Wandering the exhibit at Klaudia Marr Gallery, there’s no telling what’s waiting to be discovered
Art Walker
Each week when I sit down to write this column, I inevitably find myself instead lost online, as if stuck in a never-ending Chinese nesting box. Each link that I open in search of some basic tidbit of information leads me to another I can’t resist opening, and so on, until hours have gone by and my partner comes into my office to see if I have perhaps expired. (I also can get lost in my art bookshelves, but that’s another therapy session.)
I ended up lost in the links of Chinese boxes last week because that’s what came to mind when I was looking at the paintings of guest artist Joe Nicastri at Klaudia Marr Gallery. Nicastri makes realist paintings of scenes in art galleries based presumably on candid photographs. These are not purposeful snapshots of faces, but resemble the photos we all occasionally shoot when we inadvertently snap the shutter: the back of a leg, a dangling purse, and a whole lot of floor.
Where the Chinese box comes in is Nicastri’s proclivity for the painting-within-the-painting. In the backgrounds of his gallery paintings hang artworks, often including an image that references the “real” people we see in the foreground. In “Gallery Night 2 (Blue Jeans),” the focal point is the behind of a young woman in tight jeans, including wonderful details of stitchery, wrinkles behind the knees, etc. The echo is in a painting of the backsides of two nude women hanging on the “gallery” wall in the background. And even they appear to be looking at a painting.
So you can see, perhaps, where Chinese boxes came to mind.
David Hines, a gallery regular, has several works in this exhibit. “Night, 2008” depicts a solitary street light on an otherwise barren and dark corner, where only a speed limit sign keeps it company. The sense of anticipation is palpable. Hines’ tongue-in-cheek “Still Life With Light” features a fluorescent tube hung vertically on a wall over a table, the greenish glow fading outward. “Still Life With Rose” further evidences Hines’ sense of humor. Here is the quintessential contemporary still life, beautifully painted, of a collection of transparent and reflective vessels atop a wooden table. But what’s that (ahem) lovely acrylic towel ring doing over there? And what about that piece of aging tape, stuck on the wall nearby, half peeled away and just dangling there?
I love these works with a twist, but I also responded to the sobering work of Italian guest artist Emilia Faro. “Vixit” consists of a grid of 65 single-sheet watercolors of the faces of the dead, evincing two-dimensional death masks. (The Latin “vixit” translates as “he has lived”; and the phrase “annos vixit” is akin to a tombstone inscription, as in “he lived (so many) years.”) Each face is clearly outlined, but fairly indistinct, eyes closed. Painted solely in thin, watery black, about half have touches of fuchsia at the lips. The similarity of the visages — which of course on careful consideration are different, each having been painted separately — brings us nonetheless to the inevitable truth: in death we are all the same. Yet here this is not a gruesome comment. Faro’s people are at peace; their wrinkleless faces suggest a childlike innocence.
Another guest artist, Joseph Gerges, made a compelling drawing of three teenage boys, shown from waist up, in the act of throwing rocks. You’ve seen these boys before, and depending on your mood, you might see their behavior as harmless or violent, i.e., they’re competing to hit a tree trunk/see who can throw the farthest versus they’re breaking windows/bullying other kids. Like Faros’ dead, their faces don’t reveal their feelings; the viewer must decide for herself what’s going on here. The boys are loosely scribed in charcoal and graphite, and in another odd similarity to Faro’s work, bare spots of fuchsia here and there.
I walked around and around this exhibit, and kept coming back to Stephen Cefalo’s “David With Head of Goliath and Measuring Tape.” This is not the bestpainted work in the exhibit, but it is certainly among the most provocative. An armless statue of David — wearing an ordinary yellow measuring tape draped over one shoulder — stands on a pedestal with one foot on the giant Goliath’s head. I almost laughed out loud. When it comes down to it, it’s always about size, isn’t it? And the tape is marvelous: clearly Cefalo challenged himself to make every digit absolutely clear, every hash mark precise in length. You can analyze this piece seriously, of course. Think Venus de Milo, Caravaggio’s David and Goliath paintings, Jean Ipoustéguy’s armless David … Or you can start Googling and come up with things like “Armless man delivers fatal head-butt.”
In this exhibit, as in almost all group exhibits, there is some wonderful work and some less-than-wonderful work. And now, thanks to the Internet, there is that (overlapping) third and spectacular category, art that leads us to learn about Chinese boxes, chatting about death in Latin, and fatal head-butts.
Contact Hollis Walker at hwalker259@earthlink.net
If You Go
WHAT: “Still Lifes, Objects and Other Narratives: Stretching the Boundaries of Representational Art,” group exhibit
WHEN: Through April 14
WHERE: Klaudia Marr Gallery, 668 Canyon Road
CONTACT: 988-2100, www.klaudiamarrgallery.com
