Art
Two new exhibitions, one currently at the
Gallery at Bausch & Lomb Place and an upcoming one at the Mercer Gallery at
MCC, feature the work of Alan Singer. Meta/morph at Bausch & Lomb
juxtaposes Singer’s watercolor and digital transfer monoprints
with Tarrant Clements’ predominately wood, wire, and oil paint constructions.
At the Mercer, Singer will share the space with Robert Heischman
and his seductive and perspectively “perfect” garden
views.
Although both Singer’s and Clements’ work can be
described as abstractions alluding to subjective self-expression, Singer’s more
obviously includes figuration and believable space. An exception is Singer’s
fairly large oil painting “Tropic-anna,” which
consists of two multi-colored panels reminiscent of a geological cross-section
of different strata. Although seemingly non-representational, the painting
could also allude to both a reduced landscape in extreme detail, and via its
title, to a person—Anna from the tropics. (Interestingly, the late
Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta referred to
herself as Tropic-Ana on her answering machine.)
The latter work not withstanding, the rest of
Singer’s work refers to more specifically recognizable subject matter — at
least through the titles. Works called “Pearl Diver,” “City by the Sea,” and
“Shoals, The Sirens” draw attention to some kind of particular place and
culture or, at the very least, to how one might feel about these exotics. Still
other titles refer to more loaded subject matter, as in the very private
statement of “Family Matters.” But the works that seem to dominate are also
more socially motivated statements. “A Political Frenzy,” “Event Horizon,” “A
Political Faux Pas,” “Smoke Sign,” and “Parade Ground” take our minds
elsewhere, away from Gauguin’s utopic vision of the
cultures of the South Pacific and toward something more current.
Of course,
any sense of the political comes to us mostly by way of the titles. They are the
keys for directing us away from the more personal and expressionistic vision of
the artist and into the world of the “real.” In “A Political Frenzy” we are
confronted with a swirling world reminiscent of a highly stylized, Dali-esque landscape — one full of tornadoes and swirling
vortices, barely distinguishable human faces and the Cartesian grids of Western
logic.
Where the artist stands in relation to the
political has been a debate that has actively concerned our culture for the
past 150 years or so. Should art be political? Should politics be overtly
visible, or should they be mixed into the subjective vision of the individual
artist? All of these questions come down to the possibility or impossibility of
a truthful, objective, and impartial picture of the real world. Is the world
visible by a meticulous observation of contemporary life, or is the mediation
through the extreme self the way into a subconscious and possibly universal
view of a human condition? Realism or Expressionism?
Which do we trust?
Clements’
work goes beyond Singer’s in its quest for the personal view. Even the titles,
although seemingly coded and therefore logical, such as “W-45” or “S-3”, do not
reveal themselves in relation to the work but speak of a private system of
identification. Of course, Clements’ work also uses another now-familiar code,
that of reduction of form into geometries and organic forms. “W-1,” a
construction made of painted wood, appears to “quote” one of the most extreme
non-representational expressionists, Piet Mondrian.
Mondrian’s vision was to reduce the world of representation to subtle
variations of verticals and horizontals as well as into black and white and
primary colors so that we can all understand its language. Ironically, we
understand the abstractions of corporate logos much more than those private
decisions of the painter in his or her studio.
Both
Clements’ and Singer’s work are finely crafted objects that express individual
visions within the context of Western aesthetic culture. They are two points on
a scale between wishes for unmediated objectivity and pure subjectivity, both
imagined and yet unattainable.
meta/morph: paintings, prints, and dimensional works by
Tarrant Clements and Alan Singerthrough November 17 |
The Gallery at One Bausch & Lomb
Place, Clinton
Avenue & Court Street | Monday-Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m.-2
p.m. | Free. | 473-4115.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2006.
