white. Each example selects different centers of interest: Pillows, or faces, or hands and arms - leaving the painting looking not so much unfinished as properly underdone - like a delicious steak or grilled vegetables.

These quasi-landscapes of domesticity tie in to three unpopulated bedscapes also on view (including the two shown at the top of this post, which in the exhibition are presented one above the other, rather than side by side), those in turn tie in to several graphite seascapes, and those tie in to a couple of very large striped landscapes that return our thoughts to the mattress.

Ghost 2013, oil on mulberry paper
on canvas and board 

Continuing the connections, those mattress-ticking stripes appear drawn directly from the Venetian blinds in a small, perfectly rendered window frame (titled Ghost) and it in turn ties to a group of four larger external views of brownstone windows that introduce a bright yellow into the mix, one of which carries the same title as the show itself (another, with the evocative title, Outside There is Raging Chaos, is reproduced above right).

Altogether, Teale's show holds our interest in an understated way that is as compelling as louder statements' grip, and the extended time and attention that the work demanded of its maker - and earns from its viewers - leads to equally longer-lasting impacts.

Kate Teale: The Housed is accompanied by a beautifully produced catalog (attractively priced at $10) that features an essay by Lucy Lippard. The show continues through April 10.

Landfall 2014, oil on mulberry paper on canvas and board

Carrie Haddad and other Hudson galleries

Kahn & Selesnick, Oak-Man Falls 2015, archival inkjet print

I drove over to Hudson last Sunday to meet a friend for a pizza at Baba Louie's (it was delicious) and check out the Photography show at Carrie Haddad Gallery. Haddad typically focuses on painting, but her gallery (the longest-standing in Hudson at 25 years old) has always shown photography as well, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to enjoy a contemporary showcase for the medium.

Gain Peachin,untitled collage 2015

We were not disappointed, as the exhibition featured a wide array of traditional and postmodern styles, ranging from Jerry Freedner's bucolic Catskills landscapes to Newbold Bohemia's tacky domestic dramas and Gail Peachin's clever, tiny cutouts.

K+S, Charlotte - Apricot 2015

The show includes 12 artists but gives the lion's share of space to the duo Kahn & Selesnick, whose elaborately detailed fantasies have evolved from neo-antique sepia prints to richly colored inkjets. Just a few of K&S's new works are monochrome, and those work very well, but here we see mostly color among the 20 images presented and, frankly, it is a bit distracting. That's because the pictures still evoke timelessness, yet the coloration in most of the prints is noticeably 21st-century.

Among the black-and-whites, we get shades of steam-punk macabre (think Joel Peter Witkin), while the color images of various individuals floating in a shallow pond surrounded by flora and ephemera lean more in the direction of a nursery rhyme.

Stephanie Blumenthal, Light Blue Square 2015, archival inkjet

My favorite work in the show is by Stephanie Blumenthal, who alters highly detailed black and white pictures of bare trees and vines by overlaying blocks of color, with solid black highlighting on the naturally calligraphic gesture of the vine forms. This crossing over of media (that digital tools do so well) is a rich vein in contemporary photography, and will offer continued opportunities for artists to innovate for decades to come.

What I particularly like about Blumenthal is the simplicity or her approach, creating a pure marriage of three strong sensibilities: lushly detailed photography, color-centric painting, and calligraphic line. The resulting series of pictures (which augment each other effectively) takes the viewer to a place of deep observation that is at the heart of all the arts.

Eric Lindbloom, Pine Woods #28 2003, gelatin silver print

I also loved seeing several small, square silver prints by Eric Lindbloom, not only for the nostalgia factor but because they are so beautifully seen and crafted. These date back a number of years (from 1999 to 2009), as does with much of the rest of the work in the show, for which I will register a mild complaint. It's one thing to do a retrospective, or to bring out previously unseen art from the past - but in my opinion it's a no-no to present stale art in a feature exhibition.

The other photographers included in Photographs (which has been extended through Feb 14) are Birgit Blyth, Jeri Eisenberg, Lisa Frank, David Halliday, Robert Hite, and Joseph Maresca.

