pretty serendipities

  "...All the pretty things put by
Wait upon the children's eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books..."
-- from "Picture Books in Winter", Robert Louis Stevenson

In follow-up to my recent post on the paintings of Ivan Generalic and other Eastern European "naive" artists, I would like to mention the work of a contemporary British illustrator whose style is surprisingly similar to theirs.

From the rolling hilltops, to the soothing ovals of trees and clouds, to skipping and twirling creatures, Alison Jay paints dainty scenes in the cheeriest colors. Miniature mansions, flawlessly trimmed shrubs, amicable celestial bodies, blissfully blue skies fill her pictures to the brim. Some might even say that the images are on the brink of being syrupy, frothy, cutesy. Indeed, Jay dispenses generous dollops of happy-go-luckiness, but she also remembers to layer her creations with a lot of warmth -- a quality that is hardly ever in surplus.

The characters and landscapes of Jay's illustrations are ideally suited for fanciful children's books. She has collaborated on many, including "If Kisses Were Colors", "A World of Wonders", "Ladder to the Stars", and more.

Online, samples of her work are to be found at The Organization, an illustration agency, and its online shop. Images from an animation Jay did for the French marketers of the homeopathic oscillococcinum are also on the web.

---

Summer Winds

The breeze tastes sweet and warm
of sun
of ripe fruit
and of grass
It ruffles my hair and
plasters my sweat-wet shirt on my skin

It blows doors shut
and wafts in windows to cool hot pies and
fill empty spaces

In the gentle lull of the wind
trees creak and shiver,
fresh cut grass is
tossed onto the walk
and the clouds are pushed
like cotton-ball puffs
across a blue-glass sky

At night the wind carries
fireflies on its wings
and sweet chirping songs of crickets
and frogs

When the breeze stops playing
with my hair
or creaking the loose gate
and begins
chafing my skin and
redding my nose and cheeks
making breath visible

You know the summer wind has left
But you remember its playful soul

-- Sam Brandis-Dann, age 11, New York, New York
from the September/October 2001 issue of Stone Soup Magazine

  Monday's berry-fest prompted Beth at The Cassandra Pages to consider an example of American folk painting and initiate a discussion on "primitive" art. That, in turn, inspired me to explore the tradition of Eastern European "naive art", manifestations of which I have enjoyed instinctively via its derivatives for a long time. In mid-20th century, this genre thrived in Poland, Croatia, Czechia, Slovakia, and beyond. The very active rich folk art traditions in these countries already included elaborate and gifted crafts and musical components. Needless to say, each country's heritage also abounds in "high-art", produced by painters, sculptors and architects who trained professionally either at local academies or in Western Europe. However, the body of work produced by a couple of generations of "naive" artists, most of whom received little training, guidance or exposure to the art world and its history, and who painted in their brief leisure time, unoccupied by agricultural activities, is undeniably impressive and influential. I also happen to find the style and execution of many of Eastern European primitivist paintings exhilarating.


Like most other "naive" artists, Ivan Generalic, one of the best known Croatian artists of the period, painted surroundings, people, and activities of his immediate vicinity and experience. Low hills, modest houses, the glory of nature and its cornucopia, and visualization of the oral folk tradition are some of the trademark elements of Generalic's artworks. In the layering of a rural landscape and even in the range of the color palette, the creations of Generalic and a few others in the genre are intimately linked with Pieter Bruegel's canvases. Among other distinguishing characteristics, Bruegel's perspective and dimensionality are less linear and the facial expressions he paints are definitely more individualized, but certain quirkiness is shared by Bruegel and Ivan Generalic. While Bruegel's somber grotesqueness along with finery and variety of brushstrokes may put his works on a different plane, a kinship does exist between these playful captures of country life.


Although the qualifiers of "naive" and "primitive" have stuck with the genre and are unlikely to be replaced with reassessed terminology, I cannot help feeling icky about using them. "Naive art" is a caustic term. But so are the tendencies of most disciplines to categorize and classify things that are by nature above categorization and classification. In any case, concept, approach, and treatment of what used to be called "primitive art" have changed significantly in recent years. People that rush under the umbrella of "art brut" or "outsider art" today are different from those who used to be associated with the "naive" art genre. The art world at large embraced these art expressions a while ago and enforced demands on the art and artists of past and present, diluting them in the process. Excessive demand and too much time spent in the spotlight can be pretty detrimental.

Plenty of examples of the works by Ivan Generalic, as well as those by his son and grandson, Josip and Goran, can be found at generalic.com, along with a chronology of naive art in Croatia. Note also the somewhat bizarre appeal to steer clear of Generalic fakes circulating in the world. More examples of art by the Generalic family are available.

