Many Rivers at Saratoga Arts

Frank Wimberley - Blue Wave, 1982 acrylic on canvas 

If you don't want to miss the Saratoga Arts exhibition Many Rivers, which celebrates the 40-year history of Black Dimensions in Art, Inc., go now, because it ends on Nov. 7.

I'm glad I caught it, even if toward the last minute, because it is a rich compendium of outstanding artists in many media, and because it is a thoughtfully curated show with a compelling theme. Organized by Stephen J. Tyson and Stanwyck E. Cromwell (who also both have work in the show), Many Rivers includes more than 40 works by 21 artists from a broad geography - mostly local, but with roots from many distant lands and islands.

Daesha Devon Harris - My Soul has Grown
Deep Like the Rivers, 2012 mixed media 

The title theme was presented to each artist (or artist's estate) with a request to provide work in response to it  - so, not unexpectedly, water does predominate, However, the show is grouped into sub-themes that suggest other topics, such as abstraction, light, cultural history, storytelling, travel, and more. The purpose of the BDA is to give support to artists of the African diaspora, so one finds works here that express this reality - for example, a brightly colored, thickly painted oil by Cromwell titled Allusions of Home, which conjures up his memories and (possibly) dreams of a Guyana he hasn't seen in decades, or Robert Charles Hudson's 2015 Shoofly, a painting the colors and patterns of which evoke centuries of folk art, underscored by his incorporation of a quilted square in its center.

Hudson's combination of disparate media is right in the mainstream of this show - I was struck by the preponderance of collage elements through about half of the work, including Hollis King's wry and lovely graphic Beehive Lady, Elizabeth Zunon's charming children's book illustration I can hear that whistle blow ... and Femi Johnson's Black Betty the Mermaid, which is simultaneously seductive and threatening. Perhaps the best of these mixed-media creations is Daesha Devon Harris' trio of manipulated and embellished photographs, which are placed behind glass that's etched with compelling snippets of folk writing.

Betty Blayton - Ancestor Bearing Light, 2007
acrylic and mixed media on canvas

I was also struck by the deep streak of abstract expressionism in the show, best exemplified by three exquisite paintings from the great Frank Wimberley, but also strongly represented in works by Betty Blayton, who includes three sweet tondo paintings partially inspired by jazz, and Tyson's snappy black-white-and-red acrylic inspired by the decorated dwellings of his forebears in Burkina Faso and Ghana. Also particularly worthy of note are three paintings on paper by Herbert Gentry, who died in 2003, and had a long career in France (like many African-American jazz musicians) - one immediately picks up on the mid-century Frenchness of these remarkably fresh works.

Though the show is a retrospective of sorts, a healthy chunk of the work is dated 2015, so it lives more in the present of these artists - and the broad movement they represent - than it does in the past, which suggests a potent future for the BDA organization as it enters its fifth decade. Kudos to the organizers and to Saratoga Arts for presenting this fine collection.

Elizabeth Zunon - I can hear that whistle blow ... , 2009 oil paint and collage

Janet Werner: Zero Eyes at Esther Massry Gallery

The painter with one of her works. All other images are oil on canvas by Janet Werner.

Regular readers of this blog know I rarely run a negative review. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that I write about art to build enthusiasm for it, not to knock it down. Usually, if I see something I'm not keen on, I will just let it go. But there are times that something falls short, and I feel it must be pointed out. You can tell  this is going to be one of those times - but always remember, my opinion is nothing compared to each viewer's personal response to the art - and I urge you always to seek your own experience.

Jelly 2010

So Zero Eyes, the current exhibition of paintings by Janet Werner, on view at The College of Saint Rose's Esther Massry Gallery through Dec. 6, is not my cup of tea. Why don't I like it? Tough question! But I'll do my best to explain.

First, let me say, Werner is a legitimate painter, with a degree from Yale and work in many collections (mostly in her native Canada) - not a hack or a neophyte. And the 16 generally quite large paintings in this selection demonstrate that she has control of her medium. But she chooses to exercise this control to make, by turns, cloyingly sentimental, hammer-over-the-head ironic, or just plain sloppy images. This is annoying.

Stalker 2012

Werner's colorful, daring work unfortunately falls squarely into the realm of (stifling a huge yawn here) gender and identity politics. Her approach seems to be to start with a fashion photograph, then recast the "ideal" woman in the picture as a monster. Werner's figures tend to be elongated even for supermodels, with undersize heads, awkward bodies and random parts - hands, nose, breasts - that go huge.

