Repetition – of medium, module and methodology – underlies two exhibitions presently on view in Portland, although to fully divergent results. What is probably most fulfilling (and presumably a bit off-putting within the case of 1) is witnessing the great selection attainable inside that repetition. “Morphatoreum” at Cove Avenue Arts (via Jan. 13) brings collectively three artists in dialog via totally different media. “PerSlovak 2.0” (via Jan. 5) is an interactive photographic show on the Maine Jewish Museum that would not be extra well timed.
In “Morphatoreum,” Sondra Bogdonoff, Roy Fox and Jamie Johnston all make use of repetition however via assorted media. Bogdonoff’s work is extremely refined, so it might take a second to appreciate the enormity of what she is doing. All her compositions use woven linen thread. Many artists have used this materials and follow to provide three-dimensional sculpture – most notably, the pioneering Lenore Tawney (1970-2007) – or, like Billie Zangewa, two-dimensional items.
What’s wonderful about my favourite Bogdonoffs, chief amongst them “Wandering,” “Morning Mild” and “Again and Forth,” is how she will create 3D results in two dimensions by primarily scrambling the image airplane. She does this, partly, through the use of her medium and her methodology to create a way of shadow. By alternating the colour of the thread and the weave, Bogdonoff leaves us pondering – particularly when viewing the works from additional away – whether or not a kind is definitely floating in entrance of the airplane or receding into it.
Compositionally, “Wandering” is a research in diamond shapes, whereas “Morning Mild” investigates triangular varieties. But her command of colour and method creates a form of oscillation of kind, the place the diamonds and triangles are always overlapping, fusing collectively, coming out on the viewer or sinking again into area. The arithmetic of that is thoughts boggling, resembling, in a manner, the calculations Sol Lewitt makes use of to execute compositions of graphite or coloured pencil on partitions. However whereas LeWitt’s work can appear rigidly formulaic, Bogdonoff’s – maybe because of the softness of the medium itself and maybe to the way in which she alternates tight and unfastened weaves, typically even leaving unfastened ends – comes off as woozy and dreamy, gently manipulating our notion in ways in which draw us into every work.
The impact is, lastly, ethereal. In different woven items akin to “Crossing Strains #2” and “Again and Forth,” Bogdonoff can also be in a position to seize a way of sunshine rising from some numinous depth. All this takes unimaginable mastery.
Fox’s work is probably the most clearly repetitive within the present. Except three tesserae-like works (“3680.s,” “3670.s” and “3472.s”), all his work seem as single vertical strokes of ink, paint and polish on archival panels. The fascination right here is in seeing how this mixture of mediums can produce a way of liquid luminosity that in flip sparks associations with different supplies.
A portray like “3692.s” evokes planks of wooden on boardwalks or rickety wood bridges, whereas “3357” or “3360” can remind us of the “Stripe” work of Colour Subject artist Morris Lewis from the early Nineteen Sixties. Like Lewis, the truth is, lots of Fox’s works revel within the pure materiality of watered-down pigments, the way in which they nonetheless seem moist and likewise the style during which they transmit a translucence that serves to filter a simulacrum of background mild. The luminosity of Fox’s stripes, the truth is, is of a chunk with Bogdonoff’s play of sunshine, and we will take monumental pleasure in “listening” to them converse.
Johnston’s work additionally conveys a way of materiality and lightweight. His wall sculptures are product of wooden that’s reduce into modules and assembled, then painted in elements. Whereas Fox and Bogdonoff appear to conjure mild and/or filter it, the function of sunshine in Johnston’s wooden works is extra passive. Primarily they catch it, break it up and create shadow. They’re interactive within the sense that, to get the morphing results they create, we should stroll alongside them or in any other case change our place.
I had seen “Parrot’s Speak” in one other present and appreciated the way in which its colour and two-dimensionality recommended the animal and the aural exercise of its title. It and different wall sculptures play with what we understand as steady accordion folds, significantly “Itemizing 17,” which seems like nothing a lot as an accordion bellows stretched open and sagging within the center.