You may also wish to sample a collection of food-themed paintings by other Croatian naive artists, including Martin Mahek, Mato Toth, Stjepan Vecernaj, Vladimir Ivancan, Dragutin Orak, and Berislav Janekovic. Mijo Kovacic is another Croatian artist to consider. Ivan Rabuzin is of interest too. There are a handful of images and a brief history at the simple and neat looking site of the Croatian Museum of Naive Art.

A variety of information is housed on the site of the Museum of Naive Art in Jagodina, Yugoslavia.

The genre is not limited to this region, of course. However, I had little luck finding many interesting examples online.

The Georgia native Niko Pirosmanashvili is a prominent figure in the history of "naive" art, though, personally, I am unmoved by his works.

I imagine that the "Naive Art" volume by Natalia Brodskaia, published in 2000, would be of considerable interest.

If you are aware of relevant sites and artists not mentioned above, be sure to let me know.

  "...'Country life has its conveniences,' he would sometimes say. 'You sit on the verandah and you drink tea, while your ducks swim on the pond, there is a delicious smell everywhere, and... and the gooseberries are growing..."
Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov

Berries are morsels of nostalgia for me. Reminders of fragrant summers, familiar trails, juice-stained hands. Remainders of gentler times, a distant country, a faded away era. Deceptively fragile, exotic, and sweetly tart, like my memories.

Hence, the dormant berry-picker in me oohed and aahed at the pleasant discovery of Adriaen Coorte's "Strawberries in a Wan Li Bowl" in a recent NYT review of the Dutch artist's current exhibit at the National Gallery. Coorte's fine, scrumptious still lifes were not the only painted odes to berries I have been feasting on for the past couple of days.


Eva Cellini is a contemporary painter with affinity for 17th century art.

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!.."
-- Robert Lee Frost


The French Jean-Simeon Chardin and Louise Moillon, and the Flemish Osias Beert brewed marvelously fruitful things with berries, in varying degrees of light and color control.

"...To one side grew the blackberries and to the other grew huckleberries, but still she walked on. Again he made the plants grow and to one side grew the gooseberries and to the other grew the serviceberries, but still she walked on. The Creator knew that this would have to slow her down and so he went to his garden and grabbed a handful of strawberry plants and threw them to the earth. When they landed at First Woman's feet they began to bloom and ripen, First Woman looked down to see the beautiful leaves and berries of the strawberry plant and stopped to taste just one small berry. As she plucked and ate the berries she forgot her anger..."
Cherokee Legend of the Strawberries

Julien Landa is another contemporary, whose still lifes, painted in 2003, appear immensely accomplished and keen. Landa's solo exhibition is scheduled for November, at Hammer Galleries.

For those wishing to indulge further in the berrying frenzy, I recommend the following stimuli.

• "Cherries and Gooseberries on a Table", 1644, Francois Garnier


• "Raspberries in a Glass Dish with Peaches, Grapes and Convolvulus on a Marble Ledge", Eloise Harriet Stannard


• "Still Life with Strawberry Basket", Severin Roesen


• "Still Life with Fruit", Jan Davidz de Heem


• "Still Life with Fruit", Jan Davidz de Heem


• "Fruit Still Life", Jan van Huysum


• "Grapes, Plums, Apples and Strawberries", Henry Livens


• "Still Life with Strawberries", Irina Vorkale


• "Still-life with strawberries. A girl.", Viktor Teterin

Over the fence --
Strawberries -- grow --
Over the fence --
I could climb -- if I tried, I know --
Berries are nice!

But -- if I stained my Apron --
God would certainly scold!
Oh, dear, -- I guess if He were a Boy --
He'd -- climb -- if He could!
-- Emily Dickinson


On a related, albeit utilitarian note -- can anyone recommend some good places ("pick-your-own" farms, etc) to go berry-picking in the NY tristate area? How about a favorite jam brand?

  Unconventional underwater photographer Connie Imboden uses water's reflective and reshaping faculties along with a supply of mirrors, light sources and nude models to concoct gutsy phantasmagorias. By colliding the realities of three para-aquatic planes she performs painless dissections, incisions and extractions, and arrives at forms and figures that are wild, tantalizing and engrossing. While hovering above water, transfixed at its very surface, or suspended in it, body parts glide in and out of each other, clasp in outrageous embraces, fold and undulate. Water repels, steers, and cradles them. Yet, gnawing at the water's viscosity, bursting through it, Imboden's subjects are far from amphibian.


Imboden's photography is playful, wicked, shrewd, opulent. It is a slow, savoring study of the topology of the human body. She concedes "there is nothing more seductive or more repulsive to us than flesh." In my view, gracefulness has an upper hand over grotesqueness in Imboden's imagery.

