Maverick
Arts
Boston’s
Visual Artsletter
By Charles
Giuliano
82 Webster Street
East Boston, 02128
Charles.Giuliano@GTE.net
Maverick
Arts
Boston’s
Visual Artsletter
By Charles
Giuliano
82 Webster
Street, East Boston, 02128
September 17,
2000
Charles Giuliano is a
Boston based, critic, curator and
visual artist. He is a
contributing editor of Art New
England and has also written
recently for Arts Media, The
Artnet, and, The Patriot Ledger.
For the past several years he has
been director of exhibitions for
the New England School of Art and
Design at Suffolk University.
Although Dr. Johnson rather
wisely said that only a fool does
not write for money, this
occasional newsletter is offered
absolutely free to anyone who
just may be interested in
uncensored art writing. Please
feel free to forward this to your
friends, and or, enemies. And,
get back to me with your opinions
and arguments which, when
appropriate, I will share with
readers. This artsletter is
offered with a spirit of
experimentation and adventure
exploring the concept of free
speech and freedom from the
editing and or censorship of
publishers, editors and
advertisers. Mostly it is offered
to artists, and anyone who, like
myself, has a passion for and has
dedicated their life to the arts.
This newsletter will appear when
there is something to say as well
as a certain amount of time and
energy. Welcome to the first
attempt. Charles.Giuliano@GTE.net
Photography
in Boston: 1955-1985
On a national and
international level, the art
produced in Boston, in this
century, has been marginalized.
Routinely, artists are celebrated
only after they have left the
area, usually after attending one
of the many art schools and other
educational institutions, and
have been discovered in some
larger arts center.
A significant aspect of this
neglect of what has been produced
here, may, indeed, be our own
fault. The major museums from the
Museum of Fine Arts to the
Institute of Contemporary Art
have gone out of their way not to
display, and document the works
of our best artists. Entire
movements and media have been
neglected. And even a certain
critical mass of artists who have
continued to live and produce
here enjoy greater critical
reputations, commissions and
sales outside the region,
nationally and internationally.
There are several key elements
that contribute to this
historical dilemma. Most
significantly, the Museum of Fine
Arts has missed the boat, until
very recently, on the art of the
20th century, and
given that, could give a fig
about any artist with the rather
poor taste and luck to actually
live here. Following their lead,
the other museums have followed
that trend with some impunity.
The ICA calls itself a,
"Museum that collects
ideas," as its current
director told me. Well that
doesn’t clutter up storage.
That lack of commitment in
acquiring a permanent collection
of modern and contemporary art by
the leading institutions has a
trickle down effect. Over the
years, with a few exceptions,
Steven Paine and Graham Gund, or
more recently, Kenneth Freed,
there have been few significant
collectors. The galleries, while
relatively strong and committed,
have promoted art as a commodity.
There are too few alternative
spaces. The Gallery at Green
Street, located in a subway
station, is a singular effort
with real imagination and
creativity. And the state of arts
criticism, again with a couple of
exceptions, is rather pathetic.
Reviews tend to be bland and
descriptive. That runs two ways
with writers that lack insight or
nerve, and publishers who worry
about offending advertisers. Not
a healthy situation.
Having launched into all this
predictable and deplorable
negativity, which may already
have you turned off and pushing
that all powerful delete button,
let us now applaud the De Cordova
Museum and Sculpture Garden, out
there in posh Lincoln, which has
produced the first of three
exhibitions that will attempt to
focus on the history of recent
Boston art.
The first in the series, which
will remain on view through
January, surveys the medium of
photography. It is accompanied by
a formidable, hard cover
catalogue from MIT Press. Next
year, the museum will present
accomplishments of painters and
will follow that, in 2002, with
sculpture.
These three exhibitions and
catalogues will lay the
foundation for the serious study
of what has been produced in
Boston. Eventually, it may even
influence the MFA, ICA and other
museums, perhaps even the
"scholarly" Harvard
University Art Museums, The List
Center for the Visual Arts at
MIT, The Rose Art Museum at
Brandeis University (which in
fairness has done more than its
share over the years) to make
major contributions to the areas
of research and exhibition. If we
don’t tell our story,
obviously, nobody else will.
Needless to say this
photography exhibition has its
errors of omission. It is curious
that it includes Nan Goldin,
David Armstrong, and Shelburne
Thurber, who were all students
together at the School of the
Museum of Fine Arts, but leaves
out Jack Pierson, and Mark
Morrisroe, who were their friends
and classmates, as well as the
Starn Twins who were active here
slightly after them. Everyone I
have spoken with mentions the
names of others, of significance,
who were left out.
Which is perfectly
understandable, if regrettable.
The curator, Rachel Rosenfeld
Lafo, chief curator of the
museum, is not a specialist in
the field. So, her selection,
although based on enormous
research, was ultimately highly
personal. She appears to get it
mostly right. The exhibition is
concise, densely installed with a
nest of galleries constructed for
the occasion. The overall impact
is stunning and insightful. Of
course, to not make the cut means
that for future generations,
which will rely on this first
epochal survey, that work simply
doesn’t exist. That is the
weight and responsibility of such
an effort. It would certainly
give me a lot of sleepless
nights.
