Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror
  by:  Francesco Parmagianino ( circa 1523 )

Was this really the first self portrait by an artist gazing into a mirror?

That is the impression one has when reading John Ashbery's amazing poem about the portrait above. The 16th century Italian painter Francesco Parmigianino is the creative mind ( and hand ) behind this famous painting found in the collection of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Austria. Ashbery's poem is a reflection on a painting which is in itself a painting about reflection with all the subtle and major distortions that one might find in convexity.

Reading Ashbery's poem "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror" one finds that the subject is a whole little world full of surface and substance.  This past Thursday I had the chance to shake the hand of the poet, and sit among a crowd listening to him read in the Memorial Art Gallery auditorium.  Ashbery resembles an old Ted Kennedy ambling onstage after his introduction as one of the world's most honored living poets.

Not only did we have the fortune to hear Ashbery read selections  from his anthology but we also came to learn that he is originally from Rochester, and that when he was young he had taken art classes at the Memorial Art Gallery.  Ashbery made a remark about the poet William Carlos Williams who also wanted to be a painter but found it much easier to carry around manuscripts than a bunch of wet canvases.

It was no coincidence that Ashbery came to Rochester this week:  in the Lockhart Gallery there is a show dedicated to his poem "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror" which features eight artists who were asked to contribute images to a portfolio all dressed up for presentation in black circular frames.  Marjorie Searl had a dream of putting this show together, and she made a terrific effort to present a stimulating dialog between the literary and visual art worlds.

So here we have a poem about a painting, and painters who made prints around the themes in the poem. Naturally, there are many portraits among the eight prints, though none of them are the masterpiece that Francesco created that inspired this whole affair.  The portrait by Elaine DeKooning was interesting ( someone said that the younger Ashbery looked like the actor Stacey Keach), also the Richard Avedon photo was terrific, and the painter Larry Rivers created a work that somehow conveyed the proper literary context showing Ashbery at his portable typewriter.

I should also note that Ashbery operated for years as an art critic, and one should buy a copy of his book published first in the late 1980's titled "Reported Sightings" - it makes a great read if you are especially interested in digging into the New York City art milieu that he covered between 1957-1987.

John Ashbery is also associated with many artists who exhibited at the Tibor DeNagy Gallery in Manhattan.  The gallery had refreshing shows of a new kind of representational art at a time when the heights of abstract expressionism were upon us.  I made many visits to shows and openings at that gallery during the years that Ashbery was art critic for New York Magazine, so I could say that I have been directly influenced by this corner of the artworld.

I should also note with sadness the passing of a local artist who was associated with the Tibor DeNagy Gallery, and that was my friend and colleague at R.I.T. - Stephanie Kirschen Cole.  I was so impressed one day in Washington D.C. to come across her large artwork in the Hirschorn Museum on the mall.
Stephanie will be missed and her art will be remembered.

Every Fiber of My Being

"Gesture"
by Betty Vera
photo courtesy of The Memorial Art Gallery


In the auditorium at The Memorial Art Gallery, Jeanne Raffer Beck ended her evening lecture on May 12th with a quote from the choreographer Martha Graham.  "Keep the channel open", wrote Graham, and it is appropriate to mention that when you visit exhibitions like the Fiber Art International now on view at The Memorial Art Gallery your idea of what fiber art actually is will be seriously updated.  Jeanne Beck commented that she was "trying to not make her work look too pretty", but this does not stress the aesthetic sense she brings to her art which is driven by texture and mark making with thread.

Fiber art is more than just weaving of course, but weaving itself is given a major boost in the art of Betty Vera.  Weaving is an ancient form of digital art:  it works on a grid ( the warp and weft ) and it can be layered.  Betty Vera was trained as a painter, but now employs a digital loom to weave images that appear like textured photographs - her art is all about light.  At the MAG, Betty Vera won an award for "Gesture" ( see above ) which is a racy blue mixture of cotton and rayon and the complex patterning is an achievement in Jacquard damask.  This was the same technique that appeared in two similar works on view recently at The Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

Computer guided looms manage intricate patterns, and we have seen the influx of this in some of the clothes we wear.  Once patterns were strictly geometric ( to go along with the warp and weft ), but now a pattern could be anything.  I enjoyed "Funny Face" a digital inkjet print on silk satin hanging as a pair in the gallery by artist Hitoshi Ujiie.  "5 Generations of Virtue" by Lisa Lee Peterson, also has this photographic look in her woven panels whose focus is on Asian women and their costumes.

