This title was digitized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA).
About Art papers. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1981-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1981)
Mysterious spirituality gentle ness wonder tactile unique sym bolic luminescense evocative romance gestures I thought it might be interesting to list the nouns and adjectives used in the press release to describe the photographs for Fay Gold’s “Atlanta Artists” show. The press release also quotes Gold, describing the work of these artists as “less analytical and closely related to the language of poetry and music. It’s softer, more emotionally accessible.” All of this description is accurate. The P.R. gets out of hand, however, when Gold states, “The work selected is very ex citing—pointing in new directions.” This simply is not the case. The four photographers, whose craft level is very high, are clearly and une quivocally working within the accepted strategies of academic photography. Terms like “evocative,” “mysterious,” etc., the litany of romantic art, are equally descriptive of popular music or, for that matter, Rod McKuen’s poetry. As long as you feel it in your gut, it’s art. That is not enough—intelligence, invention and Gary Keown Atlanta Art Workers Coalition Gallery Atlanta, Georgia July 3 - July 24 The Atlanta Art Workers Coalition exhibition is an intriguing combina tion of sculptural installation and works on paper by South Carolina ar tist Gary Keown. Although the pieces function well as separate entities, they also share some similarities in techni que and in the manipulation of viewer response. The basic material of the three sculptural works is raw wooden boards or blocks which are visually or actually joined together by piles of sand, metal braces or the mere insight are primary components of all serious art. The fallacy of academic art lies in its inability to reconcile this obvious truih. It would not be accurate to say that these photographers will not or can not produce serious art. Kiyoaki Kato’s large format landscapes evince a thorough understanding of the genre as well as a level of technical competence rare in younger photo graphers. His work, perhaps more so than that of the other photographers, seems to be evolving toward more problematic concerns. His best pho tographs, Georgia Plant Bower, and a wide angle image taken under a bridge, have the interesting ambiguity of being recognizable objects and abstract forms, a duality difficult to achieve with the unerring photo graphic lens. Nancy Marshall is a master of platinum printing, a difficult and arcane process in which platinum is substituted for silver in the photo graphic emulsion. The imagery is pure Photo-Secessionism, an early photo graphic movement somewhere be tween Impressionism and Maxfield Parrish. The works’ potential lies in physical support of one block on another. In each case, the work evinces Keown’s interest in the establishment of a sequence and the viewer’s perception of the same. A se quence may be either linear, as in the case of two of the works, or in the form of a surface pattern arising out of the positioning of slots the artist has made in the wooden blocks which comprise the third work. In this wall like form, Keown has added verticali- ty to the horizontality which dom inates the other two pieces. Visual and tactile interest are heightened in all three sculptures by the juxtaposition of smooth and rough textures as in the smooth wooden and metal surfaces and the rough sand and edges. Similar qualities are evident in the the qualities of form and surface inherent in the process. To achieve this end, it is important for Marshall to give up her attachment to imagery that belongs in the last century. Chip Simone has, unfortunately, put on the clown’s hat with his Nar cissus series. This mindless series of flower still lifes may win the hearts of Fay Gold’s clientele, but does little to enhance Mr. Simone’s reputation as a serious photographer. His consider able talent as a portrait photographer was apparent in only two of his eight prints in the show. Michael Turner shares with the other three photographers a complete mastery over the materials of the medium. His large format prints are technically perfect. His documentary style, however, needs rethinking. Vir tually all the images are familiar— barber shop scenes, an old woman in front of a shack, etc. 1 say this in spite of my infatuation with his portrait of a down home couple whose obvious enjoyment of themselves is absolutely charming. Last week I was reviewing televi sion footage 1 shot of Carlton Garrett, a folk artist who is about as series of drawings along one wall of the gallery behind the sculptural works. Turning from the three- dimensional to the two-dimensional pieces, one is aware of the same con trast between the smooth hard lineari ty of the straight black lines and the rough edges of the torn pieces of masking tape. With an eye condi tioned by the sculpture to perceive se quence, the viewer’s response to the drawings is to organize them in similar fashion. In the drawings, however, line divorces itself from rec tilinear form. While line connects one form to another, it does not supply the impelling force toward progres sion as in Keown’s sculpture. This is true of each individual work as well as the series as a whole. These drawings exhibit the precision suggestive of ar chitectural draftsmanship, and their rectilinearity associates them with the sculpture directly below. Keown’s collages combine the con cern with sequence found in the sculpture and the rectilinearity of the drawings. In these works, however, line is not visible as a component of the object but is implicit in Keown’s choice of material and content. The use of newspaper advertisements from different periods as the material from which repeated images of an ob ject are cut out and arranged on a page; or the juxtaposition of parts of an image, again which have been taken from different time periods, suggests that the artist’s major in terest here is in temporal progression— not the line of art but the time line. This is underscored by the documen tation of the year of each newspaper Jan Brooks Loyd Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Winston-Salem, North Carolina June 7 - July 7 Jan Brooks Loyd’s exhibition at the Southeastern Center for Contem porary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is not only the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of her work in the Southeast since her arrival in North Carolina four years ago, but is also a rare opportunity to see work that is clearly indicative of national trends in metalsmithing. Publications and exhibitions make the task of keeping up with current Gary Keown, untitled, assembled photographs, 32" X 40 ", 1981 (photo: courtesy of the artist). sophisticated in art as 1 am in quan tum physics, i.e. the man knows nothing. In the midst of his rantings and ravings about the sinful world and the coming apocalypse, he men tioned the fact that his wood carvings “weren’t like nobody else’s.” This simple insight somehow has escaped a great many of today’s practicing photographers who continue their romance with tneir own history. The reason, 1 believe, has to do with the inbreeding that goes on in universities and galleries. All of these photographers are associated with Nexus gallery. Their growth as artists, if it is to occur, is totally dependent on their individual courage to break the umbilical cord which has nurtured their perceptions of the medium, while simultaneously limiting their field of vision. William A. Brown— In June, Valerie McKenzie graduated from Emory University where William A. Brown, an indepen dent television producer, teaches film history. underneath the image. The collage series contains an ele ment of playfulness or humor not pre sent in the sculptural works or the drawings. Those series which create a unified object out of parts drawn from different periods—the Morton Salt girl or the earth closet—almost compel the viewer to sort out and rearrange the parts to form a chrono logically consistent picture. In this way Keown emphasizes that our con ception of time is one of linear pro gression, not simultaneity. His ap parently random chronology, as it is employed in creating or arranging ob jects, however, counteracts any deter ministic aspect. Unlike the sculpture, but similar to the drawings, the col lages betray no intended temporal patterns. Sequence, pattern, time and our perception of these elements furnish the content of Gary Keown’s work. In his exploration of these components of the perceptual world, the artist has achieved an intellectual art which can not be considered completely austere. The precise beauty of his drawings and the strong textures of his sculp tures appeal to our experience of the visible and felt world, while the cheer fulness of some of the collages evokes a similar good humor from us. The objects he presents do demand our careful analysis of their form and con tent in order to discover their full meaning. To do so provides a highly rewarding experience. —Rachel Bessent Rachel Bessent recently received her M. A. in Art History from Emory University. trends in other media less awesome, but there is a dearth of viewing oppor tunities and criticism relating to the more obscure field of metalsmithing. The specter of art vs. craft continues to haunt these serious artists whose work is traditionally associated with ornamentation, functional applica tion or wearability. Loyd’s work begins to dispel these misconceptions and to exemplify the contemporary metalsmith’s earnest considerations of abstract composition and content. In this exhibition, Loyd shows three series of wall-mounted pieces fabricated from various metals in cluding copper, brass, steel, silver and bronze. Initially viewing these works Art Papers September-October 1981
