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[Epigraphs]
"Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art,
much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there.
Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all."
~Susan Sontag
"...I think I was trying to avoid the phenomenon
known as verbal overshadowing
in which the left hemisphere of the brain,
which thinks in words,
displaces the product of the right hemisphere,
which thinks in pictures --
-- the description that kills the image."
~Elliot Ross, photographer
What
an exciting, and
hauntingly evanescent
thing it is, for an
exhibition to receive a
review!.. to not go gently
into that good void, where
all events find their end,
only to be fondly
misremembered for a time,
with rising nostalgia and
plummeting exactitude... .
Is it not then doubly true for all art
events -- exhibition
openings among them -- and
for all of the
participating artists, who
had lovingly chosen their
paintings, sculptures,
drawings, prints just for
this occasion. How
affirming, for at least
one well-remembered night
to sparkle with
fireworks... to make a
colorful splash in this
often indifferent world of
undifferentiated
multitudes, quotidian
pronouncements, and
cul-de-sacs with no
outlet! Alas, Ars longa, vita brevis...
but a good review, heck,
any review, as is
universally averred, may
turn out to be that
memorable step in the
right direction.
What happens, however, when a review mis-steps, when an artist feels
mis-understood..? Well, in the case of this artist -- he asserts himself in print, offering, as the author, an authoritative interpretation... . Such is indeed the case that follows.
My Scene4 feature for last month, "A Vernissage in Manhattan",
covered in a stream of
images the opening of a
notable exhibition at
Lichtundfire, with
five of my paintings among
the well-curated
offerings. A concept by
the director, Priska
Juschka, "Totem and
Taboo" borrows its
title from one of the
seminal books by Sigmund
Freud. This show has just
been anointed with a
review in an
internationally-based
contemporary art
publication Tussle Magazine.
The review * by Stephen
Gambello begins
promisingly, by
reproducing one of my
paintings as a lead-on to
the whole show. The author
follows with an equally
promising paragraph
introducing the
exhibition's concept,
where he pledges to go
beyond the dualistic
conception implicit in the
title of the book and of
the exhibition itself, to
bring it closer to our
non-binary reality.
However, that is not quite
what happens with the rest
of the review... .
Freud's old dualistic
concept, rather than being
updated and transcended,
actually reasserts itself
as Gambello introduces the
show's artwork. Every
example he presents, save
one, is automatically
assigned either a totemic
or a taboo role to play in
this narrative. Thus the
artworks are in danger of
assuming the role of an
illustration of a
narrative concept -- much
to the contrary of the
artist-favored notion for
a wholly independent
artwork, fully equal to
and independent from the
written text, and more
than capable of directing
its impact and dictating
its interpretation. By the
time the reviewer finally
invites us to see and hold
the many dualisms in a
nondualistic way, it is
perhaps too late; he spent
the entire time speaking
and interpreting
dualistically.
But back to my reproduced
painting, which, as it
turns out, suffers twice
-- firstly, from this
tendency for binary
classification, but at the
same time from a decidedly darker interpretation of its meaning. And in this case, I mean "darker" in both senses. Take a look at the following reproduction of my painting, and the subsequent description of it offered by this reviewer:
\\darker version// "The Name of the Wind", 20 x 30 in. (51 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, & textural and mixed media on wood panel, 2018
"Philip Gerstein's "The Name of The Wind", conveys a sense of despair and
brittle, tactile desperation. Light and dark objects/elements, and subtle,
chromatically different objects/elements are suspended in space,
struggling for relevance, survival, avoiding consumption into the depths of
neutralized (green) brown infinity. These objects/elements serve as taboos
to the viability of being." (--Stephen Gambello)
One might, possibly, allow for this interpretation of the painting -- a
subjective and emotive task either way -- were this reproduction the only
source... seen through the glass darkly... . Let's however compare it with a
lighter image version, restoring the red part of the spectrum and better
saturation of colors:
\\lighter reproduction// "The Name of the Wind", 20 x 30 in. (51 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, & textural and mixed media on wood panel, 2018
Perhaps you would agree: here goes the darker, taboo interpretation; it
simply falls apart, like a fanciful verbal construct. Hardly a bleakness -- the
promised "despair and tactile desperation" -- but merely night vision...
perhaps things that go bump in the night... . As the eye gradually adjusts, it
focuses on subtleties -- the unexpectedly meaningful colors, dotted
background textures, swimming irridescences, the intimations of night
creatures and sudden sharp objects to watch out for, all in the spirit of
adventure. These discoveries then are the point, the found fulcrum, the
keystone in the arch of the construction of this painting and the long arc of
meaningfulness in art... . This is the way artists talk about artwork -- the
strokes with which they are actually painted -- which determines the way
they feel to you.
How about an additional clue: the
title
of this painting is borrowed from a
wonderfully written fantasy novel by
Patrick Rothfuss
, a work of
alchemical transmutations, of lyrical longing, of empathy and soaring
imagination. "The Name of the Wind" presupposes a journey of discovery,
which cannot be arrived at at once, and will not remain in one place for
long... . It blesses our sails of crimson for a moving adventure and a many
-scented voyage.
How would one express in words the point of a non-narrative painting?.. a
sometimes thankless task of a reviewer. Sometimes it's easier to say what it
is not. Thus, the point of my painting is decidedly NOT to channel despair
and bleakness in a sepulchral world of societal and environmental
devastation -- as somehow separated from a world bathed in the fullness
of color, optimism, hope and Matissean joie de vivre. The point is to convey
this optimism at the same time as, and at the tail end of adversity, of
darkness that makes the light appear brighter..!
Perhaps still, we should give this reviewer a break, and simply conclude
that he chose a poor reproduction by which to remember my contribution
to this exhibition. Perhaps, he could have more fortuitously chosen one of
the other four of my paintings in this exhibition -- and come to a more
optimistic set of conclusions... for example:
"Morningside - Beyond the Pillars of Heracles", 30 x 30 in. (76 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, & mixed textural media on wood panel , 2021
Further along the course of his essay, the reviewer reserves his admiration
-- and fluent and skillful description -- for a wonderful painting by Henry
Biber, which clearly inspired him. Painting is an art of participation, when
it succeeds, and a forgotten object of indifference, when it doesn't. And
with all of its ups and downs, any review is still a review... .
As to the meaning of my work in general, allow me to leave you with this
interpretation, penned for a recent exhibition statement for S.H.E. --
Shared Habitat Earth:
"To participate in the endless cycle of modulated emotional choices -- the
struggle of negativity and hope, and the turning of this crazy world of ours
-- is inescapable; but in my work, optimism invariably wins and the vision
of a better, artist created world prevails."
* * *
* The full Tussle Magazine review:
https://www.tusslemagazine.com/totem-and-taboo
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