a&c the big picture
Julian Stanczak’s Contribution to Cincinnati Art BY STEVEN ROSEN
C I T Y B E A T . C O M • A P R I L 1 9 – 2 5 • 3 1
Julian Stanczak, the Polish-born Amerithere are also 200 bars of different colors can artist who lived near Cleveland and set at a slant to, and intersecting with, the did important work in Cincinnati, had an vertical ones. The effect is to make you international reputation that was only growthink they are swaying with the wind. ing when he died on March 25 at age 88. Plenty of people, myself included, have at The abstract art that he called “percepone time thought “Additional” is a mobile or tual painting” — sharply delineated lines kinetic piece, with those slanted bars movand sections of color that seemed to change ing in the wind so fast you never could see it. or move based on the light and the viewer’s CityBeat contributor Jane Durrell talked movements — made a major cultural to Stanczak in August 2007 when he came impact when Stanczak’s first show, Optical to town for the dedication of his “blockPaintings, opened in New York in 1964. He long blockbuster,” as she called it, as well as became known as a progenitor of Op Art, which took its name from that show. But, until recently, that was seen as a fad that had faded. The recent revival, in my opinion, is due to a realization that at its best, Op Art is capable of the same kind of spiritual, questing dimension as a Mark Rothko painting or an Agnes Martin grid. Stanczak represented its best, especially with his exquisite choice of colors and geometric shapes and his wise handling of straight “Additional” is one of Cincinnati’s best examples of public art. and curved lines. As was PHOTO : haile y bollinger pointed out in The New York Times obituary, a major New York Gallery — Mitchell-Innes & Nash — for a small show at the Contemporary Arts had mounted its first Stanczak show in 2014 Center that contained several of the workand has a second slated for May. ing models. “(I’ve) always wanted to work Cincinnati has had something to do with in three dimensions,” he told Durrell. this resurgence — and Stanczak, in turn, has Stanczak, who also has some major had something to do with the city’s improved paintings and prints in Cincinnati collecfortunes. In 2007, he created what his wife, tions, led an extraordinary life, according sculptor Barbara Stanczak, considers a to published information. Born in Poland in mural (others call it it a sculpture) along the 1928, he was sent to a Siberian labor camp north side of the Fifth Third Bank’s Fountain after the Russians (along with the Germans) Square above-level parking garage. Occuinvaded to start World War II. There he lost pying an entire block of Sixth Street, from the use of his right hand. He escaped in Walnut to Vine streets, his “Additional” is 1942, made his way to exiled Polish Army among the city’s very finest public artworks soldiers in Persia and left them for a Polish of any type. Fifth Third commissioned it; refugee camp in Africa, where he learned to gallerist Carl Solway suggested Stanczak to write and paint with his left hand. After the architect Jim Fitzgerald.. The final work was war, he came Cleveland, got his master’s fabricated to the artist’s specifications. degree in art from Yale University, studying “It made a difference to downtown, didn’t with Josef Albers, and became a U.S. citizen. it?” says Barbara, via telephone from the He taught at the Art Academy of CincinStanczak home in Seven Hills, Ohio, near nati from 1957-64, meeting his future wife Cleveland. “It brought some life and cheer.” here when she became an Academy student. It consists of 522 hollow aluminum bars She had come to Cincinnati from Germany in bright, rich colors. There are 325 vertical to help her elderly grandfather, an ecclesistrips, each painted a similar one of three astical painter, with his work. colors on its sides, so depending which way That local history helped Stanczak decide you’re walking or facing, and which sides of to undertake the challenging “Additional.” the bars you’re seeing, they all look green or “We both invested a lot of love and work purple — or you see a mix. That is a master in Cincinnati, and I thought this was a good lesson in manipulation of color combinations. project for Julian to be visible,” Barbara says. (The effect is interrupted by a large decoraAnd so he will be in Cincinnati — always. tive element above a passageway door.) CONTACT STEVEN ROSEN: srosen@citybeat.com But giving even greater illusory depth,