fine art magazine summer 2012

8 • Fine Art Magazine • Summer 2012

MIHAIL ALEKSANDROV“In My Own Dream”

SUMMER 2012 • $4.95

www.fineartmagazine com

SPECIAL HAMPTONSART FAIRS EDITION

Fine Art Magazine • Summer 2012 • 1


NATHAN NEVENDelight & Happiness

Born in 1979, is based in Ireland, Nathan studied Art and Interior Design in Paris. His childhood passion was drawing and painting everything around him. Nathan believes in the power of art. For him, each piece of art has a soul and possesses the ability to affect people’s lives. He is inspired by everything around that touches his soul -- the joy and beauty of life itself and the beauty of nature.

What is better in creativity and life than to have delight and happiness? How great it is that artists still seek such a result from their labors! Sprightly and alluring, these images reflect but a morsel of the body of work by Nathan Neven. Comfort food for the eyes of the soul will surely put a smile on your heart of hearts.

www.nathanneven.com

Paris IIMai V

Paris VIII

December VIII Mai I


NOAH’S ARK ART GALLERYArt Dealer & Broker

Between 4-8 April 2012 the “Noah’s Ark Art Gallery” once again participated in theArte Monaco’12 contemporary art fair and was awarded the Excellence Prize for representing

a New Dimension in art known as Absurd Surrealism.

We specialize in: Paintings-Sculptures (Lebanese, Russian, Armenian)

Icons(Greek, Russian, Melkit) Rugs & Carpets(Caucasian, Armenian)

Services: Estimation / Art Publication / Restoration & Framing

Represented Artists: Vahram, Yuri Tsvetaev, Vahan Roumelian, Alexander Isachev, Suren Voskanian, David D., Ruben Apovian,

Hermes, Gevorg Yeghiazarian, Berdj Tchakedjian, Yeghya Bakmazian, Edik Pertian, Arthur K.Personnel:

Movses Zirani Herkelian(Ph.D) owner/director

Address: Noah’s Ark Art Gallery, Center Grand Park 2, Zoghbi St. B.B., Zalka-Metn, Lebanon Tel: +961 4-711-852(tel), +961 3-72-72-11(mob), +961 4-711-552 (overnight)

E-mail: [email protected], website: noahsarkgallery.com

A. Isachev, Source of Life, 40 x 30cm, oil and iconographic pigments on panel, 1979

Elo Saradjian(MA) Admin Director/Media Representative

Herag Herkelian Assistant Director

Fine Art Magazine • Summer 2012

T o truly understand the impact and influence of one woman on not only the artworld but on the lifestyles of multiple generations, you would need to have been at the New York

Coliseum, circa mid 1980s, when Artexpo was the king of art fairs and Marilyn Goldberg’s Marigold Enterprises was the star attraction. For many con-secutive years, there would be a crowd lined up at the Coli-seum’s massive glass front doors on opening day for the trade, waiting for the bell to ring so they could make a beeline to the Marigold booth. There, they would find hundreds of products from Picasso ashtrays to stunning paintings from unknown Chinese masters to works by the giants of the 20th

century to unknown but soon to be famous artists. Kudo, Impiglia, Markus Pierson, John Lennon,

Erté, Warhol, Dali all shared display space. As many of the items were limited editions, the rush to the booth was not unwarranted. Art galleries from around the globe could fill their walls and gift counters with one visit to Marigold’s sprawling exhibition space

Villa MarilynA Visionary’s Dream Comes TrueIn A Hamptons Artistic Paradise

where they would find Art Merchandise headlined by Pablo Picasso dinner wear, bedding and gift bags that revolutionized Museum shops from staid money losing space wasters to profit centers for such stalwarts as the Guggenheim and Hermitage. She went on to formulate the incredibly lucrative Erté sculpture and tapestry pro-

Villa Marilyn sculpted rock beach and Monet Waterlily Pond, custom outdoor B-B-Q kitchen, Indonesian custom parasols

Gunite pool, sculpted rock waterfall, custom self-watering plantersMarilyn Goldberg

All Photos © CourtesyMJR Michael J Rothbart

By VICTOR B. FORBES


Villa Marilyn Gourmet kitchen, East End Country Kitchen Cabinetry; Lumens Lighting; Granite counters GT Marble

Window treatments Beckenstein

Crystal European chandeliers designed by Marilyn Goldberg Custom bar and wine cabinet Lit Onyx base, Marilyn Goldberg Interiors

Entry mahogany doors, bevelled glass doors, Marilyn Goldberg Interiors Master bedroom suite


grams, and big-time licensing agreements with Salvador Dali and the estates of Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and John Lennon. Years with Erté have influenced the decor, carpet designs, and even gift bags and note cards for the guests who will be staying in this grand and palatial environment. Marigold evolved into Museum Masters International (MMI), headquarters newly ensconced at Villa Marilyn with one of major victories so far has been the international promotion of the artist Tamara de Lempicka to prominent museums which brought her paintings to the eight figure mark at recent auctions. For most, this would be more than enough work for a dozen lifetimes, but to Marilyn Goldberg, it was all a practice run for her dream: the Villa Marilyn Art of Living home in Southampton, New York, which was completed in June of 2012.

This incredible place welcomes you with handmade iron gates, a large private circular drive surrounded with stone and Belgian Block and exquisite double glass handcrafted mahogany doors opening into the entrance foyer where you are greeted by a Keith Haring Americana tapestry and European hand-made crystal chandeliers. Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe tapestry and Sidney Maurer’s Brigitte Bardot portrait add to the star power to delight for the tasteful and artistic eye. Says Marilyn, “Living with art, color and design have been my life!

Every window explodes with views of flowers and gardens planted from bulbs from around the globe. With impeccable taste honed over decades of international business, this stylish woman has built her dream. Inside the gorgeous and newly furnished home are six fabulous bedrooms with custom electric positioning beds

Entry foyer, Picasso umbrellas

Marilyn Monroe Cinema Theater, graced by Sid Maurer Celebrity Icon paintings

covered with European bed linens custom made for 25 years for Ms. Goldberg by Bette Nagle in Germany.

The landscaping includes sculpted stones from Arizona, carved bronze banana leaf bronze bases for coffee tables from Hawaii, outdoor furniture hand-carved in Indonesia, with the most amazing parachute umbrellas of Mandarin orange that can dance in the wind, and flow with the breezes of the Atlantic.

“I had a dream,” said Marilyn, “when I was 20 living in Amagansett on the ocean. It was to build a sanctuary and honor

life. Villa Marilyn has replicated the gardens of Monet in Giverny, and The vegetable garden and fruit orchards are graced with Liechtenstein and Miro Art cats. Fresh mint abounds so we can drink home brewed teas in the Moroccan Arch rooms. The abundance of nature thrives in this Villa! It is a paradise for children who are awestruck and entertained incessantly with the boat dock pond, and waterfalls.”

New headquarters for her company, Museum Masters International, Villa Marilyn is also available as the place to enjoy family reunions, special friends, and business meetings with clients. Vacations here may be reserved in advance by

contacting [email protected] or calling 917-273-8710. Special thanks go to Gaetan Berube Builders South Hampton, Victor Rojas Landscaping South Hampton, East End Country Kitchens Custom Cabinetry, GE Granite and Marble and Anastasios Tzakas MA, AIA for the architecture, Carolina Santiago and Elif Varna of MMI for their work in assisting with the creation this masterpiece. There will soon be a documentary made in Rome on Ms. Goldberg’s Art of Living as well as a book on her life in the arts by Victor Forbes.


Breakfast for two poolside patio and waterfall Tamara de Lempicka porcelain vase

MRG-77 Marilyn’s first car (1987) impeccably pristine, driving through custom designed gates; Ramon Halcon Gates, Southampton

“The biggest creativity of it all is the transmission of this energy to my children and grandchildren. This whole project is about family; about a sanctuary, a place to bond, a place to create; to do our ‘best-

friending.’


founded in 1975PUBLISHER

JAMIE ELLIN [email protected]

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF VICTOR BENNETT FORBES

[email protected](518) 593-6470

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Steve Zaluski and Michele Bramlett with Zaluski’s Greyhound Sculpture at CFM Gallery

Carla Baker, CFM Gallery owner Neil Zukerman, Dr. Bob Baker

Michele Bramlett, illustrator with author Victor Forbes at CFM Gallery opening reception for their book, The Sweetest Way Home: A

Greyhound’s Tale

The Sweetest Way Home: A Greyhound’s Tale, published by SunStorm Arts Publishing Co., Inc, had it’s coming out party at CFM Gallery June 9 in New York City. Written by Fine Art Editor-in-Chief Victor Forbes and beautifully illustrated by Michele Bramlett, it is packaged with an 11 song CD featuring original songs composed expressly for the book by Susan Pillsbury (Coming Home), Mark Naftalin (Puppy Lullaby) and Brad Hurlburt (Faith) as well as previously recorded tunes by Dion, Kim Simmons, Richie Cannata, Liberty Devitto, Martha Gallagher, Rico Rodriguez, and Chris Parker with a musical narrative by the author backed by Keene Valley’s own Back Porch Society. The story came about when Aztec the Greyhound (aka Big Grey) took himself on an excursion in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, the Tall Peaks region, and was gone for about two weeks. He did return, and this book contains the story of his adventure deep in a “Certified Wildlife Habitat.” To learn more and hear the songs, visit www.thesweetestwayhome.com Special thanks to Neil Zukerman for a great afternoon.