Alighiero Boetti, a member of the Arte Povera movement in Italy created many woven works before his death in 1994.  Often these woven "paintings" included maps and letters of the alphabet, and this might have been the inspiration for a large colorful creation called "Reconstruction" by the Japanese artist Mami Idei.  The visual legacy of ideas and how they travel could be the subtext of the Fiber Art International exhibition.  Another example of this would be the delicate batik created for "Kimono Windy" by the German artist Maria Schade.  Are those goldfish or fallen leaves in a pond?

Given the events in the world, it is not surprising that the human condition is evoked by award winning art such as Erin Endicott's "Healing Sutra" ( Best in Show ).  This delicate work of embroidery looks like a diagram of a heart attack, and it finds correlations to other human forms in the exhibit - most notably the use of x-rays in the "Humanoids" which hang in the main gallery by French artist Brigitte Amarger.

When fiber art becomes truly three dimensional and begins to occupy our space the sculptural impact can be very powerful as with Stephanie Metz's felt work "Muscle Heifer".  I also found myself mesmerized by the knotting in Joh Ricci's "Indian Summer" which looks like peas in a pod - and also Rebecca Siemering's suit of clothes "American Made".

Jeanne Beck opened her talk at the Memorial Art Gallery by reciting the parable of the blind men in India describing what they thought an elephant must be like.  One blind man hugged the animal's leg and said that an elephant must be like a cylinder, another had the tail and said no - the elephant was like a rope, finally another put his hands on the elephants belly - and said it was like a wall.  "Trying to describe art is like that", said Jeanne Beck, it all depends on your perspective.  The trick is to keep the channels open.

"Seeds of Compassion" 2008

by 

Jeanne Raffer Beck

photo courtesy of The Memorial Art Gallery

360/365 and 50

Oh, the associations one can bring to the viewing of art does lead down some unique paths.  At the 360/365 George Eastman House Film Festival we saw Julie Taymor receive her Susan B. Anthony Award and we heard the gracious comments from Garth Fagan about Ms. Taymor's vision and work ethic.  Then we get to see Helen Mirren star as Prospera in an adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest".  As the film opens, Mirren raises her staff - and on a distant stormy sea great waves hit a foundering boat, thus setting the scene for marvelous storytelling and poetic alchemy.  I couldn't help thinking that Taymor has the eyes of a painter like Joseph Mallord William Turner (think of his "SlaveShip" of 1840, oil on canvas), and in fact the sprite Ariel, in this film version of "The Tempest", is a change agent - who has powers not unlike that of a great artist.

The following day we look in on the introduction of C.Scott's documentary film "The Woodmans"; and stay for the presentation of Francesca Woodman's photos, the testament of her parents - Betty and George, and the episodes that follow leading up to a tragic ending.  The epilogue for this family of artists highlights how vulnerable we are, and how we struggle to deal with mental distress.  George's artwork changed as a result, from pattern painting to a photographic art that has eerie similarities to his deceased daughter's ouevre. Betty's ceramics get bigger and bolder, and yet she appears not willing to address on camera issues of guilt and regret about her daughter's illness.

Betty Woodman goes on to have major exhibitions at MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then off to Beijing to add her art to the new American Embassy being built there.  But the art of their daughter seems to transcend this all - and hold in it some core of enigma, and elusive personality.

Demuth "The Figure 5 in Gold"
courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bill Santelli " 5-0 in Gold"
courtesy Oxford Gallery, Inc.


We are left in a retrospective mood bolstered by the fact that this is the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Oxford Gallery in Rochester, celebrated by the opening of a spring exhibition honoring many of the participants past and present.

I was aware of the reputation of the Oxford Gallery way before I ever set foot there.  Artists who I knew in New York City like Morton Kaish were represented by the Oxford Gallery, and an artist and printmaker - Zevi Blum (I was his graduate assistant at Cornell in the 1970's) had many shows at Oxford.  What is the Oxford Gallery known for, and why has it had such endurance over the years?  First, over all there is enlightened management, a passion for the art it shows with remarkable consistency, and a deep respect for the traditional craft of image making.  The Oxford Gallery offers mainly representational art for the wall and some noteworthy sculpture featuring artists from central and western New York.

