Petah Coyne: Above and Beneath the Skin (through September 10)
and Chuck
Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005 (through October 22) | Albright-KnoxArtGallery,
1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo | Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
(Fridays til 10 p.m.) | $8-$10; children 13 and
under, free; and Fridays 3-10 p.m., free | (716) 882-8700,
www.albrightknox.org.
Layers: Collecting Cuban-American Art (through September 7) and
John
Hultberg: Vanishing Point (through October
15) | University of Buffalo Art Galleries | Free | (716) 645-6912,
www.ubartgalleries.buffalo.edu
Negotiating identities in Buffalo
For art fans eager to take a little trip, shuffle on over to
Buffalo to
partake of several noteworthy exhibits. Start by visiting the Albright-Knox. Currently available for
viewing is On View: Stellar Works from
the Collection, a refreshing reinstallation of the gallery’s permanent
collection. It features well-known and beloved examples such as Edward Hicks’
“Peaceable Kingdom,” as well as seminal contributions to modernism such as
Gauguin’s “The Yellow Christ” or “Spirit of the Dead Watching” and GiacomoBalla’s “Dynamism of a Dog
on a Leash.” Also on view, making the final presentation of its five-venue
national tour, is a selection of sculptural works by artist Petah Coyne. (A
major survey of self-portraits by Chuck Close is also now open, although it
wasn’t at press time.)
On initial inspection, Coyne’s work seemingly vacillates
between the poetically and spiritually evocative and the creative carrying-on
of an obsessive-compulsive. This includes drippy, drapey
cascades of girlie accoutrements — bows, candles, flowers, pearls, and
ribbons — like in “Untitled #1093 (Buddha Boy).” To some degree, that’s not
that far off. However, what’s really at issue here is Coyne’s ability to
transform the ordinary into something extraordinary.
Take, for instance, “Untitled #978 (Gertrude and Juliana,
The Whitney Women).” As you enter the main exhibition space, there they are,
just a little to the left, their backs to us, looming large while seemingly
floating. These are ethereal creatures, a vision of pristine white marble
descending in sensuously voluminous folds. But wait — they’re not marble, but
rather a combination of chicken wire, fiberglass cast statuary, drywall,
plaster bandages, and plaster painted white. They also
seem to be passing through the wall, the illusion of which soon becomes a
reality as we walk around the engaged figures and see the tips of their
up-turned palms and shrouded brow penetrating the planar surface of the exposed
drywall. Indeed, it is this fusion of the physical and spiritual that has such
resonance in Coyne’s work. And that is no accident.
Art historian Rosalind Krauss once described the
relationship between art and religion in contemporary times as a kind of
“absolute rupture”. Moreover, as Eleanor Heartney’s
essay in the exhibition catalogue points out, many artists have complained
about “the psychological damage caused by the rigidities of dogma” — like
Catholicism, which is often seen as “hostile to contemporary culture.” But this
is exactly the realm where much of the work — and inner workings — of Coyne
finds its inspiration and comes alive. And it’s here too where the notion of
duality or a dual consciousness is critical: it doesn’t matter whether we’re
talking about light and dark, beauty and decay, or the sacred and profane. It
all comes down to a lot of shades of proverbial grey, which is exactly what
constitutes the human experience.
Speaking of darkly
beautiful decay, consider for your next stop the University of Buffalo’s
Anderson Gallery. Located off-campus, on Martha Jackson Place near Englewood and Kenmore,
the gallery currently features the work of John Hultberg,
an abstract expressionist who caught the eye of dealer Martha Jackson (who also
represented Willem de Kooning, AntoniTàpies, and KarelAppel, among others). Curator Kristin Riemer
sees Hultberg’s work as “[taking] viewers through a
vortex into compartmentalized apocalyptic and alien lands (often inhabited by
demons or otherworldly beings), where occasional uncluttered expanses create
windows into the unknown.”
Segueing from the unknown self to the self defined is the
current exhibition at the UB Art Gallery,
located on-campus at the Center for the Arts. The show comprises the work from
two private collections and one public institutional collection in an attempt
to show how collecting art — not just making it — involves, among other
things, the negotiation of identities.
The “identity” at issue here is who or what constitutes a
Cuban-American, and how one asserts that identity. For the collectors, who are
Cuban-American, one way is to collect artworks by other Cuban-Americans. For
the artists, there may be a variety of tactics, but, ultimately, it comes down
to how they (and the collectors) negotiate between the twin poles of Cuban
heritage and American culture. Cultural identity or a sense of place and roots
are frequently recurring themes in these post-colonial times. And even though
the modern nations of the Caribbean and Central and South America gained their
independence from their European colonizers back in the 19th century for the
most part (although it wasn’t until 1902 in Cuba), questions as to who one is
continue to percolate through a collective cultural psyche.
For example, artist MaríaBrito, who left Cuba for Miami when she was 14 years old,
is one who juggles multiple identities: wife, mother, sister, artist, Cuban,
catholic, American. In her large charcoal drawing, “Study for the Traveller,” the very title alludes to one who has moved or
fled from one place to another, for one reason or another. A seated figure,
arms outstretched, palms upward, stares outward, passive and immobile. Off to
the right is a severed tree trunk whose branches, seemingly barren, reach
upward while its roots probe downward. There’s a palpable poignancy to it all,
which also applies to her painting “Evo.” Here, Adam
and Eve are “the travelers,” having been just cast out of Paradise.
The metaphor is not lost.
Experiences of exile and memory are powerful combined forces
with which a number of these artists grapple. Like Brito,
Alberto Rey also left Cuba
for the United States, but
at age 3, and settled in Pennsylvania.
While he visited Miami every summer, it wasn’t
until he was in his late 30s that he ventured back to Cuba — to a
country he did not remember but whose heritage he shared. His painting,
“Appropriated Memories: El Morro, Havana,
Cuba,” is
classically painted, technically proficient, and depressingly desolate.
Reminiscent of the now-abandoned prison on AlcatrazIsland in the middle of San FranciscoBay,
El Morro is the castle/fortress that guards the entrance to Havana bay that was originally built in the
16th century. Perched on the promontory on the opposite side of the harbor from
Old Havana, it dominates the port entrance and can be seen for miles. It is no
doubt the first and last thing one sees when leaving or entering Havana by boat.
Thus, exploring that sense of place, of roots, encompasses
the remembered landscape — the jungles, the mountains, the beaches — as
well as the people. But any consideration of the physical geography and/or the
ethnic and cultural diversity of Cuba likewise entails
a consideration of social, political, and economic issues at work. This
exhibition is not just about being Cuban or art-making as transcendent
communication, but also about being human and defining our identities in the
expanding global village.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2006.
