Richard Deon: Paradox and Conformity at the ACCR

Installation view of Richard Deon: Paradox and Conformity

Photo by Richard Deon

You probably remember the Richard Dreyfuss character in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, whose obsession with a curious monolithic shape takes over his life. Another Richard D. has a similar obsession, as evidenced by a fascinating solo exhibition at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy titled Richard Deon: Paradox and Conformity.

The show represents an extremely adept artist with a conceptualist’s thought processes, an installation artist’s approach, and an illustrator’s skill, who is not afraid to employ a wide range of media (acrylic on canvas, sculpture, collage, inkjet) to articulate his vision. And a rather peculiar vision it is, drawing heavily from elementary-school primers, historical references, and ideas about painting and corporate culture, just to name a few obvious influences.

Remaining Palette
acrylic on canvas by Richard Deon

Deon’s style is a confounding mix of the personal and the coldly technical. His notes to the exhibition, placed next to key pieces, reveal a quirky and deeply felt connection to the images and their content, while the manner in which the works are made borders on the mechanical. In one note, he refers almost passionately to a “blister yellow” field of color on a canvas that is “text ready.”

Most important, the work is almost fiercely consistent, making for a unified presentation of five years’ worth of material (augmented by a couple of related works that date several years earlier) that tightly fills the Arts Center’s ample main gallery. In contrast to nearly every show I’ve see in this space before, where sparseness has been the rule - and not always to good effect - this show is a bit overcrowded. If the work were not so clean and texture-free, it could be claustrophobic.

Peace Deal
painted wood, wheels by Richard Deon

The primary element in Paradox and Conformity is a flat shape that appears in nearly every piece, whether painted, cut out, formed in plastic, or blind-embossed. Apparently taken from the silhouette of a tabletop microscope with a cover on it, this iconic shape functions as an archetype, taking on different scales and meanings in different contexts. Whether as a sail, an award, or a talisman, the shape gains power from placement and repetition, just as symbols always have done throughout history and in human culture today.

Deon uses other archetypes in this body of work, among them a pedantic scholar, a stoic Everyman, and a small airplane, all of which are rendered in a flat-black shorthand. One can't help but ask the question over and over while exploring the show: What does it all mean? Clearly, it is the artist's intention to stimulate this quizzical state, but his game is not without a payoff - one is likely to leave the show with a pretty good idea, conscious or unconscious, of what we think it means, just as we do when we contemplate our everyday lives.

And that, I think, is the strength of this work. Though it is artificial almost in the extreme (and it's no accident that the first three letters of that word spell "art"), it is also deeply connected to who we are, where we come from and - one would suspect - where we are going.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Early Morning by Fern Apfel

Also on view, in the Arts Center's Foyer Gallery, is a sweet, strong exhibition by Fern Apfel titled Studio Wall. Apfel is a longtime favorite of mine, and this collection shows why - modestly sized but with an ambitious mix of media, Apfel's art is like a cultural note-taking process with beauty as a requirement. Be sure not to miss it when you go to see the Deon show. Additionally, upstairs in the Faculty Student Gallery there is a solo exhibition by landscape painter Deborah Bayly.

Myth in Metaphor: The Etchings of Steven Hazard at Clement Art Gallery

I don’t know Steven Hazard personally, but his show atClement Art Gallery in Troy says a lot about what sort of person he must be.Like many artists, he is obsessed – but unlike most people, artists included,he appears to be singularly devoted to his obsession, giving his entireexistence over to creating a very particular world in carefully rendered andheavily layered imagery.

At his home studio in Albany, Hazard makes etchings, which heframes himself and takes on the road to sell at craft fairs and such; thesetravels have allowed Hazard to make a living, but have largely prevented himfrom pursuing traditional gallery shows. Myth in Metaphor is the first local showI can recall that features more than just a few of his works.

So this is a welcome opportunity to take in the scope of Hazard’soutput – especially because, despite the small scale of the gallery, it’s acomprehensive collection that spans from the 1970s to the present. Then again,for me the show is perhaps too complete – Hazard’s images are so dense that itis a challenge to take in very many of them at once, and the result is that theexperience is somewhat overwhelming.

The show includes a great deal of text, most of it written byHazard to explain the complexities of his ideas and images, some of it taken fromother sources. One such quote says his prints “often represent the sensoryoverload ... of the modern world,” which mirrors my own reaction; I would addthat they also draw from the ancient and medieval worlds to further populatethis Bosch-like, crammed universe that Hazard so relentlessly depicts.

Apart from the many etchings on view (both framed on thewalls and stacked unframed in bins), the show features several pencil drawings,which provide a bit of respite from the dark, layered prints. One of the drawings,titled Four Elements and dated 1999, provides the template for a same-sizeprint also on view. At about 20x34 inches, it is large for Hazard and, being ingraphite rather than ink, it is both lighter in tone and more richly detailed.One could spend hours just exploring this single piece in all its intricacy.

Another drawing, Article of Faith, is dated 2011 and featuressofter marks in a couple of colors on textured, grey paper. While its contentis similar to the other work on view, it has a lighter touch, and its use of arabbit as the main subject makes it more approachable than many of the moreforbidding subjects presented here.

Those consist of the human figure, animals, mythologicalcharacters, machinery, architecture and landscape – sometimes all in onepicture – and all of it elaborately staged to tell a story in actions andsymbols.  The many black or brown single-plateetchings shown here are augmented by quite a few colorful multiple-plate etchings,as well as some lovely hand-colored etchings.

Hazard displays great skill with drawing, spatialperspective, and visual invention, and his well of creative ideas seems bottomless– but I find the technical quality of his prints to be wildly inconsistent:some are crisp and clear, others very muddy, and many are too heavily inked,which causes a lot of blocking up in the finer details. In work such as this,where it’s not just about the lights and darks, or the shapes and lines, butwhere every bit of information carries intent and meaning, that matters.

Note: Myth in Metaphor: The Etchings of Steven Hazard closes onWeds., Oct. 26, so you must hurry if you’re planning to see it; also, thegallery will publish a catalog of Hazard’s work by December, adding to thelineup of quality publications it has brought out for its artists over the pastfew years.

Rating: Recommended

MoHu

Some day we will all be bragging that we were here for the first MoHu festival. Let's get out there and make it real!

