There aren’t too many terms that have the ability to disquiet the bourgeois while enlivening the avant-garde, but “modern” or “modernism” can do just that. To be a modern painter can imply both a commitment to formal innovation and a challenge to the status quo. In this way, modernism in art can range from […]
Art
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Time to grow up: RoCo comes of age
<pIn 1977 a new cultural institution, the Pyramid Arts Center, opened in Rochester. After 27 years, seven locations, and a name change to Rochester Contemporary (RoCo), its mission remains basically unchanged: to encourage the redefinition of contemporary art in Upstate New York. As the arts center prepared for its big re-opening on Friday, October […]
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A room of her own
We are quite often interested in artists who have exceptional lives. And if those lives involve scandal, intrigue, or illness, we become fascinated. This fascination manifests itself not only in the biographical, but in the work itself. We want to see the life illustrated in the work of these artists — Vincent Van Gogh […]
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How art talks to itself
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 […]
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A Texan in Corning
As a material for sculpture, glass is more durable than either granite or steel. And in the hands of Robert Willson, hot molten glass — “rich and utterly sensuous,” as described by the artist — is richly and utterly transformed into solid, evocative, and bold forms. Willson, born in West Texas in 1912, graduated from […]
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Mellow Bellows
In 1969, thousands of peace-loving music devotees gathered near a small town in the Catskills for what was to become a landmark in American cultural history. The Woodstock that George Bellows knew and loved, half a century earlier, was an altogether smaller affair. But for many of the artists who came to work there, it […]
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Art is long
In 1914 Kathleen McEnery was a rising figure on the New York art scene when suddenly, at the age of 26, she disappeared. What happened? She got married and came to live in Rochester. A year earlier, in 1913, she had exhibited two paintings at the legendary Armory Show in New York. This was […]
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When art speaks louder than words
It’s hard to write about art that is just beautiful. Or perhaps I should say, mostly beautiful. The artists whose work is on show at the Visual Studies Workshop are variously able to elaborate on spiritual dimensions… philosophical connections… historical underpinnings. But I find most of it unnecessary. For me, the value of their work […]
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The big picture
Focusing on greatness: Gordon Parks’ “Muhammad Ali”, 1970. Gordon Parks has done a lot. Even before he picked up a camera in 1938, at the age of 25, he had tried his hand at “you name it, you know, just about everything.” He worked in a bar, washed dishes in a restaurant, played piano in […]
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Sweet nothings
Pow! Roy Lichtenstein’s brightly colored enlargement of a fight scene from a comic strip in Sweet Dreams Baby (1965) smacks you right in the face. But the impact is purely visual. Pop Art rarely offers much more than this kind of immediate thrill, but that is its greatest strength. Sometimes you just don’t want to […]
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Creative cultivation
Artists can be solitary creatures. For many, shutting out the world with all its demands is an essential part of the creative process. Isolation though, has its downside and, as the saying goes, it’s good to get out once in a while. At some point, whether it be through exhibition, publication, or performance, the work […]
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Excavating the obvious
Andy Warhol once said, “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am.” If you want to know all about Joy Episalla, you’ll need to do exactly the opposite. You need to dig. The subjects of her photographs, […]
