Robert Richenburg / MB Modern gallery, 41 East 57 Street  / January 12, 2001

Robert Richenburg was an active member of the Abstract Expressionists. He belonged to the 8th street Club and was an intimate of the artists from that period (including Phillip Pavia, our profiled artist for January - see the Artist Profiles).  But he was a forgotten member of Ab Xers due in large part to his leaving New York in the early 60�s.  The reasons for this are complicated but the move, after spending a significant amount of time in New York, may have provided him more complete freedom, in isolation, to pursue his painting.

In a way, this exhibition bears some resemblance to Ray Parker�s recent show at Washburn gallery (reviewed here last November  see Gallerviews / Midtown).  Like Parker�s Simple Paintings, Richenburg created some very powerful work that was not readily exhibited in New York. This show presents a span of his paintings from the late 40�s to the early 60�s and on one hand,  it�s a shame that the artist and his work are not more familiar.

Yet it becomes an advantage too. These paintings fairly explode off the walls with a freshness and vitality that belies their age (another striking similarity to Parker). The work feels so contemporary that it�s amazing to check the dates and discover their true age.In a 1958 quote from It is magazine, No 2, Autumn 1958, Richenburg said:�The deepest images of man reveal themselves in intense and beautiful rhythms, and it is by these rhythms that we know them.�

This is instructive when considering his paintings; for clearly such rhythms are found unfailingly throughout the entire body of the work and serve to define their content.  While they may seem a precursor to the �Pattern Painting� that came much later, the patterning here is not about mere artifice or decoration. What Richenburg offers goes much deeper into something in common with aspects of the minimalist music of Steve Reich or John Adams.  They visually evoke a pulsing sense of the life force as the forms competitively push and pull against each other.

One is also reminded of Mondrian (if Mondrian had worked more loosely with paint) in the way these paintings sing their music to the viewer.  In short, Richenburg�s accent was on the Expressionist portion of Abstract Expressionism: he was a definitive Action Painter.  His paintings engage you with an uncompromising authority that dares you to walk away without taking a good hard look.Formally, Richenburg is masterful at pushing paint around and constructing color. Because of this, the structure of the grid is imbued with passion and energy.  They are delicious to the eye even as they are possessed of an intense sensibility that preserves structure. Equally amazing is the range of the work.  It would be easy to imagine these paintings having been done by more than one artist if the varied styles were represented in separate exhibitions.  But the combination of work spanning the decades within one show reveals their deep and stylistic connection to each other.  Richenburg was comfortable with making the painting thick and juicy ala Pollock/Krasner/De Kooning or keeping it spare and thin  small dots on an unprimed ground.

The beauty of this artist is his open freedom and complete lack of inhibition to try anything or go in any direction.  He pushes the borders of his style very hard and in some cases, perhaps goes a bit over the edge; some pieces are more or less successful.  But in the end, each single work maintains its own individuality and strength of character, which is never possible for anyone playing it safe.

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Gerald Monroe / Donahue/Sosinski Art Gallery, 560 Broadway #304 / January 23

In his exhibition statement, Gerald Monroe claims: ��I have consistently kept my commitment to the tradition of Modernism: the idea of a painting that unveils the nature of painting itself�.  This is refreshingly radical stuff within an art world that has for some time gone berserk in its obsession with that carrion creature Postmodernism incessantly feeding on the ostensible corpse of Modernism.  Here is an artist who doesn�t seem to much care what the art world  (particularly the critics) think.  This brings to mind another artist with a similar attitude that we reviewed recently: Robert Harms.  So what�s going on here?  Is the Armani suit / expensive cigar smoking / art career obsessed crowd beginning to wear thin at last?  It may be too early to say but at least there appear to be a few abstract artists promoting the power of painting who have found supporting commercial galleries.

At first glance, say from just outside the gallery entrance, you may not believe these are paintings at all.  Rather they project a decidedly graphic quality in the manner of large silk-screen prints with the size of these canvases supporting the plausibility of this impression. Ah, but move in for a close look and you denote some active paint handling; thin, but present nevertheless. The paint is exceedingly dry and the color knocked back as to intensity though still able to radiate a glow.  Monroe seems able to have it both ways so that the paintings exude an understated energy.  Despite how they may initially appear and the artist�s self references as a Modernist, these are not Abstract Expressionist paintings.  They extend that tradition as seen in the active paint and the motion implied by the forms. But their flat evenness along with the graphic quality they possess imbues them with a knocked-back �Pop� sensibility.  You may be tempted to believe that Monroe is having you on with a subtle postmodern commentary on painting.  But take a good long look and you realize he is straightforward serious about painting as evidenced in the work itself.

