Voice on Art  Sept. 26 - Oct. 9, 2002
Vol. 2 No. 11

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© 2001-2002
by The Cape Cod Voice
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SHOUT OUT: Taking it to another level.

During the years when people were still questioning photography as a viable art form for gallery attention, The Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown continued an Annual Photography Show that proved all doubters wrong.
Now in it's ninth year, the line-up for this one is exceptional in quality and scope. All eight artists offer eye-opening takes on the world you couldn't have made without their initial vision.
In her latest series of work, Judith Brassard Brown, a professor of painting at Monserrat College of Art, has made a 180-degree turn away from her large, sun-burned Italian landscapes to concentrate on small, intensely personal images made in layered puzzle-pieces of painting, pictures of paintings, and partially painted over photographs.
Brown's is a loose and playful hand and her unique, un-simple pieces demand study. She constructs a broken surface filled with depth, color, and the unnerving, bulls-eye shifting between precise photographic image, gestural paint, and the overlapping edges of collage. They feel set in emotional, family time, part bucolic, part yearning.

Barbara Abel presents an unforgettable series, which are, in fact, portraits of portraits. In heart-breaking, clear color, Abel has blown up into our vision the haunting beauty of turn-of-the-century (19th - early 20th) European wax mannequins, each the individual likeness of a human model. Human and icon, real and effigy, vulnerable and brittle, painted and virginal, alarming and arresting, these pictures have staying-power.
For several years Rice/Polak has given us the vaulting work of  Walter Crump.
Using pin-hole cameras he constructs himself, Crump, a nationally recognized photographer, goes beyond the picture's limits to turn city architecture as fluid as a rollercoaster. But in spite of the extreme, almost hallucinatory distortions he works with, Crump retains the dignified, monumental presence in each one. Using toners and bleaches, he crafts a subtle, glowing complexity of color; bronzes, ivories, ochres, at once somber and light-filled.
David Moore's jarring black and white gelatin silver prints, touch on the emergence and disintegration of identity in literal symbols. He writes, "I see some of these beings as attempting to emerge into the world, struggling for definition. Others wish to cloak their identity or live in a purgatory of half-formed selves."
Using a $15, plastic Holga camera, Jeffrey Schifman creates velvet-toned, dream-like images that highlight a dynamically composed central figure, its surroundings swimming into soft blur that emphasizes the singular power of the focused-on subject, be it a swan's arched neck, or the back of a rooftop pigeon serenely surveying its vast city kingdom.
In the press of much larger images in the exhibit, it is worth taking time with Maurine Sutter's small, fresh-colored, hand-tinted silver prints, mostly of summer-lit, plastic blow-up beach toys. They wind up being perfect subjects for Sutter's time-honored technique, used by photographers before color film was invented.
She develops her images on matte-finished, fiber based paper which gives her work a cool, dry look. Sutter's labor-intensive, delicately applied colors and her awareness of glowing light make the most unlikely objects luminous, and truly beautiful.
Also worth paying attention to are Mathew Chase-Daniel's large format, multiple sequential photographs assembled into a grid to form continual large scale vistas, and Christine Triebert's seemingly timeless, smoky, fog-softened toned silver-prints of the New England and Irish countrysides.
Through Oct. 31 at the Rice/Polak Gallery, 430 Commercial St., Provincetown. 487-1052.

 

Manifest Pleasures

The Copley Society, Gallery NAGA, and Emmanuel College
BY CHRISTOPHER MILLIS
" Manifest 2001 "
At the Copley Society of Boston through September 22.
" Camera Work:Morgan Cohen,Mary Kocol, David Prifti,Robert Siegelman "
At Gallery NAGA through September 29.
" Pinhole Madness "
Work by Ri Anderson, Walter Crump, Mardozo, and Jesseca Ferguson, at Lillian Immig Gallery, Cardinal Cushing Library, Emmanuel College, through October 4.

