Good
Form
by
Stacey Lauren
Metroland
The
fledgling Fulton Street Gallery in Troy has served up an interesting
exhibit in its supernal space from the Johnson Atelier Sculpture
Foundry of New Jersey. One might have prejudices to overcome regarding
New Jersey as a mecca of artistic enterprise. However, it’s
worth our concerted effort to address these preconceptions. The
many and diversified styles of work represented by the studio’s
staff and apprentices provide a sculptural smorgasbord. The presentation
alone is wholly satisfying. The phrase “something for everyone”
may be a bit cliched, but it’s potentially true here nonetheless.
In
the window, Matthew Reiley’s Enlisted asserts its
Guston-esque qualities in cast iron: cartoonish, crudely executed
work of social concern. Six bottle bodies, with only five heads
and three pairs of oversized hands and feet between them, march
clumsily in unison. Their faces are nonexistent, and some have
subtle skeletal references, giving a sense of the walking wounded
if not the dead themselves. Three of the heads have what appear
to be silver dunce caps on them, and the very first soldier holds
the remains of a mug as if begging, maybe for release rather than
money. The piece screams satire but works regardless of its obviousness.
In
contrast to Reiley’s rudimentary style, the smooth sculptures
of Djalmar Castanera are stunning in their intricacies and ceramic
purity, yet freakish for their combinative stylistic elements.
How to describe them? They’re like Lenny Kravitz meets Tutankhamen
— contemporary for their fashion sense, danceability and
distorted, wide-angle MTV perspective; Egyptian for the elaborate
headdresses, facial features and sand-like textural quality. One
in particular, titled Damian, almost seems as if the figures
were chiseled out of a pyramid and with their first breath of
life interacting as if they were created to dance. Armless, diminished
torsos, exaggerated postures and elongated calves hidden beneath
the flair of bell-bottoms give the figures a grounded, serpentine
quality. They stand atop a sarcophagus adorned with delicate lion
heads. Bizarre, complex and beautiful — a rare combination.
A
more traditional approach to the figure is seen in G. H.
Morante’s work — with a twist. Again we have a combination
of the contemporary allied with the ancient, but without the success.
Artemis Hobbled is a modern-looking female figure of bronze
and steel. Her hair is carved into the shape of a helmet. Why?
I don’t know; maybe one needs a helmet for hunting. And her
feet are shoeless, with the exception of stilettos added permanently
to her heels, which gives the entire figure a true-to-life awkward
posture — hence Hobbled. There are no visual cues
indicating that this is the Greek goddess Artemis (vegetation,
wild animals, etc.). Resting Aphrodite is equally nebulous:
A female figure with a perfectly coiffed retro ’do is caged
in a rather more interesting sculpture. No dove, no pomegranate,
no myrtle. I’m at least thankful for the titles, which suggest
something of a comic nature. But I don’t find them funny,
and they're just not enough.
The
facetious yet stinging Some Cops by Christopher Marsland
resonates as a simple yet well-done social commentary. If you
were as horrified as I was to hear of the New York Police Department’s
“plunger incident” not too long ago, you’ll appreciate
the artist's sardonic wit. “FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY” boldly
lines the handle of a cast-iron plunger, which stands on a square
of black-and-white-tiled bathroom floor, protruding from the white
wall.
The
sculptures become increasingly more diversified. If you take your
gum out of your mouth and squish it between your thumb and forefinger,
it leaves obviously) a fingerprint on the flattened oval shape.
Well, cover the gum (or clay or wax) with bronze, then put a whole
bunch of these pieces together into something that resembles the
skeleton of human figures, and you’ve got Gyuri Hollosy’s
work. An overly simplified description but accurate. And take
nylon stockings, sew them up with stuffing into tiny balls with
human hair tails and place them in a small wooden bowl, and you’ve
got Sarah Lowe’s Nasty Bits. A small blob of clay
manipulated into an amorphous male torso covered in bronze becomes
a Relic, by Colleen O’Donnell, even though it simply
looks unfinished. That should give you some idea of the range
of works presented here.
Less
fulfilling are the works in a separate show by regional gallery
directors, aptly titled Regional Gallery Directors’ Showcase.
Jammed into the recesses of the gallery like afterthoughts are
a few monoprints by Ed McCartan and some simple drawings by Rebecca
Shepard, including a group from her childhood titled You Go
Girl. The works suffer partly due to the claustrophobic atmosphere
and partly due to a lack of complication. There is little room
for attention to individual works as you dodge the table and chairs
which dominated the space, but there is also very little to look
at. One work capable of making its presence known is Jed Cleary’s
Dandelion Dictator. The sinuous curvature of towering steel
has a simultaneous flower essence and animalistic preponderance
(hence the play on words: “dandelion”) which would fit
in nicely with the sculpture from the Johnson Atelier exhibition.
The balcony reluctantly houses the dysenteric work of Jim Richard
Wilson — enough said — and embraces the colorfully monotonous
work of Wren Panzella like a wall in a hip yuppie joint on Lark
Street.
Facts:
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