Girlfriend 2014

The scale of her paintings is sometimes played to great advantage, such as in the inexplicably titled Stalker, which, at nine feet tall, still lets a vast swath of grey paint crowds its office-worker subject into the bottom of the frame. Another strong vertical, titled The Glove, presents a red-haired debutante type on a hot pink background. Her haughty gaze is rendered with deft, layered strokes - but the titular magenta garment is slapped out crude and flat, with a cartoon daisy drooping from its grasp.

Moriah 2015

The work in the show covers a fairly long slice of time (2009 to 2015), affording the viewer a general sense of Werner's progress - from smaller to bigger, from playful to grotesque, from believable to bizarre. Among the latest pieces, Moriah shows the most promise by splitting the figure down the middle, obscuring its face not with simple defilement as in many of the others but with destructive transformation.

With 50 years of American feminism under our belts, it's easy to see what Werner is trying to say - but does it all bear repeating? Maybe it's important, after deKooning's take on scary women, for a woman painter to have her say. But I wonder - what does it add?

Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas at Albany Institute of History & Art

Eric Egas - Fippery, archival pigment on canvas

Stereoscopy has been with us since the birth of photography in 1839, but outside of 3D movies, few of us give it much consideration. Eric Egas is an exception.

Inverde

More than 30 years of efforts to capture three dimensions in flat images are presented in Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas, which opened at the Albany Institute of History & Art on Aug. 15 and runs through Oct. 25 (an anaglyph is a blue-red stereo photograph). The exhibition, in Egas's words, provides "portals for viewers to enter into a state of ambiguity" through gazing at these images both with and without the red/blue glasses provided (they also work with the images shown here - just be sure to put the red lens over your right eye).

But stereo is only part of the Egas effect. He makes variations on the classic red/blue separation, and then pushes those colors so that the overlapping images become as fascinating in themselves as they are when viewed in 3D. Egas has, over the years, increased the scale of these prints, and adopted a lush layering of pigment on canvas - in the end, they are sometimes more painting than photograph, featuring rich areas of reed, blue, green, and purple. A few images even flirt with full color rendition (while still being anaglyphs).

This turns the exhibition, with more than 50 prints, most of which are at least four feet wide, into a multi-level experience: One is encouraged to spend time viewing the images without the glasses, then with them and so on back and forth, providing transformational changes that often surprise the senses.

Smith-Dallas 1983-2008

Beyond these innate visual  effects, Egas loves to play with space, often combining, reversing, and inverting images to further disorient the viewer (but in a good way). Among the earlier, less complex examples, mirrors often appear, which in themselves take on spectacular depth in the stereo format; some of the later pieces render more elaborate subjects into labyrinthine forms, complex textures, and symbolic or surreal meanings.

Wedding

Egas features a broad range of favorite subjects, including animals (alive and stuffed), people in social situations (as well as portraits and self-portraits), architectural spaces, gardens of many kinds, and a variety of tchotchkes from lawn art to flea market wares to baroque ornamentation. His sense of humor is sharp and off-beat - this is a show to be enjoyed as well as studied.

Hanna

Some of the most arresting images for me are the ones with tropical subject matter - this is perhaps influenced by my personal experience  of visiting Eric at his home in Puerto Rico in 1997 (we met around 1985, when he had a show of his early anaglyphs, including some of the ones in this exhibition, at my former gallery in Albany). There's something special about seeing an overall leafy texture in the flat image, and then getting lost in the complexity of layers of foliage once you put the glasses on. It's magic.

Some of Egas's attempts end up reaching a bit too far, to where you may not even be able to see the 3D effect, but the reach is worth a try, as the entire body of work is experimental - and experiential - in nature and intent. Overall, with this very ambitious installation that nicely stretches the boundaries of the Institute's usual emphases, Egas has successfully involved us in his unique and engaging vision.

Note: Eric Egas will have an exhibition of new work at Brill Gallery in North Adams, Mass., from Nov. 7 through the end of December, with a public reception and artist's talk from 6 pm to 8 pm on Saturday, Nov. 7.

Island 2015

Scott Brodie Retrospective at Albany Center Gallery

Scott Brodie - Waputki 2, oil on canvas 2015

There's one thing nearly all painters have in common: They love to push paint around. A power-packed retrospective of nearly 40 years of work by Scott Brodie at Albany Center Gallery (on view through Oct. 3) amply illustrates this fact, and equally demonstrates that it is true whether the image is photo-realistic, totally abstract or anything in between.