When you walk downstairs and visit the Oxford Gallery you are immediately ushered into the gallery space by Jim Hall, the present owner.  At a distance one sees what looks like Charles Demuth's "The Figure 5 in Gold", now updated by Bill Santelli to commemorate 50 years in business; the painting is clever and eye catching.  Demuth made the original in 1928 in response to his friend, the poet William Carlos Williams, in a momentary observation of a ruckus caused by a passing fire truck.

Observation is crucial to the artists at the Oxford Gallery show, so many of the works succeed ( or fail ) at holding your attention - by either presenting you with something commonplace that is beautifully rendered such as the tree in Phil Bornarth's "Wadsworth Oak", or the still life by David Dorsey "Flowers From Another Year", or else giving you something entirely new like Jacquie Germanow's sculpture "Lacuna" .

History was written on the walls and this 50th birthday for the gallery includes a recent find "The Centennial" -by Lilly Martin Spencer, an American painter ( 1822-1902) of genre scenes known primarily here in Rochester for her work "Peeling Onions" usually on view at the MAG.  "The Centennial" is a large unfinished canvas depicting age and youth at a party; it was found on the artist's easel at the time of her death.

On the elegiac note one must acknowledge the passing of Nancy Buckett also a former owner and director of the Oxford Gallery who died earlier this month, and the aforementioned Zevi Blum whose print hangs in the entry vestibule.  Both were friends and a part of the fabric of the visual arts scene and they will be missed.

Wishing the Oxford Gallery well for all the support that has been given to the artists whose vision is celebrated with this and what one hopes will be many exhibitions to come.  Go and enjoy the show.

Made it in New York

Logo
by Milton Glaser

Something to be proud of - a deep commitment to the arts and the systems that keep it alive and well.  The inventor of the I LOVE NY bumper sticker, artist and designer Milton Glaser is profiled in a new film titled: "To Inform and Delight" presented last week at R.I.T.  Glaser and partners formed Push Pin Graphics and they were recognized with shows at The Museum of Modern Art, and in Paris at the Centre Pompidou in the early 1970's.  Glaser was a Fulbright Scholar studying with Giorgio Morandi in Italy, and soaking up the traditions of color and drawing in Europe before setting his course on "commercial art".
Along the way he founded New York Magazine, co-authored the "Underground Gourmet" with Jerome Snyder, and designed and illustrated his way across a sea of of posters, typography, and books to lasting effect.  At the end of the film, Milton said that many factors contribute to success but he could not have accomplished all that he has - without the relationships and the context of New York, New York.

 At the Schweinfurth
Memorial Art Center
photo provided by the artist
H.T. Coogan:  "Litle Educational Turntable of Misdirections and Ever Shifting Points of Attraction"


If You are an artist in New York, it goes without saying that there is a lot of competition to get your artwork out there to be seen.  Each year a gallery show is selected for the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, in Auburn, New York.  Part of this series is the current exhibition: "Made in NY 2011" which features 52 artists showing a total of 77 artworks in a wide variety of sizes and media.  This is a juried show with awards bestowed by two jurors who had a lot to choose from ( 684 works were submitted).
The resulting exhibition makes for a compelling museum visit which I recommend.

I did not intend this to be a bit of shameless self-promotion (that comes later), but in a measure of full disclosure, my work was selected this year for the show and I am in great company!   When you walk into the Schweinfurth Art Center there is a smaller exhibit of paintings by Noma and James Bliss on the right and the main galleries are dedicated to New York artists selected for "Made in NY 2011".  As you walk in a fine and funny collection of almost a thousand "handpainted rulers" sit in groups sorted by size in measuring beakers by the artist H.T. Coogan.  While this work wasn't given an award, it should at least be recognized for its sense of humor, which also characterizes the other art in the show by Coogan.
"Little Educational Turntable of Misdirections and Ever Shifting Points of Attraction"  is a perpetual motion machine of compasses and magnets on top of an old record going round on an old record player- it's a hoot!