Michael Theise, Safe-Keeping, oil on panel

While in town, we decided to check out a few galleries we hadn't seen before. One of them, Peter Jung Fine Art, is open only by appointment or chance; the lights were on, so we jumped at the chance to stick our noses in. And what a place! Three floors of comfortable, neatly organized space bristling with antique and contemporary paintings (plus a few photographs) of very high quality, warmed by the very personable Jung, another longtime Hudsonian (he arrived in '92). Though he emphasizes 19th-century landscape paintings, Jung was also featuring the recent trompe l'oeil work of Michael Theise, among many other living artists.

We extended our immersion in painting with a stop at Gallery Gris, where a solo exhibition of abstract oils By Kylie Heidenheimer that was scheduled to end on Dec. 21 was still hanging. The gallery specializes in color abstraction, which is a weakness of mine as well, so I greatly enjoyed this new discovery. Heidenheimer and the other gallery artists (whose works we glimpsed in the back room) are first-rate examples of the genre, and co-owner Todd Gribben was a gracious host. I will be back.

Kylie Heidenheimer, Sweep 2015, oil on canvas

Folk Modern at Albany International Airport Gallery

Installation of found-object assemblages by Jack Metzger, 2006-2015
all photos with this post are courtesy of Arthur Evans

The creative process can be deceptively simple, but I find exposure to it is almost always uplifting. There's a delight in seeing how a person, whatever their flaws, can draw from within themselves the strength, imagination, and skill to produce something new and wonderful to behold.

Giselle Potter, Bark 2014 gouache on paper

Folk Modern, the current exhibition at Albany International Airport Gallery (on view through May 8), explores how eight regional makers (perhaps a better word in this case than "artists") have delved into that creative impulse and, as such, is a celebration of it. Emblematic of the special qualities of this process is the work of Jack Metzger (pictured at the top of this post), a shop owner who seems to just really like to collect odd, old stuff and mess around with it. His installation in the show reveals a discerning eye, a sense of wit, and a reverence for the integrity of a good, mysterious object. It's also great fun.

John McQueen, Teeter 2012 (left) and Sitting Pretty 2011 (right)
media include metal, wood, cardboard, wax string, willow

The mounted text that introduces the show makes the point that "the wall between folk and fine art has been crumbling for some time, and inhabitants of both sides have been finding much common ground." Indeed, one would honestly have to admit that, without peeking first at a resume, there's no way to tell which of these people is on which side of that fading divide.

Not unexpectedly, a good range of media are represented here - painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and illustration - and there's enough work by each participant to get a sense of who they are individually, though the show works well, too, as a whole.

Steve Rein, installation of paintings dated 2013-2015, lettering enamel on wood

Common ground links one artist to the next. Like Metzger, Steve Rein incorporates found material into his work, starting with scavenged anonymous snapshots and reinterpreting them in enamel on found bits of wood. Formerly a sign painter by trade, Rein seems to exemplify the "outsider" artist who uses non-traditional materials that come easily to hand (but, in fact, he has an art-school pedigree). He also seems almost too productive, as though compelled by external forces - his installation in the show includes more than 40 individual pieces, overwhelming the viewer.

Anima Katz, Bottle of Negrita Rum 2014, oil on canvas board

I found the work of neo-primitive painter Anima Katz easier to concentrate on. Her intricately textured works are the result of a distinct personal drive (begun when she was 52 years old) to emulate the great artists she admires. In this exhibition, she presents heartfelt homages to many of them in the form of portraits of the artists amid carefully copied miniatures of some of their best-known works. The result is a curiously original form of imitation that transcends mere reproduction.

Nancy Natale, Look at America 2011, found and invented elements
with encaustic and tacks on birch panel

Nancy Natale is just about at the opposite end of the spectrum from Katz - from a distance, her paintings look like art-smart abstractions of stripe, color, and shape. But, when you get closer you see that they are constructed of many inch-wide rectangles of found material, nailed in place and slathered with colorful encaustic. Natale's source materials include the banal - food packaging - and the more cerebral - book spines - but it is all part of a rich blend that resembles a pieced quilt more than an intellectual studio exercise.