Scott Brodie, oil on canvas

And, if you think it's not possible for a painter to work in such (apparently) divergent styles while maintaining a singular voice, think again. We all evolve over time, but even in a long-term retrospective an artist should show consistency - if they don't, it's a sign of inadequate commitment to a vision. Yet Brodie's show, despite its diversity, makes clear that his vision has remained quite clear over the long haul and, in my opinion, has grown stronger of late.

The consistency comes in the way Brodie engages with color and (secondarily) form in all his paintings. The earliest example in the show is a somewhat academic but somehow still playful study of cardboard boxes from 1977. In it, one can recognize the handling of paint that remains characteristic in his latest works, such as the lush, juicy Waputki 2 (shown at the top of this post) and numerous other recent near-abstractions in the show.

Scott Brodie, oil on canvas

More closely related to the box painting are a couple of examples from the late '90s that depict colorful books. Here, as with the boxes, it is apparent Brodie is more interested in how the subject looks - or, more important, how it looks when he paints it - than he is in what it means. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is the essence of abstraction. Jump ahead, again, to the most recent work in the show, and you see landscapes rendered as pure form and color. No, it goes further - you see richly brushed paint exploring the forms and colors that were once part of a landscape.

Brodie's images of books are joined in the show by a couple of (literally) sweet studies in pink and grey, depicting a scatter of Sweet-n-Low packets. These, from '07, form another across-the-decades link to the boxes, but also fit right in with the new landscapes, which favor similar color schemes. Wait, did I call the new paintings landscapes? Well, there you are, then - I guess they're not really abstract after all.

Scott Brodie, oil on canvas

One finds in these landscapes an affinity with bright, hot light, whether taken from the American Southwest or the Italian peninsula, and their titles evoke their geographical and cultural sources. Elsewhere, the show provides six small acrylic studies on paper as a window onto the artist's process of abstraction. Two of the studies are clearly the basis for two larger finished oils, while the others show how rocks and bushes can become lines and colors before being presented as final, more formal compositions. Notably, this whole group is identified by compass locations, rather than place names, in the titles.

Scott Brodie, oil on canvas

Other work in the show comprises a middle period in which Brodie applied his rendering skill and affinity for dimensionally plastic paint dabs to a range of subjects that he pointedly treats equally. These include shoes, vegetables, bushes, figurines, and a hat - all lovingly portrayed, all blandly unembellished by commentary. Brodie's very dry sense of humor is most apparent in this period, and the paintings are very good - but I like it better when he gets a little more passionate.

This is a rare opportunity to see a beautifully installed collection of a lifetime of work by one of our region's foremost painters. Try to catch it while you can.

Scott Brodie, oil on canvas

Feibes and Schmitt collection going to Hyde

By now many of you know that Werner Feibes has donated about a third of the extraordinary modern and contemporary art collection he amassed with his partner Jim Schmitt to The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, as the news has been splashed all over local media (such as here by Paul Grondahl in the Times Union). The rest of the collection is promised to the Hyde as well, and Director Erin Coe rightly declares it "a transformational gift."

I'm excited for the Hyde, proud of my friend Werner, and sad for the recent loss of Jim ... but not surprised by this bequest, as I predicted it in a 2003 Metroland review, which I wrote when the Hyde mounted a superb exhibition called Form(ation) that was drawn from the Feibes and Schmitt collection. The news also brings to mind a story:

It was my good fortune sometime around 1985 to accompany Werner Feibes on a buying trip to a New York City gallery. At the time, I was a young gallery owner myself (in Albany), struggling to find customers for works by regional artists in the $300-to-$500 range. With Werner, I was exposed to quite another art world.

I don't recall the name of the gallery, but it was on the upper East Side of Manhattan and very elegant. Werner was there to see a Jean Arp relief constructed of painted wood, about 16 by 20 inches as I recall, in black and white (of course). The gallery presented it on a velvet-draped easel in a private room, where we murmured our approval and greedily eyed this vintage gem. The asking price was $15,000. Of course, Werner negotiated a discount, then coolly wrote a check for $13,500 - and, in a flash, we were on our way back up I-87 in Werner and Jim's boxy Volvo wagon (the Arp would be shipped).

