We did a studio visit with Bruce Wilhelm today in South Philly and afterwards we headed to Broad St. where, after about an hour and a half, we got to see the team! Yeah, team! We've never seen so much red!

Aaron Douglas Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting (1934) oil on canvas, Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture

Aaron Douglas; African American Modernist at the Schomberg Center, NYC

Aaron Douglas was the major painter of the Harlem Renaissance, yet most people who recognize his name probably only know his work in reproduction. Douglas’ first traveling retrospective, representing all of his mural projects as well as easel paintings and illustrations, is making its final stop at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library branch at 135th St. through Nov. 30, 2008 (the Schomberg is easy to reach; the 2 and 3 train stop is about 20 feet from the door). Everyone interested in American art history should rush to see it. Organized by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, its venue at the Schomberg is appropriate since the building houses Douglas’ most accessible mural project, Aspects of Negro Life (1934); but I still can’t understand why by 2008 his work has not made it to institutions further downtown.


Aaron Douglas Build More Stately Mansions (1944) oil on canvas, 54 x 42 in, Fiske University, Nashville

Douglas studied with the Munich-trained modernist Winhold Reiss, whose own work drew from popular and commercial sources such as German folk paper-cuts (scherenschnitt); Reiss encouraged Douglas to do the same, and he developed a style of elegant, rhythmic silhouettes that he adapted for his great mural cycles as well as in graphic work. During the 1920s Douglas worked with many important writers of the Harlem Renaissance on small publications, on dust jackets for their books and collaborating on portfolios, such as Opportunity (1926) with Langston Hughes.


Aaron Douglas Play de Blues (1926), from Opportunity, portfolio by Langston Hughes with illustrations by Douglas

Douglas’ signature painting style of layered silhouettes within a narrow chromatic range and emphasis on radiating circles of light certainly owes something to spot lighting of the stage or more likely film, particularly that of the German expressionists. The only other American painter whose work belied the influence of Expressionism this early was Marsden Hartley, who spent time in Germany prior to World War I. Douglas’ more significant contribution to art was his subject matter: the history of African-Americans which includes the indignities of slavery and horrors of lynching as well as their economic, cultural, intellectual and artistic contributions to American life. His artistic legacy is reflected in the work of Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, the AfriCOBRA artists, Faith Ringgold and others; certainly the heroic silhouettes of Kara Walker which rewrite slavery in America are his most recent bequest.

The exhibition begins with a painting by his teacher, Reiss, includes all of the mural projects (even if those at Fisk University are shown only in video form), easel paintings, all the book jackets and numerous illustrations. It also includes work by several artists influenced by Douglas, although not the strongest selection. The hanging at the Schomberg is limited by its division in two spaces, neither of which is ideal for the large pieces. But it’s a significant opportunity to see his much-dispersed oeuvre, and shouldn’t be missed.

Salvatore Meo; Assemblages 1948-1978


Salvatore Meo Tyler School (1946), mixed media, 25" x 15" x 2"

Salvatore Meo has slipped through the net of mid-Twentieth century American art history. Fortunately the exhibition of his work currently at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts (through Nov. 26, 2008) makes a compelling case for mending that state of affairs. Meo made assemblages from the sort of detritus that Rauschenberg would include in his combines of 1954-64, George Herms and Bruce Connor would incorporate into sculpture in the late 50s-early 60s, and the Italians associated with Arte Povera employed during the late 60s-70s. But Meo, who studied and worked in Philadelphia then moved to Rome in the 50s began using scavenged, abandoned objects in the 1940s. He constructed his work from fragments of furniture such as a dresser drawer with chipped paint, scarred wood with protruding nails, the dirty head of a small doll, a work glove with fingers worn through, one heel of a woman’s shoe, a fraying bit of cloth. He knew Alberto Burri, Mimo Rotella and both younger and older Italian artists Rome, and may actually be a progenitor of Arte Povera.

It’s impossible to know where the idea of using such thoroughly rejected material came from. There’s no American precedent except for a handful of collages by Arthur Dove from the 20s, and in Europe only Schwitters, Dubuffet and Miro come to mind. Cornell’s work is too precious to be considered as inspiration, and Nevelson thoroughly transformed her found fragments of wood with monochrome surfaces of paint. Certainly there’s a debt to Surrealism (when he incorporates sand its impossible not to think of Masson), but even at their most outrageous the Surrealists retained the legacy of craft that Meo suppresses.