However Johnston has painted the foreground border of the wood wedges purple and the within area between wedges a turquoise blue. If we view this from one facet or one other, we solely see the purple. But when we stand entrance and heart, or stroll alongside the piece, the paint colours alternate and mimic a way of movement not in contrast to a cartoon flip guide.
“Could Sixth” amplifies this impact with fin-like vertical items of wooden whose widest widths are at totally different heights. So, whether or not we’re transferring from left to proper or proper to left, the sculpture appears to create a wave that swoops down after which up once more. “Disturbance” assembles wood blocks painted largely with inexperienced on two reverse sides, aside from about seven of them during which reverse sides are painted purple. These are positioned right into a grid obliquely angled to the floor, the purple ones scattered randomly all through and inflicting the “disturbance” of the title.
It’s endlessly fascinating to see how Johnston manipulates his modules to create totally different results. All these artists’ works are bodily fastened and stationary, but they learn as coming into being or dissolving, in movement (at the least visually), and ever morphing.
WHAT DOES JEWISHNESS LOOK LIKE?
Photographer Yoav Horesh is the kid of a Persian Jewish mom and a Slovak Jewish father (therefore the present’s title). Their black-and-white portraits cling at intervals across the Fineberg Neighborhood Room on the Maine Jewish Museum, together with portraits of assorted siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and the Kittery-based Horesh himself. The portraits are straight-on and documentarian, recording in close-up the shapes of faces and their options, the wrinkles and facial hair and different components of every member of the family.
However this present is far more than straight portrait images. To at least one facet of the room stands a podium on which a projector casts a picture of considered one of Horesh’s family members onto the wall earlier than you. Over seven years, the artist catalogued lots of of pictures of his members of the family’ facial options, categorizing them into varieties: eyes, noses, mouths, hair, and many others. They’re modules, if you’ll.
Atop the projector is a field with buttons you may push repeatedly to shift these modules: drawing this pair of eyes from the attention file and mixing it – by pushing different buttons – with one other relative’s nostril, one more relative’s hair and so forth. If you really feel you’re completed, one other button means that you can print out your creation and use a push pin to affix it to the wall round Horesh’s formal household portraits.
Enjoyable, proper? Nicely, sure, it may be. But when we psychologically mine beneath an exercise that appears purely amusing, we may be stunned what we will uncover and what beliefs could be challenged. The interactive part of this exhibition presents a query: What constitutes a “Jewish” face? It’d shock some to find that the way in which they reply this query every day is full of assumptions and generalizations that, at their worst, can dehumanize folks and justify racial and cultural abuse.
For instance, proper from the beginning, we’re coping with two strains of Jewishness: Sephardic and Ashkenazi. Simply considering what genetic options accompany these cultural varieties in our minds could be problematic. However widening that inquiry to differentiate Sephardim from non-Jewish North Africans, as an illustration, complicates issues even additional. Is there really a bodily distinction between them that permits us to definitively inform them aside? How do we all know, with out interacting with an individual, whether or not they’re Sephardic or Ashkenazi? What assumptions can we make about every of those ethnic teams? What worth judgements may be lingering in our unconscious?
As you look across the room at guests’ amalgamations of options, you may start to note that some look downright freakish, with options that don’t appear in proportion with others (monumental eyes ala Marty Feldman, as an illustration, paired with a tiny mouth or a drawn, sunken jawbone. Are these simply enjoyable and video games? Or is there one thing extra sinister or antisemitic in that playfulness? How may these much less overt prejudices be informing our opinions in regards to the present tragedy exploding within the Gaza Strip?
In fact, the identical Dr. Frankenstein-like experimentation can lead us to understand the infinite permutations of Jewishness and the inherent uniqueness and individuality of each soul. It’d reaffirm for us the insubstantiality of ethnic stereotypes, or stereotyping usually for that matter. And on and on. “PerSlovak 2.0,” because it seems, is far more than it appears.
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