PHOTOS BY JAMIE ELLIN FORBES


Grande Absente Liqueur, 69% ALC/VOL., Grande Absente and Grande Absente Logo are trademarks owned by M. P. Roux, Imported from France by Crillon Importers Ltd., Paramus, NJ 07652 © 2008

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Homage a Honoré Daumier1808 – 1879 • Printmaking MasterThe artwork The Uprising (About 1860) inspired contemporary painter John Pacovsky as he created this, one of more than 120 pieces in our Absente Homage to Great Artists Collection.


Kenneth Ian Husband’s art has taken him to many places over the years, from the University of Wisconsin to New York City to several other states. His work has also been featured in print and online publications as well as presented him with the chance to work with exciting and knowledgeable people. In his latest show, Simply Complex, he has the chance to work with seasoned curator Bob Baker at his newly renovated gallery Circa Something. Dr. Baker is known for his keen eye for art as one can see from his collection of artists from Picasso to Troyan to Whistler. He also enjoys newer emerging artists, which is evident from Simply Complex, his first solo show.

For his mid-summer solo show in the heart of a summer town Kenneth Ian Husband will be introducing a new evolution in his painting style. Merging his free-form paintings with subtle figurative swatches of color, Husband explores his latest emotions, life experiences and theory that simple and complex moments are almost always found together, at the same time. By combining these different styles, one can see how a simple object can find harmony in a complex surrounding. These paintings, all from 2012, leave you with a sense of ordered chaos in a stimulating aesthetic sense. Currently on view at CIRCA SOMETHING GALLERY, Bellport, NY.

KENNETH IAN HUSBAND“Simply Complex”

Circa Something Galleryopening reception Friday August 10

- 5:30 - 9 pm Show runs thru Sat. Aug. 25GALLERY OWNER / DIRECTOR

Dr. Bob Baker117A South Country Road, Bellport, NY11713

(631) 803-6706


Fast Eddie RehmTakes on the Art World

Eddie Rehm photograph courtesy of Kenneth Ian Husband

New York artist Eddie Rehm will close the 2012 summer season at Circa Something Fine Art, Labor Day Weekend in his Hometown with an exhibition of cutting-edge contemporary artwork belligerently entitled Instant Gratification Abstract.

“I’ll declare 2012 is the summer that artist Eddie Rehm took out and took on the East End art scene,” said gallery owner Dr. Bob Baker. Adds the artist, “Opening & closing the summer out on the East End where I call home is nothing short of an honor and I’m excited

about collaborating with Dr. Bob Baker in my upcoming solo exhibit. In an art scene drowned out by the same old same old, one bad brain decided to make a change, not only in his art but also in his life reflected through the plasticity of duality in he, himself.”

Eddie Rehm’s work has been described as “a fusion of raw emotion, deliberately instinctual design, and art-medium experimentation.” He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Pennsylvania, as well as a museum show in Nevada. His works have been featured and displayed in multiple print & online publications.

Circa Something Fine Arts is located in Bellport Village on the western most walkway from Station Road next to the parking lot. Its newly renovated space offers an eclectic selection

Circa Something Fine Art117A South Country Road,

Bellport, NY 11713631) 803-6706

http://circasomething.com/

Exhibition DatesFriday August 31, 2012 – Saturday September 15, 2012

Opening ReceptionFriday August 31, 2012 - 5:30 to 9 pm

Gallery is open & free to the public

Wednesday to Saturday: 12pm to 5pm

Duality in Himself

A Fusion Of Raw Emotion


POLLOCK AT 100: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

ArtHamptons 2012 will honor Jackson Pollock on the 100th anniversary of his birth, with a benefit for the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. Friday, July 13, 6 - 8 P.M. featuring a portrait created by the legendary Peter Max to be auctioned for the cause.

Chances to own a painting on paper by appropriation artist Mike Bidlo, from his 1982-83 Not Pollock series, will be sold throughout the fair’s three-day run. Events include a reception, sponsored by Hamptons Magazine, with a performance of “BodySite” by artist Andrea Cote.

Replica paintings from the Academy Award-winning motion picture Pollock, photographs of Pollock by Hans Namuth, and a selection of Pollock graphics will be on display with Andrea Cote performing BodySite.

Peter Max, Portrait of Jackson Pollock, 2012

Larry Larkin, Pollock and Krasner in the studio, 1949.

Film Art Department, copy of Pollock’s Portrait and a Dream, painted for the motion picture “Pollock,” 1999

Ed Harris, painting made during the filming of “Pollock,” 1999

Friday, July 13, 6 - 8 pm @ ArtHamptons, Admission $75, benefits the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Centerhttp://www.andreaspace.net/performance_bodysite_scope.html


MIHAIL ALEKSANDROV’S retrospective covering his 30 year career at Alexandre Gertsman Contemporary Art in Soho, New York City was an indisputable tour de force of

one man’s prolific brilliance. Light, airy and spacious, this gallery setting was the perfect backdrop to immerse oneself in the creative maturity of this Lithuanian-born artists’ broadly developed linguistic language. Throughout this powerful collection of paintings, Aleksandrov captures moments of beauty in compositions encompassing unique interpretive visions. They emanate from the imaginative and analytic minds’ eye of the artist, purposefully placed and applied upon each of his canvases.

Mihail Aleksandrov is most often referred to as a Russian artist even though he was born in Lithuania and lived in Estonia. “The Baltic nations,” commented Mr. Gertsman, who lovingly curated this immense undertaking, “have their own approaches to visual art, to literature, and to life in general. It wasn’t until the 1940s that the Baltic countries became part of the Soviet Union and, for that reason, they had a much stronger relationship with Western culture and Western art than with Russian culture.” Adds the artist, “It’s true. There was a completely different atmosphere in the Baltic states than in the Soviet Union at large. This definitely influenced me. At the same time, I have always loved Russian art. Russian poetry had a much greater influence on me than Russian painting. It has been a great honor for me to be considered part of the Russian tradition, something that is always being ascribed to me, but in the end, I don’t know that I belong to any national artistic lineage. I believe that art is greater than a nationality, or a state, or any kind of border, because art is something that unites different cultures and different historical periods. I would say that I have always been, first and foremost, contained in some personal worldview, that I have lived inside my own artistic vision.”

Aleksandrov’s works are informed co-equally by his Estonian Baltic heritage flavored with a Russian/Soviet cultural influence that infuses a diverse multi-national and encompassing art dialogue adapted within his ingenious Iconic historical story telling.

Aleksandrov is one artist capable of uniting cultural perspectives and historical timelines to state his unique personal vision.

Aleksandrov’s imaginative palette is distinct, reflective of his appreciation for the Early Renaissance, inclusive of influences from Mannerism, Brueghel the Elder, and Chagall, among

others. Mythic compositions are combined by this painter with a unique geometric application of forms and patterns, stylistically attentive to bright colors and color blocks shaded in hues tonally often associated with the late Medieval and Early Renaissance periods. These elements are methodically used to frame out the compositional space, while creating the historic or spiritual statements this artist accesses with great expertise. Aleksandrov is at ease within his select media and compositions, while adapting a philosophical process rich in texture to heighten chiseled forms as iconic statement, each masterful in its refinement.

In the image Adam and Eve, Adam appears to be receiving the invitation to bite the apple Eve is offering as a beautiful maiden with seductive grace and beauty. While they are under the tree appearing more fable-like than Biblical, this story is personified by the artist’s appreciation of the event. He often uses his wife’s face as muse or subject and speaks of her as follows: “Through the harmony of her face, I see a window to a better world.”

C a p t u r e d w i t h i n h i s understanding of the moment in time just prior the couple’s expulsion from Eden, this image, as an interpretative not liturgical depiction, comes to life. It appears Adam is almost protecting her from the fall about to come. He is waiting, ready to catch her descent as he sits below, embedded amongst nature. Eve is illustrated with her hand above her head, in which she seems to be holding a small red bird. An intrinsic look molded on her face (as seen in her eye), may be a foreboding of what will be. An internal sense of

loss appears to be evident. Knowledge has begun to filter through her being, reflected in her gaze toward the seated Adam, around whom the rabbit, small cat, mouse and bird are observing.