Matt LaFleur, Gift World 2015, site-specific installation

Susanna Starr's work also reveals a relationship with traditional textiles, in this case by transforming patterned doilies into large, wall-hung slabs of wood veneer. Her painstaking cutting re-creates the intricacies of lace in an unexpected material that is nevertheless still aesthetically appealing and safely domesticated (see image at the bottom of this post). The other artists included in the show are Matt LaFleur, John McQueen, and Giselle Potter.

Note: Albany International Airport Gallery is open to the public - not behind security - from 7 am to 11 pm daily. Parking in the short-term lot is free for the first half-hour - if needed, the staff of the airport's DepARTure shop will stamp your parking ticket to allow a longer visit free of charge.

Susanna Starr, Dresser Doily 2005, hand-cut mahogany wood veneer

Tidbits for 2016

Ellsworth Kelly in his studio in 2012 (photo stolen from the New York Times)

As 2016 yawns and stretches into existence, a few items on the local art scene have caught my attention:

1. The recent death at age 92 of Ellsworth Kelly. Almost universally regarded as a giant of 20th-century art, Kelly lived and worked in our region (Spencertown, Columbia County) for a great many years. I recall one encounter with the man, about 1984, when he stopped in to peruse my modest gallery on Washington Avenue in Albany. We knew he was a client of the hairstylist upstairs, but had never seen him. So, one day a middle-aged gentleman came in from the stairway area and looked around with what seemed to be a very practiced eye. I tried to engage him in conversation - no luck. Then I asked if we could place him on our mailing list (we did that with all visitors), but he demurred. When I more or less forced an introduction, he only gave one name: Kelly. I do recall that he did not seem impressed by what he saw, but neither did he seem disgusted. Personally, I love his work for its purity of form and color, and for its spirit of adventure. I also like the fact that Kelly was a supporter of local ventures, donating a print or two to be sold at Albany Institute fundraisers and employing local artists as assistants. He will be missed.

   

   an early Robert Mapplethorpe Polaroid self-portrait
   from the Jack Shear Collection

2. Jack Shear photography collection donated to the Tang Teaching Museum. Shear was Ellsworth Kelly's longtime partner, and on Feb. 6 the Tang will open an exhibition selected from 500 significant and historical photographs he recently donated. It's a very truncated who's-who of 20th-century photography (with a notably gay-centric twist) that is sure to draw a lot of viewers and perhaps a snippet of controversy. Remember when the political right wing went nuts because the NEA had supported an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe pictures in Philadelphia? This show will definitely make it clear we're over that.
   

   

   Mazing Cave - collage by Michael Oatman

3. This year The Hyde Collection will host the Annual Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region (popularly know as the Regional), and the judge will be a truly local artist for the first time in memory - Michael Oatman. Oatman, a professor at RPI, has shown regularly in prominent venues such as MASS MoCA and the Tang, as well as in New York City galleries for over a decade, so his credentials as a judge pass muster. Yet he also has regularly and recently participated in local juried shows such as the Regional and the Arts Center's Fence Show, which sets him apart from the typical Regional juror. This may bother some people, but I think it's appropriate - and a great choice of juror for this always intensely interesting local showcase.

   

   a photograph by Dan Burkholder

4. The Photography Regional, our other most closely watched local juried show, will be held much earlier than usual this year, as co-host Fulton Street Gallery in Troy has scheduling conflicts for the more usual late-springtime slot. According to a recent announcement from co-host The Photo Center of the Capital District in Troy, the show will open on Jan. 29 as a two-week salon with all entries hung at both locations; then the judge's pared-down selection will be presented more formally at Fulton Street beginning Feb 20. This year's judge is Dan Burkholder, a Palenville-based digital photographer known for lushly detailed and subtly colored imagery.
5. Beyond local: Oscar season is heating up, and I am struggling to catch all the films likely to gain lots of nominations. So far, the best film from 2015 that I've seen is Spotlight. I don't plan to catch the Star Wars film (sorry if you're a fan) - neither have I ever seen Titanic or Avatar, the other highest grossers of our time, so at least I am consistent. Am excited to see Carol as soon as possible, and have heard The Big Short is also very good, though I'm afraid it may give me unpleasant MBA-school flashbacks. More to come on the best films of 2015 in a later post ...