I was totally speechless (think about that, you who know me personally!). I had just seen how art dealers really operated, and how sharp collectors did, too. The money that changed hands so easily was almost equal to my entire annual income (and I worked a lot of hours to earn it), but I didn't doubt that the Arp was well worth it. Neither do I doubt that it is now worth at least 15 times as much. It was a beautiful work of art and I hope to see it again some day at the Hyde.

Werner's generosity in inviting me on that trip was genuine, but this donation is beyond generous. The collection has been appraised for several million dollars; yet Werner's comment to  Grondahl was "What the hell would I do with all that money?" Good point - the true collector thinks about value in a different way than most of us. In the meantime, Werner still gets to live with the rest of the artwork, then it all goes to the Hyde upon his death. I wish him a very long life.

2015 Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region

Daniel Brody - Game On/Game Over, still from digital video

Every year, the annual Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region offers a good opportunity to take the pulse of the local art scene in one time and place, and this year's edition at the University at Albany Art Museum is a prime example of how that works.

Though the vagaries of who submits work each year and especially the taste of the juror will have a distinct impact on what's seen, there's usually a broad enough coverage to be reasonably representative of what artists in the orbit of Albany are doing.  And because these artists are also in the orbit of New York City, one can also get a sense of what's current there and, by extension, in the art world as a whole. This year's juror, Rachel Uffner, owns a New York City gallery, so the sensibility of the show is most likely that much more imbued with the bigger art world point of view.

Fern T. Apfel - Skyline, collage and acrylic 

If so, then the current art world, whether regional or global, is still very much about painting, especially painterly abstraction, with a strong side interest in the figurative and the decoratively patterned, and flirting a bit with representation on the Pop side of things. There are 44 artists included (out of a daunting 367 who entered the competition), which is a good number - neither too many to get a grip on in one viewing, nor too few to hold the space - and about three-quarters are represented by multiple works, which is always desirable in large group shows.

Ian Myers - Fish, oil on canvas

Noticeably in short supply in this selection is photography which, in the 25 or so years since the medium was first allowed in the Regional, usually has a strong role. Instead, the few photographs chosen are relegated to subsidiary locations in the gallery and, except for Jess Ayotte and Han Dogan, both of whom present slyly low-key black-and-white prints, and Katria Foster, whose works read almost as abstract paintings, the offerings are weak.

Then again, video has two strong entries, including Daniel Brody's digital animation Game On/Game Over, which won the top prize and is well worthy of the honor, and a concrete-poetry piece by Kyra Garrigue. It's intriguing that Garrigue's Poem: Untold Story has company in another concrete poetry work, this one formed in Morse code that was drilled into three smooth panels of birch by Colin Chase.

Monica Bill Hughes - Boob Bouquet
acrylic, ink, spray paint, and glitter on canvas

Other sculptural works are among the more compelling pieces here, including two slightly chilling scale models by Roger Bisbing and a very impressive series of five works in ceramic and wood, buffalo horn, or mammoth ivory by Robert Augstell; both Bisbing and Augstell won awards. Top awards were also taken by outstanding painters, including Monica Bill Hughes's naughty, lush still lifes; Stephen Niccolls's wonderful retro-Modernist compositions; two tongue-in-cheek works by Ian Myers; and two cleverly titled mixed media paintings by Kelsey Renko (artists who have the courage to title their works creatively get extra points from me).

Also outstanding: Charles Geiger's technically brilliant tropical arabesques; Mona Mark's scrupulously pared down exercises in monochrome; Jenny Hutchinson's meticulous, playfully layered paper-cuts; and Susan Spencer Crowe's boldly colored and formed wall reliefs.

Overall, this Regional suffers a bit from being on the wan side, color-wise, and from a lack of scale (only a handful of pieces exceed 5 feet in size). It is therefore overwhelmed by the cavernous white space of the UAlbany Museum. On the other hand, the two-story gallery's large, open central staircase allows a view of half the show all at once, which is a terrific advantage in getting the big-picture sense. And that sense is that the scene is plenty vibrant enough to survive another year. We'll get to reassess again at the next Regional, set for The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls.

By the way, this exhibition ends on Sept. 5, so if you want to catch it, you must act now.

Roger Bisbing - Lunch 1961, brass, cast bronze, and aluminum

Van Gogh and Nature at The Clark

Vincent Van Gogh - A Wheatfield with Cypresses, 1889 oil on canvas
The National Gallery, London

Here's what's obvious: You must not miss Van Gogh and Nature at The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., which ends its exclusive run there on Sept. 13. Simply put, you will never get another chance to see such a breathtaking collection of this artist's work - gathered from all over the world - together again. Ever.