Marks of Identity at the PhotoCenter

Four portraits from Marks of Identity:
The Body Art Photography of William DeMichele (photo provided)

A very impressive display of 32 color portraits by Albany photographer William DeMichele is on view just through Sunday (Aug. 21) at the Photography Center of the Capital District, but I'm offering this reminder to those who might still want to catch it. And that's possible, as the PhotoCenter is open from noon to 6 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

If you go, you will see a body of work about the body, and how people adorn it, and about those people as people. OK, a little convoluted, but the point is that these are not just sensational(istic) pictures of amazing tattoos on naked skin, they are also sensitive portraits of the people who live in that skin.

Originally made around 20 years ago, and shown quite a bit nationally and internationally, as well as having been published in numerous magazines and a couple of nice books (available for sale at the gallery), these pictures still pack a great punch. Indeed, some will be offended by them (those I've posted above are, hmmm, nothin' compared to certain others in the show); but if you focus on the art aspect and not the body aspect, it's mostly rather tame, lyrical, romantic stuff.

This is no accident - 29 of the subjects are female, with only six males weighing in (three of the portraits are of couples), so there's a fair amount of flowers and fairies ... but there are also extreme examples of whole-body designs in black or multicolored ink, clearly done by tattoo artists at the very top of the game, and there's some interesting cultural range to the design content, though all the subjects are American. And some of the bodies, also not by accident, are really very lovely to see, which isn't a bad thing, either, in my opinion.

Bottom line: Whether female or male, pretty or not, young or old, DeMichele respects his sitters, and by treating them with respect and admiration, he evokes revealing, intimate pictures that are both documents of the inky art and works of art in themselves. See 'em if you can.

Rating: Recommended

Transition in Troy (Fence Show, Nadia Trinkala memorial show)

Mixed-media painting by Nadia Trinkala at Fulton Street Gallery

There are two major transitions under way in Troy’s arts institutions, with tearful departures and joyous events tied together. The local news has carried much coverage of the decision of the Arts Center of the Capital Region’s president, Amy Williams, to step down and enter the private sector – and her going-away party at the Arts Center on Thursday drew a huge crowd of friends who were happy to share their appreciation of Williams’ leadership over the decades and to wish her well. 

I was a willing part of that throng, as a close follower of the ACCR’s activities since my association with it in the early 1980s, when it was known as the Rensselaer County Council for the Arts and I was a member of its board of directors. At that time, the RCCA established a budget line for a paid Exhibits Coordinator (before that it was a volunteer position), and Williams was the first person hired to fill that post - part time, at $1,600 a year. She and the Arts Center have come a very long way since then, and I wish them both more great progress in the future.

The other big news in Troy is that the long-struggling Fulton Street Gallery is slated to close – but I have it from a reliable source that, instead, it will remain open under new management, with founding Director Colleen Skiff stepping away but continuing to present art under the Fulton Street name at the Uncle Sam Atrium.

This is exciting for many reasons, not least of which is that it means the current Fulton Street exhibition of work by (or inspired by) Nadia Trinkala will continue through the month of August (hours yet to be determined). It is an extraordinary exhibition of very high quality, made all the more touching by the fact of its protagonist’s suicide this spring (click here to see GV’s In Memoriam for Trinkala).

To anyone who may have doubted Trinkala’s credibility as an artist, this exhibition is a revelation. Comprising work in several media – photography, drawing, painting, jewelry, and more,  all of it sensitive, revealing, well-made, and consistent with a personal vision – the show does her memory justice. Trinkala’s dear friends Ray Felix and Robert Gullie made it happen, and they did an outstanding job of curation, preparation, and installation, producing a finely coherent whole that uses the Fulton Street location perfectly, and underscores the importance of keeping this ideal storefront space open as a gallery.

Meanwhile, back at the ACCR, the Fence Salon will come down on Saturday (July 17), to be replaced by the reconfigured Fence Select, which will open on July 29 (along with a solo show in the President’s Gallery by John Yost, a photographer and video artist who earned his MFA at UAlbany this spring). An annual juried show open to all artist members of the ACCR without an entry fee, the Fence Show’s 44-year history and broad appeal qualifies it in my estimation as “the other Regional,” and this year’s lineup fulfills that expectation with strong work in many media, selected by Hudson gallerist Carrie Haddad.

Viewing the hundreds of entries in the Salon, where those that were selected by Haddad are mixed in but designated by a paper marker, I found myself nodding in agreement over and over again. “Yes,” I found myself thinking, “she’s nailing it!” That is, until I saw a superb trio of color photographs by Chris DeMarco, and searched in vain for the “selected” card. Did Haddad fail to notice them amid the chaos of the salon? A staffer assured me that she had been thorough in her perusal – and that I was just one of a number of people who had asked the same thing on DeMarco’s behalf. So it goes with juried shows.

As it happens, the Fence Show had strangely few photography submissions this year. I have no way of knowing why that would be (it has attracted work from numerous fine photographers in the past), but I wonder if the overlap with the Photography Regional (at Albany Center Gallery through July 16) had an effect – or if the fact that Haddad judged that exhibition in Troy just last year (under Fulton Street’s auspices in the Atrium) made some photographers decide not to bother.

Aside from that, I think we can expect the installed Fence Select to be high quality and well representative of the art that this region has to offer. As for the true Regional, which recently opened at the Albany Institute of History & Art, watch this space for a review to run soon.

In Memoriam: Nadia "Trink" Trinkala

A shining light of the Capital Region art scene was extinguished on Thursday, April 8, when Nadia “Trink” Trinkala died suddenly on Peebles Island in Waterford. She was 44 years old.

Nadia (pronounced Nay-dee-ah) was known to all gallery-goers as a smiling free spirit with fantastic taste in clothes and an extremely generous personal warmth that touched all who came in contact with her. A recent Times Union article described Trinkala as “a painter and jewelry designer, [who] was part of the artistic resurgence of Troy when she opened a gallery, design and furniture business on River Street in 2004.”

But Trink’s story didn’t end or begin there. After a career as a travel agent, and then selling vintage furnishings in Los Angeles, Trink returned to the Capital Region in 1997; in 2002 she opened a gallery in Cohoes that had a big impact on that city and on the lives of some of the artists involved.

Co-directors Tom D’Ambrose and Bob Gullie helped put on a show at Trink Gallery, titled Visions and Vibrations: The Visual Art of Musicians, that included work by already famous creators such as George Frayne (Commander Cody) and Martin Benjamin, as well as kick-starting the visual-art careers of such musical talents as Michael Eck, Chip Fasciana, and Sergio Sericolo, all of whom have gone on to significant local and regional recognition.