Salvatore Meo Loretto (1954), mixed media, 26 1/4" x 29 1/4" x 6 1/2"

But chronology apart, Meo’s work deserves attention because it is so good. He picked through gutters and junkyards, using objects seemingly as he found them and assembling them with a master’s eye. He drew with twisted wire, created washes of bent mesh and used the folds of crushed metal to create structure in small wall pieces of subtle balance and formal tension; they acknowledge Abstract Expressionism’s emphasis on the spontaneous and even the accidental. His work tends towards the limited pallette of the well-worn: browns and grays; but when he incorporated colored bits he did so as punctuation, with assured restraint. His process might be seen as a modern parallel to Leonardo’s suggestion that artists exercise their imagination by finding figures in clouds or broken walls, although Meo was searching not for figures but for the building blocks of abstraction.


Salvatore Meo Speranza (1951), mixed media, 32 ½" x 32 ½" x 5"

While Meo’s materials rarely evoke specific metaphorical interpretation, it’s hard not to see his entire production as an attempt to rebuild a world of meaning out of the ruins and destruction of World War II. He served in the South Pacific and while there is no indication that he saw the results of Hiroshima or Nagasaki first hand, they could not have been far from his consciousness; nor could he have ignored the legacy of destruction in Italy. In recycling cast-off objects Salvatore Meo assembled them into poetic art. Meo produced a significant body of work, and it is good to welcome it back into the American art world.

Another exhibition of Meo’s work will be shown at Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York from Nov. 13-Dec. 20, 2008.

Ben Pinder, detail, Return to Symzonia

The Ice Box at the Crane Art Center has warmed up since its days as a giant food freezer. Now it's the venue for something warmer yet--a show about the planet's impending meltdown. I suppose to Sarah Palin that's still a gray area, but appropriately enough, the show also spills into the Gray Area next to the Ice Box!

Enough with the word games!

That the show, Global Warming, even happened is surely a sign that maybe we can work our way out of the disaster.


Ben Pinder, detail, Return to Symzonia, real estate sales pitch video for your own little piece of Symzonia in Antarctica. It's hilarious.

I say this because it's the ambitious project of Philadelphia Sculptors, an organization of starving sculptors, mostly, who don't have the kind of budget to hire a mess of staff to do their bidding. What an amazing volunteer effort this show turns out to be, bringing together 15 artists from countries near and far--farthest, Taiwan; and closest, besides U.S. and Philly, is Canada, which contributed four artists--two from Quebec and two from Prince Edward Island!


Ben Pinder, Return to Symzonia, detail. Here's one of the stamps from the Antarctic country

An exhibit with this kind of agenda could turn out to be a didactic, political snore. But that is hardly the case. What makes it remarkable to me is the range of excellent work using a variety of media and a variety of approaches--I myself have a short list, but I can see someone else making quite different choices.

Top on my list was Ben Pinder's art equivalent of a shaggy dog (er, bear?) story, in which the artist tries to sell real estate in Antarctica. Besides the sales video, there's a polar bear pulling a sled/Conestoga wagon with provisions, stamps for the new country, maps, an explorer's journal/book about the place and more. I was in love with the whole shebang. It's sane; it's accessible; and it beats the story-telling of Matthew Ritchie.


Miguel Luciano, Platano Skates

Although we ran a video on this blog of Miguel Luciano's Pimp my Piragua Puerto Rican sno-cones cart that is a solar-powered pimp-mobile, with boom box audio, icy peaks video and fabulous detailing, I had not seen it before. You can bring sno-cones to Puerto Rico, but you can't warm the climate with them. Luciano gets a lot of commentary in while providing stupendous visual entertainment.


A big kid enjoying the ride on Miguel Luciano's The Last Coquil (a kiddy ride salute to endangered tree frog from Puerto Rico)

He also contributes a pair of hockey skates with plantain blades, and a kiddy ride in the form of an endangered tree frog. It works for a quarter. I know because I threw one in the slot just to check it out. And then I watched someone merrily ride it as it loses its habitat. Luciano just packs his pieces with thinking and with whiz bang techno finishes.


Andrew Chartier, Dioxigrapher/Dioxide-Action and anti-pollution worker suit. The machine is made from a golf cart, a bicycle wheel, etc.

I also loved Andrew Chartier's video installation of his Rube-Goldbergian machine, the Dioxigrapher. In the video, Chartier, dressed in a biohazard suit (also on display), wheels his contraption up to an idling car's exhaust pipe, where the machine inhales the emissions. When the car returns to the sidewalk, it suddenly spins like crazy as it draws chalk circles, apparently powered by the CO2.


