art
PREVIEWS Joanne Lefrak: Past as Presence Box Gallery, 1611 Paseo de Peralta 505-989-4897, boxgallerysf.com August 27–October 2, reception August 27, 5–7 pm I’m a sucker when it comes to anything dealing with ephemerality, especially when it deals with the ephemerality of art. And these so-called “shadow drawings” of Lefrak’s—her barely there, almost white-on-white drawings scratched onto Plexiglas mounted directly to the wall—illustrate ingeniously yet subtly the realities of transience. How? Her etched sheets of frangibility project photographically precise images of the Trinity Site in White Sands, where the U.S. tested its first atomic bombs. But only when enough light passes through. There is no image without light. There is no life without light. There’s been no brighter light seen than that emitted by these bombs. Light brings life, light brings art, light brings death. Put that syllogism in your artistic pipe and smoke it.—DJ
Joanne Lefrak, Trinity Site (Ground Zero), scratched Plexiglas, ink, shadow, 34 x 26"
Kent Williams: Solo Exhibition EVOKE Contemporary 130 Lincoln, Suite F 505-995-9902, evokecontemporary.com September 2–30, reception September 2, 6–8 pm Somewhere between the sordid worlds opened up by Francis Bacon in one generation and John Currin in this one—with a healthy(?) dose of Lucien Freud’s bony joints, odd perspectives, odder angles, and dessicatedly fleshy models tossed into the mix—artists such as Williams’s have been able to let their freak flags fly with welcome abandon. Williams work is decidedly claustrophobic and proud to flaunt naked, torqued, Kent Williams, Blond Natalia with Studio Arrangement, oil and somewhat tortured, and definitively disconnected-from-eachmixed media on linen, 40 x 48" other characters in viewer’s faces, but there’s something bizarrely charismatic about his monkeylike people. Or if not charismatic, somehow deserving of sympathy—especially given the clever way Williams accentuates the lack of light here (in a woman’s eyes) with a shock of light there (on a man’s shoulder).—DJ
Gunnar Plake: The Space Beneath Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, 7021/2 Canyon 505-992-0711, chiaroscurosantafe.com September 17–October 16, reception September 17, 5–7 pm One of the lessons to be learned from the successes (not financial but aesthetic) of outsider art and artists is to deteach yourself. And then apply what you’ve unlearned. Which is not to say that a man as sophisticated and talented as Plake dumbed himself down to rethink his approach to photographing a landscape as overly photographed as the Grand Canyon (where many of these slow-speed images were shot, often Gunnar Plake, Golden Tower, type C print on aluminum, 48 x 59" with Plake moving his handheld camera during exposure). Fascinated by time and the aesthetics of landscape, by the western landscape, and especially by the most iconic of all landscapes, Plake uses blurry, outsidery, otherworldly shots to bring movement to a most immovable force.—DJ
Poteet Victory, The Red Headdress, oil on canvas, 34 x 26"
Poteet Victory: New Paintings McLarry Modern 225 Canyon, 505-983-8589 mclarrymodern.com August 20 reception August 20, 5–7 pm There’s nothing simple about Victory’s oils. There could be (in lesser hands) or might appear to be (to lesser eyes), but something about that trademark murk, those bleeding clouds of quasi-diaphanous orange, sky blue, and yellow, hints at almost esoteric forces. But it’s only a hint—not an outand-out abstraction, which allows for these softer areas of his paintings to accentuate the stronger line and more figurative elements in such a way as to tweak the subconscious. The symbols are Native American (as is Victory) and personal, but symbols of what and personal to whom is what niggles. To Victory, to be sure. But as much—somehow, on some level—to us as well.—DJ
august/september 2010
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