Some of the photographer's earlier work is reminiscent of nude abstractions by Bill Brandt , Andre Kertesz, and Edward Weston, while the speckled, fragmentary layering in Imboden's latest photographs invokes some of Michal Macku's gellage works.

Plentiful information, including video interviews, photographs, and reviews, is located at Connie Imboden's site. Additional images are available at Urban Desires. Several other memorable photographs are part of a newspaper article from 2000, connected with the release of one of her books, "Beauty of Darkness".


Another photographer who explores the permutations of nude bodies in water is Brian Oglesbee. His compositions and camera angles are, perhaps, less daring and bizarre than Imboden's. But Oglesbee makes greater use of the changes in the water's surface and its movement - ripples, bubbles, etc. His inclusion of foliage in the equation is also interesting.

  Like other mainstream genres, contemporary wildlife photography serves primarily two purposes - mimesis and entertainment. Sporting the sleekest gear outfits, the largest telephoto lenses and capturing animals in the most vivid colors and crackling sharpness, professional wildlife photographers often arrive at images that are striking in representational precision. The creatures' feeding, preening, and mating practices are recorded in exhaustive detail and in hypersaturated, dazzling hues. I do enjoy the photography in publications like National Geographic and National Wildlife -- the high-quality images frequently feature fascinating creatures in unusual circumstances. Yet, despite demonstrated dedication, feats of patience and resourcefulness, and mastery of equipment, much of traditional animal photography does not extend into the realm of constructing visually inventive, exploratory images. Fortunately, this niche is filled with the work of those in pursuit of fine art photography. Here, I feel that the portrayed subjects are not showcased, appropriated, or scrutinized for appraisal, as they are, ultimately, in purely representational photography. Instead, they are considered, pondered, and engaged autonomously in image creation. Moreover, in place of attempts to classify and demystify the appearance and behavior of animals, photographers like those mentioned below exalt the enigmas connected with animals' existence and their place in the world, and let them reign.


Liberto Macarro has a mighty and sumptuous portfolio of photographs. Equine mammals and bovines are present in most of them. Relationships of coexistence and codependence between animals and people are often explored. The two entities seem to complete and fill each other's space. Of particular interest are Macarro's photographs in the A fleur de peaux series -- those that explore the layering of landscape of an animal's highly textured body against the natural land and aerial landscapes.


Burton Pritzker's "Texas Rangeland" series consists of close-ups of grazing steers and horses, lit by chalky sunlight. In most cases, Pritzker comes up with ingenious, fresh ways to fill the frames. Notice how strategically the compositional elements are positioned, creating dynamic geometrical patterns and flow.


Stuart Redler revels in the shapely minimalism of nature and architecture. His contraptions are often whimsical and invariably elegant. Several photographs of animals scattered around the "Africa" and "Europe" portfolios are tremendously graceful. (Link to Redler's work is courtesy of Conscientious.)

Another perspective on photographic images of cows, horses, sheep, etc., is offered by Aleksandras Macijauskas in his series "Village Markets". Unfortunately, little of his work is available online.

And for a different example of unusual depictions of animals Henry Horenstein's "Aquatic", "Canine" and "Creatures" photographs are recommended.

autumn ends--
a man strokes away
his horse's troubles
-- Kobayashi Issa (1819)

  High contrast, weighty grain, and stretched shutter speeds define the imagery of Franco Carlisi and Michael Ackerman. Both artists manifest a special fondness for the marvels of nighttime photography. Carlisi and Ackerman also share a preference for the technique of using extreme wide angles and often shallow depths of field to pin enlarged features of foreground character(s) against flickering, oozing, transfigured backgrounds. This approach leads to an immediacy of experiencing the portrayed subject. The photographers pluck the subjects from the surroundings without severing their ties with the latter. City streets, country lanes, buildings and landscapes recede only slightly, constantly percolating, stopping short of becoming amorphous.


Carlisi's photographs strike me as more grounded and earthy, less angst-ridden than Ackerman's. They are gentler and lighter. Ackerman's images are fierce, relentless, wiry, innervated. Soulfulness is a shared characteristic, but Ackerman imbues his photographs with arguably more pathos of the unsolvable, corroding, numbing variety. Though space and location are said to have dismissible quality for Ackerman, who purports that photography is "a form of disappearance" to him, origin and whereabouts are no less prominent in his work than in Carlisi's.