“…I believe that animals are like messages, each animal is a

The Universal Message of MIHAIL ALEKSANDROV

BY JAMIE ELLIN FORBES

“It was a big surprise for me that Alex selected ‘Adam & Eve’ for the cover of the book… for me it was like something from the past… he gave me this feeling that all my works actually have no age.”

– Mihail Aleksandrov


Aleksandrov shapes the figures in America and the Dragon employing the same look of alabaster illuminated from a light

cast behind, as does the image of Adam and Eve. The subjects are emblematically co-joined in this representational image, which may be experienced in the way an operatic opus could sound; to illustrate what may be America’s defining moment as viewed by Aleksandrov. In this story, a new picture of pure fantasy describing a unique, previously unstated theme is used to exemplify America pictorially, created by the artist as historical observer. Again his wife as muse, this time in a different role, and a Dragon slain, thrust through the

message from God, so we have to be not just kind, but responsible… ” While elements are still balanced in utopian harmony, the hint

of an angular stress, as if cables may be about to snap, is realized in the lines on the faces of all. With rich greens set off to form an almost bright background. Reds and browns (all fall seasonal earth tones) entwine behind the couple within a darker subdued core of the tree trunk to suggest the protected Garden has ended. The figurative forms of Adam and Eve are well illuminated in ochre and texturally worked to create a sculpturally cool effect, which could have been painted in an early Renaissance style as flat board wooden Icons, or utilized allegorically, in late Romanesque wall

heart with a sphere in mid flight while breathing fire, are placed against a luminous ball defined by a pitch-black background to illustrate this idea. The contrasts in the composition are startling, heightened through the use of bright color to create a beauty that seems untouchable and visceral at the same time. When compared to the “Angel” as simply beauty, the textural application of muted color defines the heroine in this image differently than to the Dragon slayer, or Eve. Although each image is a metaphor for a story, the face is recognizably the same. Aleksandrov deploys differing techniques to define the idea being embraced by each woman pictured.

America and the Dragon

plasters painted to convey this emblematic story. Adam and Eve may be compared to, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Peasant and the Birdnester, 1584 with attention to detail and color for the purpose of the palette defining the artistic mood and configuration as an introduction to the portrayal of the artist’s perception. Eras and concepts are connected, time lines blurred, as Aleksandrov’s personal vision is united, emerging compositionally, posing to the viewer his unique imagery as a painter of figurative metaphor incorporating metaphysical overtones. As he so aptly puts it, “…for me it’s also like a life experience, so I do not distinguish metaphysical from physical, because most of life is metaphysical for me.”

“…for some artists, a wife is a window to a business world, for Aleksandrov, she is a window into the world… ”


demarcate the sky above and the earth below suggests the duality of the Aristotelian Greek traditions, in keeping with Russian principles of Orthodoxy. Charging on her raised horse into the city, not timid but rather unfettered regarding her nudity, Godiva, an arm raised up, challenges the darkened sky, astride her horse which is reared upon hindquarters. United they appear to catapault over the shuttered windows. Her hair, composed of waves or ribbons of color, flies behind as does the horses’ mane and tail. Almost matching, they are used as contrast against a static color field-like background in shades of red highlights and blond as accents to suggest hints of movement. The image is flat with the three-dimensional quality of Godiva and the horse arising from the hard line imposed in the figures against the textural background of an almost pointillist application of color. Here, the artist applies the techniques of Mannerism to the dappled color of the horse as illuminating texture is applied to the skyline of the city below.

After Aleksandrov moved to America, where he met his wife Lena, much changed for the artist. “The West affected my work indirectly; with its energy and the atmosphere it created. The Western art world itself couldn’t have had any particular effect on me, and hasn’t. On the whole, the 20th century hasn’t had much of an effect on me, since every artist is born with his own concerns. And not only in terms of subject matter, but also in terms of the path that he must find for himself. He is like a man wandering through the forest, following secret signals that only he receives. This is how the artist searches for his path. This is why my intuition is like a compass that I use to find what I need while remaining immune to other outside influences. Lena really did change a lot for me. I would say that Lena’s face is like an icon in that it is a window into a more perfect world. This is why I’ve been using this window for the past 25 years.”

She appears triumphantly in Godiva, in which Aleksandrov’s strong sense of space, along with dark and light contrasts to

“I do not distinguish

metaphysical from physical, because most

of life is metaphysical

for me.”

– Mikhail Aleksandrov

Godiva


“Mannerism was important to me. I don’t think about it much now, but when I was young, I was searching for some sort of peak where everything converged. By everything, I mean form, beautiful line and color. It is common knowledge that after the Renaissance, color lost much of its significance until Impressionism, although there were great colorists in-between. I always sought the point where all of this intersected, where color spoke and was able to embody an idea, where line didn’t disappear into volumes, where you could find the lyricism. For me, this point is the early Renaissance. For a long time, this was the period I was most fascinated with, when I felt like art was in full bloom, whereas during the High Renaissance, Leonardo and Raphael had already lost interest in color. Anyway, this is why the early Renaissance had the greatest influence on me. On the other hand, I later learned to love art from almost every era, including even the most boring academism that I nearly hated when I was young—those 19th century artists before the Impressionists.”

In The Island, Aleksandrov builds his image with arched windows of the buildings stacked in the shape of a triangle to comprise a restricted religious community rising above an atoll, out of the water. With an Angelic statuary atop as the pinnacle dome, reaching to the

“This is actually like a medicine for myself, because I need to see this work everyday.” (Aleksandrov on “The Island”)

sky, a red light is seen in the central window. Two flags flank the angled sides and the shoreline completes the trine, dividing the top from the bottom horizon. A man sits in a boat with a dog, gazing at the distance, floating on the water. The image is fantastic yet subdued by the Gothic building, the late medieval, early Renaissance palette of color and the mannerism applied to the man’s face. The dog is a humorous addition. Almost as if a tarot card had been painted from symbolic meaning, a cosmology unique to the artist is now linking one painting to the next. Never are the scenes duplicated, this and other pictures are at once familiar to the viewer, although unique, never having been painted by another, they are infused with the influences patterned by the artists to create image to image the threads of his visions becoming language. Elements become recognized, useful to employ in stating his message.

Duality is united within a trinity, as the geometry (when employed in each image) places the viewer inside the context of a sacred space to view that which is only imagined not as real, but as a possibility to unite the concept that this language is not merely a representation but encompasses the process of the ideal. Like a buoy, as the man in the boat in The Island, the trine is built to support the angel atop.


Aleksandrov is a literary man and has often mentioned that poetry is fundamental for his art, which is readily apparent to the viewer. “Poetry, as even Dostoevsky remarked, is at the heart of all the arts, including prose, painting, and music. The lyrical strain leads me from era to era, where I seek, in the various times and styles, whatever it is I need to make a poetic image materialize. It would be a mistake to become too enamored of various styles, since every style is tied to its epoch. In the end, the thing to express isn’t one’s love for old art, but one’s artistic sensation of their time. That is why what I look for when exploring previous eras is some kind of cultural charge, an energy. The historical aspect interests me a lot less. The energy I am looking for is what will help me manifest what I feel and think today.”

The images seen in both Orpheus and Eurydice and the Trumpeter are double sides of a coin, like two faces of Janus carved out of the space between each other, looking forward and back. Orpheus is said to have attempted to retrieve his wife through song from the underworld. In The Trumpeter, two

“I am always learning and I now believe that this is the best position for an artist to take—

not to consider himself a master, or to even believe that he has accomplished anything, but to

always be a student.I try to be like a sponge

and take in everything.”

figures may be falling in space, in an aerial dance whirl created by the leaping figure playing the horn. They may be colliding with or causing movement as the atmosphere appears to be joyous and chaotic at the same time, as with Orpheus and Eurydice, seen as Orpheus plays his song.

Quantum theory may be what holds the dimensions together. Clearly time is being set aside by the artist as the unifying force and a centrifugal field may be felt in The Trumpeter. The Harlequin pattern, used also in Godiva, is developed in the pant legs of the figures placed on textural background. As the Trumpeter’s sound may be heard within the image created, so can the solitude and quiet be felt in the Aleksandrov’s image of Hope.