According to D’Ambrose, the gallery’s grand opening drew 1,000 people and caused traffic to back up along Remsen Street. He adds: Nadia had the most beautiful creative spirit of anyone I have ever known ... . She inspired creativity in a countless number of people in upstate New York and New York City, where she had been living for the past few years in DUMBO. Nadia rocked every city she had a gallery in ... Cohoes, Troy, and Hudson. The last time I spoke to her she wanted me to join her in a project that I feel had the potential to bring her beautiful creative spirit to a global stage. She was committed to changing the world through art and music. The world has lost its brightest supernova … .

Later, Trink (the furniture store) moved to Troy, adding a gallery called CJ Gallery at Trink, which showed the work of Wren Panzella, Piper Brown, Christopher Murray and others. D’Ambrose relates a highlight of that experience, when Kid Rock bought two Panzella paintings from the gallery on Labor Day Weekend. (That’s a Panzella painting in the photo of Trink at the top of this post, and one of her own works at right, above.)

A later incarnation of the furniture store and gallery had a brief tenure in Hudson, after which, according to the Times Union obituary, “Nadia … turned her energies toward her natural calling in life - to help others through her compassion and creativity. She began working with the disabled at ARC, Center for Disability Services, Carriage House, Living Resources, and Questar. Her honest spirit, which saw the person as opposed to the disability, led her to reach people in remarkable ways.”

She went on to seek certification in the field of Creative Arts & Music Therapy at The New School in New York and had recently been researching a practical and philosophic framework around the idea of "The Human Citizen." A LinkedIn page listed her occupation as “community enhancement.” She will be greatly missed.

Note: A memorial service for Nadia Trinkala has been scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 30, at Cohoes Music Hall. For more information on this and other initiatives in Trink's memory, click here.

Sketcher Recalls at ACCR and other Troy shows

The anagrammatic Union College stage designer Charles Steckler has revealed a hidden identity as an irrepressible doodler in a show at the Arts Center of the Capital Region titled Sketcher Recalls, which opened, along with several other shows of interest, at last Friday's Troy Night Out.

Steckler has been unusually active in the exhibitions arena in recent years, and is now widely known for his inventive and layered dioramas. This show brings out a related body of work that is both more subtle and more personal. Because the drawings are mostly on the scale and level of doodling, anyone could relate to them (after all, who among us doesn't take pen or pencil in hand and make sketches while on the phone or in a meeting?).

However, this is the doodling of a master doodler, and the drawings are enchanting. Most of them have an organic feel, featuring semi-recognizable plant forms or landscapes. Others are less concrete, emphasizing fantasy or pure mark-making. Though no color is employed, there is a notable breadth of media, including metallic inks, Wite-Out, various types of pens and pencils, and occasional embellishments in the form of abrasion, collage, or even added materials such as wire.

Altogether, what Steckler the Sketcher recalls is a lifetime of thoughtful, time-absorbing attention to detail, mood, and form. Four of the 20-plus drawings in this show were included in a recent exhibition at Union's Mandeville Gallery titled Of Weeds and Wildness, which was recently reviewed here. This solo show presents a nice opportunity to revisit those gems and see many more from the same deft hand. It hangs through April 22.

Not far from the Arts Center is the Clement Art Gallery, where a show titled { sub/urban } features the work of painters Ben Schwab and Scott Nelson Foster. Aptly paired, these two look at the built environment in distinct ways, using different techniques that move toward each other in a nicely balanced relationship.

Schwab, who teaches at The College of Saint Rose, works larger, more geometrically, and more colorfully than Foster (his show at Albany Center Gallery was reviewed here in 2009), though his most recent entries in this show represent a departure into smaller, sketchier works in pencil that he calls "postcards." These offer a welcome window into Schwab's process.

Foster is new to the area, having come last fall from Idaho by way of Utah to teach at Siena College. His small-scale, monochromatic watercolors evoke black-and-white photographs, though up close they are just as seductively loose and flowing as watercolors ought to be. The quasi-cool look he takes at subdivisions and big-box stores has an almost spiritual reverence for its subjects.

This is a nice local debut for Foster - I hope we'll see a lot more of his work around here in the years to come. The show remains on view through April 28.

Across the street from the Arts Center is a recently relocated shop called Artcentric, where Albany photographer Connie Frisbee Houde has mounted a solo show amid the clutter. I'm not opposed to alternative spaces, and this seems to be a bustling one, overseen by the keen eye of longtime photographer Debra Lockrow and featuring a range of local artists as well as tons of other crafty stuff.

Houde's show is a departure from her well-known Afghanistan subject matter (reviewed here in 2009), this time representing the more tranquil Caribbean setting of St. John. Though this particular venue doesn't demand a clearly honed style or consistent presentation, Houde's decision to include everything from landscapes to portraits to street scenes to nature details takes away from the overall impact of her vision. That's too bad, because her stuff is great (example shown at right above).

More photography can be seen in a two-person show at the Photography Center of the Capital District by Eric Lindbloom and Joseph Schuyler titled Truro Light. As expected, the pictures are from Cape Cod, but most of them are not your everyday beach scenes, and some are purely transcendent.

Lindbloom, who hails from Poughkeepsie and also shows in New York City, works in medium-format black and white - yes, he still shoots film and makes prints in a darkroom - and his very sensitively seen images are gorgeous. Some of the work is presented in series, such as one group of wonderfully wave-tossed sea grass, and another of selectively focused woodsy details with more than a little hint of magic.

Schuyler offers digitally-based color prints here - most are elegantly composed, some quite dramatic, while others have an Oriental lyricism. The digital color is distractingly blocked up in some of Schuyler's prints, but in others they remain quite subtle. His take on the Cape is more about the place than Lindbloom's (whose images could be from almost any climatically similar place); Schuyler's best work puts you right there in the elements, where you feel the wind, sand, and salt. The show continues through March 25.

Color Moves at RPI's Shelnutt Gallery

I'm glad the exhibition Color Moves at RPI's Shelnutt Gallery continues through the end of March, which is not Black History Month, though it did begin on Feb. 1, which is. Yes, the five artists in the exhibition (Francelise Dawkins, Ayriel Hunt, Femi M. Johnson, George W. Simmons, and Stephen Tyson) are black - but they have a lot more in common, and a lot more to offer viewers, than their racial identity.

