THE FALSE MIRROR: SURREALISM FORWARD AND BACK, Artworks Gallery, 2014
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WORLD SAMPLER, Artworks Gallery, 2013
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FRANCES HEINRICH – CURATED EXHIBITS
2014 – THE FLASE MIRROR: SURREALISM FORWARD AND BACK, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ, January 11 – February 22, 2014. Artists: Tom Bendtsen, John Goodyear, Benjamin S. Jones, Alan Kesselhaut, Paul Leibow, Jim and Lynn Lemyre, Sarah Petruziello, Frank Rivera, Anita Thacher, Andrew Wilkinson, Frances Heinrich. Curator provided illustrated lecture on influences of classical Surrealism in art and media today, and questions for a gallery tour with participating artists.
2013 – WORLD SAMPLER, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ, January 15 – February 23, 2013. Artists: Tom Bendtsen, Eve Ingalls, Monica Kane, Benjamin S. Jones, Carl Gombert, Alan Kesselhaut, George Shortess, Frances Heinrich. Curator provided PowerPoint lecture, “Toward a Globalized Aesthetic,” and questions for gallery tour with participating artists.
2008 – THE RAW AND THE COOKED, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ. Artists of the Sculptors Assn. of NJ. Curator provided themed proposal, PowerPoint talk, gallery tour with artists, and “raw and cooked” reception food. Theme was chosen to integrate traditional and “new media” works by SANJ membership.
2003 – ONLY HUMAN, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ. Artists: Pat Fenney-Murrell, Charles Kumnick, Susan Wilson, Frances Heinrich.
2000 – VIEWS IN TRENTON, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ. All installation show, co-curated by committee. Artists: Franc Palaia, Hope Carter, Michele Soslau, and Barry Snyder.
1999 – TRAPS, City Without Walls, Newark, NJ. Artists: Mary-Ellen Campbell, Harry Lynn Krizan, Paul Leibow, Sharon Libes, Frank Rivera, Carol Rosen, Krista Van Ness, Frances Heinrich.
1998 – CONTAINMENT AND REVELATION, Watchung Art Center, Watchung, NJ. Artists: Mary-Ellen Campbell, Franc Palaia.
1997 – OBJECTIVE REALITIES, SUBJECTIVE VISIONS, Watchung Art Center, Watchung, NJ. Artists: Neal Korn, Paul Matthews.
1997 – MIND OVER MATTER – CONCEPTUAL MIXED MEDIA, Watchung Art Center, Watchung, NJ. Artists: Cathy Watkins, Susan Wilson, Frances Heinrich. Curated with Gallery Director, Jim Fuess.
THE FALSE MIRROR: SURREALISM FORWARD AND BACK
Influences of classical Surrealism are highly visible and widely pervasive in both fine and media arts today. This Artworks exhibition shows new fine art pieces in the historical context of works by seminal Surrealists such as De Chirico, Magritte, Ernst, and Dali.
Classical Surrealism, a cultural movement that began in the 1920’s, did not focus on the “optical” concerns of Impressionism, Pointillism, Fauvism, or Cubism. It was, instead, an art of ideas. Surrealists explored a world of the unconscious, insanity, dreams, automatism, poetic mystery, and conceptual paradox. De Chirico and those who followed were perhaps the first to consider that what should be painted should be more than how to paint. It should be more than how brushwork, light, color, volume, or depth affect vision. In fact, Magritte presented snapshots of the impossible rendered in the most banal and literal way. Surrealists reversed the rational order of things through surprise, contradiction, disorientation, and an emphasis on the subjectivity of what was considered “absolute truth.”
They attempted to portray the real world as a construct of the mind. Surrealist reality is irrational: it is not imaginary, but must be imagined by considering how something could “just be otherwise.” Classical Surrealists often portrayed this “otherwise” by bending time, space, scale, solidity, logic, language, and identity.
While Dada and Surrealism are closely related in time and concept, they are not the same. The Dadaist goal was to destroy society’s spiritual, artistic, and social values. Surrealism’s intention was not to destroy anything, but to change everything under the spell of all that was marvelous, imaginable, and possible in some alternate reality.
