Heating Up The Cool Down

design by
Bruno Monguzzi
for the Musee d'Orsay
Paris, France
1986

Fall is the season and the leaves begin to turn colors and mount up on my lawn, but I put away my rake to join a social swirl at art gallery openings...and there was so much to see!

You had to be there!   Must see exhibitions around Rochester this month include a sterling poster collection by the Swiss-Italian graphic designer Bruno Monguzzi.  I had the pleasure of talking with Mr. Monguzzi whose work I have known for many years, and I thoroughly enjoyed an illustrated talk he gave to an audience at R.I.T.

Years ago, I taught graphic design and Bruno Monguzzi's signage - particularly for art museums- has stood out at the pinnacle in a world of fast paced visual communications.  Those of you who are lucky enough to be in Paris, France would know his graphics for the Musee d'Orsay.  (see above )  The unlikely inclusion of J. Henri Lartigue's photo of a manned glider plane getting off the ground is an integral part of the poster for the grand opening, and creates a wonderful parallel in the renewed life of the museum.  You will find this all over Bruno Monguzzi's design work - a deep level of communication and pleasure reaching to achieve a harmony with a viewer.  These big posters are at the Bevier Gallery, and in the Vignelli Design Center and they can be seen this month at R.I.T.

Brand new gallery space in Rochester is hard to come by but this season there are several major openings, and I found marvelous new art by the New York City mixed media artist Mark Fox at the redesigned Culver Armory.  The building is being completely overhauled for offices and retail space and for this month alone go see this exhibition presented by Deborah Ronnen Fine Art.  The physical gallery space reminds me of Chelsea where open bays harbor shimmering cut paper works that on first appearance look like scrims of pale vegetation, and on closer inspection become a mesh of written words cut out of paper and suspended over armatures, or hung from metal pins.

Hiding in an entry hallway are grids of silver color in an "Elegy for Jane Jacobs", from 2010, which I saw first, quickly followed by a ingeniously hallucinogenic "Wraith", which is made of large sheets of cut paper suspended in front of mylar sheets that wavered in a slight breeze that made the whole room quiver.  The "Elegy", was especially apt as the grids call to mind Jane Jacobs writing about cities and neighborhoods, and the silver grids certainly attain a symbolic reckoning.

Mark Fox was the star of his own movie being projected on one wall, and we can learn a lot more from this interview with the artist.  Many of his pieces call to mind the tough wire works of Alan Saret, and also the artist Richard Tuttle.  Mark Fox settles somewhere in between - the art is literate, conceptual and not particularly colorful.  Mostly, the colors are turned away from the viewer, and they begin to represent (for me) a psychological state of introversion or introspection.

Frances Paley, this month
at the Spectrum Gallery


On a block past the Memorial Art Gallery, around the corner from the Arts & Cultural Council on College Avenue is a nondescript building housing new gallery spaces for R.I.T. 's Gallery r set to pop open in a few weeks, and Lumiere's Spectrum Gallery now open in its new location.  On the walls are large pigment on paper prints by Frances Paley, with a emphasis on fashions and reflections.  The albino peacock is a key image here, as are the numerous costumes and storefront images which remind me of window shopping on Madison Avenue in NYC, and they are a little disorienting.  Here is an art that is quite baroque, with feverish color that blurs the boundary between layers of reflections, so it is hard to pin down just where you are when you look them over.

In another gallery that was new to me, at the Skalny Welcome Center- on the campus of St. John Fisher College  I found a quiet reminder of the private vision of smaller scale artwork that has an intimate pull on the eye and mind.

Most of the art in "Interpretation of Site" revolves around landscape traditions that go back a few hundred years to the moors and sky of Constable and Turner.  The three featured artists: Constance Mauro, G.A. Sheller, and Elizabeth King Durand have enjoyed travels in Europe, and come home with sketches and reflections on those voyages.  Inventive use of printmaking and painting techniques abound in this art as does a light touch with color and atmosphere which encourages gentle contemplation.