The Trumpeter

Orpheus and Eurydice


penetrates the veil of language that separates us all…or, all from the other side, allowing us to see both sides at once. Like Botticelli whose influence was said to be Ovid, when accessing a muse for his mythic work, Birth of Venus, a transliteral dialectal metamorphism occurs in the alchemy of Aleksandrov’s work to state a message. This approach for crossing over of metaphors is cyclically restated and personally unique to the artist within the body of his work. Like Pousette-Dart, Aleksandrov’s paintings access the rhythmic heartbeat of the universe unfolding and are never finished in the artist’s eyes. Intended consciously or not, his thematic icons are used repeatedly to penetrate the veil and engender a common understanding. Simplicity emerges for his visions to be told in stories utilizing his developed symbolic language easily understood by all viewers. This is the genius of Aleksandrov’s work. These masterfully executed artistic statements, which contain an anamorphic metaphysical synthesis through image stating the artists’ universal views, required inspiration and compositional discipline to execute therefore enabling them to last the test of time when seen side-by-side over thirty years as a retrospective. The accompanying volume to the display was Mihail Aleksandrov: A Retrospective. It is a thought-provoking journey the viewer may take, clarifying and understanding the conceptual importance of the images as a complete overview of the artists’ work seen at the Alexandre Gertsman Contemporary Art in the spring of 2012.

To view Mihail Aleksandrov’s work and other information please contact ALEXANDRE GERTSMAN CONTEMPORARY ART

652 Broadway, 2nd FloorNew York, NY 10012, Phone: 1.646.344.1325

Web: www.agcontemporaryart.com

“I’m not trying to go deep in the psychological history of each person. I just try to bring out what is the spiritual message which any person has. In my opinion, psychology is not a subject for painting. The psychology we see in Rembrandt is not like psychology in Dostoevsky or Tolstoy; it is the revelation of the human soul, a different species of psychology. This is why I never attempt to show the psychological state or singularity of any particular figure. I would say that literary psychology not only has no place in the visual arts, but can also destroy images. Another reason I eschew psychology is that I have the sense that an individual opens themselves up much more when they are appealing to a Higher Power, to the Creator, God. It can be called many different things, but this Higher Power is something that we all feel, and it is precisely in that moment when an individual turns to Him that they may be ‘taken’. My work attempts to capture this.

“This is why I avoid concreteness—when I am painting a face, I try to make the features as general and abstract as possible. A portrait can be very sketchy and distant from the model and at the same time resemble and convey the essence of the sitter. Finding this balance is crucial. Chaadaev believed that what the artist depicted was not a person or an object but that mysterious ‘double’ that can only be seen with inner vision, that this was what art was meant to do.”

Out of the mystery the poet as painter—Aleksandrov—

Hope

Angel With Flowers


Light by the WaterCoastal landsCapes of the sag harbor area

Plein Air Peconic is a group of a dozen painters and photographers based on the East End of Long Island who are devoted to capturing the beautiful vistas of farmland, beaches and bays in their art. They work closely with the Peconic Land Trust and other conservation organizations to bring a heightened awareness of conservation by displaying and selling their work. This year will be the 7th of working together and showcasing their local landscape exhibitions in museums and non-profits throughout the East End.

The artists of Plein Air Peconic are painters Casey Chalem Anderson, Susan D’Alessio, Aubrey Grainger, Gail Kern, Anita Kusick, Michele Margit, Gordon Matheson, Joanne Rosko, Eileen Dawn Skretch, and photographers Tom Steele, Kathryn Szoka, and Ellen Watson. Furthering the cause of land conservation and protecting the waterways that surround Eastern Long Island is the uniting force that bands these diverse artists together.

Plein Air Peconic is proud of its longtime partnership with the Peconic Land Trust where they help and support the Trust in spreading the word about the urgency for land conservation on Long Island’s East End. Over 40 Peconic Land Trust sites have been painted and photographed specifically for Plein Air Peconic events. The sites are located on the South and North Forks, Riverhead Town and Shelter Island and were conserved by the cooperation between the Peconic Land Trust and individual landowners and in many cases local governments.

Eileen Skretch, Through the Trees 2 Tramaridge

Anita Kusick, Sag Harbor Jetty

Casey Anderson, Long Beach


While the spoken word is considered humankind’s most sophisticated form of communication, in many respects it pales in significance when compared to body language and posture as elemental mirrors reflecting reality’s true narrative. Carrying nuances that transcend the subtleties of dialects or idioms as well as ripping away the masks we wear to disguise our perceptions or prejudices, stance and pose, as the performance artist Terry Galloway noted, illuminates “the duplicity that language is capable of and the many expressions the body cannot hide.”

For the sculptor Robert Hooke, this emphasis on body language completely defines his focus of aesthetic priorities, whether it is in his studies of animals drawn from the natural world or the interactive melodramas that echo through his use of the human form. Underscoring the concept that communication depends less on syntax than on sentiment or that stated expression is secondary to emotional sensation, Hooke elicits secrets from his silent figures by understating the obvious and emphasizing the inferred.

This relies on a number of factors ranging from an elemental understanding of Henry Moore’s reference to “the form and shape of things” (what Emerson called “the anatomy of form”), to the recognition that an integral part of any sculpture, as Gertrude Stein observed, consisted of “some supports and pretty air.” Underlying and emphasizing these singularly uncomplicated principles, however, is Hooke’s ability to understand that simplicity of the image itself is the most vital component in allowing the viewers to develop their own silent communicative avenues between themselves and the sculptural object (an effect accentuated by the lack of facial characteristics in any of the works).

This measure of simplicity is not, however, achieved simply through the indiscriminate and random expulsion of detail as if, in sculpting an angel, the process entailed merely chipping away everything that doesn’t look angelic. Instead, through a practiced and intuitive sense of detached observation, the artist is able to understand the emotional structure of the object and thereby recreate not the actual reality of an image of something, but instead strive to emotively conjure the persona of the entity itself.

As a result, inevitable comparisons become apparent to these works and primitive art from Africa and elsewhere as viewers find

themselves responding not simply on a visual level but also through the facility of imagination, emotion, and even some measure of

mysticism, all aspects synonymous with primitive art. Further, Hooke’s works are exemplified by a latent sense of formalism, a markedly subtle degree of pictorial sophistication, and an insistent exploration of emotional and psychological elements such as had existed as a centuries-old tradition of abstraction in African art long before its emergence in the west.

A significant difference, however, is that Hooke directs his focus more at figures and atmospheric moments representing universally common emotional sensations, rather than using his figures to necessarily identify with

some transcendent being or concept. Whether reflected in the gentle camaraderie of “An Evening Walk with Buddy in Noyac” (marble), the wistfully meditative “Daydreamer” (bronze), or the rhythmically seductive

“Flamenco Dancers” (bronze), Hooke draws inspiration from disparate elements of daily life while still imbuing the

pose and posture of his subjects with an elegantly ethereal impassiveness.

This is also apparent in his works featuring animals from the natural world whose recreation is dependent not on aspects of scientific illustration nor the majestic idealizations of the 19th century ‘Animalier’ artists. Instead, in works such

as “Leopard Head” (sandstone), “Monkeys” (bronze), or “Sleeping Swan” (alabaster), Hook simplifies the forms so that planar dimensions are subtly softened and the materials themselves seem to yield the sense of

existentiality, allowing the work to straddle the often intractable line in sculpture separating realism from abstraction.

Striving to balance modern impulses with traditional sensibilities and accentuating lines that are elegant in their unadorned minimalism, Robert Hooke is able to evoke profoundly memorable moments and emotions that are, by turns, both unique and universal. He arrives at this with a recognition that image, form, and narrative are intrinsically intertwined and that their complexities are best understood when stripped of all needless embellishments and adornments. In effect, searching for their emotive and spiritual essence by subtracting the superfluous and spurious, thereby reflecting Han’s Hofmann’s observation that one must “eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

The Duplicity of Language By ERIC ERNST

Hooke Sculpture Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY Robert Hooke


ELAINE BENSON’S HAMPTONS VOYAGE

by KIMBERLY GOFF

Elaine Goff, 1950


By KIMBERLY GOFF

So many people have called, written, emailed, and stopped me on the street, that I feel I owe it to the community to provide information and to respond to the questions, tears, love, and

public outcry, over the loss of my family home, located next to the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York.

Elaine (my mother) and Emanuel Benson, her second husband moved here, in 1965, from Philadelphia where they both had worked for the Museum College of Art (later called PCA and now known as The University of the Arts). The following year they bought the property at 2317 Montauk Hwy across from the Post Office in Bridgehampton. The gracious wooden house was large enough to house the couple as well as visiting artists, and was the home of the original Benson Barn Gallery. The house was unlike any house I had known from my early childhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It was built in the 1800’s and there were architectural details that fascinated me. The ceilings upstairs met in strange angles that always intrigued me. The angles came in from different directions and I couldn’t figure out exactly why. I stared up at that ceiling from my bed for endless hours and never tired of it. There were old curved glass windows upstairs and in the panes of the front door. There was “gingerbread” trim around the eaves and a curved staircase with an amazing banister. The floorboards had been painted which seemed sad but you could see they were wide and old. In my first room there was a huge walk-in closet. It was my favorite house of all time.