It’s important to consider that today’s ways of thinking and seeing are largely the result of visual and conceptual efforts by classical Surrealists. Early and mid 20th century Surrealist works forever loosened the look and logic of thought and vision, and they forever twisted and morphed all that we now accept as possible.
To facilitate the idea of forward/back and new/old connections in Surrealist vision, works in this show are grouped in proximity to prints of originals by Surrealist masters. Visitors unfamiliar with art history should find this referencing helpful in making observations and connections.
FALSE MIRROR ARTISTS AND RELATIONSHIP TO THEME
1. TOM BENDTSEN is a deeply thoughtful artist who lives in this region after strong primary culture influences in Denmark and Canada. His drawings and companion high-tech interactive sculpture, POMIKOISON, have the unmistakable qualities and focus of surreal works by Max Ernst (1891-1976). Both Ernst and Bendtsen show an interest in natural forms, and they both admit to a fascination with birds. Ernst used birds as a recurring theme in his work and had a bird image alter-ego, “Loplop.” Bendtsen is interested in birds’ instinctive drivers as compared to our own.
2. JOHN GOODYEAR, as a world-recognized artist and educator (former Chairman, Mason Gross School of Visual Art, Rutgers University) produced art prolifically in many styles during his lifetime. His interest in the historical appropriation of Dadist/Surrealist works is reflected in CHICKEN AND EGG, which exemplifies conceptual paradox. 1930-2019
3. BENJAMIN S. JONES is a young irreverent NY artist with a sophisticated understanding of history, culture, and the media. His SUNSHINE POLICY shows Surrealist sensibilities in its fantastical mix of real and imagined elements. “Though much of my subject matter is quite serious, I try to maintain a sense of the hysterical and even the absurd.”
4. ALAN KESSELHAUT is a digital photographer who uses HDR technology to reveal more in one image than the human eye can see. His piece FLORIST SHOP combines daylight and nighttime imagery to highlight the indeterminate nature of time and light (Magritte, Dali).
5. LYNN LEMYRE and JIM LEMYRE credit the Surrealist movement and the work of psychologist Carl Jung as major influences in their jointly rendered paintings. Their works focus on merging worlds of imagination and reality, presenting incongruent combinations, and exploring dreams and the unconscious. These priorities parallel those of classical Surrealism.
6. PAUL LIEBOW (b 1961) is a New Jersey artist whose sculpture, painting, and mixed-media works often display strong Surrealist influences. His classic TV cabinet with fish tank in lieu of screen is a prime example, as well as other works which combine skeletal bones, x-ray imagery, and films/gels illuminated behind acrylic. "I notice too much. Many things capture my attention."
7. SARAH PETRUZIELLO is a young South Orange artist with the fine drafting abilities of a Salvador Dali. Her meticulously rendered graphic works, with the “mystical quality… of Southern Gothic narrative,” are current examples of the painted/drawn collages of Giorgio De Chirico or Rene Magritte. TWO KNIGHTS is also strongly reflective of Magritte’s recurring “lost jockey” theme.
8. FRANK RIVERA is a classically trained artist, art critic, and former educator who portrays a fantasy world in small highly detailed oils. His paintings explore a classical Surrealist reality, where nothing appears or functions as it is expected.
9. ANITA THACHER was a NYC artist with impressive credentials who worked in a variety of media. Her videos, selected here, pay literal homage to Magritte and investigate issues of scale, believability, and visual/conceptual paradox. Her work can be found at MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and J. Paul Getty Museum. 1940-2017
10. ANDREW WILKINSON is a creative photographer and multi-media artist, whose videos play with time-lapse and the symmetrical doubling of familiar imagery. A Surrealist interest in liquidity and morphing of form is also present, as is the automatism of changing Rorschach patterns and its reference to Max Ernst’s paint-blob technique of decalcomania.