UNION GUYS AT CASING BASIN: Camila Chaves Cortes's shameless bravura is hard to ignore.   COLLECTIBLES: the room and its contents in Paul Weiner's photo suggest a jack-o'-lantern.

When the oldest arts organization in America announces its first-ever juried photography exhibit, it’s time to pay attention. The Copley Society, that venerable Back Bay institution, has over the last century and a half ranged widely as a presenter of American fine art — from avant-garde to advanced geezer, from cutting edge to soft in the middle. With " Manifest 2001, " its group show of contemporary New England photographers, the Copley Society is back, Lazarus-like, rising from the damp ashes of its afternoon sherry to a place of assertive importance in contemporary art. Look now, ’cause it’s alive.
Juried by the cognoscenti and including a rewarding number of insufficiently recognized artists based largely in and around Boston, " Manifest 2001 " will likely go down as one of those shows that people will refer to years from now. It’s the hub of the Hub: so many of its artists appear in coterminous area shows, the exhibit is like a sampler of surrounding venues. From Boston to Provincetown, from major Newbury Street galleries to smaller academic spaces, the talent of " Manifest 2001 " points in multiple directions. It’s a hub with sturdy spokes.
Like all successful group shows, this ambitious, engaging, eminently thoughtful exhibit is an hors d’œuvre in place of a meal. Presenting 42 works by 35 talented artists, " Manifest 2001 " never takes you beyond the handshake stage. You meet lots of artists you’d like to get better acquainted with, but they all leave before you can sit down and talk with any of them.
Worse, Morgan Cohen gets lost in the crowd. Cohen takes color photographs of — get this — the corners of rooms. Ceilings, to be exact. Spare, muted, triangulated shapes that are at once ethereal and quotidian, transcendent and earthy. Cohen speaks in feathery, self-effacing whispers; his photos are so demure that were it not for their frames, they’d be almost indistinguishable from the walls behind them. And yet he makes you realize all that’s been missing from the overly celebrated minimalism of Agnes Martin. The sensuality of his shading means that shadows read like erogenous zones, suggesting tender, luminous creases of skin. And each image is contemplative, balanced, austere; if the Buddha were a shutterbug, these are the pictures he’d take.
In " Manifest 2001, " however, Cohen has just a solitary frame — and with no bright egg yolk, no triptych with orchids, no outré lighting techniques, his pencil-thin abstraction is easily overlooked. But if you cross the street to Gallery NAGA, you’ll find a number of his works: he stands out in the sadly crowded " Camera Work, " where he appears along with David Prifti, Mary Kocol, and Robert Siegelman (the front room is given over to Sam Earle’s " Tattoo Paintings " ). Here you can appreciate the connections his photos make across the frame, his expressive reach within a drastically reduced color palette, his ability to find compositional variation within extreme confines of the visual field. What seems pale at the Copley Society takes on grandeur at NAGA.
Walter Crump’s solitary pinhole image is also in danger of getting overlooked in the Copley Society’s downstairs gallery. You have to walk past Camila Chaves Cortes’s Union Guys at Casting Basins, a work of such shameless (and deserved) bravura — construction workers rendered as ladder rungs as they labor between two closely adjacent buildings — that you mightn’t mind the photographer’s ridiculously oversized signature at the bottom. You also have to ignore the uncomfortable, ineluctable seductions of Rosemary Porter’s Radishes, a giant iris print of white daikon radishes that, towering and upright, is held together by the blue girdle of a rubber band; it’s no less imposing than the pyramids at Giza. Finally, on a back wall, off to the left, there appears Crump’s gently sepia-toned, seemingly antique From Chelsea Park, a snake’s-eye view across some desolate stones to a desolate waterway that terminates in a desolate horizon of a few buildings.
The good news is that Crump is one of four artists featured in Emmanuel College’s " Pinhole Madness, " one of the least hyped and most important exhibits this fall in Boston. There you can take in his dizzying architectural views and cityscapes (centering on Boston), which read alternately as whimsical and studied, forlorn and sociable. Crump devotes his talents to the exaltation of the humble; the banal and the pedestrian appear magnified, transformed. The point at which the Green Line’s E trains exit onto Huntington Avenue becomes a surreal passage to an otherworldly kingdom. A network of cables in Northern Avenue Bridge suggests a crown of thorns. Even the reduced skyline of Bent Roxbury looks like an image taken through a reed that’s being used as an airhole through which somebody’s secretly breathing. " Pinhole Madness " also includes powerful contributions by Mardozo plus photos by Jesseca Ferguson and Ri Anderson.
Back at the Copley Society, you might be grateful that Paul Weiner is limited to one work: his Collectibles is a portrait of such psychological and stylistic extremity that it’s hard to imagine more than a couple such images at one time. A middle-aged woman (whose haircut refers to but does not suggest youth) sits on a settee overrun (lap, ceiling, furniture surfaces, floor) by Victorian dolls. She’s crazed, and the lighting’s crazed — the room and its contents suggest a jack-o’-lantern. Weiner’s flash photography imparts an orange glow, as if everything in the room were lit from within. The effect is calculatedly, uncomfortably ominous.
Then there are the two exquisitely rendered panoramas by Roland Smart. Above his elongate and otherwise unprepossessing horizontal pictures, Smart has superimposed a particular kind of etched glass. Its effect is to obscure all other parts of the photo except for what you’re staring at directly. As you pass each frame, it obscures itself. I look forward to Smart’s refinement of this daring technique in the service of his imagery.
Eva Hidvegi Demjen, Susan Haas, Jen Kodis, and Steven Traficonte have also made powerful contributions to " Manifest 2001. "