That first year my mother and stepfather owned the house they put a swimming pool in the yard. My stepfather planted a vegetable garden in the rich Bridgehampton loam. That started my love for gardening. In 1966, the barn and out buildings were renovated and added onto, to make a rambling indoor/outdoor space which was the gallery and sculpture garden.

In the time that this house was built, Bridgehampton had relatively few houses. The old timers picked the best places to build. They avoided the beach and low-lying areas because of floods and storms. The site they chose for the old “Sayre house” was breezy and

Kimberly and Elaine,Photo by Tulla Booth 1998

Kimberly Goff, Elaine Benson, Ginny Goff Green, 1980

Elaine Benson, Roger Rosenblatt,Photo by Kimberly Goff 1996

Elaine Benson by Nancy Crampton 1995, sculpture by Marc Mellon

Kimberly Goff, Elaine K. G. Benson, by Jill Krementz

photographed in front of the Elaine Benson Gallery, 1994

Jill Krementz, Elaine, Cecile Gray Bazelon

Elaine Benson, Elaine Steinbeck, Edward Albee, Photo by Kimberly

Goff 1997

Elaine with Helga

Elaine Benson, from Memorial

Bill, Kim, Elaine, Neal and Ginny Goff 1958

“I did not give up the gallery property and our wonderful Gingerbread Victorian without first trying hard to find a way to continue.”


cool in summer. There was an amazing maple tree, one of the largest I have even seen with an amazing enormous beehive in it. Every year the bees came back to it at time causing dismay to the clients who were trying to cross by into the gallery. The maple and the chestnut that had survived the die off of most of the local chestnut trees were torn out of the ground shortly after the house was destroyed.

This was a much smaller community in 1965 and although the Hamptons were clearly established as an artist colony, there were no galleries where those artists could show their work or congregate. The Benson Gallery became a meeting place where artists and writers gathered and where you never knew who you might run into. It was a magical time when creativity oozed out of people. Wine flowed and wonderful conversation that was an art in itself.

In 1971 Emanuel Benson died of lung Cancer. The gallery was renamed the “Elaine Benson Gallery”. I moved here to be with my mother shortly after Emanuel’s death. My brother Bill came a few years before, in order to help when my stepfather became ill and my mother needed help with the gallery. He worked with her for three summers supporting her in every way. He helped hang the shows, repair the buildings and keep Elaine going. There was no question of closing the gallery. Contracts had gone out and the artists were counting on showing and the continuation of this special place that had become central to the artist’s community. Also, Emanuel’s estate was contested and the family needed the money. My mother also worked as the Community Relations Director of Southampton Hospital for thirty years. She left every morning to get there at 8am and got back in time to open the gallery at noon. That provided health insurance and an income in the lean times.

I finished high school at the Hampton Day School in Bridgehampton. At the time the school went up to twelfth grade. It was know as the “Artsy School.” Willem de Kooning’s daughter Lisa was there and so were the children of other creative people in

Elaine Benson by Nancy Crampton, 1995, Sculpture by Molly Mason.tif

Elaine Benson 1996by Michael Alpert

10th Annual Benefit for the Group for the South Fork and Nature

Conservancy. Robert S. DeLuca, Eric Lustbader, Elaine Benson,

Sara Davison, 1997

Elaine K G Benson, Kimberly Goff, 1997

Betty Friedan, Elaine Benson, Photo by Kimberly Goff 1997

Meet the Writers Book Fair 1996,Wilfrid Sheed (Honoree),

Elaine, Congressman Tim Bishop, Photo by Kimberly Goff

Kimberly, Mary Lynch, Elaine, Southampton Hospital Party 1998

Liz and Bella Abzug, Elaine Benson, Photo by Tulla Booth

Elaine Benson by Seth AlfoumadoRobert F. X. Sillerman, 1996,

Photo by Kimberly Goff “It was a magical time when creativity oozed out of people.”


the community. Now it is the site of the Ross Lower School. I went on to open a boutique on Main Street in 1974, just down the block

from the gallery. People often went form the gallery to my shop and back to the gallery. Elaine de Kooning was a great customer along with Dorothy Lichtenstein and Syd and Annie Solomon, Truman Capote, Betty Friedan, Joe Pintauro and many other famous and not so famous clients. Because of my mother’s gallery I felt centered in Bridgehampton and secure enough to open my shop at the tender age of nineteen. My shop closed in 1986 and I went off to Mexico where I had spent the winters since 1976. I joined my husband who lived there year round. Once away from this community I felt free to become a painter. Here, there were so many wonderful painters that I did not feel I could enter the group but once I was away I had no real choice. I was driven and passionate. Eventually my mother encouraged me.

In 1993, after seven years of living in Mexico, painting and gardening, I came back to Bridgehampton, moved back into my mother’s house, and went to work as her apprentice. It only took her a few days to decide she wanted me to come after I offered. We had no idea how important it would be for both of us. Elaine was incredibly generous with her information, her friends, her time, and her house. I had a separate entrance, bathroom, and my own kitchen upstairs. The house was set up as two completely independent apartments. My mother and her third husband, Joseph F. X. Kaufman, lived on the ground floor and I had the upstairs to myself unless they had house guests.

When my husband joined me the following summer, it was a little too close for comfort and we ended up buying a house just off the turnpike in Bridgehampton. I was incredibly lucky to find a foreclosure near where I grew up and near the gallery. Plus, I was on the board of the Bridgehampton Child Care and Rec. Center so I knew many of my neighbors.

As it happened my mother was widowed again in 1996 and I was widowed in 1997. My mother had already been diagnosed with cancer by that time but chose to keep it a secret. She wanted to tell no one. She said it would hurt the gallery and she didn’t want anyone to look at her with pity. By then we really needed each other. We were fortunate that I was already living only a few miles away and working with my mother when she and her husband were both diagnosed with cancer in 1996. By that time she had made me a partner in the gallery and she depended on me to cover for her whenever she couldn’t be there. My husband was helping to take care of my stepfather and I was learning everything my mother could teach me. She wanted me to remember every story of the Hamptons. She was a great storyteller and I was fascinated with her and everyone around us. She wanted me to know all the artists and famous people, their histories, their stories, and everything she could teach me about art history. She said she cloned me. Still, I am not Elaine Benson and I cannot fill her shoes.

Finally in the last days of her life Mother felt it was important to let people know what was happening to her so at the very end of her life she told the story of her illness in her last column for Dan’s Papers, a column she had written for more than thirty years. She said she would miss everyone and hoped they would miss her. She died three days after the article appeared. There were mixed reactions. Some people were angry. A few girlfriends were hurt that she had not shared the information with them. Others realized why she had been wearing a wig for a while. Many asked if I knew how wonderful my mother was. The answer: YES!

The Gallery centered our lives in the Hamptons. It was never very profitable but my mother lived in the house and loved her life there. She even died in that house surrounded by three of her four children and her ashes were buried under a cherry tree in the front yard. The tree lives on in a new location with a view of the ocean that she would have loved, but some of her ashes stayed on in the soil. She will never leave that property completely.

My mother entrusted everything to me but also said, “Give it a try. Give it three years and see what you think.” I gave the gallery eight years after she died. In that time, I renovated the house and gallery completely. The grounds were gorgeous. The gallery wasn’t nearly as interesting or as much fun without Elaine Benson. She was the life of the place. She lit up the room. I could not become the personality that my mother was in the community. Even after her death hundreds of people came by and admired thousands of works of art. People told me Elaine Benson stories. Many people came and told me how she had helped them. They thanked me for continuing. Continuing after her death, tens of thousands of dollars were raised for charity in the tradition she established. Many emerging artists got their start and we had two “Hampton Art History Shows” including works from Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, both Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Larry Rivers, and over forty other artists from the previous generation of Hampton’s artists. I followed the same formula as my mother did. We changed shows every three weeks from the beginning of May till the end of September. I cleaned the place up, repaired the old buildings, got rid of all the bramble and overgrowth, extended the sculpture garden and painted the house and galleries. I replaced the roof of the gallery and completely replaced the ceramic shed that was falling apart. As always we had openings every three weeks in the summer with preview benefits for local charities. We helped many charities with these benefits. The Bridgehampton Child Care and Rec. Center, CMEE (Children’s Museum of the East End), the Retreat (home for domestic violence victims), and The Nature Conservancy, the Group for the South Fork, Hampton Shorts (a writing anthology), the Meet the Writers Book Fair for Southampton College and the college library and John Steinbeck Writing Room, ARF (Animal Rescue Fund), EEGO (East End Gay Organization), and LTV (local access television) are among the many organizations that held their fund-raisers in a tent, in the sculpture garden, and in the buildings of the gallery.