A final note to commemorate the passing of yet another artist, friend and teacher - Julie Furlong Williams.  Recently, she has had shows of her work both at Rochester Contemporary Art Center, and The Memorial Art Gallery, and her wit and wisdom will be missed.

G.A.Sheller in the Ross Gallery, Skalny Welcome Center, St. John Fisher College

Graffiti With Punctuation

Some wag said blogs were "graffiti with punctuation".  While this might initially get a laugh - blogs do what print journalism seemed to miss, especially when it comes to the visual arts in our community, and that is to get around to see more of what is going on and to address a response that was more than regurgitating a press release.

When traditional newspapers fail to cover openings of shows, or give spotty coverage at best - they cut the links to everyone except the most dedicated gallery goers.  If you were an artist who worked on materials for a show for a couple of years, you would want to be recognized.  Today, it is all-out competition for your attention, and at the moment the sports-entertainment industry seems to be winning, so why take pot shots at bloggers?

Years ago, I was paid to write about the visual arts, but now I do it on my own - for free- with the help of the First Fridays site as a sounding board.  Content providers in the arts are often working on their own- nobody commissions this work, and I hasten to add artists of all stripes say they do it for love, and because they cannot not do it.  When questions are raised about how long one can keep this up, I say as long as I am able..

Of Lasting Value

Waterfall,  2011
by Stephanie Kirschen Cole


The NTID Dyer Arts Center is one of the most beautiful places to show art, and no doubt that
Stephanie Kirschen Cole was looking forward to the way her solo exhibition would look when the exhibition opened.

Stephanie had been planning this show for some time and it does look fabulous, but she did not get the chance to see it finally, as she passed before the work was transported to the gallery.  Stephanie had been ill for a while; she was a colleague of mine, and it was only a few months ago that we talked about her artwork, especially in regard to an upcoming exhibition coming to the Memorial Art Gallery in honor of John Ashbery's prize-winning poem "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror" which I wrote about earlier this year.  Stephanie was represented by the Tibor DeNagy Gallery in New York City, and she had made a few artworks that reflected her interest in this particular poem.

So, it shouldn't surprise a visitor to the show at the Dyer Arts Center, now through August 12, 2011, that Stephanie had a literary bent to her work, which frequently honors philosophers, thinkers like Copernicus and all manner of maps and prints - almost like visiting an antiquarian book dealer - except she is a visual artist who had strong attachments to cultural and scientific artefacts.  Stephanie also was a crafter of hand made papers, and I would consider collage as her metier.


My favorite work in this large scale show is above, the Waterfall which when I visited was mildly blowing in a slight breeze in the room - animating everything and looking very Asian.  In fact, some of Stephanie's art seems to borrow from Japanese kimono/textile traditions in the sense of patterning and muted colors.  I think this work which is made of strips of hand printed ribbon positively dances, and I found it to be extremely sophisticated in its simplicity.

There are certain repetitive concerns in Stephanie's artwork- images are often presented on handmade paper treated with colorfield splashes of transparent color that often frame a geometric shape - which in turn might frame another more detailed object, mask, or tree.  One of her most striking images was a tribute to Acupuncture - a form of therapy for pain employing fine needles, it can be seen on the postcard advertising the show.


In this Tribute to Stephanie Cole's Life and Art a special student recognition award is being announced through R.I.T. and The Foundations Department where Stephanie taught for many years.  If you would like to contribute please send a check made payable to R.I.T. and mail your check to the Foundations Department, R.I. T., 73 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623

Look! & See! Norman Rockwell at Work!

Little Girl Observing Lovers on a Train, Norman Rockwell, 1944.

Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, August 12, 1944.

©1944 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.

Norman Rockwell Museum Digital Collections; the original painting is now in

the collection of The Memorial Art Gallery.

