OUT OF THE RUINS
Reimagining the
Romantic Tradition
Curated by Elizabeth
Thact
Christopher Carroll
Clare Grill
Jane Fox Hipple
Fred H.C.Liang
Ryan McLennan
Gina Ruggeri
Marisa Tesauro
Elizabeth Thach
The one charm of the past is that it is the
past. ~Oscar Wilde
On walking into the
gallery the first thing that struck me was the amount of empty space in the
room.
Not dramatic
space…negative space that seemed to have been forgotten by the curator.
The larger work seemed
over-blown and technique heavy.
But amidst the ruins I
found a few interesting and evocative pieces;
Christopher Carroll’s
split screen video, passenger/pilot,
was a powerful and humorous piece that portrayed him wading and investigating
with a torch the dark negative space under a stone arch bridge in the Fenway.
Jane Fox Hipple’s, “Painted Bricks”, is a fresh and
surprising treatise on expanding painting into sculpture, sort of a subtle and
painterly Carl Andre.
The three small paintings
by Clare Grill were not so much a comment on the English Romantic Tradition,
but to me a welcoming (to a painter) exercise in Provisional Painting, a category
of interest to me in my own work.
Sorry to say it, but
that’s about all I found to think about in this academic exercise in “Art”.
I was reminded of my own
experience in listening to Black Blues music as a young teenager. The African
American musical tradition that arose in the Mississippi Delta in the 1920’s,
and that I found profoundly moving and artistically exciting as a white kid,
has been deserted by Black artists today.
I think it may have been
Cornell West who said that Black people look forward, not back.
I would recommend that
white elite artists do the same.
After viewing this show,
go upstairs and see Jasmine Chen’s fine small show of paintings, sort of a
palette cleansing sherbet after a heavy meal.
If you want an assignment
next week, view the two shows and paint a response!
See you next week, john.