I did not give up the gallery property and our wonderful Gingerbread Victorian without first trying hard to find a way to continue. Before my mother died she told me there was a problem with the Certificate of Occupancy. She

thought it would be an easy thing to deal with but said she was too old and sick and she didn’t have time. She knew I had a lot of experience building and renovating houses. She assumed I could “solve it”.It was only after I purchased the property from my siblings that it became clear that although the house had its “C of O”, the barn was on the books as a “bar”. I was told it would cost me over $50,000- and three years to make it all legal (without any physical work whatsoever). It would not pay for itself from sales. The business paid for itself most years but there wasn’t much left over even for a salary for me and the property was expensive to maintain. I was living in my own house at that time. I kept my mother’s house heated, kept it clean, and used it for entertaining. It was bitter sweet without Elaine’s presence.

After 1965, throughout all forty-two years of the gallery, the gallery was made up of three unheated, un-insulated, single story buildings that could not be used on a year-round basis. It seemed better to hire a great architect and try to build a new building. After many meetings with Preston Phillips, the most talented architect I know, we found the best solution to the problem of how to “save” the gallery: build a structure attached to the existent house that would mimic the original architectural elements and roof line and look as if it had always been there. It took three years and a lot of compromise. The town wanted 26 parking spaces and a promise that the second story of the existent house could only be used for storage. All I could think of was the song lyric, “Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” It seemed a crime to take away most of the sculpture garden to accommodate more parking. There is a huge parking lot across the street for a condo building that is half empty. Finally the plans were approved 100% by the town board. We had the blessing of the planning board and one of the planning board members said that Preston Phillips was the most polite person who ever presented a project to them.

After we had town approval for the building, I tried to raise the money to build the new gallery. By that time I realized the project was too big for me alone so I tried to form a new organization called, “Friends of Elaine Benson”. I even tried to sell the concept and plans to a potential new owner. It had seemed to me we could make a Museum dedicated to the “Art History of the Hamptons”. In my dreams I could be on the board in the beginning and ultimately the gallery/museum could live on without me. It could have year round, income producing, rental spaces on the second floor of the addition, as a part of the new plan. It would have been beautiful. It ended up as only a dream, but a beautifully designed one at that. In hindsight with the state of the economy we are probably lucky that this ambitious plan never became a reality. It is harder than ever to raise money for publicly supported projects.

When Joe Farrell offered to buy the property, he said he would try to save the house. He suggested that because he is a builder, he would be in the best position to save the old structure. It was in good shape so I was surprised when I read in a newspaper interview with Mr. Farrell that he was going to tear the house down. That was before the closing on the property. We had an agreement of sale only. There was a ‘follow up” article at the time where I admitted to being very upset and Mr. Farrell called me and offered to renege on the purchase. I felt I had to go through with the sale and also had to realize that the new owner would have the right to do whatever he wanted, in accordance with the laws of the town. I knew that the process of getting town approvals is a long and difficult one. I understood I couldn’t stop progress. I agreed to the sale and said I would be mature and understand that once I sold the property, I would have no control over it. At least the Farrells gave me permission to take the front door, with its curved glass panes, the banister, the decorative windows from the upstairs bedrooms, and the gingerbread trim that my mother and I loved so dearly. I couldn’t bear to see them destroyed. It was a part of the agreement that I could ‘save’ the things I cared about the most even though I couldn’t save the house. In late December of 2008 I was surprised to see the house demolished during a terrible ice storm. I was told that the timing was because the new owner had been advised that there would be an architectural review board meeting the next day and he was in a hurry to get rid of the building. This is hearsay on my part. I was told that he was called on the phone but there was nothing in writing.

I admit that our house was not the most beautiful house of all time. It was simply the most beautiful old house I have ever known well. I wept. Even knowing the house would come down, it was a shock to see it in pieces, a huge pile of giant match sticks, the result of a giant bulldozer in a few short hours.

The plan to destroy the house had been announced in the papers many times. There were public hearings in front of the planning board. Plans for a new building were in the Southampton Press. The Farrells were very clear about their intentions.

Mother always said, “We are liberals who hate change”. What is done is done. I can’t turn back the clock. What I can do is stay positive. I have forty-two years of gallery archives to finish organizing, scanning, recording, and then the task of finding ways to make the archives public. I have worked with more interns this summer (2006) and we have begun to study grant writing. My desire is to open the records to students and professors, to writers, and aspiring painters. There is a wealth of visual information and the excitement I feel about this part of our story/history cannot be taken away. There is enough information to encourage many books.

My mother lives on in the legacy she left, the friends and artists who remember her, her four children, three grandsons, as of March 2012 a great granddaughter and in the book she wrote. She lives on in the cherry tree and in the archives. She lives on in our hearts.

I have started working on a memoir about my mother, the gallery, and “the way we were.” I am asking artists and old friends to try to recapture their memories and send me their antidotes. My plan is to preserve all that I still can. The building is gone. My mother is gone. Still, nothing can erase this rich history. That lives on.

Memories and anecdotes can be sent to [email protected], 2009, edited July 2012.


Comedic Icon to Educate East End About Chicano Art & What It Means to

America at ArtHamptons FairCheech Marin, best known as half of the comedy duo Cheech

& Chong, who is also the world’s largest collector of Chicano art works, will receive the Arts Patron of the Year Award during the 5th annual edition of ArtHamptons. While the renowned funnyman can’t resist joking for long, he is very serious about his passion for Chicano art and supporting the genre.

Hamptons Expo Group CEO Rick Friedman will present the Grammy winning actor, director, and author with the prestigious award on Saturday, July 13th, during the summer’s premiere international fine art fair which will be held in its new location at Sculpture Fields of Nova’s Ark at 60 Millstone Rd. in Bridgehampton, NY, from July 13th to 15th, 2012.

“Sure, I’m able to use the fact that I am known for my career as an actor to attract an audience to a type of art that might otherwise go unnoticed. The artist wouldn’t be successful if the painting wasn’t any good.” Mr. Marin has amassed over 400 pieces of Mexican-American artwork. He will be on hand all weekend at the Thomas Paul Fine Art booth to discuss the genre that captures the social, political and religious life of Mexican-Americans, his own critically acclaimed traveling exhibitions, and his unerring passion and support for what he calls “Art of the New Americas.”

“The inception of Chicano art was political,” Cheech explained, “which is how it got noticed and what kept it out of museums. Any museum that showed early Chicano art didn’t want ’em back because, you know, they were fist-waving, headband-wearing, dope-smoking Chicanos who ‘wanna burn down your museum,’” said Cheech in his

“stoner” voice. “‘Chicano’ to me is a ... term in constant evolution. Every generation that comes in has as much right to say what the definition of ‘Chicano’ is as any that went before it. It’s not just a term that applies between such-and-such years. All the elements of great Chicano art should come together unconsciously. I think that’s what great art does. I always have an emotional reaction to paintings, that’s why I buy them, that’s why I’m coming to Bridgehampton.”

Until Marin’s own works began traveling the country, no one had really defined a Chicano School of American painting. Only a few, such as Carlos Almaraz (1949-1989), Rupert Garcia and John Valadez, had achieved national prominence. “This is not Latin American art,” Cheech said. “This is American art. Just like de Kooning is not a Dutch artist, de Kooning was an American artist. We’re Americans, too. When you come to the point where salsa is already the No. 1 condiment over ketchup, the change has already occurred. My own collection, and galleries like Thomas Paul, act as an introduction to the genre and hopefully will create a new appreciation in a new location…”

“The impetus for me coming to ArtHamptons and being involved with this is I don’t want these artists to pass through their whole creative lives and not be known. I also want to help audiences everywhere understand what this art means to America.” Mr. Marin will introduce works by some of his favorite new artists, including Carlos Donjuan, known for mixing his classical training with graffiti and mural techniques, and Ricardo Ruiz with prices at the booth ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.

Since its inception, ArtHamptons has garnered a reputation for excellence and continues to grow in scale and prestige. Housed within the impressive modular building, fair-goers will enjoy an enormous selection of artworks as well as special attractions. Visitors at the agriculture reserve are also invited to explore the 95 areas of sculpture gardens, which include a polo field where the Southampton Polo Club will play a match on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

For further information, go to www.arthamptons.com

Cheech Marin Arts Patron of the Year!

