From October of 1949 through the 1950s, The Club was an influential intellectual and artistic salon that met in downtown New York. After morphing into the 23rd Street Workshop Club, it continued until 1970. Members included just about every artist of import during those decades: Pollock, de Kooning, Guston, Rauschenberg et alia. Notably absent for the most part (at least until later) were women.
Among the social theorists invited to speak at these gatherings was Paul Goodman, a founder, with Fritz and Laura Perls, of Gestalt therapy. One of his assertions was that a woman’s body will always be her ultimate concern and limitation. His inference was that women could not be great painters because of their preoccupation with body image as subject and their physical inability to produce the energetically demanding gestural Abstract Expressionist work that was then in vogue.
Hilary Schaffner, who was invited to curate an exhibition now at Able Baker Contemporary, set out not so much to disprove this sexist inference – which, in any event, is preposterous in this day and age – but to demonstrate that women’s bodies were valuable thematically and also capable of, if not adept at, intense muscularity. “You Look Like a World” (through Nov. 21) is the intriguing result. Schaffer also curated a companion exhibit of drawings by An Hoang.
The work of Jay Miriam, who says she paints people – mostly women – in ordinary situations, introduces the show. There are three of her canvases here, all of which feel more enigmatic than ordinary. “Two Women and a Shy Skull” is the largest. In it, the two women of the title are not clearly defined. One could be behind the other. But if that is so, their fusion is so complete that they appear as one body that has been substantially distorted.
“Two Women and a Shy Skull,” by Jay Miriam. Photo courtesy of Able Baker Contemporary
Perhaps because of the fleshy tones Miriam uses, however, the subject(s) appear(s) voluptuous rather than grotesque. It would be interesting to see Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” next to “Two Women.” The misogyny of the historical work is completely absent here. The presence of the skull references Renaissance vanitas paintings, which were meant to convey the transience of life. Yet the fact that the skull appears as if one woman is pushing it aside suggests that the subject(s) is (are) enjoying the full, sensual throes of life. Mortality is not knocking here.
Jennie Jieun Lee’s medium is glazed stoneware. One of two pieces by this Korean-born artist, “Bitchtizzy,” is from her early mask series. The face here is barely discernible. What comes across most palpably is the weight of the clay and the strength required to roll out slabs of the stuff. The surface is wild with gesture, pattern, color and chaos, which evoke the confused messages about beauty that society imposes on women. The “mask” suggests the warped way women may regard themselves.
Another artist in the show, Brie Ruais, is best known for her ceramic pieces made from hundreds of pounds of clay that she stretches and rolls out into wall topographies that can weigh upwards of 135 pounds. It’s a pity not to have one of these in the show, which would have eviscerated Goodman’s assertions with their sheer physicality. Instead we have “Holding a Spiral,” made of horsehair and paper pulp. Though it recalls her crater-like forms, the piece manifests much more decoratively and lacks the power of the topographies.
“First Breath,” by Kimia Ferdowsi Kline. Photo courtesy of Able Baker Contemporary
Ruais’s spiral is also diminished and dwarfed by Meghan Brady’s “All In” virtually next to it, an acrylic-on-canvas measuring over 6.5 by 8.5 feet. Using a kind of constructivist collage approach, Brady, the show’s only Maine artist, lays her canvas on the floor and paints vibrantly saturated forms onto it by walking around and on the surface or on hands and knees from the painting’s perimeter. She has described this process as having a kind of “body-intelligence” that she trusts. But they also emanate a buoyancy and joyousness that is unmistakable from across the gallery.
Finally, there is Kimia Ferdowsi Kline. Born in Nashville to Iranian parents, much of her ouvre has the quality of folk tales and myth. They have their origin in stories her parents told her about growing up in Tehran. Using ink and oil paint on papyrus – a material widely used throughout the Middle East in ancient times – she attempts to heal what she has described as her “cultural amputation” from a country she cannot visit. One of the three works on display, “Lobotomy,” seems a bit off the show’s thematic thread. But “First Breath” and “Bleeding and Crying” bring up the subjects of childbirth and menstruation in beautiful, almost lyrically rendered imagery.
Hoang’s 22 drawings upstairs are not linked specifically to the show, but nevertheless have an indirect relation. This New York-based artist normally paints large canvases, some of them vaguely, but interestingly, reminiscent of the more color-saturated, soft-focus abstractions of Helen Frankenthaler, arguably the leading female light in the male-dominated Ab Ex field of The Club. But these 22 works on paper are just 8.5 by 5.5 inches, an intimate scale that feels welcoming and accessible. The imagery variously recalls birds, trees, mountains and other forms from nature. It’s a quietly sublime coda to the much more loaded show downstairs.
Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland.
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