Franco Carlisi's Sicily has been described as "sweet and bitter as the back(s) of Quasimodo". Carlisi's subjects and the photographs they inhabit ultimately appeal to me greater than those created by Ackerman. Carlisi's characters have not lost the endearing softness and grace that the cast of Ackerman's images perhaps never knew. Photographically, whereas a certain tumultuous, muffled haphazardness permeates Ackerman's compositions and tones, Carlisi's images are more careful and orderly. Perhaps, more traditional and narrative, too.

Michael Ackerman has been quite a celebrity in recent years, publishing two acclaimed books and being the ICP's Young Photographer of the Year. Online, he is represented primarily at the site of Agence VU, via a few Manhattan photographs elsewhere, and by a small exhibit at PixelPress.

Franco Carlisi has exhibited widely in Italy and in several other European countries. A good selection of his photographs can be found at the site of the German Galerie Arbeiter Fotografie and several other images are located at a photography-related Italian site.

Two of the websites I just mentioned are thematically related and deserve closer looks. Galerie Arbeiter Fotografie in Koln features art committed to social criticism. Its website is extensive and includes a few archived exhibitions along with largely unedited compilations of photographs from recent demonstrations and protests in Europe. Textual content is vast, making the experience of visiting the site more insightful for German speakers than for those who are without such an asset. Although I happen to fall into the second category, I found the visual components of the site sufficiently informative to recommend it to others who don't know German.

An online magazine with an emphasis on the topic of human rights violations, PixelPress is an impressive and important resource. In existence since 1999, it now contains almost 50 presentations of excellent and invariably strong color and black & white photography by documentary photographers from around the globe. The format of the presentations is not uniform but often combines images with text and hypertext. In its commitments, mission, approach, and quality PixelPress is easily on par with another monumental site -- ZoneZero.

  Frida Kahlo was the subject of at least as many photographs as paintings. Her prominent and magnetic features were captured by many significant photographers of the era, including Imogen Cunningham, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Nickolas Murray, Leo Matiz, Fritz Henle and others. But before she entered their lives and faced their lenses, she posed for the photographs made by her father, Guillermo Kahlo.

She is perhaps less relaxed and slightly less regal in these early photographs but as intense as ever.


In 1901, 10 years after leaving Germany for Mexico, Guillermo (Wilhelm) Kahlo opened his own photographic studio, having learned much of the craft from his father-in-law, Antonio Calderon. Three years later Guillermo built the "blue house" in Coyoacán, the place where Frida Kahlo would be born in 1907 and where she would spend most of her life.


Much of Guillermo Kahlo's photography was done through government commissions, recording Mexico's architectural heritage. Some of his primary subjects were monuments, churches, and cityscapes. His work was published in periodicals and albums of the day, and has been the subject of several exhibitions in Mexico and abroad in recent years.


Frida is said to had been very close to her father. In the inscription to the portrait she painted of him, she describes him as "generous, intelligent and noble, courageous".


In the U.S., Guillermo Kahlo's legacy seems to be represented primarily by Throckmorton Fine Art, which specializes in vintage and contemporary Latin American photography. Unfortunately, their collection of his photographs online is of abominable image quality. Textual bits of information about the photographer are available from several sources. Other online points of interest include an Italian entry on G. Kahlo and a wedding photograph of Matilde and Guillermo Kahlo.

In the offline world, on view through August 31, at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, CA, are Guillermo's images of his daughter, as part of a larger exhibition titled "Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Icon". Also of interest is "Frida Kahlo's Intimate Family Picture", an exhibit scheduled to open on September 5, 2003 at the Jewish Museum. Frida Kahlo's painting "My Parents, My Grandparents and I" will be examined there.

---

  Electricity returned to my nook of NY earlier this morning. In my experience, its lack, while causing some anxieties, was almost exhilarating and refreshing in many ways. Humbling, too, of course, along with a renewed realization that some comforts are terribly artificial and superfluous. Presence of loved ones and access to clean water are wondrous enough.

Concerns remain for those who have had less than a smooth ride through the past 20 hours. Sour and bitter feelings proliferate regarding the absurdity of the vacuous and impotent boastfulness of the ruling parties and associated big wigs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On another note, Pretty Serendipities debuted two weeks ago, on August 1st. Many thanks to all who have offered an overwhelming number of welcoming words, mentions, and links. If you have visited the blog more than once and have any comments, impressions, qualms or suggestions to share, I would be happy to hear from you.

Check back here in a few -- there will be another post on a less charged topic than the northeast power zap up soon.

  In the weeks and months ahead, the art world will probably be abuzz with talk on the reappearance of Lee Bontecou’s work in the exhibition sphere. A retrospective of her creations, spanning five decades, is scheduled to open at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in October. The show will appear at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art in February of 2004, and will move on to New York’s MoMA QNS next summer.