Ricardo Ruiz, La Reyna De Las Masotas, 2011 from Cheech Marin collection,courtesy Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles

Cheech Marin


Created to appeal to the culturally engaged art buyers and enthusiasts, the second annual ArtMRKT Hamptons will feature leading galleries from across the country. Forty galleries will exhibit original contemporary painting, sculpture, photography and prints at the Bridgehampton Historical Society grounds July 19 – 22. Underscoring the Fair’s commitment to the visitor experience, this year’s Opening Night Preview will benefit the Parrish Art Museum. Noted Brooklyn chef Leon Gunn, formerly of Wolfgang Puck, Aria, Noho Star and Williamsburg’s Traif restaurants, will serve opening night guests his “refined take on the quintessential Hamptons dining experience — the summer barbecue.”

Returning this year are many leading New York galleries including Lennon Weinberg, Nancy Hoffman, Kathryn Markel and Morgan Lehman. Halsey Mackey (Hamptons), Boltax Gallery (Shelter Island), 101/Exhibit (Miami), Mindy Solomon Gallery (St. Petersburg) and AUREUS Contemporary (Providence). Joining this line up are P.P.O.W, DC Moore, Envoy Enterprises, Allegra LaViola and David Lusk (Tennessee). Launched by seasoned fair veterans, Max Fishko and Jeffrey Wainhause, the artMRKT fairs—which include artMRKT San Francisco, Hamptons, Texas Contemporary and the soon-to-be launched Miami Project—are well received by exhibitors and visitors alike. “What sets artMRKT Hamptons apart from other fairs is our intimate scale and dedication to showcasing emerging and established artists in a relaxed, welcoming environment,” says Fair Director Fishko, “We serve the ever-growing market for art and still appeal to

Second Annual artMRKT Hamptons Hits The Beach30+ Galleries Participating in the July Fair; Proceeds To Benefit the Parrish

Shane Mcadams, Synthetic Landscape 53 (North Rim Lodge), 2011 Ballpoint pen, oil and resin on canvas 24 x 24 inches Courtesy of Allegra La Viola Gallery

Thomas Woodruff, Still Life Variation Sanguinic, 2009-10 Acrylic on linen, 60 x 48 inches Courtesy of P.P.O.W Gallery

Robert De Niro Sr.Still Life with Guitar, Torso and Two Vases,

1971 . Oil on canvas 38.5 x 27.75 inches

Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery

the more seasoned collector.” Managing Partner Wainhause adds, “Our aim is to create an enjoyable experience for our clients and to make the Fair easily accessible. The Fair is centrally located in

Bridgehampton near wonderful restaurants and shops, and the venue and layout of the fair enables the galleries and artists to be the true stars of the show.”

Location:Bridgehampton Historical Society located in the heart of Bridgehampton directly on the main road, Route 27, 2368 Montauk Highway (Rt. 27) - Bridgehampton, NY

Hours and Admission:Evening Preview benefitting the Parrish Art Museum: Thursday, July 19 6PM –

7:30PMOpening Night Party: Thursday, July 19,

7:30PM-10PMFriday, July 20th - 11AM to 7PM

Saturday, July 21st - 11AM to 7PMSunday, July 22nd - noon to 6PM

Evening Preview Ticket - $100 online / $110 at door

3 Day Ticket - $35 online / $40 at door1 Day Ticket - $20 online / $25 at door

For additional information,please visit: www.art-mrkt.com/hamptons


Florida’s bustling art scene will soon make a major im-pression in the Hamptons,

with one of the world’s première art fairs bringing an unparal-leled array of the world’s finest contemporary art to one of the world’s greatest artists com-munities, The Hamptons. For over three centuries, renowned artists — from 19th Century Plein Air painter William Mer-ritt Chase to the 20th Century moderns Jackson Pollack, Wil-lem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein to their 21st Century counterparts Cindy Sherman, April Gornik, Eric Fischl — have all called the East End home.

The inaugural Art Southampton presented by Art Miami, the premiere International Contemporary & Modern Art Fair and marketplace for acquiring the finest works of art available in the Hamptons, will make its Hamptons’ debut July 26-30, 2012 in a state-of-the-art 75,000 square foot Pavilion located on the sprawling 18-acre fairgrounds behind the Southampton Elks Lodge between the Southampton Country Club and Mercedes Benz of Southampton located directly off Route 27 A. The fair will commence on Thursday evening, July 26, 2012 with an Opening Night VIP Preview benefiting Southampton Hospital.

“We are excited to be a benefactor of the inaugural Art Southampton Fair,” said Robert Chaloner, President and CEO, Southampton Hospital. “This Art Fair is a wonderful opportunity to bring our supporters and the international contemporary art community together in an entirely new way. Most importantly contributions from this event will assist Southampton Hospital in continuing to meet the evolving healthcare needs of our Eastern Long Island communities.”

Special features include the premiere of “HEAARTBEAT” a documentary which takes an incisive look at the late renowned sculptor John Chamberlain by his step-daughter filmmaker

Completing the Triumvirate, Art Southampton DebutsLaunch Events to Benefit Southampton Hospital & The Watermill Center

Alexandra Fairweather, Thursday July 26. By documenting Chamberlain’s artistic process and intentions, the film reveals his desire to go out into the world and create art that makes your ‘heart beat. “HEAARTBEAT” captures the man that the public has not seen before: Chamberlain as a father, a husband, and a friend. As he battles health issues, Chamberlain races against time to complete sculptures that will leave his mark on the world. The screening will benefit the Ross School’s Chamberlain–Fairweather Scholarship Fund for the Arts. The Fund was created by John Chamberlain, Prudence Fairweather and Alexandra Fairweather in 2007 to recognize and support students with a passion for the arts who are in need of financial aid to receive the excellent global interdisciplinary education offered by Ross School. Each year this scholarship encourages young artists to realize their dreams and impact the future of fine arts.

On Friday July 27, internationally acclaimed director Robert Wilson will host a VIP reception followed by a screening of “HEAARTBEAT” to launch the Watermill Center/Chamberlain Residency Grant Fund. The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities completed in 2006 on the Long Island, NY site of a former Western Union communication research facility founded by theatre and visual artist Robert Wilson as a place for young and emerging artists to work, learn, create, and grow with each other. Visit www.art-southampton.com for more info.

Art Southampton’s Partner-Director Nick Korniloff & Pamela Cohen, VP

Sponsorships - VIP Relations

Art Southampton will be held at Elks Lodge Fairgrounds July 26-30Hans Hoffman, Nikola Rukaj Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Levitas

24 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Jenna Lash has traveled the world as an artist, with solo exhibitions in recent years in Switzerland, Beverly Hills, Stamford and NYC. Her newest collection of works, on display at the Bego Ezair Gallery in Southampton through July 31st, is her most personal to date as it focuses on the subject of family and family dynamics, beginning with her own. Lash left her life behind for two years in order to care for her ailing father. Her mother and father’s retirement community became Jenna’s home away from home. Last year within four months of each other, Jenna’s father passed away as did her mother, and she believes it was because of a broken heart.

Cherishing the memories of her mother and father, Lash utilized her artistic gift as an outlet to work through the whirlwind of emotions she was experiencing. She

explored her own sense of loss and pain from the past years through her work. Lash took an inherited collection of family photographs as her base and the finished product of work was the oil-based series Imagined

Memories - A Family Album, which was recently showcased in New York City at Synchronicity Fine Arts. When describing her latest works, Lash

confides, “I feel that I am taking big risks, and just leaping and hoping that the net will appear…I always promised myself that I wouldn’t allow my

work to get too comfortable, because I believe that, as an artist, you stop growing and making exciting work if you do that. Also, I am focusing on painful losses, and going deeply inward to try to find answers to questions that are difficult. It is a much more scary exploration for me. I have challenged myself to leave the ease of proficiency to seek new answers in my work.”

These personal paintings will be featured alongside select pieces from her previous exhibition, The Art of Money, that

explores global culture relying on each country’s currency as Lash’s visual compass.

For more about Jenna, visit www.jennalash.com.

Jenna Lash: Finding AnswersTo DifficultQuestions

Upper right painting-1st painting on lower left-

Painting in middle-Last Painting on right-”

No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest, 48 x 60 inches, Acrylic on Canvas, Australian Dollar

Pals, 36 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas Judith with Bow, 36 x 48 inches, Oil on Canvas Floater, 48 x 60 inches, Oil on Canvas


Bronx Zoo, 1957photo by

Susan Dimucci

“Life is hard, but life is the art.”