Before I get into the specific qualities of the works in the show, allow me to ponder the issue of segregation. The art world is largely liberal, but segregation can exist there as much as anywhere. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with race, nor is it necessarily bad. For example, we regularly segregate artists by medium - showing painters with painters, sculptors with sculptors and so on. There is also a tendency to separate older artists from younger ones, male from female, conceptual from representational, major from minor. These types of divisions often make sense and help the viewer understand the work within its context.

A lot of times, though, I think curators go too far to separate. While women artists were unfortunately ignored through most of history, does it make sense in 2011 to have a show just of women artists? Ethnicity is another tricky zone - we probably wouldn't balk at the idea of a show featuring Asian or Latino artists, and clearly it's considered good politics (especially in February!) to organize a show around the artists' blackness - but what would happen should someone mount an exhibition specifically restricted to the work of gay white men, or American Muslims? I'm just not sure I see the use in all that.

So I'm glad this show of five worthy artists has its month of March. The gallery has a tradition of showing ethnic artists' work, and that's a fine thing to do; it is a fairly non-traditional space upstairs in the Rensselaer Student Union, where the walls are clean and the lighting effective, though it also serves as a meeting room, so access can be limited and the furnishings do get in the way a bit. If you go, the best bet for parking is in the visitor lot next door, where meters can be fed.

This year's edition of Color Moves (it's an ongoing series) weaves common threads and themes among the group: colorful abstraction fairly dominates, collage is the medium of three of the artists, and there is a certain graphism throughout. Two of the artists are using non-rectangular shapes, and the materials are mostly outside of the mainstream (fabric, carbon paper, wood, acetate).

All this makes for a fresh and compatible array of artists who are nonetheless rather divergent in their approaches and (one would assume) intents. The oddest one out would be Hunt, who is a student at RPI whose work fits squarely in the mode of graphic design (one piece is shown at the bottom of this post), and has the clearest messages in it. Her deft, assured drawing style blunts the force of Hunt's confrontational subject matter, which seems to be suburban black youths' need to be more aware of history.

Also somewhat narrative are Johnson's painterly collages, made of torn paper fragments that articulate figures in a very loose way and use color whimsically. I especially like the most recent of his four pieces in the show, titled Night Train (another, titled Village Keeper is shown above at right).

Dawkins' and Tyson's works are intermingled on one wall, nearly competing with each other in terms of vivid color and rounded forms (one of Dawkins', titled Sanctuary/Still Waters is shown at the top of this post; one of Tyson's, titled Tempo, is shown above at left). Dawkins, a fabric collagist, wields a wild pair of scissors to make vibrant compositions that are as complex as they are playful. Two earlier pieces (both circular) are more muted, layered, and soft than the two newer ones, which are more direct. The larger of the two, which is her only rectangular piece in the show, is liberally peppered with images of fruits and birds.

Tyson, a Siena College professor, has a history of making busily patterned abstract paintings. His four pieces in this show, all dated 2009, are brightly painted, shaped planks and slabs of wood with stripes, color-field elements, soft geometry, and metallic gold. Their rhythms show jazz as a clear influence, but two of the titles (Asteck and Eltem) mystify.

Simmons appears to be the most prolific of the group. His 12 collaged drawings in the show include four from earlier periods (1996, 2004 and 2005), two from 2010, and six from 2011, and they remain consistent throughout. Still, though I've known Simmons and his work for 30 years, I am still hard pressed to describe or explain it.

A pair of "self-portraits" (one is shown above at left) are somewhat revealing of the artist's thoughts, while containing elements of the other works. Altogether, they are crudely assembled with bits of Scotch tape, yet elegantly ethereal. Simmons incorporates scraps of his own work in various media to make these pieces, which represent a truly personal vocabulary that only a dedicated and quirky artist could possess.

Rating: Recommended

Vignette at the Arts Center

Also in Troy (through Mar. 20) and not to be missed is a very thoughtfully curated exhibition of five artists at The Arts Center of the Capital Region titled Vignette. Joel Griffith, Ingrid Ludt, GG Roberts, Rebecca Shepard, and Ann Wolf are a rather eclectic bunch who have been brought together by the ex-Metroland critic Nadine Wasserman, who wrote this statement:

For much of art history, narrative art functioned as a way to tell a story or to represent a religious, historical, or allegorical event. With the advent of modernism, however, direct story telling was derided and the narrative form was transformed by abstraction and non-linearity. With postmodernism the narrative remained suspect and artists created multifaceted work that further fractured the notion of “grand” narratives. But artists have never stopped creating narrative work. Even abstract and non-representational art can be narrative and can contain coded references to political, social, and personal issues. This exhibition presents five artists each working with narrative structure but each bringing to it a unique approach. Taken together these artists present a variety of styles encompassing abstraction, surrealism, seriality, realism, and fiction.

In quick capsules: Roberts' three paintings in the show are exuberantly kitschy - I wish there were more of them here to see; Ludt offers 18 works, in a group of 10 slightly larger ones and eight slightly smaller ones - they are gestural, intuitional, oddly colored, light; Wolf uses gouache in monochromatic swaths of expert rendering to evoke fairytale landscapes; Shepard's pencil drawings subtly seduce the eye with sad little tales, while paired drawings and patterned-paper collages nearly steal the show; and Griffith's masterfully painted streets are a blend of Maxfield Parrish and Gregory Crewdson - first noticed at the 2010 Mohawk Hudson Regional, he is a force to be reckoned with (the image below is titled Scism Road, Trailer).

Troy Night Out

OK, the weather has put a crimp in my ambitious plan for today to go see several shows in Troy and report on them in time for tonight's Troy Night Out. Instead, a short plug for two of the venues involved:

John Connors, one of my favorite local artists, has a solo of his lyrical Trojan watercolor drawings at Clement Art Gallery (example shown above). This is a show certain to bring joy to all who view it, and John is fun at a party, so go tonight if you can. Click if you want to see my 2009 review of his last solo show at Clement.

Also well worth checking out are two exhibitions at the Arts Center of the Capital Region, both of which opened last month; Vignette, curated by Nadine Wasserman, runs through March 20, and I expect to post a review of it here before then - but Andrea Hersh's Flora & Fauna (example shown below) ends Saturday, so see it now or forever wonder what you missed.

Enjoy the snow!

Channing Lefebvre at Clement Gallery

The artist Channing Lefebvre has assembled an exquisite collection of minimally altered ephemera appropriately presented under the title Appreciations: Fine Printed and Handmade Paper Collages, which I saw at Clement Art Gallery during last week's Troy Night Out.

