meredith cutler :: arts marketing :: artist

It's the third Thursday of the month, which means Gallery Night for those of you in or around the Providence area. The calendar page's turn to September generally initiates the re-opening (or reinvigoration) of galleries and educational institutions, so it's a great time to explore the city's art scene. Step outside and into the fresh, early evening air and check out the premiere shows of a new season.

Above: "Of Mind and Matter" by Ken Takashi Horii - on view at the Chazan Gallery at Wheeler.

Opening tonight at the Chazan Gallery at Wheeler: "Of Mind and Matter" by sculptor and RISD professor Ken Takashi Horii. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ken for the current issue of Artscope Magazine and can wholeheartedly recommend this exhibit, which features Horii's sculptural and ink-drawing investigations into perceptions of allusion and illusion. Referencing Western Rorschach ink-blot tests embedded and alongside the diagrammatic structures of Tantric Buddhism, this show is bound to open many doors for observation and conversation.

Above: "Waterfire: Superman Building" by Anthony Tomaselli - on view at Gallery Z

Over on the expanding gallery roster of Federal Hill, the "Rhode Island Italian Artists" exhibit is showing at Gallery Z, featuring local landscapes by Anthony Tomaselli alongside other small works in painting by Stephanie Marzella, photography by Angelo Marinosci and Salvatore Mancini, and renowned sculptor and painter Angelo Rosati. Tip: This tax-free zone is a great stop for local art enthusiasts and collectors.

Above: "White Tara Mandala" (detail) - Kancha Lama, on view at the Providence College Robert and Mary Anne Reilly Gallery.

School is definitely back in session, and Providence College's art galleries are hopping once again. At the Hunt-Cavanaugh Gallery, check out "Some Measure - Martha Groome Paintings" (on view through October 16th). Nearby at the Reilly Gallery, visit tonight's sneak preview opening of "Tribute To Tibet", featuring Tibetan "thangka" paintings and other artifacts from area collections. As part of this exhibit, two monks from the Dalai Lama’s Namgyal Monastery (in Ithaca, New York), will create a Sand Mandala in the Gallery between September 21st -27th. On the afternoon of September 27th the monks will dismantle the Mandala, with the remnants to be ritually poured into the river by WaterPlace Park during that Saturday evening's WaterFire event.

While many think of Firehouse No. 13 as a hot spot for local performance and music events, it is important to know that the welcoming ground-level space hosts gallery shows as a backdrop to its ever changing roster of sound and dialogue.

Like other alternative arts spaces (I’m thinking back to some hairy events at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge) this can pose unique challenges to both artist and audience, as the ebb and flow of humans interact with each other, the elements (beverages, PA) and the artwork.

With this in mind, I was lucky to drop in on the soft opening of Quintessential, selected works by Nathanial Allen, Keith Borges, Tennyson LaCasio and Joshua Nierodzinski, just hours before the remnants of tropical storm Hannah soaked the steamy streets.

In “quintessential” FH 13 style, a backdrop of live music (by Borges’ duo 12lb. Beard) accompanied the artwork, and the artists were present in full opening dress. For me, a shocker! I’ve been getting used to the slack-asualness of Providence, i.e. the apparent acceptability of wearing pajama pants out on the town.

Beyond my shock of encountering eveningwear at an alternative space art opening, I can recommend a view of this show to anyone interested in emerging regional upstarts. The work, a fair mix of painting and small sculpture by South Coast/New Bedford-based artists, provides a balanced and thoughtful counterpoint to some of the more materially effusive and exuberant installation/performance-based work often seen from the younger set.

Above: "Grande double mocha latte with 18 sugars" (installation detail) by Keith Borges

While easy to overlook given the size of the space, the specimen-like mixed-media sculptures of Keith Borges are worth seeking out. By placing narrative combinations of formally simple, manmade and organic materials on narrow display pedestals, Borges forces the viewer to examine the reliquary and transient nature of objects. I particularly liked the scale of "Mutilation, Amputation, Humiliation", although the temptingly open tray of sugar-bedded, rusted belt-buckles bafflingly titled "Grande double mocha latte with 18 sugars" is the more daring of the set.