But the message of this
exhibition of some 60 artists is
perfectly clear. In the area of
photography, Boston has been
superb. In reality, the show
cheats just a little, tweaking
itself as far away as Providence,
and the Rhode Island School of
Design. For Harry Callahan. Or
just over the border, in New
Hampshire, for Lotte Jacobi. But
the vintage list includes:
Bernice Abbott, Aaron Siskind,
(and Carl Chiarenza, a first
class artist in his own right,
who wrote the first Ph.D.
dissertation on a then living
photographer, Sisskind), Minor
White, Harold Doc Edgerton, a
pioneer of strobe photography,
Gyorgy Kepes, and Bradford
Washburn.
During the late 1960s, Minor
White ran a brilliant,
underfunded photography program
at MIT that did not survive him.
It foundered after the brief
direction of one Star Ockenga,
who is seen in this exhibition.
White had an enormous influence
as did Edgerton, both at MIT,
which also was home to the Center
for Advanced Visual Studies under
founder, Gyorgy Kepes, whose
photograms are included in this
show, and later, Otto Piene, of
Germany's, Group Zero. CAVS was a
hotbed of experimentation in art
science and technology including
early video and multi media which
was broadcast early on over
WGBH-TV. Also, in Cambridge, the
Polaroid Corporation had a very
active involvement with artists
supplying SX-70 materials to a
range of artists from Ansel Adams
to Douglas Heubler. It continues
a large format studio that has
collaborated with many artists
including William Wegman and Elsa
Dorfman who are included in this
survey.
Another aspect of this story
is the Photographic Resource
Center which was founded by
artist, Chris Enos, and continues
to be a center for research and
exhibitions. There have also been
some unique and commited photo
dealers starting with Carl
Siembab and later Brent Sikkema,
now in Chelsea, and Robert Klein.
Curiously, photography, under
curartor, Clifford Ackley, has
been the one area where the
MFA’s collections and
exhibitions have excelled.
Although Ackley’s taste is
known to be painfully straight,
however earnest.
Boston has had its share of
documentary and journalistic
photographers. This is an aspect
of the exhibition I find most
dated. With the exception of the
gonzo subjects of the widely
traveled documenter of weird
Americana, Jim Stone. More
compelling are works by
photographers who take more of a
formal still life approach, Dana
Salvo, and Willard Traub, of
architectural subjects. And in
the area of nature morte, Olivia
Parker’s early works
continue to be absorbing. It was
curious also to see vintage small
format Polaroids by Marie
Cosindas, including the
fabulously handsome Bruce
Pecheur, the man who seemed to
have everything. I remember him
bartending at the Casablanca when
it was home to the Warhol crowd
with Ed Hood, Edie and all. Bruce
was later hacked to death while
killing an intruder. It made me
long to see her study of the
Little Match Girl, Vivian Kurz.
There were so many wonderful
moments in this show seeing work
from exhibitions that now seem
ages ago. Glimpses of artists who
came and went over the years. But
who, now, have made it into the
book. The one and only history of
Boston photography. Well, there
was Leah Gangitano’s volume
on the Boston School, a few years
back. And a bookshelf of
monographs on some of the more
familiar names in this show with
perhaps a footnote or two. But,
other than that, this is it. For
now.
Thank you de Cordova.
Can’t wait for part two of
the trifecta.
David Palmer
and Louis Risoli
In the event that we have not
exhausted your patience, just a
word about two artists now on
view at Gallery Naga. Both are
painters of long standing with
this gallery.
David Palmer is trying
something entirely new while
Louis has moved forward and
progressed with concepts that are
deeply rooted in his work.
Arguably, Palmer is one of the
most clever and facile painters
now on the scene. His past shows
of abstracted, figuration have
displayed remarkable technical
virtuosity. Sometimes, a little
too clever for my taste. This
time, however, he has abandoned
that for what may prove to be a
transitional show. On a white
background he applies a single,
swirling, broad brushstroke. They
may just take a minute or so to
execute, with a lot of thinking
and looking in between. If he
doesn’t like this single
bravura stroke he wipes down the
surface while it is still wet and
after some adjustment tries again
until he gets it right. Like a
Beat poem first thought is best
thought and there is no
possibility of editing or
retouching. It is all or nothing.
The tactic is bold, or suicidal,
take your pick. We wonder where
this will take him. But, clearly,
it is a very different approach
than the prior work. Where this
leads remains to be seen.
By contrast, Louis has had a
very clear and focused agenda for
patterned, brightly colored
abstract paintings that evolved
out of his illustrative,
expressionist, Muscle Men,
series some years back. Each show
has steadily moved forward and
now has reached a position of
great force and originality. At
first glance, the work is very
Louis. It has all the signature
elements. But he is working with
large and dramatic shapes from
what resembles an Irish harp to a
possible, eggplant, to enormous
commas. The complex, shaped
stretchers have been well crafted
and the work looks labor
intensive but the visual result
is punchy. This is clearly his
best work and it reflects years
of dedication to perfecting his
own style and vision.
These risky and bold shows
were a nice way to start the
season.
Y’All
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