Painting à la Mode

Comments (0) By Jerry Saltz Tuesday, Dec 3 2002

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photo: Robin Holland

A glut of information and a polemic to think about: the "Painting as Paradox" installation at Artists Space

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Painting as Paradox
Artists Space
38 Greene Street
Through December 21

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There are high points here. On my Good list would be Benjamin Edwards's very tight but still interesting vivisection of suburbia, Carla Klein's loose painting of a Piper Cub (she's one of the few "realist" painters not fettered by photography); Karel Funk's super-realistic portraits that adroitly sidestep the lens problem; and maybe Ellen Harvey's clever trompe l'oeil video. Very Good is Jessica Rohrer's Gursky-esque rendition of a college dormitory and Seth Price's slide-show-cum-PBS special. My Probablies would include Dorota Kolodziejczyk's mysteriously abstract landscapes, Kieran Kinney's Robert Yarber-like cityscape, Terry Haggerty's buzzy stripe painting, Claire Corey (although she needs to get more physical), John Tremblay, maybe Marc Handelman, and possibly Ellen Altfest (but she's veering dangerously close to Neil Welliver), and Jay Davis, even though he's really getting repetitious.

"Painting as Paradox" made me think that some painting is in a kind of temporary lockdown—a place where moves are small, issues are pre-approved, risk is kept to a minimum, and everyone has their paperwork in order. We all have two conversations about art: the public one about stratagems, and the private one about necessities. The former is about authority; the later, experimentation. As much as I admire and respect many of these artists, in the end "Painting as Paradox" feels more about the public conversation than the private one.