Monroe�s paintings are quite obviously based on nature.  The spark that fired this body of work was the artist observing a pile of leaves and therein finding an impetus to open a rich exploration of form and color.  This serves as a wonderful portal for the viewer to approach these pieces. Given their due, they are capable transporting you into their own unique worlds where the key to understanding their content is the indeterminate- ness of meaning the artist maintains throughout the work.  Though you might approach them as references to nature they quickly open up to other possibilities and so are never singularly defined by any one way of looking at them. You might simply see them as rendered piles of leaves or, simultaneously, topographic views of the earth while also enjoying them as a pleasing, contrasting, arrangement of shapes and color.  Groups of paintings are more closely related to each other stylistically and these groups contrast each other but without contradiction. Still, each piece contains its own unique identity while sharing a comprehensive sensibility.

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Denyse Thomasos / Lennon, Weinberg gallery, 560 Broadway  / January 23

This artist dominates her space with a huge environmental drawing that incorporates a variety of materials, most notably graphite and paint that combines a range of black, white and gray.  She began experimenting with these installation drawings while working at the Yaddo and MacDowell art colonies.Some initial impressions: A terrific quality of violation of the pristine white gallery wall. The explosion of imagery as it careens out into the gallery space. The imposing large black painted frame establishes some necessary order to the piece while also acting as a component for the chaotic elements to rebel against.  An illusion of three-dimensional space.

What does it all mean?  Well, Thomasos engages a number of realities and possibilities in this work.  The first, most obvious, is a conceptual challenge to the tradition of art objects on gallery walls - the usual expectation of drawings or paintings contained and presented in a traditional rectangle.Next is the presentation of the starkly explosive expressionism as modulated with an abstract architectural lyricism.  The former is best evidenced in the harsh black forms created by a roller where a thick black line extends off across a wall and over the ceiling. It is this rolled out �line� and the dense black frame that provide the muscle to empower this piece.  But what fleshes out the work and provides emotional depth are the softer graphite renderings, gray paint and thinly drawn lines.  While some of this suggests Cy Twombly�s work, Thomasos� piece is comprehensively more expressive and complex.

Finally, the element of spatial depth is preserved as a pure abstraction that creates a compelling illusion of depth. The black painted frame appears as a huge picture window even as that illusion is shattered.In this show, Thomasos has hedged her commitment to the conceptual installation piece by including smaller works on paper that include color.  These were created while she was in a residence in Wyoming. The press statement suggests that there is a connection between them and the remote landscapes of the west.  Perhaps, but as a first impression the imagery seems more closely aligned to a dense, urban industrial aesthetic. Even though these works do not contain the overwhelming power of the large installation piece they do provide an engaging contrast to it.

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Robin Hill / Lennon/Weinberg gallery, 560 Broadway  / January 23

This artist has long been associated with creating conceptual installation art and this exhibition is characteristic of that.  Here she has combined cyanotype photographic imagery (objects placed on photosensitive paper and subsequently exposed), in a huge banner piece that surrounds the room in a one hundred foot length.  Actual plastic grocery bags used to create the banner�s imagery are included in the installation.

What is most striking about this work are the ghostly and animated aspects of the banner figures combined with the bags themselves floating throughout the space.  The surreal quality of this combined imagery suggests a variety of references  everything from microbiology to a long, long row of teeth to, well, plastic bags as an iconic imagery to any number of other possibilities.  Crucial to this aspect of the piece is the undulating blue background upon which the bag forms are placed.  There is something about the smoky blue color that imbues the piece with a satisfying sense of dreamlike mystery.

The actual plastic bags seem to float through the space with an ephemeral weightless quality, which is replicated in the banner imagery.  Simultaneously both are weighted and grounded - the bags by their tactile reality and the images by the blue ground plus the shadows and contours that define them. The contradictory handling provides the real and depicted forms with a rich complexity. The result is you are forced to look at these ubiquitous, familiar and highly disposable objects in some new and different ways.But Hill is not content to merely depict, rather the entire space is utilized and transformed to elevate to these forms. Though the subject matter consists of a radical view of plastic bags, content is defined by using that view to challenge how we see and engage the world. In short, Hill seems to ask two things of us:  Appreciate these simple and disposable forms, actual or depicted, for the beauty they contain.  Then, extend that appreciation to an understanding, a way of seeing the world at large.

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