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| Aaron Collier, Exhibition View, Photo by Jonathan Traviesa |
Aaron Collier
Something There
Carroll Gallery, New Orleans
There were six large, dark, abstract
paintings in the main room of Tulane’s Carroll Gallery, black rectangles
reflecting in the polished floor. The effect was powerful. In New Orleans it is
a rare pleasure to stand in the middle of a spacious gallery filled (but not
over filled) with large paintings.
The palette widened on approach, blacks
giving way to other darks, blues, mauves, medium grays and some sparse passages
of translucent silver. Two of the six paintings contained sculptural elements.
In Revisitation, a scrap of
lumber deckled with yellow spray foam insulation leaned in a corner formed by
two canvases. In A Certain Uncertainty one of those decoy owl statues used to deter pigeons sat on a shelf in
front of the lower left corner of the painting.
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When an object is imposed on a painting
it is an act of rebellion. The object undermines the sovereignty of the
painting if not the sovereignty of Painting with a capital P. Robert Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns,
and other Neo-Dada and Pop artists knocked Painting down a peg or two with
their constructions combining objects and paintings. These artworks did not ask
to be read as paintings in the traditional way; they ask paintings to function
as objects. Painting contains an illusory world like a window, real but
untouchable. Set as the backdrop to an object (containing the shadow of that
object), a painting becomes an object itself, a surface to look onto rather than into. Imagine a vase of flowers in front of an abstract
painting–a Cy Twombly, say, or Joan Mitchell. The vase of flowers would change
the way we perceive the painting. In Peter Rostovsky’s
Epiphany Models the artist
places miniature sculpted figures on pedestals in front of landscapes
reminiscent of works by Caspar David Friedrich. I am not sure if these works are ironic or sincere but the
viewers are not likely to study Rostovsky's paintings the way they would
the originals. The object-painting dialogue is an artist's inside joke. In
the work of the artist Daniel Atyim, found and constructed objects are placed in proximity to a drawing/painting. These objects appear born of the same media, like they came from the two-dimensional
world. They remind me of that A-Ha video in which a sexy stranger escapes a
comic book and throws himself violently against the walls to lose the
remaining sketch marks that keep him from appearing fully human. The objects in
Daniel’s work look uncomfortable in the material world and redirect us into the
illusion of the two dimensional space. But these hybrid works do not employ the
traditional materials and vocabulary of painting and do not ask to be
approached as traditional paintings.
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Aaron Collier’s two works, Revisitation and A Certain Uncertainty, are pretty conventionally presented paintings on
canvas. The objects only slightly violate the space of the painting while the
paintings passively accommodate their objects. The artist’s relationship to
these objects seems to be a tentative one. Painting is a proposition; an object
can reduce it to a prop. The rest of the works in the gallery seem to strive
for a different purpose and tone.
From afar the four remaining works in the
room were somber, impressive, hitting full low notes like cello music. In relation to the room and each other (as well as the objects in the
other paintings) they alluded to architecture. Looking closer, the interiors of
the paintings contained contour lines that were more organic than architectural
or geometric. With a couple of exceptions these contour lines did not fully
describe any figures or objects. They were concentrated in the centers of the
pictures, relatively few lines straying past the edge of the canvas. In some
passages these contours accumulate to the point where I would expect a build up
of paint and inevitable texture, but the surface remained almost uniform and
matte. The medium is listed as Flashe, a type of acrylic described this way on the
Dick Blick art supply website: “extra-fine vinyl-based paint dries evenly with
intense coverage to a uniform, velvety matte, opaque finish.” Thus the smooth
surface and absence of luminosity. The resulting effect is incongruent, active and
expressive searching lines on a surface that stands aloof. From a distance
these paintings were luring, but when I moved closer to the individual works, I
couldn’t get closer to them. I
couldn’t get into their headspace. I felt a little like I was trying to meet
the gaze of someone wearing mirror sunglasses.