The movie Spotlight deserves special notice for the brilliant ensemble work of its cast.

Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints at The Hyde Collection

Robert Cottingham - Orph, 1972 color lithograph on wove paper

Perhaps my biggest regret from my college experience is that I never studied printmaking. Aside from the fact that, outside of art school, it's hard to get access to a fully equipped print shop (and, so, it was an opportunity lost) I think I would have enjoyed the processes. And I'm sure I would be a smarter person now if I had learned some of those complex techniques then.

Jim Dine - Self Portrait Zinc + Acid, 1964
etching on wove paper

That's one reason I wholeheartedly urge you to see Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, on view through Jan. 10. Organized by the Syracuse University Art Collection, Pulled, Pressed and Screened features 51 prints by as many artists and spans the decades from 1930 to 1980.

This gorgeous selection makes clear how important printmaking is to 20th-century American art and provides a wonderful window onto our history. It's also easy to love, as many of the artists are familiar names, including Grant Wood, Robert Blackburn, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, Milton Avery, Romare Bearden, and Dorothy Dehner.

Anne Ryan - Three Figures, 1948
color woodcut on black wove paper

From those names alone you begin to get the picture - high quality, diversity, and commitment to the medium are hallmarks of the work gathered here. There are also many lesser-known but marvelous artists in the group, such as Boris Margo, who invented the "cellocut," a precursor to the collagraph that uses colorless plastic to create embossed relief. His example, titled Comet, is elegant and quietly beautiful and was one of my favorites in the show. Another discovery was a 1948 color woodcut on black paper by Anne Ryan. Titled Three Figures, it could almost have been a Klee or Miro print.

Jasper Johns - Periscope, 1981
color intaglio on wove paper

Like Ryan, many of the artists in this collection are primarily printmakers, especially several from the middle period of the show when graphic art retained a special place in a nation still establishing its values. The show is organized somewhat chronologically and somewhat by theme (hung on walls painted a perfect shade of ochre), so these more socially conscious artists, such as Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Ben Shahn, and Antonio Frasconi, are grouped nicely together, giving us food for thought along the way. We also get a good variety of techniques to study here, such as wood engraving, linocut, and lithography.

Alex Katz - White Petunia, 1969
lithograph on wove paper

There's always the question of whether an established painter who makes prints is really a printmaker at all, but the artists included here generally delved into the medium - they didn't just use it to reproduce their paintings, but explored it as a realm unto itself. Roy Lichtenstein is a strong illustration of this idea. In his embossed 1976 screenprint Entablature VII (reproduced at the bottom of this post) you see how the print itself is his goal - with lush exploitation of the milky white paper, metal foil additions, and unusual pebbly embossing, he has created something special that is not much like a painting at all.

Among the earlier examples in the show are many immigrants, often using the graphic medium as a people's art form and as a platform to communicate ideas about social progress. This includes Harry Gottlieb, a Romanian native whose The Strike is Won is vintage WPA propaganda; Yasuo Kuniyoshi's Aerialist, which portrays a high-wire artist as a real person; and Minna Wright Cintron's acerbic Men Seldom Make Passes, which simultaneously amuses and flirts with early abstraction. Also in this group are icons of the Depression era: Reginald Marsh, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Stuart Davis, and Wood.

After a period that emphasized abstraction, it's interesting to note that some of the later work in the show returns to social issues, with examples by Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol leading the way, capped off by a Vito Acconci six-part acquatint from 1979-81 that combines the flags of the U.S, the Soviet Union, and China. A lot has happened since, in politics and art, but Pulled, Pressed and Screened still packs a nice punch. Try to see it if you can.

Also, please note the Hyde is "pay as you wish" for the month of December.

Roy Lichtenstein - Entablature VII, 1976, screenprint embossing on wove paper