Lefebvre's process is not unlike that of a curator, or perhaps even a photographer, whose intention is to direct our attention to the delights they have discovered, as opposed to the attention-getting tricks of an artist whose primary goal is self-expression. A printer by trade, he draws from a vast personal collection of printed material, ranging from antique lithographed catalog pages to contemporary hand-marbled Florentine paper, which he carefully arranges in very simple rectangular collages.

The show contains about two dozen of these, matted and clip-framed, all the same small size (maybe 5 by 8 inches each), and arranged around one much larger framed piece. Many more of the small ones are available to peruse by flipping through them in a display bin.

Lefebvre has always had a light touch in most of his work, which over the decades has included simplified landscapes, color-field paintings, more elaborate collages, fetishistic three-dimensional objects, calligraphic abstractions, and – most recently – systematically hatched abstract drawings. But this body of work shows the lightest touch of all, with many of the pieces combining as few as two elements in simple overlays. These “appreciations” could also be called observations – he has seen what happens when two or more shapes or patterns are combined, and is sharing that with us.

The centerpiece of the show, however, goes far beyond this approach, to produce what could arguably be called a full-fledged work of original expression, though it, too, is comprised entirely of cut-and-pasted swatches of other people’s designs. The chaotic collision of colors and patterns that occurs in that piece transcends anything the source prints’ creators likely would have envisioned. I found the effect totally gratifying (its hallucinatory quality is reflected in the far simpler piece reproduced at the top of this post).

Lefebvre had a large collection of drawings in a group show at Albany Center Gallery two years ago (you can read my very short review of it here), but he hasn't had a solo exhibition locally in quite a bit longer than that. This subtle presentation will not be for everybody, especially those who demand that their artists demonstrate specialized or arduous techniques, but it will grow on those who give it a proper chance (it's there through Feb. 24).

Rating: Recommended

Uncertain Spectator at EMPAC

A visit to RPI's Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center is an otherworldly, futuristic experience, and the exhibition Uncertain Spectator fits it to a tee.

Curated by EMPAC's Emily Zimmerman, Uncertain Spectator includes mainly high-tech and video-based art, as you would expect, by 10 artists (or collectives) from all over the world. But does the show meet the expectation created by its theme, which is anxiety? I'm not quite sure.

First, a little about the setting. EMPAC is a gigantic, super-modern building that virtually hovers over Troy, with massive shapes and expensive surfaces that make it truly a work of art in itself. I approached from the most obvious entrance, which, with its big, curving driveway, appears welcoming enough. But a little confusion ensued.

There are lots of doors (which, despite the absence of any visible staff, open readily enough), no apparent elevator, and lots and lots of stairs. I'm fit enough, so I decided to ascend on foot. There, the adventure began, as curious sounds emanated from hidden speakers nearby, immediately alerting me to the fact that my arrival had been detected.

I'm not OCD, but I did count as I climbed - ranked 14 steps at a time between landings, five or six flights of stairs brought me alongside the curving belly of the building's main theater, which occupies its center like a massive, docked spaceship. Slightly out of breath, I arrived at the 5th floor lobby, and the apparent beginning of Uncertain Spectator.

Yet, true to the promise of its title, I was already feeling uncertain. The sound installation that had greeted me at the bottom of the steps continued to emit nifty noises, but was it part of the show? (the answer seems to be "no"); though there was some signage, labeling, and display copies of the show's catalog, along with large take-away posters by Anthony Discenza on a spotlit pedestal (an example of his signage art is shown above at right), much of the lobby space was forbiddingly dark, and still I saw no people (though at times I thought I heard people - live or recorded, it was impossible to say).

Having been directed in a message from EMPAC's PR man to retrieve a copy of that catalog from the 7th-floor box office, I dropped my coat on a bench and resumed my upward trek. After a differently paced flight of steps (I think it went 12-12-20), I summited near a tremendous desk in a cavernous upper lobby, in the center of which I recognized an electronic sculptural installation from the show. Behind the desk was a small, young woman and on top of it was a catalog with my name on it.

And so, the adventure continued. After a perusal of the Marie Sester piece I'd spotted, which hissed and shrieked at me as I moved about its white, shag rug and five colorfully upholstered chairs, a spectral-looking but friendly young man beckoned me to enter one of the dark corners of the space; there, beyond a parted black curtain, a fascinating black-and-white film by Jesper Just was showing. Its soundtrack consisted of a haunting theme harmoniously whistled by a trio of actors. The handsome man and two beautiful women of significantly different ages seemed to be performing a wordless seduction a trois in a lavishly appointed Gothic-style room, explicated by many softly lit closeups of their hands, eyes, and lips.

Worried that I'd never escape the clutches of this siren song before seeing the rest of the show, I stepped back through the black curtains, with a promise to the young man that I'd return to finish viewing the 10-minute cycle (I did). By this point, I was beginning to understand that the show was scattered about these two floors, and that much of it was in the form of projections in various screening studios, as indicated by signage leading to them.

One of the benefits of this design, aside from the obvious necessity of using available studios for such screenings, was that it introduced me to a good number of the (apparently) many theaters of different sizes in this marvelous building. I added to that exposure by checking out the interior of the main theater - it is an awesome piece of architecture, a stunningly beautiful example of acoustic design, and much warmer than you might think it would be, as it is made almost entirely of wood. My footsteps echoed sharply throughout the space - I imagine a concert there would sound terrific.

Back across the gangplank (yeah, the ship metaphor is blatant) onto the lobby floor, I resumed my search for the elements of Uncertain Spectator, and first noticed one of many slick-looking hand-sanitizer dispensers that stood vigil here and there. Were they part of the show? Alas, while there's no doubt they were anxiety-induced, this turned out not to be the case - the young woman behind the desk helpfully informed me that they were merely a vestige of the campus's response to the 2008 swine flu epidemic. Even so, I hazard that any artist who might wish to claim them as a clever installation piece would have a reasonable excuse to boast inclusion in the show.

Another unrelated art installation (made of color-coded light fixtures) guides the path to a screening room where an animated film by Jordan Wolfson features Coke bottles filled with sloshing milk that march relentlessly along dark city streets (image above at left). Anxiety inducing? Nah, just grating.

Somewhat clearer, though scarcely innovative, were two videos showing on monitors in the original lobby. One, by Kate Gilmore, depicts two simultaneous views of the artist as she laboriously squeezes herself through a tight, cobbled-together channel. The other, by Tue Greenfort, presents an overhead view of a trapped couple in a white-cube art installation as they collaborate to make their escape over the wall.

