GALLERY ROUNDS--JUNE

I have written before about my friend Peter Sims’s paintings—in the context, as I recall, of his inclusion in a group show at Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art. Now he has a full-scale solo show at the same gallery, and it’s a feast for anyone in love with the sheer seductiveness of paint. For Sims, paint is material stuff: he uses it to build up luscious surfaces, sometimes over months, until they have the substance, the lush color and the sensual appeal of a super-rich dessert. Think Wayne Thiebaud, with ten times the slather of paint, but without the cake and ice cream...

"Gobelin" (DETAIL)

These are kind of cheeky paintings, too. They tease the viewer with “subject matter” chosen from such mundanities as candy wrappers, bar codes, children’s plastic toys, the corner of a Bauhaus tapestry detached from its original context. These physical objects, now abstracted, become the pretext for what can best be described as a protracted orgy with the artist’s medium...

... a gently mocking challenge to the vast majority of his brethren who treat their medium with greater gentility and tact. Sims wallows in it, and the viewer’s eye is, first, astonished, then beguiled, and eventually seduced by the boldness of his attack. What he offers is an in-your-face invitation to revisit all your previous thoughts about painting, especially about representation and abstraction—and about the relationship between the two.

Our visit to the Peter Sims show was the first in a round of galleries yesterday. Some of the highlights:

At Susanne Vielmetter, another terrific painting show of the work of Nicole Eisenman—three galleries, each with such a markedly different style, you’d almost think they were by three different painters. They range from massive, cartoonish, head-on--and hilarious--“portraits”...

"Break Up", 2011, Oil and mixed media on panel 56" x 43"

(These, and subsequent images, are taken from the respective gallery's sites. I hope you'll take a moment to visit those sites for more images and detail.)

"Guy Artist," 2011, Oil and collage on canvas 76" x 60"

... which play with the history of the genre—indeed, with the history of art, from the “primitive” to the futuristic, and still manage to engage us in the odd pathos of human existence; to a bent kind of social realism, addressing, among other things, domestic politics...

"Tea Party," 2011, Oil on canvas 82" x 65"

... and lastly a Redon-like fantastic symbolism. What holds these disparate works together is a common fascination with the quiddities of the human species.

At Western Project, a show called “Sand Mountain Tractor” by Wayne White, something of a trickster and a native country boy (long-exiled into city life) who joyfully embraces the imagery and verve of rustic America in a spirit of irreverence and verve, combining them with the accomplished, sophisticated skills and irony of a successful New York designer and Hollywood animator. This show includes numerous examples of White’s frantically imaginative drawings, sketchbooks and paintings...

"Fast Twirl by the Edge of the Sea," 2011, acrylic on canvas, 32 ½ x 40"

... along with an array of clunkily assembled marionettes of varying sizes...

(Installation view; in the background, the theater for White's "Punch and Judy" puppet show)

... all oddly human in their posture and expression. An over-the-top exuberance that tickles the funny bone and, oddly, manages to engage the heart.

And speaking of over-the-top, at Blum & Poe there’s Chinese artist Zhang Huan’s “49 Days,” an awesome collection of monumental brick-works celebrating the survival, for 49 days, of Zhu Gangquiang, the “cast-iron pig,” after the catastrophic 2008 Sichuan earthquake. (49, the show’s press release informs us, is also the number of days the soul is believed to remain on earth between death and rebirth.) The enormous centerpiece of the show, “Pagoda”...

49 Days, installation view, 2011

49 Days, 2011 (detail)

... is a complex and imposing work, whose bell shape and hugely labor-intensive brickwork evoke thoughts about the waking social and economic giant that is contemporary China, as well as its ancient historical roots and spiritual traditions. Contrasting with the many images of the obstinately still-surviving pig...

49 Days, South Gallery Installation View, 2011

... (adopted by the artist, by the way, and living as a guest in his studio) are huge skulls...

49 Days, Gallery Installation View, 2011

... reminding us of the vast numbers of dead in the quake—and of course of our own mortality.

At Angles Gallery, we found some remarkable large-scale photographs by the Israeli-born, London-based artist Ori Gersht. Shot, for the most part at night, in the vicinity of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, the pictures feature the famous cherry trees in full blossom, aglow in light reflected from the palace...

"Imperial Memories: Night Fly 1," 2010

"Imperial Memories: Floating Petals, Black Water," 2010

"Imperial Memories: After Dark", 2010. Archival pigment print,

47-1/4 x 70-7/8"

Their amazing natural beauty is offset by the darkness of the moat water and the sky against which they stand out, suggesting the historical and cultural depth of their associations. They share in the stillness and silence of a certain Japanese aesthetic we associate with the traditions of Zen. Beyond their immediate beauty, we sense an ineffable sadness and a respect for the mystery of being.