An excellent article by Calvin Tomkins in the August 4, 2003 issue of The New Yorker kindled my interest in Bontecou's art. Online, little is available on her so far. That is likely to change in the near future, as all sorts of websites and fans, old and new, will scramble to feature her images and information. For now, several pictures and bits of data are available at AskArt. Other finds include a drawing, a thumbnail view of "Untitled No. 38" along with a couple of sentences; a thoughtful analysis of one of her pieces by Matthew Leigh; a brief opinion piece on Bontecou’s 1999 show at the Leo Castelli Gallery; and a blurb on her most visible "Untitled Relief" at the New York State Theater. A seminal book, accompanying the upcoming exhibition, is due out in September.

A comparative examination of Bontecou’s piece and the following artwork by Arthur Dove is the result of yet another accidental exercise in discovering similarities.


Surely, a diminutive web rendering of an elaborate 3D sculpture flattens, obscures and nearly belittles Bontecou’s work. Still, a certain kinship of form and structure is evident in these two artworks. Dove’s paintings and watercolors are sometimes discounted for not having done enough in his time and for not having meant enough for succeeding generations. Perhaps he ought not to be dismissed so readily. "Me and the Moon" is one of Dove’s more exciting and accomplished canvases. Painted in 1937, near the end of his life, it is mature and pensive, while retaining the whimsical, at times almost childlike, lightheartedness of his earlier work.

Dove’s images are scattered around a number places on the web. Here are a select few: 1, 2, 3.

Since the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, NY recently acquired the nearby Arthur Dove’s former home on Long Island Sound, I assume that further in-depth studies and exhibitions will follow.

We have not yet made shoes that fit like sand
Nor clothes that fit like water
Nor thoughts that fit like air,
There is much to be done--
Works of nature are abstract,
They do not lean on other things for meaning.
Arthur Dove, 1925 (source)

  Being on a gallery's or a museum's mailing list is a privilege gone unclaimed by many. Relying on reviews, heard and read, on arts calendar listings, and on chance occurrences of "happening upon the neighborhood" of a venue with an interesting show -- without a doubt, all can be rewarding as well. But there is something more intimate, prized, and tactile in receiving an advance announcement of an exhibition in the form of a postcard that will, hopefully, carry a highlighted image from the show. I try to take every opportunity to sign up for future news at places of interest, and rarely have I been disappointed with mail that ensues. Among the mailings I look forward to, delight in, and treasure the most are the handsome postcards sent by the John Stevenson Gallery and the Leica Gallery in New York. It so happens that they are also two of the most enjoyable places to visit.

However, probably the most exquisite mail item I have received from an arts institution is last year's holiday greeting from the Bronx Museum of the Arts. It features Luis Gonzalez-Palma's "Cage of Tenderness". A strategic move to showcase a gem from the Museum's collection, and an effective one at that.

Gonzalez-Palma, who is originally from Guatemala, has had his work widely shown around the world, and especially around the U.S., for the past decade. Most of his photographs are highly manipulated portraits of Maya Indians. They are rich, compelling, even mesmerizing. At the same time, the visions are orchestrated, appropriated and utilized. Hopelessly cryptic, disturbing, beautiful.

A sizeable collection of Gonzalez-Palma's images can be found at the Peter Fetterman Gallery's website. And a largely different selection -- at the site of the Sicardi Gallery.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, by the way, is a very active, innovative and daring institution. Regularly presented there are mind-boggling, keen, multicultural exhibitions that are well worth knowing about and going out of the way to visit. For instance, in the Spring of 2002 for an exhibition called "Manicurated", a part of the museum became "...a fully-equipped nail salon in which visitors [were] treated to free manicures by professional manicurists and asked to select from among ten works on display from the Permanent Collection for their personalized "nail art" design. The artist's seemingly irreverent gesture is intended to engage visitors in a new and meaningful way with the Museum's collection by inviting participants to "curate" their own exhibition on their fingernails." In addition to playful and progressive exhibits, BXMA also offers a variety of educational programs and has a spanking website.

  For today, a couple of weekend diversions.

Tango - award-winning Flash animation by Mirek Nisenbaum. Inspired by the work of Astor Piazzolla. Music by Igor Tkachenko. A Studio Mobile presentation.

Six Degrees Game by PBS at the "American Masters" series' website. It may make you believe that not more than a mere six links separate Placido Domingo from Bob Marley, and Charlie Chaplin from Clint Eastwood. Some of the connections are pretty loose and wishful -- for instance, one of the threads that hooks up Ray Charles with Man Ray has to do with the city of Paris and the fact that Man Ray lived there in 1920s. Not surprisingly, the somewhat tiresomely omnipresent Richard Avedon makes appearances in an overwhelming number of the examples.

