Just as modern painting did away with the picture frame, modern art museums have typically downplayed their role as spatial frames. Increasingly neutral galleries suppressed architectural qualifications—color, texture, material, form, ornament—in a quest to make artworks immediately available to the gaze as stand-alone objects.
Realism is defined as art that convinces the viewer that the described visible subject exists outside the art itself.
Know Yourself: An ancient maxim. We find it hard to understand, difficult to pursue, and perhaps impossible to fulfill. Philosophers have discussed the imperative for centuries. Socrates gave primacy to self-knowledge. Seeking it properly takes courage, discipline and persistence. For a painter, it can provide a motive, simple and deep.
Walking into the office of the Clifton Cultural Arts Center at 3711 Clifton Ave., one is immediately struck by an interactive quilt with movable faces created by textile artist Barbara Sferra. What an apt introduction to the Clifton Cultural Arts Center managed by Ruth Dickey, founding executive director. With a background in nonprofits and a passion for the arts, Ruth is well suited for this role.
Perhaps much of the chaotic nature of this exhibition is due to its subject matter. As the press release states: “After the Fall presents a snapshot in time and place of how women view themselves in contemporary society.” Since there is little cohesion to how women view themselves today, such cohesion is understandably lacking from the exhibition as well.
Dawn or dusk, abstract or realist, defined and indefinite: Paul Wolven’s oil paintings are worth seeing, their blurry edges and mood evoking palette urging the viewer to resolve these diverse directions.
The Taft Museum of Art’s “African American Art since 1950: Perspectives from the David C. Driskell Center,” running from February 15 through April 28, 2013, tries very hard to live up to its title.
Philip LaVelle’s vibrant show of new work at 1305 Gallery on Main Street opened immediately after the January aeqai appeared and closed immediately before this issue. Its visual and intellectual content encouraged a belated review.
Think punk and metal music. Think graffiti art. Think occult symbolism. Think comics. Think ink and paper. Meld all of those together and you’ve got Brian Uhl’s artwork, a study of precision with ink. The Tower: New Works by Brian Uhl, Static Age Gallery’s newest exhibit, is Uhl’s first solo show. The exhibit includes eighteen recently completed illustrations, T-shirt designs, and some multimedia prints.