Here's what may be less obvious: The title of the show, and its claim to being “the first exhibition devoted to the artist’s abiding exploration of nature in all its forms” are off the mark. Take, for example, the brilliant painting reproduced above. The sky and mountains are not wrought by human intervention, however personally interpreted by the painter, and the wind ruffling the many plants below that sky is all natural. But what about those plants, and that landscape they inhabit? This is not by any means a natural place. It is dominated by a cultivated wheatfield, cypresses, and olive trees that were, I'm fairly certain, planted by people, in a place that was most likely clear cut centuries before Vincent laid eyes on it. Is this nature?

Giant Peacock Moth, 1889
Chalk with pen and brush and ink on paper
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Elsewhere in the exhibition, text and images do support the intriguing and meaningful notion that Van Gogh was keenly interested in and moved by natural phenomena, particularly plants and insects. It could be argued that his deeply felt and vividly expressed responses to the world around him, including forces of weather and geology, are the wellspring of his genius and his popularity. But much of what Van Gogh observed so sensitively and depicted so richly (even in this selection) was culture - agriculture most particularly, as well as architecture, industry, religion, and other human inventions.

Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889
oil on canvas, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

And the power of his work, the legacy that keeps the crowds coming to blockbusters such as this one, is as much about human nature - in the form of the psychology of the sensitive, spiritual, suffering artist - as it is about anything else. Frequently overheard throughout my visit to the exhibition were comments related to Van Gogh's psychological states: his anger, his ecstacy, his mental illness, his tragic suicide at 37. Many of the finest paintings in this show were made while Van Gogh was living in the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy, where he had placed himself voluntarily; in one late letter, referring to a painting that depicts a landscape in the rain (shown at the bottom of this review), he wrote, “before such nature I feel powerless.” Not to belabor a point, but the painting also depicts a dense little village across its middle.

The exhibition is also about history - Vincent's personal history, tidily summed up in wall texts that guide visitors through sections devoted to key locations and periods in the artist's career (Holland 1881-85; Paris 1886-88; Provence 1888-90; and Auvers 1890), and the history of his influences, with excellent examples of other artists' work, including a lovely Monet from the Clark's collection, works by Millet, and woodblock prints by Hiroshige (all considered major influences on Van Gogh).

Undergrowth, 1887 oil on canvas Centraal Museum, Utrecht

What many people will learn for the first time here is the stunning fact that Van Gogh's entire career as an artist spanned barely 10 years, only five of which were spent painting. He is (rightly) revered as a towering figure of modern art (Impressionism was the first modern movement), yet he was very young, and still rapidly developing, when he died. The chief benefit of the "nature" thesis presented at The Clark is that it caused a good number of minor works to be included - drawings, sketches, early paintings, and experiments - which demonstrate how incompletely formed this artist was even a year or two before the final burst of creative intensity that cemented his importance.

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890 oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Who knew that Van Gogh tried pointillism, or made bumbling botanical illustrations, or was, early on, apparently rather intimidated by color? That he struggled for years before finding his own mode of expression puts him on equal footing with all unsuccessful artists - that he actually found his mode and then realized it fully enough in the brief time before his death to leave a lasting legacy is an astounding achievement. Nature caused Vincent to do this, and its overwhelming forces cost him both his sanity and his life. What he accomplished along the way is one of the most valuable slices of human culture to be found anywhere. The Clark show offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to soak up a huge chunk of it. Go and revel.

Rain–Auvers, 1890 oil on canvas
Amgueddfa Cymru—National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Whistler's Mother

The Clark is also showcasing one of the most famous American paintings of all time, through Sept. 27. Popularly known as "Whistler's Mother," James McNeill Whistler's monumental  Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist's Mother) normally resides at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, but it is here on loan as part of a reciprocal arrangement from a recent European tour of some of The Clark's French masterpieces.

We recognize Whistler's own masterpiece from the countless reproductions, parodies, and ads that have borrowed the dour central figure, which experts have said is only incidentally part of this modern composition. The Clark has provided well thought-out accompaniment in the form of numerous fine lithos and etchings, as well as several examples of the painting's many pop-cultural takeoffs. Grab the trolley or take a stroll up to the Lunder Center at Stone Hill to enjoy the view and peruse the painting's "musical notions of harmony and balance."

James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1
(Portrait of the Artist's Mother) 1871 oil on canvas Musée d'Orsay, Paris