"Anecdotes" Exhibition
Adam Baumgold Gallery (40 E 75th St.)
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An anecdote is a short tale of an interesting or amusing incident, usually told to illustrate some point greater than itself. In Jim Nutt's formally stunning tableau, "A Little Light, A Little Dark," 1986, male and female nude figures are frozen mid-action, holding tools or weapons, their gestures at once playful, tender and threatening. A tiny figure with a flashlight looks on, like the ego trying to decipher the mystery of gender. Aline Kominsky-Crumb's "Sex Crazed Housewife" is a light comedy about the tensions that challenge her as a married woman, without directly questioning the role she plays. In "Avoiding the Dangers of a Family Get Together" Jules Feiffer displays his mastery of storytelling by anecdote, revealing a lifetime of dysfunction in a few offhand remarks.
The term "anecdotal," with the connotation of information that is not scientific or confirmable is appropriate to the subjective and personal nature of these artists' work. Kirk Hayes "The Big Nose Bleed (the Illusion of Immortality Wanes)" leaves the viewer to assess the emotional impact of this minor complaint. From Mark Tansey there is a concise painting of two men examining arrows in a target, a snapshot of sport as a model of performance anxiety and pressure to compete. Two drawings by Glen Baxter riff on the peculiarities of male bonding and human interactions in general, while Tala Madani's "Tweezed Out" reveals the peculiar intimacies of men. Diane Noomin's "Coming of Age in Carnarsie" uses insignificant events to reflect the barely repressed strangeness of the 1950's American world of her youth. The odd encounters and bizarre characters of Marcel Dzama meet the "Happy Ending Nightmares" of Julie Doucet. These works are gently humorous, and only hint at trouble happening off-camera.
Media
Schedule
from April 01, 2010 to May 15, 2010