  Cig Harvey's photographs, completed during study at Rockport College's Photographic Workshops, glow with gossamer exquisiteness of languid afternoons in New England. Filtered light enters the spacious interior of a clapboard cottage and spreads lovingly across skin, fabrics, and objects. Most of Harvey's photographs are low on contrast, moderate on eventfulness, and sky-high on playful exaltation of intimacy and inhabited space. Through the emphasis on spatial interconnectedness and fragmentation, and on subtle tonal gradations, the supremacy of form to the photographer is revealed. Corners, doors, the alternating lines on the walls and the floor provide a dose of geometrical counterbalance to the fluidity of human curves and ruffles of gowns, curtains, sheets and tablecloths.

Fine, candid, and clever, Harvey's photographs are delectable.


An impeccable-looking pear leisurely leans on the table, as the space in front and beyond it melts into luscious matter and patterns of light. The sail-like canopy of the ivory curtain shyly reaches toward a woman's hands, clasped into some sort of an ornithological shape. The contours of the woman's dress resemble those of a pear, one that would probably fit perfectly into the wearer's cupped hands. There is a pulling force, an axis between the body and the curtain's fabric. If the closet door and the walls were not in the way, the two would spin and swoon.

Perhaps Cig Harvey's pictures are so endearing to me because they remind me of two other (better known) favorites.


The appeal of Minor White's photograph remains enigmatic. "Windowsill Dreaming" is casual, imperfect, unpretentious, and... absolutely otherworldly and sublime. There is something almost mystical in the way the exotic oval of light and shadow is paired with the asymmetry of ordinary, coarse drapes. The two entities seem startled by the juxtaposition but coexist graciously, sparking a stream of gorgeous light in between.

In "Chez Mondrian", Kertesz masters the fortuitous combination of simple elements of an apartment's hall and a flight of stairs. The result is enchanting. It combines the rigid but gentle rectangles of Piet Mondrian and the graphical intuition of Andre Kertesz, along with his affinity for shadows, layering, and architectural complexity of images.

Another ode to the space and objects into which we breathe life is Imogen Cunningham's "Unmade Bed". The lavish, generous folds of the bedding are regal and cozy at once. The two sets of hairpins, keenly positioned against one of the brightest areas of the frame, make for a relaxed, piquant, and just beautiful still life.


The Rockport College Workshop Galleries, where I found Cig Harvey's photographs initially, are worth browsing for other artists' portfolios as well. Harvey also has a website with many more images and additional information available. Some of the photographs in the fuller portfolios are less effortless than others, and the color portfolios, while very stylish and splendid, are more geared toward mass appeal and design than the monochrome photos. Still, cigharvey.com is highly recommended. I should add that I happen to prefer the warmly toned pictures found at the school's URL to the B&W on the photog's site.

(Update: 8/9/03 -- Cig Harvey's photographs are included in the "Summertime" show currently up at Robin Rice Gallery. The exhibit runs through September 10th. Hours: Thur-Sat 1-7, Sun 1-6. Jul 16-Sept 10, Location: 325 West 11th Street New York, NY 10014 212/366-6660.)

Joseph Bellows Gallery has a selection of Minor White's photographs, in addition to the compilation on the Masters of Photography website. You will find Kertesz's work there too. While visiting Masters of Photography you will be showered mercilessly with pop-up ads. But the photographs are worth the nuisance.

Finally, although Imogen Cunningham's work is featured in many places on the web, this amazing collection contains more of her photographs than any other site (or book?). Over 330 images are to be found here. While their reproduction for the web is not ideal, the sheer scope of the collection is impressive, and so is its value.

(I gladly welcome feedback on this or any of the earlier posts via the comments feature or through email.)

  Like Jean-Luc Mylayne, the photographer I wrote about several days ago, Terri Weifenbach toys with the pliable depth of field in her color photographs. She subjugates a smattering of foreground elements and unleashes everything that lies beyond towards (supervised) jubilation. Nature, in turn, is ecstatic, drunk, giddy.


Twigs, trunks, leaves and petals twirl, swirl, giggle and shimmer. There's a year-around summer solstice festival going on, regardless of the season captured. All kinds of shades of pink, blue, white, and especially green, preside. In Weifenbach's photographs, the days are almost always bright and sunny, and the mood is predominantly celebratory. But the images are at least moderately cerebral, too.

