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