Guy Laramee, The Wreck of Hope, detail of model landscape inside oil barrel

Inside a deadpan oil barrel on an elegant scaffolding support, Guy Laramee has built a miniature sublime arctic landscape, an homage to Frederic Church's Icebergs paintings [oops! this is not quite right. They reference Caspar David Friedrich's "Wreck of the Hope," and I owe Douglas Paschall a thank you for his comment below]. Laramee's bergs, viewed through a large peephole in the side of the steel drum, looks like they are made from styrofoam, but they are of glass. The conceit seems pretty terrific to me, and the execution just right.


Jason Lee, Euthenic Landscape: Suburban Setting with Clouds

I also enjoyed Jason Lee's installation of an OSHA-orange sterile-looking suburban landscape with white picket fences. Euthenic Landscape: Suburban Setting with Clouds includes video representations of clouds and grass taking the place of the real thing.


James Hayes,a possible brutal solution to one of our ever increasing problems...!, bronze, audio equipment, 8 x 8 x 75 inches each

James Hayes' installation of a grid of cast bronze fly swatters on pedestals, arranged in a grid, amused me with its audio of the monster flies buzzing in the super-heated climate. The piece is called, a possible brutal solution to one of our ever increasing problems...! I pick it for its fabulous title.


Yi-Chuan Chen, Shower. A caution sign and a line of tape on the floor protect art lovers from getting hit in the head by the needles as they slowly drip from the cloud.

Yi-Chuan Chen's Shower is a polyester cloud that rains sharp needles. This one gets kudos for its minimal approach to the physics of dropping the needles!!!

Here's the who's who from where of the participating artists:

Five artists well-known for their work on environmental issues--Michael Alstad (Canada), Stacy Levy (US), Miguel Luciano (Puerto Rico), Chicory Miles (US) and Shai Zakai (Israel)--were invited to contribute to the exhibit by project Co-Directors Cheryl Harper and Leslie Kaufman. Ten artists of 84 who responded to an open call were juried in by Philadelphia Museum of Art Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Adelina Vlas and Harper, who is an independent curator (and an artist in her own right, with a Fleisher Challenge exhibit right now). The 10 are Gerald Beaulieu (Canada), Andrew Chartier (Canada), Yi-Chuan Chen (Taiwan), James Hayes (Ireland), Michael Hernandez (Tennessee), Guy Laramee (Canada), Jason Lee (West Virginia), Elizabeth Mackie (New Jersey), Ben Pinder (New York), Ralf Sander (Germany).

Philly Sculptors pulled off a terrific exhibit on a subject on everyone's minds. It deserves your time and energy (speaking of energy, try public transportation) to get up there.

Installation detail of Kate Javens' exhibit, Father Ram and Green Darner at SchmidtDean Gallery. The large Father Ram on the right is 66 x 106 inches, oil on linen.

In paintings of powerful, ruminating rams, artist Kate Javens creates portraits of humans. Javens has long been a painter of man as beast and beast as man, and in her wonderful 11-painting exhibit, Father Ram and Green Darner, at SchmidtDean Gallery, she takes this work in a new direction.

The identity between humans and the rams is clear, even if Javens hadn't inserted a portrait of her father as a young man in place of the ram's face, in two of the five ram paintings. The portrait is androgynous and strange, looking inward as much as outward.


Father Ram, 12 x 12 inches, oil on linen

The focus on the texture of the fur and the horns, created by amazing brush control, is incredibly animal at the same time as it is painterly. That tactile quality places the human in the animal world and vice versa. The visages of rams have an aura of inscrutable knowing and animal dignity--that can also pass for thinking about the rumblings of their digestion. The father's face, however, is less sanguine. And its lack of warmth or generosity makes it cool and impenetrable as well.

Javens at her best is unsettling, tilting the firm ground on which we stand. She pulls the rug out from under our notion of our own self-importance, and places us as bit players in the larger, dangerous universe, where every man and beast is focused on its own survival.


Father Ram, oil on muslin, 48 x 55 inches

I am reminded of Durer's Young Hare. Yet Javens is working in paint, creating the references to Medieval etchings and early photographic work through the sepia tone and through a series of glazes and attention to line and texture. Like the hare, the ram has a hot, breathing aliveness and animality. And like Durer, Javens floats the otherwise heavy animal, isolated on a white background, to which she adds a painterly glow toward the center that shades toward the edges.

Also included in this exhibit are several paintings of darning needles and a cicada--work that seems like a bridge between her moth portraits (see post) and the Father Ram portraits. The rams were the ones that left me unsettled and amazed.

The exhibit runs to Dec. 5.