She manipulates perspective knowingly and comfortably, and pays close attention to the distribution of tones, outlines and colors. Compositionally, she often favors sloping lines, originating about 2/3 of the way up or down and gently cascading towards bottom. Sometimes the resulting conical shape is paralleled in the same image by another soft triangle, such as a mountain peak. Despite the precision and gracefulness of the photographs, they never appear excessively manicured or calculated. Instead, what springs forth are the deep, saturated hues of the prints and swarms of faux fireflies released by the lens's magnificent bokeh. Thanks to all these visual delights bathed in glorious, caressing light, at least the viewer, if not the author, cannot help but exclaim in joyous adoration something similar to what Basho uttered, overwhelmed with the sight of the "Pine Islands":

Matsushima!
Ah Matsushima.
Matsushima!

The size of Terri Weifenbach's photographs ranges from the considerable 20x24 , to the imposing 68x39. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen her work in person, but I imagine the experience would be memorable. Online, very many of her images from the "In your Dreams", "Hunter Green" and "Snake Eyes" portfolios are available at Photo-eye. Her fine and pricey books, including "Lana", published in July of this year, are for sale at Photo-eye's bookstore. There, you can even get a sneak peek at page spreads, which I find... sigh... yes, breathtaking.

  Although a trip to the J. Cacciola Galleries was not on my agenda during a recent sprint through Chelsea, a glimpse of its inside through the open doors drew me in. Their small summer show is a delight. Shea Hembrey's finely painted, delicate but earthy works were a highlight for me. Against luxurious jet-black backgrounds -- exquisitely detailed arrangements of fraying taut and loose hemp ropes, holding vegetables, flowers, containers and utensils. The web reproductions do not do the pieces nearly enough justice because the precision, sharpness and saturation of the artworks is not conveyed adequately.


The combination of semblance of a blackboard and contemplative tinkering with common, rustic objects as well as with those somewhat exotic and urbane, may suggest an etude-like quality of these elongated paintings. They are, however, far from merely experimental exercises or even dress rehearsals. The works are full force dramas, innovatively choreographed and extravagantly delivered. Balance is a factor in Hembrey's paintings, but one that appears to discard the necessity of equilibrium as superfluous. The objects are pruned and prepped for display and suspended in space as in a shadow box, as they succumb to gravity. The vertical pull of the majority of Hembrey's images also brings to mind bucolic draw-wells. The presence of turnips, squash, twigs, bread and water emphasizes the association. I also sense ecclesiastical connotations in the images, but I'm not steeped in the area to offer insights.

By the way, the J. Cacciola Galleries, which specialize in contemporary realist painters and sculptors, feature work by several other very interesting artists. An additional selection can be found at the galleries' older (?) site. As for the Arkansas native, Shea Hembrey, more of his images are housed by the David Lusk Gallery, the Davidson Galleries in Seattle, as well as by the Arkansas Senate Chamber Art Gallery.

Hembrey's paintings remind me, however remotely, of Chema Madoz's endlessly inventive contraptions.


Madoz's photographs are unprecedented and yet entirely accessible -- ingredients that make them thoroughly brilliant. He has produced a vast collection of work, that stands without, it seems, a single faux pas, a trace of cloying cuteness, or even a hint of inelegance. The observations that lead to the coinage of his wild and entertaining contrivances are ceaselessly novel and refreshing. He is an astute designer and a masterful craftsman. First and foremost, though, in recognizing patterns and potential for interchangeability, he is a virtuoso of mimicry.

In Madoz's case, photography is probably not as much a medium of necessity as one of choice. The more or less uniform lighting patterns and textural depth of his subject matter could serve as both convenience and challenge to a creative hyperrealist still life painter (such as Shea Hembrey, for instance). My conjecture is that in opting to relay his visions photographically, he indicates a preference for the physical, hands-on construction of his hybrids from raw materials for subsequent direct documentation. He may also be hinting at a potential high-style utilitarian application of at least some of his witty and bizarre creations.

Here are a couple of my favorites by Chema Madoz.


More images and information on the artist can be found on this Spanish site. He is also represented by several galleries in the U.S. -- Photographs Do Not Bend in Texas, Yossi Milo in NYC, Lisa Sette in Arizona, and others.

  Today's mildly brusque but informative NYT article on the Amedeo Modigliani exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art prompted me to revisit some of Modigliani's graceful, melancholy and alluring images. They are, indeed, such lovely, tender, and clever works. The exhibit originated at Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where a special website, affectionately titled "Who is Modi?" was put together in 2002 and later archived. Modigliani's paintings will be sighted back on the East Coast next summer at the Jewish Museum (which, by the way, has a new website with increased interactivity).

Peculiarly enough, I have noticed an interesting and rather uncanny similarity between children's portraits by Modigliani and those by a hip German photographer Loretta Lux.