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The work in the two smaller galleries
varied widely in scale, palette, presentation, material and painterly
vocabulary. Compared to the body of work in the main gallery the palette was
wider, more vibrant, and included pastels and fluorescents. The works ranged
from miniature at six by four inches to over seven feet in height. They were on
paper, found paper, panel, Dura-Lar, and canvas. The paint was applied in
contour lines, opaque color fields and washes. The exhibition as a whole contained such a broad range
of materials, sizes, and art-historical allusions I wondered, why isn’t this
show more of a mess? I think Aaron Collier can, with little effort, make order
of chaos. I wonder if the exploration of materials and surfaces might be the
artist's attempt to challenge his ability to make order, to challenge his habits, his control of paint, his tendency
to establish balance within a pictorial space. If that's the motivation I think is necessary and courageous for an artist to do though as a viewer I want to see that there are also convictions at the core of the work.
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I saw the bright, synthetic green in the
painting Where Light Is As Thick As Darkness as an effort to rabble-rouse an otherwise tasteful palette. It was a color suited to cause a disruption, but when a blotch of green that would be rebellious in volume or as a rogue mark,
is threaded tastefully into the composition it acts as–in Apartment Therapy terms–an accent color. (I really like the strange window reflection looking mark in the top of this painting.) A scrap of cloth collaged onto the canvas surface (In a Line, But
Out of Order) was placed neatly
in a corner, on the line of the golden ratio, parallel to the edges of the painting, its colors in harmony with
the palette. If these are efforts to undermine conservative or repetitive
impulses in the artist’s art-making process, these gestures are not disruptive
enough to propose a true challenge to an artist who can, it seems, effortlessly
make an attractive painting.
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| Aaron Collier, Exhibition View, Photo by Jonathan Traviesa |
In addition to the two dimensional works in one of the smaller galleries is an object, a shelf with three owl decoys. These owls are identical to one in
the main gallery except they have been painted with Flashe. This piece, A
Lack Of Sight Not Being The Cause Of Darkness is reminiscent of Haim Steinbach’s work, not only in
his use of mass-produced objects (including owls), but his signature wedged
shelf. It is hard to know if this quote was intentional or the inevitable
result of two artists employing the same quotidian objects. In front of the
painting the owl introduced one batch of art historical references, as
multiples on the wedged shelf it recalled another artist and set of ideas. As
totems I sort of liked this watchful predator in the gallery, but I could not
figure out its function in the show other than to be what it is, a decoy. This piece, hung well above eye level does not invite examination; it redirects me (like a pigeon!) to the rest of the show.
This body of work (or bodies of work)
represented hours of labor and thought, broad investigations of materials, and
a wealth of art historical knowledge. The exhibition as a whole was thoughtfully curated, impeccably hung and a pleasure to attend.
But when I tried to make contact with individual works I repeatedly felt
like I was presented with a decoy. This might
have been the intention of the work, to be evasive, to keep me moving, but I wanted to connect
more–more deeply, more emotionally, more physically–with the individual pieces.
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| Aaron Collier, Looking At, Photo by Jonathan Traviesa |
I suspect the work in this show succeeds in
accomplishing what it sets out to. And the work is all handsome. But me, I am drawn to art that comes closer
to failure, like a racecar taking the corner too fast, threatening to skid into
the wall and burst into flames. That said, sometimes an artist’s most exciting brushes
with disaster are slower and quieter than a racecar. In this show the piece I
found the most exciting was titled Looking At. It was modest in size at seventeen by fourteen inches
and painted in casein on paper. The palette was muted, warm grays and pastels
with the exception of a subtle cameo of orange and teal. Horizontal bands of
color descended nearly the length of the vertically formatted painting. These
wobbly bands didn’t exactly look like
window blinds but to me they felt like window blinds, closed, askew on the bottom
as if raised by momentarily by one’s thumb, revealing a second space beyond
them. There a wedge of muted blue, cut by plum colored dashes, maybe a
sliver of wavy water. Yes, this was just my impression, my fantasy. But the
point is that I was lured to fantasy. I was not thinking about art or mark making or anything in the
material world, I was within the world of the painting, within its unique
proposition. In this piece there was a lack of fussing, a directness. I was
reminded of post-Futurist Morandi, not because this work resembled that but because
of the similar abandonment of devices. In Aaron Collier’s painting Looking
At there is both chaos and order. This humble and audacious painting was a racecar on fire, silent and in slow motion amidst the spectacle of the exhibition.
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