Issue Date: September 13 - 20, 2001

Visual Arts; Exhibit gives new persona to landmark
Boston Herald; Boston, Mass.; Aug 3, 2001; JOANNE SILVER;

Abstract:
"Industrial Inspiration: Images of the Old Northern Avenue Bridge" - a free public art exhibition situated on the bridge through Thursday - takes the time to examine this piece of turn-of-the-20th- century infrastructure. Enlarged and weatherproofed photographs by eight contemporary artists hang from the metal supports, along with one 1919 image, in which Boston's Custom House looms as the tallest building on the horizon. (The image by exhibition curator William Reyelt was not yet in place at the opening.)

Robert Souther's sepia-toned scene has the hazy atmosphere of a vintage photograph - except that the elements recorded include some that are brand-new, such as the Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse on the South Boston end of the bridge. In an instant, this image takes a single moment in time and expands it into something lasting. Shrouded in misty snow, [Don Eyles]' bridge also transcends the photographic present and becomes emblematic - reminiscent of Alfred Stieglitz's famous view of New York's Flatiron Building.

[Walter Crump] adds accident to the bridge's intentional order in his organic-looking array of curving arms. As one of the pinhole cityscapes Crump calls "The Bent City Project," the Old Northern Avenue Bridge photograph provides the most startling view in this installation. Using the age-old technology of pinhole photography, Crump bends the horizontal and translates something static into something that appears to have come to life.

Full Text:

Copyright Boston Herald Library Aug 3, 2001

Snowy twilight descends on the Old Northern Avenue Bridge in Don Eyles' black-and-white photograph, softening the muscular span with white. The century-old structure is all twists and turns in a pinhole image by Walter Crump, dark tentacles reaching against a yellow sky.
Todd Gieg captures the crystalline geometry of its beams and cables. Joseph Heroun glimpses the shadowy metal moments before dawn filters across Boston Harbor.
These are not the images most people have of the bridge. For almost 100 years, the Old Northern Avenue Bridge has linked Boston's waterfront with the Commonwealth Flats of South Boston, providing a way over the Fort Point Channel for horse-drawn vehicles, cars, trains and pedestrians.
Travelers tend to focus on where they are going, not on the process of getting there. They are not inclined to linger over a 1905 triple-barreled, pinned, through-truss, swing bridge - or its aesthetic merits.
"Industrial Inspiration: Images of the Old Northern Avenue Bridge" - a free public art exhibition situated on the bridge through Thursday - takes the time to examine this piece of turn-of-the-20th- century infrastructure. Enlarged and weatherproofed photographs by eight contemporary artists hang from the metal supports, along with one 1919 image, in which Boston's Custom House looms as the tallest building on the horizon. (The image by exhibition curator William Reyelt was not yet in place at the opening.)
Now closed to all but foot traffic, and facing an uncertain future, the bridge remains a remarkable visual presence. Artists, especially those living or working in the Fort Point Channel area, have been mesmerized by its form, history and constancy amid change.
Because commercial development threatens a number of studios in the Fort Point neighborhood, the creative community has banded together to produce a variety of public artworks at local sites. The Old Northern Avenue Bridge resonates well as a location and subject for this collective vision.
Some take the long view of this rugged construction. In Eric Lewandowski's bold image of the bridge in its closed position, the structure assumes panoramic proportions, spreading over three separate panels. A small white boat in the foreground, straddling two of the sections, appears fleeting against the backdrop of the bridge's expanse. The triptych effectively conveys the essence of the span - a link between one land mass and another, between water and sky, past and future.
Robert Souther's sepia-toned scene has the hazy atmosphere of a vintage photograph - except that the elements recorded include some that are brand-new, such as the Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse on the South Boston end of the bridge. In an instant, this image takes a single moment in time and expands it into something lasting. Shrouded in misty snow, Eyles' bridge also transcends the photographic present and becomes emblematic - reminiscent of Alfred Stieglitz's famous view of New York's Flatiron Building.
Even without the context of its surroundings, the Old Northern Avenue Bridge can stand on its own physical strengths - as giant sculpture or dynamic abstraction. George Vasquez confronts this stark form head-on, with his lens trained directly at one of the metal uprights, criss-crossed for reinforcement. In this rhythmic rendition of the bridge's energy, Vasquez allows sunlight and shade to echo the alternating regions of solid matter and airy space.
Crump's pinhole photograph and Gieg's inkjet made from a Polaroid both narrow the focus even further, reducing the utilitarian structure to a mysterious abstraction almost beyond recognition. Like Vasquez, Gieg revels in patterns of light and architecture.
Crump adds accident to the bridge's intentional order in his organic-looking array of curving arms. As one of the pinhole cityscapes Crump calls "The Bent City Project," the Old Northern Avenue Bridge photograph provides the most startling view in this installation. Using the age-old technology of pinhole photography, Crump bends the horizontal and translates something static into something that appears to have come to life.
* * *
Only steps from the Old Northern Avenue Bridge, the Children's Museum is hosting a slightly expanded exhibition of views of the bridge. This collection, also organized by Reyelt, features contemporary works and additional historical photographs - including a 1953 shot of a "Two-way Traffic Tie-up" that barred autos from the bridge and clogged barge traffic below.
To those living in the age of the Big Dig, the story will strike a familiar chord.
[Illustration]
Caption: STRUCTURED BEAUTY: Eric Lewandowski's image of the bridge gives the structure panoramic proportions.

Sub Title:			[All Editions]
Start Page:			S07
ISSN:			07385854
Personal Names:			Eyles, Don Crump, Walter Gieg, Todd Vasquez, George