These closely relate to a nearby series of photographs from a 1968 happening by Graciela Carnevale, in which gallery goers are locked into an empty space and eventually break its plate-glass window to get out. These three documented performances essentially form a show within the show that addresses topics of control and entrapment. But how well does it express anxiety?

Also nearby is a meticulously constructed kiosk with an electronically controlled and illuminated graph by Susanna Hertrich that depicts colorful bubbles of hazards such as gun crime and cancer in relation to their corresponding degrees of public outrage. This Reality Checking Device (shown at top of post) works well, but struck me as merely a good start.

Similarly, the French collective Claire Fontaine offers a dozen American quarters that have been modified to conceal curved blades (and which I am describing based on photographs, because the piece was missing due to its container having been vandalized). The connection to the box-cutters used on 9/11 is clear, but one still looks for greater revelations.

Far more effective, in yet another dark theater, is a color film projection of a man performing monologues, by the collective SUPERFLEX. Here, the large, dark, empty projection room, the hugely enlarged, droning, anonymous interlocutor, and the pointedly hypnotic and economic/social/political content of his words conspired to transport me to a place where they may have been cause for concern. At last, this was a work of art that fulfilled both the promise of the show and the elaborate technology behind it.

This film alone, and the stunning EMPAC building, are reason enough to go see Uncertain Spectator before it ends on Jan. 29.

Rating: Recommended

Also of note in Troy is the exhibition titled Daughters of Aspasia by Jeri Eisenberg and Gail Nadeau at the Photography Center of the Capital District. These two well-known regional artists extend the photographic medium well beyond traditional methods, presenting an extremely subtle coordinated effort in this show.

Nadeau's work consists of extensively manipulated and colorfully painted personal images that read almost as a diary of her real or imagined family life; Eisenberg shows four triptychs and one quadruptych of extremely soft-focus images of landscape themes related primarily to atmospheric effects (example below). It's a show well worth seeing.

Media Watch (EMPAC show)

I try to pick up a Metroland (the Capital Region's alternative newsweekly) every Thursday, scanning the table of contents first to see if there's anything on visual art, but the last few months I've been left mostly disappointed in that regard. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the current issue carries a review by Nadine Wasserman of the exhibition Uncertain Spectator at EMPAC in Troy.

Then, this morning, I found a feature article by Tom Keyser about the same show in the Times Union's "Unwind" section. So, needless to say, I'll be getting over to EMPAC ASAP to see what all the excitement's about, and I'm very much looking forward to the experience. True confession: It will be the first time I've ever been inside the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.

So, you can plan to read about my perspective on Uncertain Spectator in a pending post (the venue will be closed from Dec. 23-Jan. 2, so I'll probably wait till after that to publish a review). In the meantime, I hope all of you have a fun run at the Christmas and New Year's holidays. And please look here soon for a 2010 year-in-review as well.

-db

Battlesight at the ACCR

It's as though the International Center of Photography opened a branch in Troy. The exhibition Battlesight: Dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan by International Photographers is that good, and that important.

Curated by Timothy Cahill, director of the Center for Documentary Arts at The Sage Colleges, and hosted by the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, Battlesight presents the work of three very diverse photographers who share a common subject: War. Cahill introduces the show by explaining that we live in a time in which there are few mass-media outlets for such images, as opposed to the Vietnam era, when the war was brought into everyone's living room by magazines such as Look and Life and by the evening news on TV.

His point is that we are disturbingly unconnected today to the devastation being wrought in our names with trillions of our dollars, and that this represents a culture out of balance. Aside from the obvious question of whether the work of these (or any) photographers being shown in an art gallery (or anywhere else) can change that balance, one must acknowledge that our time is nowhere near as innocent as the '60s started out, and that people these days are more and more difficult to reach - that is, to move emotionally - with pictures (or anything else).

But it's certainly worth trying. And these three - if nothing else - represent a deep commitment to doing that without fear, year after year. Cheryl Diaz Meyer, Balasz Gardi, and Teru Kuwayama are excellent photographers and have each won many well-deserved awards. By bringing them together, Cahill has created a different context for their work than you would find in a book or magazine - and that is part of the reason this show matters.

Rather than comment on the content of the work, which most viewers will have no trouble understanding and interpreting on their own (and which is evident in the examples shown with this post), I'd like to point out some of the less obvious aspects of the exhibition and its trio of participants.

First, there are three distinct sensibilities at play here. Diaz Meyer, who won a Pulitzer Prize while working for The Dallas Morning News, is the traditional "objective" reporter, taking relatively uninflected pictures and putting them together to tell a journalistic story. Gardi, a Hungarian freelancer, comes from the grand European tradition of humanistic photography made popular by the Magnum agency; his work is clearly meant to be allegorical. Kuwayama, a graduate of the University at Albany, uses equipment and techniques more generally associated with artistic photography, and fulfills that promise by offering works that lean toward self-expression.

The statements made by each photographer support these distinctions. Diaz Meyer's emphasizes courage (a totally straight-ahead American take on reporters and soldiers doing their duty); Gardi's emphasizes the desperation of his marginalized subjects (who are presented as deeply - and universally - human); and Kuwayama's emphasizes his own various journeys, projects, and ongoing exploration (essentially casting him as the traveling seeker of meaning).

Cahill, as curator, is the fourth wheel - his selection, choice of print size and framing design, and overall installation of the exhibition add up to a uniquely orchestrated experience of this particular set of sensibilities. It is (I believe) his first attempt at organizing such an exhibit and, while not perfect, it is quite a successful effort. The viewer is taken on a ride into difficult territory and emerges at the end still whole yet subtly, perhaps imperceptibly - but definitely - changed.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Battlesight: Dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan by International Photographers is on view through Dec. 19. There will be a second reception for the show during this Friday's (Nov. 26) Troy Night Out from 5 - 9 p.m.

Caption information, in order from top of post:

Balazs Gardi - An Afghan man holds a wounded boy in front of a house in Yaka China village, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, East Afghanistan, October 20, 2007. The boy received several shrapnel wounds from a rocket as a U.S. air strike targeted a suspected insurgent position in a nearby house the previous night. The air strike killed five other civilians and injured at least seven villagers including children.

