Michael Bierut: 30 Years/90 Notebooks at Esther Massry Gallery

By Sara Tack

It’s not often that a graphic design show appears in a gallery or a museum and even less often that one shows up in the Capital Region. That’s why it is pretty exciting to see a show of the magnitude of Michael Bierut: 30 Years/90 Notebooks get curated specifically for The College of Saint Rose’s Esther Massry Gallery in Albany.

Bierut, a partner in the renowned design consultancy Pentagram, has had a brilliant career, designing for a host of national and international clients. He is the author of 79 Short Essays on Design and founder of the popular online journal Design Observer. He’s a senior critic at Yale School of Art and frequent guest speaker at design conferences and organizations across the country. His work has won every design award there is to win, including the prestigious American Institute of Graphic Arts medal.

What distinguishes Bierut’s work from much of the design we see on a daily basis is that his pieces use clever, conceptual twists that create messages we have to think twice about. His ability to do this so poignantly is grounded in his knowledge of the subject at hand, his understanding of how to use modernist form to imply meaning, and a natural gift: intuitive wit.

Most of the pieces in the show are posters and most are in black and white. Sometimes the work has (what appears to be) such a simple concept you wonder why you hadn’t thought of it yourself. Yet the beauty comes from just how profound he makes “the simple.”

In one of the few multi-colored works - Obama Fifty State Strategy, 2008, a campaign poster for Barack Obama - every U.S. state’s name is re-presented and strung literally together without word spacing. Separated only by color, we read the play on words starting with Alobama and proceeding alphabetically through Wyobaming.

In the 7th Annual Book Fair to Help the Homeless, Bierut turns a black-and-white image of an open book upside down to create the roof of a house. At the bottom of the poster is a small, out-of-scale, solitary wooden chair. In a poster advertising the play The Well of Water, at the Parallax Theatre (one of many posters for the theatre in the show) we see a stark charcoal line drawing of a woman’s hair and upper torso. The rest of her face is created from stylized photographs. The eyes are hot and cold faucet knobs, her mouth the spout of the faucet where the water emerges. What is he saying about The Well of Water using a faucet metaphor to represent a woman's face? One would have to see the advertised play to find out.

There are quite a few stunning pieces in the show designed for the Architectural League of New York. Usually their purpose is to announce a lecture, or an event series. My favorite is Scale. This 36-by-48-inch horizontal has a solid black circle just under 36 inches in diameter anchored to the left edge of the poster. On the far lower right end of the circle is one word reversed out to white. The typography - all caps, san serif bold letters, not more than 1/4” in height - reads “SCALE.” The sheer literal contrast of scale focuses us on one of the most defining principles in art and architecture. This is extremely powerful.

Light Years, also for the Archi- tectural League, overlaps the letters of these two words laid directly over the other in varying translucencies. Without any literal illustration or photography, the layering of the letters on a solid black background visually suggests distance over time as we read the words “light years.”

Another set of posters for the Yale School of Architecture runs the gamut of Bierut’s thinking. Architecture and Psychoanalysis Symposium is both clever and funny. A modernist, 1960s-style psychiatrist’s couch is turned 90 degrees running vertically up the side of the poster. At a moment’s glance our minds transfer the image of the couch into an architectural structure/building.

Then we realize what we are looking at and can’t help but laugh at being let in on the visual and verbal play. Furthermore, we realize that, although the poster was installed vertically, it could also be presented horizontally (as shown above). It is more difficult to read the detailed text in this orientation, but that text now takes on the role of the architectural reference, suggesting a city skyline.

So what does the title 30 Years/90 Notebooks have to do with the show? There are two cabinets displaying many of Bierut’s black-and-white composition notebooks that he started using in 1982. He has accumulated 92 books in his 30-year career and can’t go anywhere without his most current notebook. They are used for everything from client meeting notes to thoughts on design, miscellaneous ideas, doodles, conceptual sketches, and working out his design process on any given commission. Many of the displayed pages allow viewers to make connections and see the thinking behind the work on the walls of the gallery.