Above: "Three over three" by Nathanial Allen

Fellow small-scale sculptor Nathanial Allen’s work is harder to sort out. Squarely arrayed on and across FH13's expansive plank floor, the barely knee-high works are challenging to confront from a full-sized human's (okay, ¾ size in my case) perspective. Simply constructed, and evocative of game board pieces, his "Three over three" and "Four blocks and a box" could serve as stronger studies for a larger sculptural idea. I would like to see Allen’s work in expanded form, or at least displayed on their own in a “white box” space more friendly to sculptural work of this challenging scale.

Studio neighbors Joshua Nierodzinski and Tennyson LaCasio chose to alternate their oil paintings across the long display wall. Certain pairings fare better than others, but the complimentary sizes and palates of the two painters provide a friendly platform with which to point out the formal differences in their work.

Above: "Ethereal Accension" by Tennyson LaCasio

LaCasio’s canvases are ethereal, expressionistic and wildly atmospheric. My favorite piece in his set, “Ethereal Accension”, brings to mind Renaissance ceiling frescos in varying states of decay and conservation. While not easily visible on the depicted photo, a gestural pair of marks that could represent aircraft, birds, or perhaps the floating ghosts caused by retinal effects recede into a cloud and dust palate. I should point out that LaCasio is not afraid to confront challenging, and at times caustic color palates in the same, light-filled ethereal style.

Above: "Little Portuguese Bend" by Joshua Nierodzinksi

Nierodzinksi takes a similar, cerulean and dust palate to a journalistic, grid/ledger destination in his painting titled “April May March”. In this case, the light appears to be reflecting off of an object instead of emanating from an atmosphere. Again, counterpoint is a strength of this show. In this and “Little Portuguese Bend”, the other of his stronger, non-representational work, there is a sense of buildup and decay, with stabilizing bands of color supporting abstraction that hovers on the edge of becoming.

Quintessential officially opens at Firehouse No. 13 this Friday, September 12th, with musical hosts: Cardboard Fort, 12lb. Beard and friends providing live entertainment from 6pm-1am.

Firehouse No. 13: 41 Central St. Providence, RI 02907.

As my Italy tan threatens to fade, there is nothing I look forward to more than a steamy, early August beach weekend here in Little Rhody. I'm firing up the flipflops and prepping the watermelon already!

Lest I lose all self respect while lathering on the 45 SPF and a dab of Jergens Natural Glow, let me recount the various other good things in the world of art and culture that await this weekend, just a stone's throw from the sandy shores of the Narragansett Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

All this weekend, at Fort Adams State Park: The Newport Folk Festival draws the indie crowd alongside the tried and true folkies, with low-key-cool acts like She & Him, Cat Power and Calexico sharing the stage with legends like Richie Havens.

Having made the journey to Newport, stay awhile and check out Saturday's Gallery Night, with free parking available at the Newport Art Museum.

As shown above, opening tonight at Jessica Hagen Fine Art + Design, new mixed-media paintings by Rhode Island native, Kevin Gilmore. Read my full review in this month's Artscope Magazine.

Just up the street at DeBlois Gallery, Street Art: In & Out opens tonight, with graffiti artists creating a site-specific work live in the gallery's front window.

Heading back to Providence for the night, stop by Firehouse 13 for the opening of Straight Mixed Culture, a group show of Providence artists celebrating Providence culture "as it is". Word.

Ciao ragazzi! The mercury here in Rome hovers around 40 degrees Centegrade (which is the upper 90's for those of you in the realm of Farenheit). What better excuse then to take refuge in the cool marble halls of an art museum! For my first visit to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, we were able to catch the 15th Quadriennale d'arte di Roma, which runs through September 14th.

As an outsider to the here and now in contemporary Italian art, this was a good introduction. However, like many survey format shows, which must be a nightmare to curate, I have to admit that it left me feeling a bit lost for vision at the end.

Primarily comprised of emerging and mid-career artists, the show spotlights 99 living artists, with a special (post-mortem) tribute to a 100th, Arte Povera sculptor: Luciano Fabro. During our visit, the museum staff was busy building a large platform for one of his final marble sculptures: "Autunno"; up to this point, not yet shown in public. The casino created by this construction caused an unfortunate interruption of some of the more subtle sound environments and video installations on the 1st floor; for example: Mariateresa Sartori's video installation "Il concerto del mondo". This subtle piece, a video cropped to the mouths of various paired speakers, each vignette in a different language, was accompanied by a soundtrack of music composed to match the rhythm and volume of the subjects as they conducted their conversation. Unfortunately, the excess of ambient noise outside of the viewing room did not serve the interests of this piece.

