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REVIEW/PREVIEW
January 14 to February 13,1999Works by: Doug Argue, David Bierk, Monica Castillo, Arturo Elizondo, Julio Galan, Giuseppe Gallo, Sergio Hernandez, Cisco Jimenez, Tom Judd, Ellen K. Levy, Carlo Maria Mariani, Edgar Soberon, Martin Vinaver & Michelle Zalopany.
In the first exhibition to open in the New Year, Associated American Artists presents a selective overview of the gallery's 1998 exhibits and showcases the 1999 schedule of exhibits with a bold "peek" at one work each from fourteen artists who participate.
In the diverse roster of artists, a mix of American, Latin American and Italian, emerging and mid-career, several new names appear such as Michele Zalopany, a New York based artist whose impressive career sites her inclusion in the 1989 Whitney Biennial. The dreamy black and white Japanese Room, a 1997 pastel on canvas, has the fine texture of a fresco. The image of the orderly, sophisticated space, recalling a type of Hollywood glamour, functions like a time capsule in much the same manner that a film frame captures time. Zalopany's solo exhibit with the gallery will take place in the late Fall of 1999. Cisco Jimenez, the young Mexican multi-media artist, will exhibit his witty, interprising mixed media work in June.
Impressive examples of recent work by Tom Judd and David Bierk signal their upcoming solo exhibitions, Judd's first and Bierk's fourth with the gallery. In Bird and Waterfall, Judd's 34 x 60" painting, oil and vintage wallpaper work together to create a quilt-like effect. Uneven patches of painted and collaged areas reference indoor and outdoor space. Details include an unusual juxtaposition of a yellow throated bird to a neighboring white cascading waterfall that might quickly be mistaken as its tail plumage. David Bierk's 72 x 75", Locked in Migration, Night Sky with Moon, offers an inset view of a dark, moonlight landscape surrounded by large slabs of iron and rust treated wood components. Judd's exhibition dates are February 18-March 20 and Bierk's March 25-April 24.
The Oaxacan artist, Sergio Hernandez, whose work has been exhibited in two previous group exhibitions, Mexico: Self-Portraits and Mexico: Reconfigured, is scheduled for his first solo exhibition, April 29-May 29, with the gallery. From a recent comprehensive narrative series on the theme of a circus, Hernandez presents a whimsical sand and oil work. A skeletal monkey rides a hippopotamus whose gasping jaws seem to bellow into the roaring, fanged mouth of a lion who sits balanced on a ball. A humorous gorilla faces the audience with a feathered hat.
Arturo Elizondo, who has participated in several group exhibitions with the gallery including 1998's Mexico: Reconfigured, offers a monumental canvas Moririas por Mi in which an elegant portrait of a couple in period dress hold hands and a rainbow arches over and connects the couple head to head. Painted iron links joined and cross in pattern across the composition and a mountainous landscape peaks in the distance.
Carlo Maria Mariani second solo exhibition with the gallery will take place in the Fall season of 1999. In a new oil work entitled Afterlight the viewer arrives upon a secret moment shared by two ideal figures mysteriously lit by a pinprick of a full moon. A standing figure whose face is not revealed, delivers a monarch butterfly between careful pinched fingers to a sleeping beauty. Mariani is the 1998 recipient of a Premier prize for painting awarded by the distinguished Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei in Rome.
Doug Argue's 48 x 48" monochromatic leaf painting in encaustic on canvas is the second work the artist has created based on the original proposals to the American Academy in Rome that won him the Prix de Rome in 1997. The first, a mural sized piece exceeded in Italy, now belongs to the Minneapolis Museum of Fine Art. Argue's third exhibition with the gallery will take place in late 1999.
Powerful examples will be on hand by Mexican artists Julio Galan and Monica Castillo. Castillo's more intimate series of photographic self-portraits contrasts with the dramatic painted oil portrait of Galan's 1994 Untitled (Negrita). Both artists were featured in the Mexico: Reconfigured of early 1998.
Ellen K. Levy's large oil on board work investigates further the inclusion of creatures into the scientific environs found in Housing Nature, a body of work shown here in the Spring of 1998. Edgar Soberon's recent exhibition is represented here and Martin Vinaver debuts a sculptural work of an elegant carved lizard, delicately treated with hand painted amate paper.
Carol McCranie, Associate Director
Exhibition curated by: Emilio Steinberger
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