From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
Subject: At Two NYC Galleries
Date: 16 Aug 92 04:02:07 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

I'm distributing this more widely than NYC on the theory
that a lot of people come through New York, and might be
interested.  Both galleries are in Soho, which is just 
west of Broadway between Houston and Canal Streets, easy
to reach by subway or bus.

Ergane Gallery, 469 West Broadway / 212 228 9600
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Verjarano: two abstract expressionasms named "Volcano"
and "Fuego", names which speak adequately for the pictures.

Strizhov: Curious, large surrealistic paintings, bright
colors, cartoonish, ironic, fairly weird.  Worth looking
at twice.  He also has a book of poetry on sale at the Gallery
with some drawings in it; all in Russian, and ill-printed.

Kostabi: Another Russian.  Large, colorful paintings in large
humorous airbrushy technique.  Also has a book on sale, this
one in English, dense, satirical.

Gianna Pizzi: small, carefully crafted abstract works.
Intellectually respectable, but you could put them over the
couch.

Laitta: bronze sculptures.  A bit more like Brancusi than I
care for in others than Brancusi.

Andrea Berea: complex, intellectual surrealisms, but not very
spooky; muted colors, a lot of what is in effect white line draw
ing on top of the painting.  A bit too careful for me, but maybe 
I was tired.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Circle Gallery
468 West Broadway

The Circle Gallery has a show called "Masters of
Photojournalism."  The masters are Alfred Eisenstaedt, Andreas
Feininger, Dmitri Kessel, Nina Leen, Leonard McCombe, Carl
Mydans, and Peter Stackpole, and the photographs seem to come
from the Life Gallery of Photography.  I don't know if all of
them appeared in _Life_, but they are of the _Life_ genre; a
very high quality of interesting, realistic work, but nothing
much to disturb or provoke.  Fun to look at.  The images are
mostly familiar through republication; you know what they look
like already, but you want to look at them again because
they're good.

Outside of photographs, the Circle is showing the following:

Vasarely: painting and sculpture.  And jewelry and watches!
Very pretty, mostly mindless top-of-the-line op art.  A feast
for the eyes, anyway.  There is a _lot_ of Vasarely; I take it
he works hard and sells much.

Yvaral: does op-art "deconstructions" of familiar images, in
the present case Marilyn Monroe and Mona Lisa.  Pretty.  In
once case, a deconstructed (actually, gridded) Monroe has
little jewels at grid intersections.  Okay....

Frank Gallo: vigorous leaf off the old Matisse tree.  

Sandro Chia: brilliantly colored neo-expressionism.  I've seen 
his stuff around, so it's probably widespread.  These are 
lithographs, so they're not of exalted cost.  Chia also has
"chairs" at the gallery which are satires of chairs, playful
stuff, but.  

Alphonse Mucha: a small piece, Art Nouveau of course.

Calman Shemi: four or five large paintings; son of Kandinsky,
so to speak.

Tom Lordi: likes to make sculptures of the Empire State
Building out of odd materials, like tin cans.  Okay if you like
that sort of thing; there may be more of it than one place can
take at one time.

Douglas Hofman:  "Not of this world," says a blurb posted
nearby; I would say, of this world circa 1908.  Careful,
evocative paintings that are like drawings.

Judith Bledsoe: big, colorful lithographs, rather the sort of
thing that might show up on the cover of the New Yorker.  Not
bad, but won't keep you awake at night.

Jan Balet: a kind of stylized cartoonish technique, and most or
all of the work is small and humorous.  A lot of the stuff, and
one feels it's popular somewhere.

Yaacov Agam: op art with a vengeance.  Zap!  Agam has gone so
far as to employ the technique, used on 3D postcards (or the
ones where Jesus's eyes open and close) of fronting the painting
with glass grating so that you see more than one thing at a time.

Juan Sanchez-Suarez: does a curious thing -- paints your
typical action ab/ex drip'n'slash, fairly open -- then paints
in shadows for the thingies, plus carefully painted spheres.
Gives an impression of a third dimension in the ab/ex world.

Lebadang: odd, interesting work.  It's sculpted paper, mostly
black, though some works are white.  The artist is said to be
Vietnamese, but the work looks African to me; heavy and yet
delicate, emotive and intellectual at the same time.  Best in
show.

-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine,alt.cyberpunk,alt.cult-movies