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

at the George Eastman House

When I was in college, students at my art school would make snide comments about anyone's artwork that looked like Norman Rockwell's.  Of course, this was at the height of an American romance with abstraction, in the wake of Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning.

Then along came Andy Warhol and the whole argument was upset.  Pop Art was a kind of insider's joke about American culture, except that it was seen by the public as a catalyst towards becoming a celebrity artist - taking mass marketing as a subject to capitalize, in Andy Warhol's case. 

I can see it now from a new perspective.  Teaching art in college as I do, one can see what people's aptitudes allow, among a cohort ( of art students ). For example, students who are learning illustration still respect the ability to draw from life, and they practice that skill.  Almost all art students respect the use of the camera, enabling them to build a composition with the requisite amount of "information".

Just as Norman Rockwell achieved widespread appeal as the artist who painted covers for The Saturday Evening Post - he lost the respect of the fine art world as he was catering to his clients and in the process appearing mawkishly sentimental.  Fine artists would call this "selling out" or even "buckeye" (keeping your eyes on the bucks $$$).

Maybe today we are all grown up and don't make the fine distinctions which were so divisive about the holiness of fine arts versus illustration.  This argument would be lost on the general public, and eventually dismissed - just look at the elevation of an artist and illustrator Maxfield Parrish for example.  Norman Rockwell has a lot in common with Parrish, especially on a formal level.  This brings me to another point - can you really tell the difference between Norman Rockwell's illustration and, say the paintings of regional artists like Grant Wood?

When Norman Rockwell's paintings begin to sell for a million at auction, people begin to notice, and to collect rather than criticize.  I look at the exhibition of Rockwell's art at The George Eastman House from a different angle.  When I was younger I spent years as an illustrator and designer;  I didn't mind working on commission, and I never missed a deadline.  Of course there are differences between illustration and fine art - the first being the intent of the artist.  When I look at Norman Rockwell's art on view in the show, I see an artist who goes out of his way to create a pleasing picture suitable for a mass market that tells a succinct story.  Rockwell really is a visual journalist who hits his stride in the late 1940's.

Reference photo for Norman Rockwell’s Little Girl Observing Lovers on a Train, 1944.

Photo by Gene Pelham. Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.

Norman Rockwell Museum Collections.

The George Eastman House presents Rockwell paintings alongside the photos he orchestrated.  The focus is on characters, and the gallery visitor can see how closely Rockwell followed his reference photos.  His best models were his neighbors - whether it was in Arlington, Vermont, or later in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  Rockwell played the role of the director - getting the character's face just right to express the emotion of the story, fixing the lights just so, all with the right props and attitude.  And the funny thing was that Rockwell hired photographers to do the camera work, as he said - he had enough other work arranging the shoot and making the paintings.

The interesting thing in this exhibit is comparing the photos to the original art when it is available.  I think there are too many reproductions in this show for me, but it goes to underscore the point that this art was created precisely to be reproduced in the hundreds and thousands and millions of copies.

My art students would say that Rockwell was corny, but he was also able to deal with tricky social issues during the civil rights era of the late 1950's and early 1960's.

At the entry to the show, in the short documentary film narrated by Norman Rockwell's son Peter,  he mentions the paintings depicting the four freedoms annunciated by F.D.R. ( which I consider to be among Rockwell's finest work) and it is a shame they are not included in the present exhibition.  With that exception, we can learn a lot about Americana through the lens and the art of this illustrator.

A couple of funny things hit me as I was leaving the show.  I made a connection between Norman Rockwell's use of stencil lettering to sign his name on a painting and the use of that same technique by Jasper Johns.  And thinking about Jasper Johns - his flat and frontal approach does have something in common with Rockwell.  Then I saw "Merry Christmas Grandma.. We Came In Our New Plymouth"

an advertisement made in 1951 with an accompanying photo of a little boy who looks as if he was straight out of a Diane Arbus photo.  With a heightened sense of irony, I left the show and thought about that for a while.  It is all about the artist's intent.

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.