Review: David Schmitt, Marna Shopoff
by Dan Grossman
"We take comfort in the strength of architecture from the anxieties created by a continuous stream of information," reads Marna Shopoff's artist statement to her new show, and in her painting, "Street Scene," you can speculate on how this idea applies to her work. A building - approximating the Mid-Century modern style - leaps off the canvas's red background; it's slightly blurred, as if you're viewing the building from a moving car.
Such cityscapes might indeed be a source of comfort for Shopoff, but given her extraordinary talent as a painter and her ability to incorporate concepts into her work, she doesn't necessarily need the scaffolding of an artistic statement for support.
David Schmitt's mixed-media sculptures, however, might be difficult to appreciate without such scaffolding. The key phrase in Schmitt's hand-written diagram of an artist's statement is "anti-aesthetic." Accordingly, I found most of Schmitt's painted sculptures difficult to appreciate aesthetically.
His "Stud Mega," for instance, reminded me of a shipping pallet, and while its lack of aesthetic charm may have been intentional, it didn't engage me on a conceptual level either. I did find one piece aesthetically and conceptually engaging, though: "David and Goliath," an elegant thing, made out of poplar, which looked to me something like a hybrid watchtower/music stand. Through April 27 at Harrison Center for the Arts, Gallery No. 2.
More by Dan Grossman
-
Upon Further Observation at Evan Lurie
Tom Leighton's amalgamated cityscapes, Nick Veasey's X-ray photos and Przemyslaw Lasak's life-size Terra cotta warrior demonstrate that the Evan Lurie Gallery is still vital.
- Apr 25, 2013
-
First Friday roundup for May 2013
Our First Friday digest includes stops at Monster Gallery (to see Tripper Dungan's 3-D art), Harrison Center (for group show Homage), Gallery 924 and Litmus Gallery.
- May 7, 2013
- More »