11. FRANCES HEINRICH, Princeton curator and studio artists, maintains a strong interest in the influence of seminal modern art upon current visual and conceptual perception. Her own work has always reflected this interest by emphasizing the ideas and incongruous imagery of classical Surrealism.
WORLD SAMPLER
We are now living in a period of broad cultural and social change. Conceptually, we are moving from a large world to a small one, and from a sense of difference and isolation among nations to feelings of similarity and connectedness.
The world is becoming “globalized” in many ways. Importantly, we are experiencing world-wide economic interdependence. When peoples everywhere learn, by means of modern technology, what others have, they want and need the same comforts and consumer goods that “everyone else has.” As I’ve seen first hand, mobile phones are everywhere. Camel traders in Abu Dhabi wear traditional dress but carry phones, and even those who are very poor in Africa have cells long before they have other necessities of life. As a global population, we are becoming addicted to screens and gadgets of every kind. There is also enormous migration and mixing of race, religion, and culture across national boundaries. We, as Americans, no longer expect that everything is best when it appears Western, European, and White. Instead, an educated public enjoys and understands a kaleidoscopic blend of world-wide ideas and imagery, with all patterns, sounds, colors, and appearances equally valid.
It is commonly believed that good art reflects its society and culture. Artists are the antennae of a society, and their work, when good, reflects the belief system and value system implicit in their culture. For example, important societies of the past such as Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire are preserved and vividly reveal themselves through their art.
In modern times, the invention of photography liberated artists from recording history to seek out other ways of seeing. Non-photographic ways of representation predominated from the mid 1800’s until around 1970. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was one of the first western Modern Artists to celebrate a non-European ideal of beauty. While earlier European illustrations of other races offered white features with different skin colors, Gauguin’s portraits of Tahitian natives introduced different physical proportions and an ethnic, global consciousness to Modern Art. It is well documented that Picasso studied the work of Gauguin, and subsequently also studied African and other tribal art. These non-European influences served as inspiration for his mature signature style, beginning with LES DESMOISELLES D’AVIGNON. The interest in genuine tribal appearance and “primitive” aesthetic was further pursued by other seminal Modern Artists. Major early 20th century works by Matisse, Ernst, Miro, Klee, Derain, and Man Ray all show the magical properties and formal influences of ethnic cultures (African, South Seas, Northwest Coast American Indian, Yupik, etc.).
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) must also be credited with forever changing assumed preconceptions about art. After Duchamp, skill of hand and eye no longer defined an artist, and rarified wall and pedestal objects were replaced by an undefined non-elitist range of materials and creative output. Groups such as Fluxus (1960-1970) helped to democratize and globalize artistic activity by qualifying a wider population to make art. The number of individuals calling themselves artists has now increased exponentially, and cultural/aesthetic awareness and production has vastly expanded worldwide.
Today’s art hubs are not confined to Paris, New York, Los Angeles, or London. The art “scene” has become truly globalized and international. Art is now shown in virtually every corner of the globe, with exhibition and viewing opportunities for very many. These venues invite a world population to an international “art dialogue” and connect peoples to global ideas, trends, and visual ideals. While polyphony of art centers inherently creates a more heterogeneous and richer art world, there is also some friction between traditional and new art. Curators are now looking for a type of art that will appear “exotic” to their audience, but also seem hip and similar to cutting edge art from anywhere in the world. New art from China and India is particularly representative of this tenuous balance between traditional and “modern.”
