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Text of the page (random words):
le are presented together in a glass case and susan spencer crowe s three dimensional pieces remained together but being wall mounted they come across more as painting than sculpture anyway another factor that added to my discomfort with westfall s method is that a large swath of the photographs selected were segregated in a lesser gallery along with other work that seemed to be among the show s secondary choices pride of place in the exhibition s main gallery was given to three photographs by jim allen and two by julie pamkowski and i agree with the juror that they are better than most of the ones in the other room but then why keep the others at all if it weren t for a terrific little painting by jenny kemp a finely seen color photograph by david ricci which i liked much better than another one of his that took a prize a large mixed media painting by the ever wonderful wendy williams and a few other choice pieces in that room i d say the juror should simply have eliminated the whole bunch rather than not so subtly kicking them to the curb within the exhibition richard garrison circular color scheme walmart may 22 27 2013 pages 1 2 celebrate with savings watercolor gouache and graphite on paper as regular readers of this column know i adore painterly abstraction and i actually really liked a lot of the work in this show including many pieces the juror singled out for awards most compelling were two potent panels in greens and blues by jeanette fintz nicely deployed on opposite sides of a narrow space richard garrison s methodical yet agitated gouache studies susan meyer s two colorful architectural fantasies and the aforementioned niccolls painting titled oscillator along with his smaller nudges additionally there were some terrific and not painterly sculptures including specimen by mary pat wager and tendere by peter dellert the show has many other highlights and is naturally not to be missed also upstairs from the regional is a fascinating historical exhibition of quilts and coverlets titled undercover revealing design in quilts coverlets and bed hangings on view through march 8 and well worth checking out posted by david brickman at 7 51 pm no comments labels 1st friday albany alternative media art capital region ceramics collage curating drawing painting photography printmaking sculpture textiles monday december 22 2014 abecedarius at the arts center of the capital region an installation view of abecedarius when colin c boyd and michael oatman won the 2013 emerging and established artist awards from the arts center of the capital region in troy it wasn t said that they d be collaborating on a show there but it certainly comes as no surprise that they did that show a rollicking compendium of these two artists individual and overlapping obsessions is abecedarius subtitled a cautionary alphabet of 26 1 works the convenience effect a 2014 collage by michael oatman in a shaped frame made by his father gordon oatman i don t know what sort of history boyd and oatman have with each other but i m going on the assumption that this is their first co production as it mostly re presents significant past works new works both major and minor by each artist and just one jointly made item making it in effect a two person show for those already familiar with the two artists abecedarius is a welcome return to some really fascinating and fun stuff augmented by some really cool new stuff and for those new to either maker it s a pretty broad and deep immersion not quite a retrospective but in that direction foreground american bison 2012 by colin c boyd background over after durer 2014 by boyd and oatman for me the really engaging subtext of this show is discovering the elements that boyd and oatman share each has for years produced fictional histories pseudoscience anthropological fantasy and so on while boyd tends toward the really old and populates his share of the exhibition with many archaeological references oatman s take on anthropology is of the more cultural variety particularly expressed in retro futurism still both are miners of deep troves of rich material and both exercise overactive imaginations the result being always intriguing and entertaining the conceit of the show is that it presents one work of art for each letter of the alphabet plus one more so there s the game of finding these references easy enough by looking at the labels and then perhaps the more challenging game of figuring out what it s all supposed to mean the branch or the site of our complete liberation 2012 multi panel collage by michael oatman the show s labels are evocative following the classic pattern of a children s abc book or a mystery series so you start with oatman s a is for alien craft and boyd s b is for balance scale act and go on from there but given that the works were not actually created to fulfill this structure all have other more specific titles and they range in date from 2007 to 2014 it comes off as a fun but false construct that said there is a lot of fresh work in the show by both artists and i ll take any excuse offered that allows us to see it favorites include f is for fauna firearms which offers a trio of minimally layered collages by oatman revisiting one of his best themes with sweet subtlety and boyd s z is for zetetic with a museum of science worthy scale model of a conceptual spacecraft designed by the flat earth society appropriately suspended above the viewer as i write this the show has just one day left and will close after dec 23 can we agree for purposes of this review that b is for better late than never posted by david brickman at 7 54 pm no comments labels art assemblage collage mixed media natural history sculpture troy sunday december 7 2014 daniella dooling at the esther massry gallery 3459 macomb street installation by daniella dooling in the esther massry gallery s vertical gallery navel gazing as an art form can be messy and worse yet it is usually boring fortunately neither is the case in daniella dooling s solo show at the college of saint rose s esther massry gallery in albany which ended on dec 7 the somewhat perplexingly titled bloody dick road in the big hole valley files from the girl in room 10 is essentially a full gallery installation that features archival arrangements combine type sculptures sound video and text dooling an art professor at bard college devotes most of the space to critically nostalgic renderings of her childhood and teenage years using carefully preserved artifacts from her life and the lives of certain key relatives more on them in a bit as well as other presumably found and created objects and materials busing break for amy while such self centered expression can easily descend into ranting spewing and overall self indulgence dooling s is as carefully considered as a smithsonian scientific display and is delightfully engaging dooling s approach is complex and inclusive yet spare as is clearly evident in the installation view shown below her sculptural style tends toward a very limited palette and an elegant pared down presentation reminding me of the scientific and philosophical principle of occam s razor which favors the simplest solution to tricky problems installation view much of the show s content is presented in showcases cabinets or vitrines aptly enough for archives and effective enough as an art form though i found it sometimes a little tough to see the details sufficiently to satisfy my curiosity and with this level of personal material from a teenage girl s drug filled life that curiosity easily bordered on morbid fascination witchiepoo equally fascinating were the elements of the show that focused on dooling s remarkable great grandparents who explored and promoted healing with homeopathy grandmother who published the important progressive journal parabola and an uncle owned a rustic montana guest ranch dooling seems to have held on to everything of value from her forebears and her own past and here she organizes many elements of it into precise unblinking displays of reflection and self revelation but dooling is not a sensationalist and to my relief i found that this is not shock art rather it is sincere almost to the point of sweetness and was for me especially nostalgic for a number of reasons though my own teen years predated dooling s by about a decade it seems she relived similar experiences to mine and though it seems she suffered more for it the titular girl in room 10 was being held in the psych ward after a tough acid trip it s clear to me she also had some fun as i did and got through it all in one piece my grandmother s parabola i d be curious to know how others react to this material if they had a crappy teen hood would this be an unpleasant experience or would it perhaps be cathartic if they had a wholesome one would they be repelled by the young daniella s drug use and sexuality my own teen years were drug fueled sexualized and wholesome and for me personally this show was an especially uplifting revival of memories of those dangerous yet innocent times dooling s open sharing of diaries mementos and experiences is a gift to be savored and it has left a pleasant afterglow not at all the way i would expect to feel after viewing similar content handled by an artist of lesser skills bloody dick road in the big hole valley files from the girl in room 10 is one of the year s best shows by an artist who deserves all the serious attention she gets posted by david brickman at 1 30 pm 1 comment labels albany art assemblage installation issues mixed media performance art sculpture video thursday november 27 2014 books a novel photographs and poetry though it isn t a picture book paul castellani s sputnik summer features a great photo by adirondack photographer carl heilman ii on the cover and its author and his wife donna are great modern art enthusiasts who attend a lot of openings so it caught my attention castellani is a professor by trade but his academic roots stay pretty well hidden in this coming of age novel that takes place in the late 50s in a fading adirondack resort town where a somewhat typical 17 year old boy tries to come to terms with the limits of his hick town the crummy summer resort his abusive dad runs his own college ambitions and the need to get laid the story is punctuated by news bits and advertising slogans taken straight from the publications of the day which provides a sort of parallel narrative that suggests political and social commentary without offering it directly castellani is an excellent storyteller and he keeps you interested in the twists and turns of this intelligent but inexperienced young man s rather fateful last summer at home put simply i enjoyed the book and so probably will you or the person you decide to give it to another book that recently came into my possession serves double duty as the catalog of the current exhibition at the photography center of the capital district in troy both are titled structures and feature the work of two photographers ian creitz and robert feero it is always different to experience a body of photographs in a book as opposed to an exhibition and this publication offers an opportunity to compare the two experiences at least until the show comes down on dec 15 in this case the selection is changed but the real differences between a show and a book are in terms of scale and juxtaposition this book uses the page to page flow as part of the presentation not always entirely successfully but in an engaging way creitz is the more traditional of the two photographers and he works in many formats and styles color black and white panoramic and straight on he has a very good technical command of the medium and apparently loves to seek out decrepit buildings to shoot in bringing back highly detailed and arresting images of his sad subjects creitz sometimes uses heavy handed digital effects to make his pictures look antique an unnecessary effort as the battered places he explores already amply show the effects of time feero a former abstract painter also applies a certain digital gimmick in which the image is refracted into four parts to make a kaleidoscopic mandala but in feero s case he gets away with it because he has a very keen eye for the type of composition that will work well with this technique resulting in a particular geometric vision all his own a few of feero s pictures use black and white but he is really a colorist the painter lives his subjects mainly buildings and bridges are so transformed by the multiplication as to be nearly unrecognizable yet they are essential to feero s approach the book is very nicely printed so the pictures hold their power in the reproductions and it is attractively priced at 15 though for that you do have to put up with a spiral binding it would make a very nice gift for any art architecture or photography enthusiast barry lobdell and michael tucker collaborated to create pull over a collection of poetry and black and white photographs that celebrates symbolism spirituality and simplicity tucker the poet worked for decades in special education and describes himself in the book as a vietnam war resister who proudly served with the hippies in boston his writing is as sincere as expected and retains some of the hopeful idealism of that era lobdell s photography was already quite familiar to me through exhibitions and a business relationship but this presentation casts it in a different light and i find the combination of the two artists visions to be mutually beneficial while each stands on its own the consistent pairing of a short poem and a single picture on every page or spread of the book creates a fine balance and a lovely rhythm the book an oversized paperback opens out horizontally to provide a 23 inch wide layout and many of the photos are bled to three edges to take full advantage of this expanse of space the images range from domestic moments to landscapes and cityscapes and are nicely reproduced in a full range of black and white tones each picture accompanies a poem with related subject matter not illustrating the words so much as augmenting them tucker s poetry is unadorned and direct but also at times clever if for no other reason i can recommend this writer on the strength of his having the courage and humor to rhyme cheetos with speedos he repeatedly targets certain topics such as the title poem s advice to stop and look and appreciate not in a cloying way but in a gently urgent manner that makes it clear he values the zen approach to life tucker is a searcher as is lobdell and this brings them together quite comfortably priced at 19 95 this book is a good value that will make a fine gift in fact i m planning to give it to my mother in law for christmas but please don t tell her pull over is available at the book house of stuyvesant plaza market block books in downtown troy and northshire books in saratoga springs the seagull by micha...
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