Motion seemed to be the salient feature of many of the favorite things seen at the Schweinfurth.  Awarded "Best of Show" was another kind of motion machine - beautifully articulated, motorized, multi-winged "flying" gizmo by Bob Potts of Trumansburg, New York.  This is kinetic sculpture - in the mode of the early Leonardo da Vinci drawings - inventing a way to fly by studying the shape of bird's wings.  Press a button on a pedestal and an electric motor engages and the aluminum wings "flap" in place for a few minutes.

Video installations were given their own rooms.  One is a bit of animated anarchy from John Knecht featuring "Mr. Baxter's Trip to a Parallel Universe" which reminds me a little of Keith Haring crossed with "The Yellow Submarine".  Another video in the show was a blitz of stills and snippets of live action shot in a "Portrait of Mumbai" by Neal Chowdhury.  How can an artist working in traditional sculpture or painting (that just sits still) compete with this eye candy?  Mumbai is so rich in texture, with music and people in action, that it is really worth the time to see all eight minutes and 55 seconds of this collage/documentary.

Before we leave Auburn, I could mention a few other favorites in the show including colorful abstractions by Kathleen Thum, Bill Santelli, and sculptural pieces of Abraham Ferraro.  So you don't have to go down to Manhattan to see first class art, it is right here.

Now, before I go- a little plug for a new show at Windsor Whip Works near Binghamton, New York.  It is no secret that I grew up in a family of practicing artists, and at various times we have had the opportunity to share an exhibition space.  In Windsor, New York you will find the Whip Works Art Center, now hosting a show with art by my father Arthur Singer, my brother- Paul Singer, myself, and another guest artist, the sculptor Donna Dodson.  It is also no secret that I learned a lot from watching my father paint and when I was at an impressionable age - my brother's artwork spurred me on to lead the creative life.  Like Milton Glaser say's " We LOVE New York".

Alan and Paul Singer
at The Windsor Whip Works
photo credit:
© Roberta Grobel Intrater 2011

The Artist and the Astrophysicist

photo by
Sue Weisler   
R.I.T. photographer
at an illustrated talk by Steve Carpenter
on the left and Adam Frank on the right




With artwork, an interesting question arises about collaborations - who gets to sign the work?
There are historical precedents to consider, and the business of giving credit where credit is due has to be addressed.  How do you determine whose contributions you are looking at?

Sometimes more than one artist signs the work, and in contemporary art we are seeing many more collaborations.  In the past we had the products of the atelier system, master artists then had the services of students and assistants who brought the art to life.  In this system we only knew who these assistants were if they went on to make a name for themselves later for their own artwork.

In the 1970's and1980's I worked as an artist with my father, Arthur Singer, on images that often found their way into publications - either books, collectibles, and even postage stamps.  Whenever possible, we both signed the actual artwork.

Controversy surrounds some collaborations - witness a court case mentioned in a recent New York Review of Books over the validity of an Andy Warhol silkscreen work.  Determining what is an authentic print can involve a lot of detective work, - but is a collaborative work somehow less original?  Does it matter that the Warhol Factory made the print and the artist signed the image?  Hasn't that process been part of the artworld for decades?

Our understanding of what the practice of fine art really is - changes and expands like the universe that astrophysicist Adam Frank talked so passionately about.  He came to R.I.T. to give an illustrated talk with painter, Steve Carpenter late in March.  When they speak about deep space and star formation, they talk about a creative process, full of light, violence, and extreme beauty.  This was a collaborative venture between the artist and the scientist - to try to find and touch the reality of these grand events and see some reflection of humanity and how we are a part of this astonishing array.  Paintings start as printing on canvas,  employing yet another artist - Tony Dungan - to make digital files that develop a foundation that will accept  thick paint.  Equations try to give  mathematical explanations for the phenomena of star formation.  The equations are etched like hieroglyphs in the paintings and only hint at the intellect at work trying to decipher distant hot spots in the universe.

Collaboration in the visual arts was unusual, if it fought with expectations of the solitary figure at work - alone in a studio creating work of value.  I think we are beginning to see a greater emphasis and resonance with ideas that are brought about by collective spirit, and aggregate talents.

Adam Frank
at R.I.T.
Photo by
Sue Weisler

Saturation

Skyline from Pier 92
by Anna Sears


For artists, a shakeout is underway.  This screening process determines whether you have a network that will sustain you - or sidetracks you if you've set unreasonable goals that can't be maintained.  A recession tests your mettle.  Most of the artwork from artists that we know comes from a broad middle class (raised with ambitions and aspirations) - but will that demographic cohort be able to ride out the slow times ahead? We worry that the visual artworld has become complacent, and conservative.  A case could be made that the Armory Show which we visited this week fell flat even though many of the old stalwarts lined the miles of booths along Pier 92  and Pier 94 in Manhattan.

We really paid attention to everything - looking for some rewards in and among the newcomers from
Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.  One goes to the Armory Show to catch up to what is happening around the globe, and this year a lot of minor art failed to grab me or make an impression.

Maybe the dealers were playing it safe, or maybe it was the cold pristine weather outside, but the crowd was thin on the Modern side of the Armory Show.  Small paintings from a 35 year old Brit named William Daniels caught my eye. The two on view vibrated with delicious color and buoyancy.  John Walker had a large collection of small paintings from the "Harrington Road Series" - a real temptation to buy #52-54 but I couldn't scrounge up the $28K.

Tony Cragg

There seemed to be many Tony Cragg amalgamations which come in many materials ( the one above in a rustyish color had some appeal ) but even here, this art seems to be repeating itself.  Hybrid artforms like the constructions by Zach Harris at the Meulensteen booth holds some promise for the future.

Zach Harris

As in past years, you might have stopped to look at the metallic wall hangings from El Anatsui, a sculptor born in Ghana - who now has an international following.  His work, made from pieces of tin cans and bottle caps is seductive and flows like satin curtains of red and gold.  The handiwork is obsessive and unusual and makes a case for recycling!

At the end of a long row, in a quiet space, the work from Egyptian born Susan Hefuna glowed.  Her simple geometries were moving, as were her methods of using translucent tracing paper.  This work which is very architectural exists in the same spaces that Julie Mehretu seems to inhabit- manifest layers of linearity conjure up mental structures; and suitable spaces for art.

There was a lot less photography of any consequence this year.  I was amused by James Casebere's upscale model homes, and there was a dynamic large leaf from the Starn Twins, but I found a gallery of real flowering trees more attractive.  And what was that neon fence about?  As with the show last year, Pierogi of Brookyln featured a Patrick Jacobs mini diorama made with unworldly skill and amazing patience.

But we had to move on, and get up to New England.  Foster + Partners designed and built a new world for the MFA in Boston, and this is a much needed revitalization for a grand old museum.  You can still seek out your favorite Winslow Homer painting, or troll for beauties among the Hudson River School, but my favorite works in Boston came from the Near and Far East.  Japanese prints make up part of my personal collection, so I like to see what is on view in the special exhibition titled " Flowers and Festivals".  I was knocked out by a Kuniyoshi diptych showing a tree grafted with 100 varieties of chrysanthemums -all in bloom - from 1843.  This is a form of horticultural prowess that is truly spectacular!

Also on view were Japanese baskets - the likes of which you have never seen - to delight the eye.  From Turkey I was pleased to see the Iznik tiles and bowls and my curiosity was piqued by Qajar metalwork from 19th century Iran.

Many parts of Boston's Museum of Fine Art were still under construction, so we didn't get the full impact of what they had to offer.  Stopping for a cup of tea on the main level, we relax in a spacious, comfortable meeting area under skylights that let in afternoon rays which we soak up before we hit the road.

Weather vanes at MFA
photo by Anna Sears

Transformation and Transcendence

The Freedom Place Collection and the Frederick Douglas Resource Center Gallery

Alma W. Thomas
"Snoopy Sees A Day Break on Earth, 1970, oil on canvas

I grew up in a household with a deep respect for African American art, and also art of indigenous peoples from around the world.  My father was a collector, my parents both working artists.  The music we heard at home: spirituals, blues, jazz or soul had a transformative aspect for us.  The music and lyrics took common local occurrence and cast it as universal experience, and the best art does this seemingly without effort.

African American art had the power to deal with years of oppression and turn it into something expressive, positive, and motivational - looking for a way to become an agent for change; seeking a better life.  The aspirations of a people can be seen and felt in artwork collected by Stuart and Julia Bloch in their exhibition: The Freedom Place Collection" now on view at The Mercer Gallery located on the campus of Monroe Community College.

Five artists contribute paintings, drawings, and collage that fill the modest gallery space with light, life, and surprising detail.  The majority of this traveling collection however remains unseen in the present venue because of space restrictions, but we are still very lucky to have the opportunity to see this art that prior to this show remained in a vault.