WORLD SAMPLER ARTISTS AND RELATIONSHIP TO THEME
1. TOM BENDTSEN feels that, although some books may endure as repositories of world knowledge, most are often now dismissed and discarded as obsolete. In CONVERSATION #5 he repurposes unwanted books to build a sculptural tower, thus completely changing prior informational purpose. He uses book colors as pixels to create an over-all image effect. Bendtsen builds to the site, using old books as “obsolete color pixels” to challenge ideas of static “fact” in today’s rapidly changing world. “You can take knowledge (books) and construct any argument you want based on what you want.” MFA, State University of New York
2. CARL GOMBERT presents 25 pastel and acrylic self portraits, THE REAL ME and THE REAL SHE, depicting essentially the same individual, except for variations in costume, hair style, and eye, skin, or hair color. The size and tilt of the head, the facial expression, and the background are identical in each image. The intended effect is to present a room of people who at first glace are extremely different, representing a wide range of races, ethnicities, lifestyles, occupation, etc., but who are nevertheless easily perceived as the same person. This grouping asks viewers to consider whether we are more different or more alike and challenges viewers to confront both personal and public attitudes about race, ethnicity, and class. Ph.D in Fine Arts, Texas Tech University
3. EVE INGALLS, in her recent sculptures, concentrates on the boundary shifts caused by climate change. In the hand-made paper sculpture, Not Fitting, the globe separates into three layers,- the continents, the oceans, and the vast cities that float like dirty clouds over everything. A perfect fit between the three layers becomes difficult as the climate changes, the oceans rise, and the population density grows. MFA, Yale University School of Art
4. BENJAMIN S. JONES, in EDIFICE COMPLEX, accesses widely held images of the urban aesthetic as it relates to high quality of life,- specifically the growth and constant rebuilding of the urban landscape. Developers are often destined to outdo those who came before and are willing to destroy the often beautiful, historic, and irreplaceable past. Modern times are no exception, and global development often proves counterproductive to existing populations and their environment. MFA Sculpture, Virginia Commonwealth University
5. MONICA KANE explores the ongoing theme of the structures of human habitation. She creates delicate wire and reed sculptures which speak to our common quest for a better life and to the fragility and vulnerability of human existence. Monica attempts to strip away all but the essential experience of shelter and workplace,- a sense of well being that may be precariously delicate, and despite the rawness of harsh realities. MA, Naropa University
6. ALAN KESSELHAUT presents, in his HDR digital photographs, an iconic, glamorous image of Manhattan, where technology and wealth facilitate a luxurious vertical environment. Glittering high-rise cities have become a coveted and driven priority for developing nations. Amazing to look at, the skylines of Shanghai, Dubai, Manila, and Johannesburg instantly proclaim their society’s “progress” and power.
7. GEORGE SHORTESS shows computer-based interactive installations which explore the metaphor of inner world reacting with external reality. Important, he feels, is the human need to make a confusing environment coherent. SHELTERING HUT is a 3x3’ log hut equipped with sensors and an interactive computer system. When people move in front of the hut, they hear commentary about the nature of shelters, which includes tax shelters, bomb shelters, fur, etc. George is a lifelong educator and working Pennsylvania artist.
8. FRANCES HEINRICH, as curator, is a world traveler who has personally witnessed the remarkable “shrinking” of our globe. Recent works deal with environmental concerns and with our newly acquired blend of world-wide aesthetics. The installation RHETORICAL PROGRESS examines negative underlying issues of world development and technology,- dwindling global resources and the fragility of world ecology. WORLD SAMPLER uses an actual Whitman’s Sampler candy box to display an assortment of global objects and images. Plaster lips are painted with national flags and faces are from all corners of the planet. MA, Columbia University.
WORLD SAMPLER VISITOR COMMENTS
“Wow! I am impressed with this show. . . Am I to understand that you curated this one from A to Z? If so, I must tell you it appears to be of a quality rarely seen outside of New York; edgy, fun, irreverent. The installation, too, very kickass in the manner of East of Chelsea (lower east-side). Wish I had my art writer’s space to give it the ink it deserves! As I have said before, you have a curator’s gift.”
Frank Rivera, artist and former art critic, Princeton Hightstown area
“ . . . we loved the show. . . and came away with new ideas. I was impressed with Carl Gombert’s portraits,- I had never heard of him before and was glad you have brought attention to him. Kudos for a good show and especially for your two pieces in it.”
Madelaine Shellaby, artist
“WORLD SAMPLER is the best show we ever had!”
Lynn Lemyre, Executive Director, Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ
