In one form or another, the biennial Rochester-Finger Lakes
exhibition has been a showcase for Western and Central New York artists for
over 100 years. And this year is no exception, as the exhibition celebrates its
59th anniversary.
Of course, what exactly the
exhibition showcases has often been a source of controversy. And in that
regard, this year, too, is no exception. However, this time, the controversy is
not so much about what’s in the exhibition but rather what’s not. From 806
entries by 440 artists, two jurors — Bernice Steinbaum, owner, Bernice
Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, and Jean R. Mineo, executive director, New Art
Center, Newton, Massachusetts — chose a total of 40 works representing 31
artists. Do the math and that’s a lot of rejected submissions.
The rejected artists, however,
provided one of the most interesting aspects of this year’s Rochester-Finger
Lakes exhibition. For one evening and the following afternoon (and opening the
same night as the exhibit at the MAG), the museum-going public had the
opportunity to view over 100 rejected works in an exhibition entitled the Salon
des Refusés. “See more of what the jury saw. See more area artists admired for
years whose work escaped jurors’ favor. See more of the odd or outrageous or
tender.” These rejected artists may have missed the mark with the jurors, but
their statement is right on — at least in acknowledging the vagaries of
taste.
In this way, the Rochester Salon des
Refusés, or Room of the Refused, established a position that was critical of
the selections of the jurors and consciously compared itself with an exhibition
of the same name held in Paris in 1863. That year, both the official academic
Salon and the Salon des Refusés were sanctioned by the government of Napoleon
III (who apparently saw little aesthetic difference between accepted and
rejected work, which included paintings by James Whistler and Édouard Manet).
What followed was a debate over the politics of selection, a form of which
continues today.
Of course, there were no easy
answers in the 19th century. And there are just as few today. The Rochester
Finger Lakes exhibition calls itself “one of the most prestigious juried
art exhibitions in the region.” If this is true, what, then, is the basis
for selection criteria? If an artist has been accepted in the past, should that
have any bearing on future entries?
We often forget that art is much
more than the product of individual artists. In one way or another, making art
has always been a collaboration between artists and the institutions that both
present and represent them. (Could Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling paintings
have existed without Pope Julius? Could Pope Julius have existed without the
Catholic Church?)
Whether or not you aesthetically
connect with anything on view, you would be hard pressed to deny the fact that
the jurors had a specific “look” in mind. Call it
“thought-provoking,” as did exhibit organizer Chiyo Ueyama. Indeed,
visitors we spoke with all agreed that although they weren’t sure if they liked
the exhibit, they would definitely “have stuff” to think about later. For
example, Jeff Kell’s What Insect Problem?
(2002), a lidded earthenware vessel, is initially evocative of neoclassical
pottery, particularly the work of Josiah Wedgwood. But it soon asserts an
intriguing tension as you contemplate the army of ants that begins to emerge
and cover the vessel’s surface.
100
Human Skulls (2002) by Doug Anderson is another example of a contemporary
work that makes no bones about its art-historical references. The skull has
long been a symbol for death and the contemplation of mortality. Here, however,
not only are you presented with five rows of 20 painted skulls, but each is
different. Some have their craniums removed, with several becoming
“containers” for unlikely objects like red potatoes and what appear
to be gumballs, while others have a bandage-like wrapping covering eye sockets
or tied around the length of the entire skull. Taking them in one by one,
Leonardo da Vinci’s personality studies came to mind. It is not surprising that
Anderson was honored with the Memorial Art Gallery Award of Excellence.
The encaustic medium, where pigment
is suspended in wax and must be applied and worked quickly while the wax is
still hot, is also art-historical in nature. Although used by the Greeks as
early as the 9th century BCE, it is probably best known for use in painting
funerary portraits on wood during the Roman occupation of Egypt in the second
century CE. The popularity of encaustic gave way to more manageable tempera and
oil paints until the 1950s, when Jasper Johns revived the technique. Speaking
of Johns, pop art is yet another reference that comes to mind when
contemplating Anderson’s skulls: The multiple skulls are reminiscent of Andy
Warhol’s multiple soup cans.
Perhaps the best or most overt
examples of a recurring provocative tension are two black-and-white photographs
by Matthew Cottom of Rochester. Cottom documented his friend’s breast cancer
reconstruction but not with brutally frank and viscerally raw images of a
woman’s body ravaged by cancer and chemotherapy, but rather with subtly
sexualized images of a woman’s triumph over her cancer and her life-affirming
desire to get back to being a woman.
Art exists not only because of
artists, but because curators, jurors, exhibition designers, publicists,
corporate interests, and the viewing public all contribute to the way in which
an art object is perceived. The meaning of any work of art does not lie solely
with the intent of the artist, but stems from a complex system of interactions.
In a group show, works of art become multiple and varied voices. Each is
dependent on the other for context and meaning. Where and how a work is
situated in the gallery space, the lighting, and the spacing all play a part in
this multivocal arrangement of ideas. And like it or not, what makes the
Rochester Finger Lakes exhibition a success is the collaboration of all those
voices.
The
59th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition is on display at the Memorial
Art Gallery, 500 University Avenue, through October 5. Hours: Tuesday 12 to 4
p.m.; Wednesday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday 10 a.m.
to 4 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 12 to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays. Tix:
$5-$7 (kids 6-18, $2); $2 Thursdays 5-9 p.m.
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2003.