Two-page spread from a Michael Bierut notebook

A commemorative poster was designed for the exhibit by Bierut himself and is available for sale at the gallery, signed or unsigned. Michael Bierut: 30 Years/90 Notebooks is on view through January 22, 2012.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Guest reviewer Sara Tack is principal artist at Smith and Jones and adjunct professor of visual communication & design in the Electronic Media Arts and Communication department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

LOL at Albany Airport Gallery

At left, Granny Panties for My Ex-Girlfriend by Benjamin Entner;
at right Self Portrait by Spring Hofeldt

In a way, the Albany International Airport Gallery is like an ongoing Whitney Biennial of the Capital Region. Curator Sharon Bates mounts just two shows a year, usually around a pithy theme, and she often populates these shows with work by artists she's spotted at other venues around the area, in a sort of sifting and consolidation process.

The downside of this approach is that regular viewers of local galleries and museums will encounter things in these shows that they've already seen before, sometimes quite recently. But those are not the viewers the Airport Gallery targets; rather, Bates creates for an audience of travelers, many of whom are not from around here and will never venture beyond the terminal as they seek ways to kill time between flights.

And, in more than 10 years of honing that aim, Bates has adopted a formula that really works - even achieving national recognition for excellence in cultural programming at airports. So, it's no surprise that the new show at the Airport Gallery, titled LOL, is fresh, funny and - yes - surprising, despite including some familiar work.

OMG by Brian Kane

While being humorous would seem to be a prerequisite for inclusion in this exhibition, there are many kinds of humor, and not everything here evokes giggles or guffaws. But some of the artists do purposely go for the laugh, particularly Tim Davis, whose sly, slapstick video sequence titled Upstate New York Olympics features such hilarious pursuits as Lawn Jockey Leap Frog and Snowman Jiu Jitsu, in which the artist is seen nonchalantly launching himself over little statues on display in yards of every economic demographic, and violently assaulting unsuspecting Frosties, ninja fashion. I like slapstick and, yes, watching Davis did make me laugh out loud, as it did the Three Stooges-loving friend who accompanied me.

Other work had a more sardonic appeal, such as Roger Bisbing's meticulously detailed, miniature construction titled Shaker Air, in which stoic wooden furnishings are arranged in the configuration of a 737 jet. Created specifically for LOL, this work's humor depends on your understanding of Shaker life, and the fact that the airport is on Shaker land.

Also thoughtful and evocative is Michael Oatman's installation titled Cesare Lombroso's House of Pizza, in which a slightly tongue-in-cheek narrative explores the unlamented stereotyping of the mustachioed Italian pizza man. Sixteen silkscreened variations of the character are arranged in a grid to illustrate the cultural phenomenon, but it's hard to get to exercised about a happy pizza guy when, well, happy pizza guys are such a good thing.

This is how you repay me? by Gregor Wynnyczuk

Oatman also collaborated on Forest Freshner with Brian Kane, in which the artists made an oversized version of the classic pine-tree car freshener, shaped and scented like a new car, and photographed it being hung in the great outdoors. Kane's solo contribution to the show is equally witty and Pop-inspired: a big, red word balloon that says "OMG!," just like every tween alive.

Also notable for dry wit and impeccable technique are the drawings of Andrew DeGraff, an illustrator who likes to tilt at iconic figures, and who makes you smile but also makes you think. His We are All Descended from Homeless People is, rightly, the poster image for the show; and his The Lord's Typewriter and The Selection of Darwin are wonderful comments on scientific and religious objects of worship, which also happen to be beautifully crafted works of art.

Equally beautiful are the three small paintings in the show by Spring Hofeldt,  which are more playful than funny, but which are so well painted they make you want to see many more. Her self-portrait distorted by a glass vessel in front of her face shows that not all postmodern feminist artists take themselves too seriously.

Two of the other three women in the show cover domestic topics (Minna Resnick on the family vacation; Joy Taylor on garden tools and personal accessories) in fun or self-mocking ways, but don't completely avoid the heaviness that seems to curse so many women artists since the awakenings of the '60s, and which doesn't plague the men quite so much, leaving them free to go completely off the wall.

Technically far more crude than Hofeldt or DeGraff, but just as clever, are the found-art musings of Gregor Wynnyczuk, who elevates kitschy paintings to the level of existentialist philosophy by placing black vinyl text on top of them, then adding evocative titles, such as What's gotten into you lately? and I'm not like the others. But his indirect take on personal issues is dwarfed by Benjamin Entner's 7-foot-long Granny Panties for My Ex-Girlfriend, which just dives right into the outrageous way relationships make us feel.

