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Volume 1, Number 33 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | May 4 - 10, 2007
To Ab and Ab not
“Revivify” Reed Danziger By Jeffrey Cyphers Wright Have you noticed? There is an “upward spike in abstract painting” reported Roberta Smith last week in the Times, and the galleries are full of spots, splashes, drips and drizzles that remain resolutely non-referential. Departing from pure abstraction, much of the work does reference objects, from calligraphy to flowers to Fragonard. While staying true to his graffiti roots with its Futuristic element, Crash has become more abstract and fuses postmodernist and current practices with sophistication in his current show at Wooster Projects. Though uneven, the results can be powerful. Beginning with a lexicon built on actual letters, Crash balances his economic line with the suffuse edge of spray paint. Snaky whips twist around an outlined femme fatale in “Slippery When Wet.” The limned volume and indeterminate depth are refracted through a prism of comic strips and street tags. Crash builds on the ideas of Pop art, specifically Roy Lichtenstein’s appropriations, while his outlined heroine recalls more recent artists such as David Salle. A rough passage of cool white partially obscures and neutralizes the figure, emphasizing the interlocking elements as equal components. The zip lines of Barnett Newman add complexity to another painting in this highly original series. Moving from urban mythology to the Mediterranean at Claire Oliver, Catherine Howe explores a tale of unrequited love. Every day a woman brought a bouquet of sunflowers to the ocean to await her sweetheart — who never came. She eventually metamorphosed, becoming one with the flowers. Howe has made a complete shift from her early figurative and allegorical works to the point where her last show was an atmospheric submersion. This time she reaches a perfect blend. Tangerine and amber bands fan out horizontally under semi-regular rows of blues, evoking the ocean in “Klytie IV”. What could be a seraph or a sea creature is suspended, inviting inspection. We discern leaves and tendrils, fiddlehead ferns, husks, buds and ribs painted with the flair of 18th century French painters in their memento moris. Getting up close, the drip marks, swirls and flourishes can be gorgeous, especially in a series of heads. Going back further to Veronese, (another painter of allegory), a quarter-turn brushstroke of madder rose against a steel-blue sky becomes a halo on an ascending figure. This religious allusion is leavened by decorative associations. We also read the elusive figure as a swag draped across the air of ceremony. At McKenzie Fine Art, a ceremonious air informs Reed Danziger’s paintings as well. If the shapes resemble escutcheons, sconces, and candelabras (or even swags) they also call to mind roots, branches and flowering vines. A build-up of diminutive patterns, ornamental motifs and geometric shapes intersect. The resultant mesh pushes forward from a nebulous field of gray and white. The neutral background implies that the shapes have accrued naturally, springing forth from the void. The discrete marks spill and tumble into and out of each other, remaining unique while echoing and complementing their neighbors. Jostling visual elements overlap and coincide in harmonic layers of drifting rhythm. In contrast, the chromatic scale is restrained, evoking the palette of winter and antiquity. This saturnine tone is a terrific foil for the lush profusion of loops and lattices, circles and hexagons. The darker shapes usually line up to make compelling gestural sweeps. In “Untitled 1001,” the individual arabesques cascade and blossom into a bold relationship between negative and positive space. In “Untitled 3301” a natural bridge or ribbon of beads, fronds, curlicues and molecules dissects the plane. Danziger’s attractive vocabulary is making a cogent statement — and like all abstract art — it’s open to interpretation. Though taken aback by my apparent confusing of the issues, and unable to say what would become of the loading dock in question, David assured me that none of these developers—either in the already existing buildings or the ones to come—would be allowed to open any type of restaurant or retail store on the High Line. And while I’m fairly sure he believes this, I’m a bit more skeptical myself. The developers will be looking for ways to maximize their profits, and they’re no doubt working overtime to weasel concessions in this regard, just like the Caledonia did on the issue of access. (And whoever owns the building with the loading dock is not going to give it up without a fight.) Since it now looks like we’re stuck with the High Line Park, what it increasingly comes down to is whether you favor a sterile corporate mall or a bustling, boutique-and-café-lined avenue in the sky.
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