Teru Kuwayama - An ethnic Kyrgyz horseman, carrying an Afghan flag, patrols the Afghan border with Tajikistan. Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan 2005

Teru Kuwayama - The ruins of Kabul. Following the retreat of the Soviet Army, internecine fighting between rival mujahideen factions leveled the city and displaced millions. 2002

Cheryl Diaz Meyer - Mini Bus - Corpses of children lay in a pool of blood in a minibus at an intersection near Hatif Haiyawi, an area loyal to Saddam Hussein, during the Second Tank Battalion's advance on the outskirts of Baghdad. Controlling civilian movement left numerous deaths as Marines responded to suicide bombers, soldiers posing as civilians and other ambush tactics. April 5, 2003

Balazs Gardi - U.S. soldier collapses in exhaustion during Operation Rock Avalanche, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, East Afghanistan, October 25, 2007.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer - Dust Storm - Marine Staff Sergeant Brian Flaherty of New York, Delta Company of the Second Tank Battalion, disconnects a fuel bladder from a tank as a dust storm rages in Southern Iraq. The move north toward Baghdad was one of the most aggressive tank road marches in Marine history. March 25, 2003.

Also of note: Two other important exhibitions of photography are on view in Troy, and both will be part of the Troy Night Out festivities: Autobiography, featuring the work of Nicholas Walster and Susan Bartoldus, has been extended by the Photography Center of the Capital District through the weekend; and Iceland Landscapes by Michael Marston will have its artist's reception on Friday at Fulton Street Gallery (it runs through Dec. 4). I recommend both.

Fence Select at Arts Center of the Capital Region ...

The Fence Show at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy has cemented a place in the annual schedule of many of the area's exhibiting artists, much like the better-known annual Mohawk-Hudson Regional. Though this regional has less prestige, and may draw from a narrower range of practitioners, recent years have demonstrated it is of equal quality to its older sister (which will have a Hyde Collection debut later this year).

Find this assessment surprising? That probably means you haven't seen this year's Fence Select, which was meticulously chosen and assembled by Tang Teaching Museum curator Ian Berry, and which you really must check out if you intend to keep up with who's who on the local art scene.

The list of participants includes names familiar from past editions of both exhibitions, such as Deborah Zlotsky, Ray Felix, and Abraham Ferraro, among others, along with new (to me, anyway) names such as Neil Fryzer, Admiral Donald "Duck" Wilson, and Niki Haynes. There are 53 works in all by 38 artists, representing a strikingly inclusive range of media from mezzotint to magic marker to modified exit sign, and it all holds together with deceptive ease.

The individual artists deserve credit for their fine works, but the real magic maker here is Berry, who was somehow able to cull from a jam-packed gallery full of submissions (as seen in the popular Fence Salon) a crisp combination that reflects the depth and breadth of this region's artists while expressing his sharp curatorial vision. Berry has organized numerous successful shows in his tenure at the Tang, and he also put together the first show in this space, titled Showroom, when the ACCR opened here around 10 years ago.

I will admit I didn't like that show, and my own taste sometimes clashes with Berry's - but his style has grown on me and, I daresay, he has grown a lot as a curator over these years, so I generally expect to like what he does now even if I don't necessarily like his specific choices of art. This is one place where art curating relates to film directing - some directors (Ang Lee, for example) can take almost any sort of story or genre and put it together in a film that you will love regardless of your taste in movies.

A skilled curator can take a concept about art and pull together work that will convince you of it via a fascinating journey through a gallery. Berry's introductory text to Fence Select, in which he invites the viewer "to craft open-ended narratives," describes his concept clumsily but well enough to make it clear. For me, the show delivered on Berry's promise, as a singular organism telling one large, ever-changing story of a vibrant community of artists who refuse to be defined by any style or movement, with boundless creativity and a crystalline sense of purpose.

One outstanding example, pictured above, is Ferraro's Mailable 2, a sculpture that was mailed in four parts as is, requiring some assembly and, more important, some thought to suss out. This piece does many things any ambitious work of art ought to try to do: it transforms its subject matter (in this case, I will take a leap and say the subject is shipping and assembly), makes masterfully innovative use of common materials, communicates visually, and doesn't take itself too seriously. These feats make the piece engaging, enlightening, provocative, and fun - the same characteristics I have come to expect from any show with the Berry touch.

Also on view at the ACCR through Sept. 3 is a weird and witty solo exhibition by Caitlin Foley titled Transmogrify.

Employing various alternative media, including some very nicely constructed artist's books, Foley plays with dualities - a tote that's a tent, sets of favorite or least-favorite sounds, a bird-bicycle that needs your assistance to pedal itself (shown below, with a real finger poking through it). Foley's vision is quirky, if not quite bizarre and, as seen here, is not fully formed - but that's okay for a first-year Syracuse University MFA candidate who shows this much promise.

... and other Troy shows

Just across the triangular Monument Square from the ACCR is the Clement Art Gallery, where curator Jon Gernon is developing a strong reputation for bringing together regional and national artists, particularly in the realm of realism. The current show there, represented by the card reproduced above, is perhaps his finest effort yet.

Allusion to Illusion: Contemporary Realism Today features five artists who are extremely skilled at rendering representational images in vividly colored, painstakingly textured detail. Two are from beyond the area, while three are local (including Gernon himself). Steve Carrelli, from Chicago, and Gernon work in egg tempera; Carolou Kristofik and Russell Gordon (the other locals), work in oil on linen; and Erin Gergen Halls, of Minnesota, works in colored pencil.

One of the fascinating aspects of so-called realism is how different each artist's interpretations end up appearing. A key facet of this exhibition is that its artists are very expressive - not mere imitators of the way things look - and highly individual in their modes of expression.

Kristofik's still lifes play with ordinary items and art objects of similar colors, then contrast them with another dominant color. For example, one of her pieces depicts a flock of yellow rubber ducks arranged in front of a deep blue wall. Others feature all red and black subjects, while another is a meditation in shades of paper-bag brown. All of them are masterfully composed and painted.

Gordon, who lives in Cambridge, N.Y., but has never shown inside the state until this exhibition, is the most commercially successful of the group. His extremely traditional still lifes in the Dutch style demonstrate why that is - but it is on the strength of his other paintings, particularly two marvelous trompe l'oeil pieces that appear to be presented back-side out, that he can hang a reputation of originality and true artistic significance.

Perhaps the most original stylist here is Carrelli, whose unframed temperas on linen mounted on panel fool the eye and tickle the brain with illusionistic paper envelopes as their picture planes. Like Gernon, Carrelli adds snatches of pencil sketches and other curious objects as elements in his constructions, using the smoothly-polished surface and tiny hatchings typical of egg tempera to marvelous effect.