The other artists in LOL are Torrance Fish, Linda B. Horn, Steven Rolf Kroeger, and Owen Sherwood. The exhibition, which is accessible to the non-flying public from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, will remain on view through Mar. 25, 2012.

Rating: Highly Recommended
 

Forest Freshner by Brian Kane and Michael Oatman

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

Growing up in the 1960s, I loved Norman Rockwell’s art. It was folksy, funny, and almost photographic in its realism – things kids can appreciate. Later, I came to value Rockwell as much for his social and political courage as for his abilities with paint. Now, I have a new reason to admire this much-loved and much-scorned American artist – for the astonishing directorial work that backs up each of his illustrations.

It is probably no accident that the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., has mounted the exhibition Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera at this point in the history of art. Another Berkshire-county artist, Gregory Crewdson, is the person most responsible (well, after Cindy Sherman) for having established directorial photography as the most significant art movement of the past 20 years.

Yes, you read that exactly right: I am comparing Norman Rockwell to Gregory Crewdson – unironically. To continue the comparison, think of them as two sides of the same coin. On one side, there’s a patriotic, corny optimist, a shamelessly commercial image maker whose work always brought in a good buck by sending the right, cloyingly positive messages about America. On the other, there’s a Hollywood-tinged postmodernist, biliously cynical, whose work has also brought in big money because of its jaundiced and dark messages about the same America a few decades later.

The exhibition shows in well-notated detail and perfectly mounted imagery how Rockwell performed his craft. No, not the craft of painting (which I will always contend he did exceedingly well) – the directorial craft of planning, casting and organizing, and then photographing, piece by piece, the visually complex (if conceptually simplistic) dramas that typify his work. Rockwell himself did not release the shutter – that work went to various professionals over the years – and neither, by the way, does Crewdson, though he is known as a photographer. This is a director’s art in both cases, with the result being a still image rather than a movie.

For fans of Rockwell, the exhibition is an endless parade of favorites, now made new by the revelation of the process behind them. You would have to be the angriest curmudgeon not to take pleasure in seeing, for example, how the hundreds of black-and-white photos snapped for “A Day in the Life of a Little Girl” (see top of post) were created and then transformed into the full-color illustration of the same name.

For locals, there is no doubt the joy of recognizing faces from the past, as Rockwell used his neighbors for these pictures, in part so that he could bring “an unmistakable genuineness” to the faces in his scenarios. Still, in examining the side-by-side displays of source photos and finished paintings, one can see how much he exaggerated features for increased comic effect, almost to the point of caricature, while still somehow retaining that patina of realism.

Part of the fun is seeing the artist himself performing for the camera, both as a subject (very often recognizable in the crowds he loved to paint) and as an auteur encouraging his models. It’s clear his enthusiasm never waned, and his expressive skills were right up there with the best of his subjects. Many tricks and props are also visible, such as hands or wires holding up a pigtail to simulate speed, or books set under toes and heels to represent a proper gait.

Clearly, Rockwell’s directorial method was both well honed and essential to the making of his art. That it was also a precursor to the most heralded and high-priced artists of our present time is an idea so preposterous and yet so deliciously subversive as to be irresistible. Sherman, Crewdson et al: You owe this guy some respect.

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera opened last fall and continues through May 31. The museum is open every day, and it’s a pleasant 45-minute drive from downtown Albany to a beautiful setting in the Berkshires. Coming up next at the Norman Rockwell Museum will be an exhibition of work by the New Yorker cartoonist William Steig, which opens on June 12.

Tattoo Artist Cover for The Saturday Evening Post by Norman Rockwell © 1944 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.

Other credits for the images used in this post: Photographs for A Day in the Life of a Little Girl, 1948 Reference Photography, Norman Rockwell Archives, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Norman Rockwell Estate Licensing Company, Niles, IL.

Photographs for Soda Jerk, 1953 Reference Photography, Norman Rockwell Archives, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Norman Rockwell Estate Licensing Company, Niles, IL. Soda Jerk cover for The Saturday Evening Post by Norman Rockwell © 1953 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.

Norman Rockwell Posing for Pan Am Was My Magic Carpet Around the World, 1955 Reference Photography, Norman Rockwell Archives, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Norman Rockwell Estate Licensing Company, Niles, IL.

All images courtesy of Norman Rockwell Museum