These artists, all people of color, faced rejection - and the effects marginalized them in the art market which skews all cultural output.  Nevertheless, artists put their heart in their work, and that makes a difference.  When you walk into the gallery you might expect overt political statement, but what you get is often the solitary, poetic side of human nature, and personal observation.  At the door, the art of Benny Andrews conveys this light touch even if the subject is an elegy to a life lost ("Hero's Ascension") or a portrait of the artist's mother ( "Viola Study").  Andrews favors collage and quirky pen and ink as in the drawing of fellow artist Raphael Soyer, and in the big book cover for "The Ribbon Dance".

Robert Freeman recounts in a television interview the frustration he felt at trying to find gallery representation; the effects of lingering racism clouding the future for the visual artist.  Freeman paints big and bold expressive strokes of color on larger size paintings that remind me of David Park and Emil Nolde.  Freeman's concerns are figurative, with perhaps biblical reference in "Eve and the Serpent", and a party in "Garden Encounters ll" painted in 1988, while he was a teacher at Harvard in Boston.

Richard Yarde's "Front #2/ Back #2 works on a grand scale for watercolor on paper.  There is a signature style in evidence that looks like patches of cloth on a quilt, and an imposing figure built this way confronts the viewer.  Watercolor portraiture is not easy to achieve, but I especially liked Yarde's distorted pointilist painting of the Erskine Hawkins big band painted in 1983.

Years ago, I had the chance to shake Romare Bearden's hand in congratulations at his opening at the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery (in Manhattan) and I remember a soft spoken big man who wasn't looking past you when he spoke (an especially annoying habit in the New York City artworld).  Bearden often cut collage materials from things that arrived in the mail, and I found one of my illustrations glued to part of a composition he made.  So we shared something in common as he related his interest in birds, especially in the tropics where he spent part of the year.

Bearden's imagery has a classic balance, even when he is recalling "Memories of High Cotton - Picking Cotton" a collage from 1977.  This intensely felt work of art focuses as much on the green hills, as it does on the folks ( almost abstractions) with patterned bags picking cotton under bare trees.  During his working life, Bearden was a social worker, and jazz aficionado, who painted and made prints with
Robert Blackburn in New York City.  Bearden was among a very few African American artists who had achieved national visibility, and this year there will be a set of stamps honoring his life and art.

Even though there is an element of abstraction in Bearden's art (see his radiant watercolors "Highway" and "Indigo Night"), he doesn't strip his art of recognizable imagery as occurs in the paintings of Alma Woodsey Thomas.  My cousin, Michael Rosenfeld has featured Alma Thomas' paintings at his gallery in New York City for many years, and I was happy to re-acquaint myself with the three works on display in the Mercer Gallery.  "Snoopy Sees a Day Break on Earth" an oil painting from 1970 is a most striking example, with each tangible stroke of color applied without a second guess.

Alma Thomas lived most of her life in Washington, D.C. and I would like to think that her presence there was a model for younger artists to follow.  She was the first African American woman to be given a solo exhibition at The Whitney Museum of American Art, and also the first to earn her MFA from Columbia University.  The paintings on view in the "Freedom Place" exhibition suggest that she should take her rightful place among the other Washington Color Field painters like Morris Louis and Ken Noland.

Across town, at 36 King Street, a modern art gallery snuggles up to quaint homes along the park near the Susan B. Anthony House.  What a find!  The Frederick Douglass Resource Center and Gallery offers a wide-open space to view Pepsy Kettavong's show "Lynching in America".  Not squeamish, Pepsy Kettavong takes on the most difficult subjects, this being the first of three exhibitions dealing with murder, starvation and sex trafficking.  Not shy of the controversial images, Pepsy rivets your attention to a larger than life size noose which hangs ominously in the middle of this cavernous space.  Accompanying the noose, are tableaux with a picnic table full of goodies, above which hangs a photo of a dead African American.  Imagine the grotesque notion of having a meal in the midst of such a horror.

Pepsy Kettavong has been the author of public sculpture honoring Rochester and in his new series he promises to open a dialog and address issues that other artists can't or won't deal with.  Art in this case offers a path to transcendence by dealing squarely with issues that are an attack on all of humanity.