Gergen Halls is the only artist in the show who clearly refers to photographs for her drawings, which places some of them in the special category of photo-realism (a style that had its heyday in the 1970s with artists such as Ralph Goings and Janet Fish). Others border on illustration, both in the sense that her technique is so impeccable as to be nearly flawless and that some of her imagery is less personally evocative than that of the other artists in the show. Still, it is visually sumptuous, whether depicting a friend taking a drink or an arrangement of scuffed containers of Tiger Balm.

Allusion to Illusion: Contemporary Realism Today remains on view through Aug. 26 - try not to miss it.

Tom Nelson View from Mt. House I oil on paper

Up the hill from Monument Square is the Chapel + Cultural Center at Rensselaer, a multi-use church and arts venue that operates in conjunction with RPI but is independently run by the Rensselaer Newman Foundation.

The current show there, titled The Big Picture: Expansive Landscapes includes four regional artists, of whom I am one. I also organized the exhibition (the fourth time I have done so at this venue), so I certainly won't be writing a review of it. But I break precedent here on Get Visual to recommend a show I'm in on behalf of the other artists - painters Gail Kort and Tom Nelson (one of whose works is pictured above), and photographer Barry Lobdell.

The Big Picture runs through Sept. 30, and is open every day - if you go, you may have to turn on the lights yourself, but it's worth the trouble. And, while I'm breaking the rules, there below is a tiny reproduction of the 8-foot photograph I've contributed to the show. It is the first and very probably last time I'll publish one of my own pictures here. Enjoy!

David Brickman Le Pilat, France 2007 photograph

The Argyros Collection - Silver Years at Photography Center of the Capital District

The Argyros Collection - Silver Years: 25 Years of Collecting Fine Art Photography and other Media is a pretty big mouthful of a title, and it refers to a touchingly personal eyeful of a show. Nicholas Argyros, the man who created the Troy-based Photography Center of the Capital District, has been a driving force behind the local scene for as long as most of us can remember; while his collecting has largely remained local, this selection emphasizes the global – but it still expresses Argyros’ extraordinary example of supporting artists and arts organizations in a time and place when most people couldn’t be bothered. A second selection emphasizing the local aspects of the Argyros collection will go on view at the PhotoCenter in 2012.

In a way, we’re all collectors – whether of shoes, baseball cards or furniture – but very few individuals cross over to the state where the pursuit of those objects of desire grows so strong that it creates a new persona, one whose heart’s work is to build or complete the collection, no matter what. Those few who become collectors in the true sense are driven by obsessions unique to themselves, but they often ultimately create something more universal – something the rest of us can relate to and benefit from.

Argyros has produced just that kind of a collection. With but a handful of notable pieces outside the medium of photography (including a marvelous Leigh Wen silkscreen and colorful lithographs by Alexander Calder and Frank Stella), this is a personalized compendium of images that range from Ansel Adams (his Dunes, Oceano is shown above) to Alex Webb, from the birth of the photographic medium in the form of Daguerreotypes to the latest digital processes. Argyros, largely by taking careful advantage of fundraising auctions at places such as the Center for Photography at Woodstock and Albany Center Gallery, has been able to turn a practiced eye and a limited budget into some considerable artistic treasure.

The show is crowded, almost cluttered, as would befit a presentation of the beloved contents of one’s attic, but it is also effectively organized into groups by PhotoCenter director and curator Katherine Wright.

The range of techniques is broad, while the subject matter hews toward the classical: still life, landscape, nude, portrait. In all these categories, there are outstanding examples by practitioners both famous and less well-known, including some of the most important shots of all time (Alexander Gardner’s last portrait of Abraham Lincoln, made just four days before the assassination, and Adams’ Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, a much larger print of which once held the record for most expensive photograph ever sold) and a few that are anonymous, such as a tiny circular image from the original Kodak camera and a French curiosity in the form of a top-hatted nude posed outside a straw hut. These and others are reminiscent of what you might see in the permanent collection of a great museum such as New York City’s MoMA or Rochester’s George Eastman House.

But this collection is valuable not so much for providing a museum-like lesson in the history of photography as for its wonderful quirks. Many pieces use alternative media, not just those from archaic times, such as photogravure, Autochrome, or platinum and palladium, but also their modern equivalents in the form of archival pigment print, Cibachrome, or encaustic. Beyond that, a number of the works are variations on collage – clearly, Argyros enjoys the non-classical approach, too, and has not shied away from collecting experiments and even items salvaged from the darkroom trash bin (Eikoh Hosoe’s supremely elegant set of scraps, lovingly mounted, signed and dated, exemplify this least likely source of compelling art).

The rest are mainly gelatin silver prints (hence the show’s title), which for the era covered was the heart of all photographers’ formation, much as drawing was the foundation for all trained sculptors and painters before the era of conceptual art. For me, a lifelong photographer who logged the requisite 10,000 hours in the darkroom during the 1970s, it was soothingly nostalgic to see so many traditionally made prints – after all, it is becoming rather rare to see pictures not output digitally. But what counts most, as ever, is the image, and there are plenty of fine images here to be moved and enlightened by.

Among my favorites are a delightfully painterly black-and-white print of oysters by Lilo Raymond (shown at the top of this post); a fine double exposure of a rock and a cityscape by Barbara Morgan; Robert McCann’s extremely delicate Curtain of leaves (left); and a trio of self-portraits by the shape-shifting Arno Rafael Minkkinen.

Of the composite images, two by Jerry Uelsmann remind us why he is among the most popular gallery photographers ever, while two by Vincent Serbin have awakened me to a name I should have known before but didn’t. Meanwhile, Jesseca Ferguson’s pinhole constructions show that there are still new ways to beautifully do the same old things (one is shown at right).

The nude category might be the strongest here – outstanding examples include Edward Steichen’s 1906 Little Round Mirror, full of the spirit of its time; Lucien Clergue’s equally timely recent color double exposure (courtesy of Elizabeth Opalenik); Barbara DeGenevieve’s taboo-busting Four Graces (shown about the middle of this post); and Opalenik’s own Shower Embrace, quite simply one of the loveliest pieces in the show.

Also stunning as an image and as a print is a large 2008 color panorama from Colorado by John Eastcott and Yva Momatiuk (shown below) that brings a blend of old and new technologies – people have been making 360-degree views of Western landscapes since at least the late-19th century, but the habit of pinning up unframed inkjet prints is a much more recent phenomenon. The combination is compelling, as is this marvelous collection. It remains on view through June 14; an informative and skillfully designed catalog is available.