Lux is beginning to make her first appearances in the U.S. One of her images is currently part of the diverse, fun, and gratifying "By the Sea" group exhibit at the Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea.

While Modigliani's sitters display signs of fin-de-siecle quiet and colorful longing and dejection, as well and whiffs of Romanticism's ennui, Lux's posers are of a decidedly different, arguably contemporary ilk. Their paleness and dazed detachment can be more readily associated with generic notions of robotic clones and the slightly past-vogue brand of cool sophistication. The sterile backgrounds of the photographs are also in stark contrast with the breathing and percolating backdrops of the painter's canvases. Yet, I feel that in both examples, the models manifest a combination of inevitable awkwardness when assuming adult-like poses and ephemerally ethereal grace, uknowingly mastered only by children.


Coincidentally, Lux herself bears quite a bit of resemblance to Modigliani's depictions of several of his models.


A sizeable selection of good quality images by Modigliani is available at this small, private site. And an even larger compilation of mostly different images is housed at The Athenaeum. The latter is a rich and excellent site I have just discovered. It houses over 13,000 high caliber images of various artworks and promises to expand in several directions in the near future.

Although Modigliani was primarily a portraitist and described himself as such, his few landscapes are also noteworthy and very accomplished.


That'll be all for today. Comments are welcome anytime.

  Having finished the previous entry, I peeked out of the window and faced a scene strikingly similar to those that captivate Mylayne. A most miniature and fluffiest sparrow sat perched on a sycamore's branch. It was only faintly discernible in the premature twilight of a humid, thunderstorm-brewing day. Neatly camouflaged against the backdrop of the tree's sprawling foliage, the bird's presence was certain but light. Evanescent. The chirping of other nearby sparrows confirmed and accentuated its existence. The leaves on its roost jovially bristled with raindrops. Ruffled by a sudden singular waft, the bird sprang and dove out of sight.

I am happily convincing myself that whether staged or serendipitous, Mylayne's photographic canvases show agreeable, comfortable environments, encrusted and thereby adorned immeasurably with the inconspicuous and precious figures of small, ordinary birds.

serenity and awareness. appreciation and wonderment.

Back on the same sycamore branch is a sparrow guardedly glancing about.

---

  Although I say,
"Come here! Come here!" the fireflies
keep flying away!
- Uejima Onitsura (1661-1738)


Jean-Luc Mylayne's "Blazing Red" show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery has been vigorously lauded by critics and placed on the gallery-hop itinerary by several publications. Glimpses of the images on display seemed mightily intriguing. I imagined an affinity to Terri Weifenbach's photographs and giddily leaped to the exhibit.

Mylayne's works are undoubtedly peculiar but not as enchanting as, prompted by reviewers who embraced them, I had hoped they would be. Teetering on the line between the neutrally dreary and the decidedly poignant, they are a strange species. The images are sensitive but not necessarily delicate; unusual but not altogether novel. They are perplexing but only arguably profound. And yet, of course, they are undeniably elegant, thoughtful and soulful.

In almost every frame, the space is divided intuitively and judiciously. The graceful outlines and planes of the natural world overlap effortlessly with the supple but firm contours of man-made exteriors and interiors. The colors are restrained, steeped, mature, and hushed, with the exception of the lush, spotlighted red armchair.

It is said that Mylayne's photographs are the results of months of meticulous preparation, contemplation and observation. Supposedly, he carefully studies the behavioral patterns of common birds and follows them closely in order to blend into their surroundings. The suggestion is that his goal is not to eavesdrop on the winged modest creatures but to illuminate their worlds and intimate their experiences. The limitations of this approach and, especially, of its outcomes are lucid. Plus, however orchestrated the images are purported to be, there is an unmistakable casualness in the settings. It is hard to abstain from concluding that happenstance is at least as pivotal to these photographs as authorial premeditation. Needless to say, though, the photographer's intervention is far from disposable -- without Mylayne's manipulation of focus and his compositional intuition, the images could not have been begotten. In other words, as it is known, there is no spontaneous self-creation.

A couple of images on view at Gladstone, however, are odd and incongruous with the majority of the rather small collection on display. Several others are on the verge of appearing redundant. The very presentation of the pieces does not seem conducive to engulfing enjoyment and measured contemplation. Due to spacing, sequencing and sequestering, the dozen+ large-scale photographs appear disjointed and muted, scattered on the gallery's vast 8 or 9 walls. The incessant problem of insufficient ventilation and excessive glare that plagues a number of galleries, is also a factor here.

In addition to the exhibition images available at Gladstone's website, several other samples are available online.


See "Comments" below for a couple of different interpretations of Jean-Luc Mylayne's photography, published during earlier exhibitions of his work in the U.K.