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

April 25-May 1, 2002
art

Lens Crafter

Dean Price, American Window (2001),gelatin silver.		76th Annual International Competition: PhotographyThrough May 4, The Print Center 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090 The ghosts of Julia Margaret Cameron, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Walker Evans or any number of photographers working before 1950 could drift through The Print Center’s international photography competition understanding and possibly admiring almost everything in it. The cumulative impression is that of a sensitive homage to the technology and formal underpinnings of photography, the most modern art form. This show also reminds us that many photographers working today are committed to skills of craft and representation.
An international collection of photographic work is on display at The Print Center. by Robin Rice
Anne E. Havinga, photography curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, chose the 56 works from more than 1,200 submissions by 304 artists. The selection appears to reflect Havinga's interests. Among the shows she's organized are "Julia Margaret Cameron: Victorian Photographer" and "French Photography: Le Gray to Atget." Her publications include Pictorialism and Naturalism in New England Photography.
In addition to the rigorous selection process itself, there are many prizes awarded in the contest, which is the oldest international photography competition in the U.S. The favored submissions are unobtrusively hung in groupings relating to topics such as people in motion, toylike objects, mirrors or statues. Texture seems to be an important component of almost every photograph Havinga chose. All the subjects are readily identifiable -- though quite a few are surreal. And most are depicted in monochrome.
Pictorialism certainly informs David Bartlett's photogravure, which, in its painstaking, old-fashioned process, as well as in its subject matter, is profoundly nostalgic. Buyck, MN/Stream #3 is an undefiled rural wilderness, a sequence of arched tufts of grasses and delicately leafed trees. Each detail, even in the sun-washed distance, is simultaneously soft and sharply etched with an aching intensity. Modern compositions, such as Lesley MacVane's study of a sundress or a swimsuit strap, skin and a shadow, or Walter Crump's symmetrical Dead Twigs and Bridge, echo the abstract photographic language of the early 20th century.
The peaked roofs and relentless horizontal siding in Anna Semenov's Suburbia or the mute domestic testimony of Erika Leppmann's Arriving Home (124 Sunnyside Dr.), a color photograph of a garage interior, might almost have been made by Walker Evans trying to cope with contemporary life. S. Kaye Klein's study of layered rolls of flesh from some unidentified part of the body, softly puckered with stretch marks and sprinkled with a few moles, is reminiscent of Edward Weston's exploration of the curvy flesh of bell peppers.
The emphasis on black and white takes us back to the first half of this century and even earlier. The quixotic drift of light and soft-focus face of Li, by Molly Hatch Holland, inevitably evoke Julia Margaret Cameron, though Holland apparently has no need for Cameron's self-conscious mythic subject matter. Yet those lowered eyes, that romantic haze and fetishization of a single delicate visage -- Cameron would doubtless understand perfectly.
Would she equally comprehend the laurel-wreathed, toga-clad figure, flatfooted and frontal in Semenov's Suburbia? Nah, it's way too ironic. But, though this instance is effective, irony is in refreshingly short supply in this show.
Generously provided are social observations. Robin Radin's depiction of two teenage couples, in Boyfriends, owes a lot to Dorothea Lange's characteristic cool, objectified intimacy. Désirée Navab's I am not a Persian Painting neatly combines print imagery with living humans. In Melissa Ann Janssen's photograph, an overdressed child pageant contestant, the cynosure of tweaking, ministering adult hands, seems to swoon with mysterious emotion, while the tiny isolated child awaiting an X-ray in a dentist's chair in Jen Kodis' disturbing picture is strangely quiet.
Protection is Gabriela Laz's peek into a red car interior. Under a fringed front window, an assemblage of saintly statuettes, rosaries and Communion cards, as well stray tubes of makeup and an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts, is visually and culturally engaging. The one item that challenges earlier photographic definitions is a silver locket displayed on a velvet pillow. Nape not Nap (Myra Greene) contrasts a photograph of the back of the head and neck with a real lock of hair, reminding us of the relative powers of images and objects as well as the unique identity residing in a relatively "unimportant" part of the body.
In contrast to such intellectual concerns, Guennadi Maslov's blurry photograph on watercolor paper of four large women dancing has a timeless human charm. There's something rhythmic and touching in the print dresses and gently voluptuous gestures. The ephemeral magic of photography and vision are suggested by Santa Monica Pier (Hiroshi Watanabe), a drift of sharply focused soap bubbles against a swirling out-of-focus midway. Paul Cary Goldberg's Blue Pitcher, an Iris print in which colors emerge with Vermeerlike purity from an uncannily black background is even more impressive on the gallery walls than in The Print Center's card. All the more reason to see it in person.