Shock and awe
Exhibits large in scope make for an engaging show
Now that most of the dust has settled after the epic and spectacularly crowded opening weekend at the new Burchfield Penney Art Center last month, there’s finally some elbow room to maneuver through the museum’s elegant spaces and reflect on the reason the whole place exists in the first place.
That reason, in case anyone has forgotten while staring speechless and gape-jawed at the building’s glimmering interior features, would be the art.
The anchoring show in the center’s ambitious spate of 18 maiden exhibitions is called “Gateways: Space, Place and the Transformative.” Curated by the center’s director, Ted Pietrzak, this subtly didactic show largely succeeds in giving first-time visitors a shock-and-awe survey of some of Western New York’s more intriguing artistic output over the last half-century or so.
The two largest works — a 60-panel hybrid photograph/ painting by Russell Drisch and a huge, snaking sculptural photography project by Robert Hirsch — serve as the show’s low and high points.
Hirsch’s installation, supported by a series of tables that occupy much of the center part of the gallery’s floor, features 850 identical glass jars. Each contains a pair of grainy black and white images that relate, sometimes in peculiar ways, to war, violence and myriad historical and artistic representations thereof. Malcolm X, Vladimir Putin, Alfred E. Neuman, Barack Obama, Jesus and Hitler all make their appearances, along with stills from Disney films and photographs of Goya’s terror-inspiring painting “Saturn Devouring His Son.” “World in a Jar: War and Trauma,” as it’s unambiguously called, succeeds in distilling all the world’s evil into scientific specimens that viewers are forced to consider at uncomfortably close range.
On the other hand, “Gateway,” Drisch’s gargantuan piece, is proof positive that big does not always equal good. Of course, much of the latest and most heralded sculpture, painting and architecture is grand in scope and scale, but monumentality seems like just about all Drisch’s piece, with its screen-saver color palette of pale yellows and unappealing synthetic greens, has to offer. It may well have looked better in its original installation at the Brooklyn Museum in 1989, but here the intended effect of intrigue and enchantment in its hokey garden scene falls short.
Those same pale yellows were employed to enchanting, lyrical effect in Sally Potenza’s 1974 painting “Yellow Edenwald Field,” whose looping figures connote a kind of supreme order and balance. The piece is made more satisfying by a quote, from Potenza, that accompanies it: “If we knew what to expect always, life would be dull. We have to constantly re-examine our existence.” True that.
From there, the show takes viewers in directions both whimsical (Joshua R. Marks’ sculpture “Executive Hopscotch,” which a sign warns you may absolutely not interact with) and disturbing (Adele Cohen’s necrotic sculpture of a pair of zombie tables).
It features Bruce Adams’ excellent, pulsating portrait of a woman covered in piercings and tattoos; Charles Clough’s vibrant and violent abstraction “Grozny”; and “Unhinged” by Ani Hoover, a huge scroll-like piece that pops with color and looks spectacular in the space. These are joined by Arnold Mesches’ expert, lachrymose acrylic portrait of his mother; Harvey Breverman’s intriguing sketch of a man weighted down by what appears to be the Tower of Babylon; and Alberto Rey’s large oil painting of a dead fish washed ashore, a rumination on beauty and death that’s somehow devoid of all the kitschiness associated with paintings of marine life.
The ability to reflect deeply and at length on the show’s artworks — many of which won’t reveal their secrets without sustained concentration — is perforated by the annoying click-tick of Gary Nickard’s electric sculptural installation “Insidious Protocols.” The longer you’re there, the easier it is to ignore, but its toddlerlike insistence on asserting its existence ( “ H e y , ” -C LICK-“I’m”-CLICK-“Over here!”-CLICK) threatens to overwhelm the entire artgoing experience. The piece itself is a middling commentary on the possibly destructive effects of electricity that does not exactly deserve the star billing it so loudly and constantly requests.
Discounting “Gateway” and the insidious protocol, however, the show is extraordinarily engaging, a testament to the importance of the Burchfield Penney as a collecting institution and to the exceptional quality of the region’s art.
REVIEW
WHAT: “Gateways: Space, Place and the Transformative”
WHEN: Through April 19
WHERE: Burchfield Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Ave.
TICKETS: $4 to $7 INFO: 878-6011 or yournewburchfieldpenney.com
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