At a loss to interpret some morbidly lush paintings clustered on the ground level, I found myself drawn to a pair of rather cheeky works in animation shown on the second level of this gorgeous palace. The first, Federico Solmi's "King Kong and the End of the World", was a joyous F.U. to the excesses of American capitalist culture and an energized animation, to boot. Scenes of "the artist as King Kong", sporting a ballooning red erection while smashing the Gagosian Gallery to bits with the edifice of the Guggenheim had me crowing with laughter. I appreciated the way that the museum installed a large selection of original drawings from the animation around the plasma video display. The style, very "schoolkid doodling in the margins of his notebook" was accessible in a way that just barely obfuscated the naughty bits of the subject matter.

"Eine Symphonie Des Greuns", an animated environment by Andrea Mastrovito, featured similarly sketchy drawing style; in this case doubly projected in black and white over a still scene comprised of A4 sheets of paper photocopied and taped simply to the wall. The animation, a dreamlike sequence toying with the self-generated birth and death of a bearded young dude, was surreal in a way that reminded me of Rami Farah's narratives in Julia Meltzer and David Thorne's work shown at the Whitney Biennial.

Incidentally, it was impossible not to notice a heavy influence of British pop-music on this generation of Italian artists, as this piece was accompanied by a looped clip of the intro to Radiohead's "No Surprises" - and the former, by what I sketchily identified as the piano bridge in Eric Clapton's "Layla"...

I admit that I found myself a bit alienated from much of the formal work in the show, and my non-artsy husband, although born and raised in Rome, was no help to me in interpreting the movements behind the evidence. Paintings to my eye were morbidly garish, depicting either grossly overgrown vegetated environments or circus nightmares. Sculpture resonated fairly flat, with the exception of a lovely trio of maps, delicately carved into bars of cream-colored soap by Elissabeta Di Maggio. These pedestalled tesserae depicted, in turn, full aerial street maps of La Città di Messico, Parigi, e Algiers. Each complete map was enclosed in a lovely red linen box display, with the city name penned on an ornamental label.

Leaving the cool marble oasis of the Palazzo, we sported nostri casci and sped away on nostro motorino.

It's high time I wrapped up this week-long review of the RISD MFA program thesis show, "Welcome To The Conversation". As I tend to do with my eating habits, and so with posting...here I am savoring the sweetest morsels for the last bite. Luckily, I saved some room and have a coffee handy.

I've reserved this last post for the work of ceramicist Nathan Craven. His installation "Gordon and Martha Behr It All" is one of those pieces that has to be visited with, and not just looked at. A sprawling, interlocking network of individually fired, extruded ceramic units; the work is visceral, beautiful, evocative and joyful.

A labor-intensive, obsessive arrangement, the microcosm of individual units interlock to create structure, and read like the cells of a massive endangered coral reef. There are discoveries and humor in the piece as well, with peepholes, an embossed "river" of what look like Rorschach blot tools, and a goofy "Where's Waldo"-esque portrait of what I was told (by a fellow graduate) is the artist's young son, peering out in wonder and horror at the spectacle.

If not already overstimulating, the strength of the combined network of elements is enough to support the physical weight of the viewer - and we were encouraged to walk upon the piece, like Jesus on water. The tactile exhilleration and forbidden pleasure of this action was evocative of walking over coals, or treading on a very expensive Persian carpet.

From what I saw and experienced under the artificial lights of the convention center, Craven's work has a talent for bringing people together in conversation and mutual wonder. One can only imagine what the results would be of giving a piece like this a more permanent home in a public arena; like a park, library courtyard or greenway.

Speaking of public space, for an overview of thesis projects by the students of  landscape and interior architecture, which I haven't had a chance to cover in detail, please visit their respective webpages, which I have linked to above. Also for your perusal, works by the department of industrial design, hopefully coming soon to a forward-thinking retailer near you.

Congratulations to the RISD MFA Class of 2008!