“Yo! Halleleujah!”from Dion’s “Bronx Poem”


This street, like any other live being, would be entitled to an aura

of its own. It didn’t breathe but it offered air to its inhabitants; it didn’t see, but it gave sight to its strollers. One minute it would exude the sweetness of soft rolls rising in the cavernous ovens of the Prince Bakery. At other times, it would reek with the stench of too many hot July days without garbage pick-up. They would turn the hydrant on – before water shortages and modern sprinklers – so that the garbage, caught in the current, would flow down the street, never higher than the curb, racing to unforeseen purification on Fordham Road. During spells like this, you could smell the ape house in the Bronx Zoo, a few long blocks to the east. There were days when the street would crackle as opposing gangs fought territorial wars on her stony terrain. Blood would spill. And there were days when the street would sing for joy, in moonshine and sunshine, under the street lights. There was life on this street of decay and love emanated from the apartments

DIONOLOGYBOOK ONE: BELMONT AVENUE

in the stone dwellings, where people lived one on top of the other, separated by twelve inches of concrete.

This story begins in the street, this Belmont Avenue, named af ter some long-forgotten settler, where I found kindness, affection and a beauty of spirit that I never dreamed existed on earth.

I set foot on that beautiful, stinking street – rife with filth, strife and life, abundant with love – and soaring, in a second floor tenement, with music and art. I could not tell you exactly why such a soul came and went like a flash in such a place at such a time. But I knew early on my role in the drama: to chronicle it. And I want to share it with you, because it is a story of hope. A strong story, one you can take hold of in your hands and hold up to the heavens and shout: Yes! We are left on earth! Yes, we love our lives. Yes! We will be waiting for you and YES! You never left.

–VICTOR FORBES

The Prince Bakery,Belmont AVenue landmark

The author points out DION DIMUCCI WAY (Belmont Avenue and East 188th Street). to grandson Matthew Bennett Forbes,

For Frederick Bruce MartuscelliAugust 4, 1950 - Dec. 14, 1972

From hallways like this one on Belmont Avenue, a harmony sound

was created and perfected that defined an era and is still wildly

popular today. It’s all about the echo.

Helen Dunn, Marilyn Monroe


Dion and Susan Butterfield“Top Ten Girls were all I dated.”They are married some 50 years.

With The Belmonts, Street Corner Talkin’: Freddie Milano, Carlo Mastrangelo, Angelo D’Aleo and Dion, 1957. “I’m a lover not a fighter but I’ll kick your ass.”

(a line from Son of Skip James, the title cut of Dion’s 2007 CD)

By the age of 12, Dion was an established neighborhood star working clubs & restaurants, like the Villa, reviewed here by the noted author/restaurateur Helen Dunn in 1972

What’s Cookin’ at the Villa Italian Restaurant

T h e h e a v e n l y and hearty a r o m a o f h o m e c o o k i n g , just as you o p e n t h e door of the Villa Italian Restaurant, New York’s n e w e s t

privately owned and operated restaurant, and the warm welcome by Ralph Martuscelli, one of the most genial hosts here in “Lttle Italy” in the Bronx are twin ingredients hard to beat.

The Villa menu, a la carte and moderately priced, lists over a dozen pasta pleasers including the traditional spaghetti al dente, linguini and lasagna, with your choice of Ralph’s delightful sauces.

Entrees? You name it and Ralph will cook it for you. But …please be patient. Seafood? such succulent shell foods as Shrimps Fra Diavlo, Mussels Possilipo and Scungilli, cooked to a tenderness and served with a hot-hot sauce are highlights.

Steak lovers, this is your dish: Steak Pizzaiola, tender, juicy, and tasty served with a slightly seasoned sauce. Chicken Cacciatore, plump and generous chicken parts and mushrooms which Ralph simmers and simmers to a delight in a mouthwatering sauce.

Helen Dunn, Marilyn Monroe

The appetizers, soups, salads, Pizza (Oh Yes) thin crisp Pizza in a variety of combinations to delight all Pizza lovers. Sandwiches, too, beverages and desserts to the smoothest home made cheese cake, you will be

From “Haulin’ Ash” to “Kickin’ Ass,”“The Wanderer” to “The Thunderer”

THE BEST LOVE SONG EVER WRITTEN:

“They call me Sweet Papa D ’cos I’m slammin’ and tall

but when it comes time to get my ashes hauled

I let me baby do that, I let my baby do that, I let my baby do that

and she ease my worried mind.”

Wondering how to start this story about Dion with so much written and said about him by the great, iconic figures of our era. The Beatles put his face

on the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Dylan, Springsteen, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, Billy Joel, Steven Van Zandt all write liner notes for his records, cite him as a major influence and back him by singing The Belmonts parts at big-time

concerts. Robert Plant never fails to catch his show when the King of the New York Streets hits England. Would it suffice to open with this:

Is there another performer who is the go to guy for 1) The Blues Cruise2) Malt Shop Cruise 3) The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 4) WCBS-FM 5) NPR

and last but not least 5) EWTN Global Catholic Television Network?The answer is simple: there is only one and his name is Dion.

So I was thinking of all these things, driving on the Cross Bronx Expressway and what passes me but a very large truck, loaded up. With ash. Hauling.

“You can crank my car, shift my gear But when the easy riding goes on here, I let my baby do that…”*

happy you discovered the Villa Italian restaurant.

The Villa is intimate in atmosphere and decor, with warm wood wall paneling and matching table tops. Open for lunch and dinner every day except Monday

with a seatintcapacity of forty. The Villa Italian Restaurant

at 651East 187th Street at Belmont Avenue is long gone, as is my grandmother, Helen Dunn. We present this review as a tribute to them both.

*”I Let My Baby Do That” Dion Dimucci from the CD “Bronx in Blue” © Dion Dimucci Bronx Soul Music, used by permission


DIONOLOGYBOOK TWO: THE BLUES MAN AS ARTIST & AUTHOR

Steven Van Zandt hosted an evening with Dion at the 92nd St. Yhere they jam on a Robert Johnson tune. Photo by Arnie Goodman

“The Blues is the naked cry of the human heart apart from God, wanting to feel at home.” – Dion

Dion’s Robert Johnson painting graces the cover of Bronx in Vlue

Above, Still Life,left, Madonna and Child

Flag

Part 2 of Dion’s story will be in our next issue and at www.fineartmagazine.com

Dion’s new book available everywhere and from www.servantbooks.org


Eduard Anikonov, as part of the new face of Russian figurative painters, has forged his accomplished style, inspired

by his roots from his birth in his hometown, the steel center of Russia, Magnitogorsk in 1966 to become a contemporary master. Acclaimed for the depth of his body of work nationally and in-ternationally, Anikonov can be seen as a leader in Post (industrial) Modernism, machine metaphor, structuralism; extrapolating influ-ences from the Soviet school or social realism. Embracing these ideas refined from techniques learned at the esteemed Fine Arts College of Sverdlovsk and School of Graphics at St. Petersburg Repin Academy of Arts, Anikonov state independently from others the imagery in his diverse portfolio revealing his artistic soul. The

work stands alone stylistically—a painter who has attained his own art statement to express his views. One of the artist’s strengths is his

capacity to draw on multiple topics, as quantified in his composi-tions though expressive movement of color, allowing Anikonov to cross over multiple artistic borders to achieve a singular definitive definition of painting within his evolving and ever-growing mode of expression.

As a young painter, Anikonov was introduced to America through his participation in the exchange program “Hands Across the Water” in 1997, and thereafter continued to participate in gallery exhibitions, primarily in Philadelphia, where he developed an understanding of the current US art scene, independent of

Prodigious russian artist Eduard anikonov

By JAMIE ELLIN FORBES

Thirst, 51 x 59”, oil on canvas, 2007


influences from others. It was through his connection to the burgeoning 1990’s Philadelphia cultural renaissance that Eduard met Leslie Barany, agent and art director for Hans Rudi Giger, forming friendships leading to his involvement with the artist’s participation in the Carnivora project 2007-2008. This landmark Art exhibition took place consecutively in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego, concluding with the Carnivora: The Dark Art of Automobiles exhibit. Anikonov was placed in the company of cutting edge young artists such as John “Crash” Matos and Anthony Ausgang, among others. They were labeled within the specific dialogue on machines and their place within the social context of art dissertation—noir artists of the last half of the 20th century, noted in Les Barany’s 2007 book, Carnivora: The Dark Art of Automobiles. Anikonov’s participation in the project and inclusion in the book established him as a forerunner in the continued milieu of Post Modern, Machine Metaphor and Structuralism, as work reflective of his original art statements drawing upon his influence from the steel mills of Magnitogorsk.

In 2009-2010 Art Gallery ALLRUS organized eighty artists to be displayed in Vienna as part of the prestigious Art of Russia exhibition with Anikonov’s invited participation validating him as one of the young Russian art masters.

In the industrial works Gear I and Gear II, the raw energy of the steel forging, machines moving, the monolithic importance of the subject matter in general is observed and delivered as the artist’s impression. When seen within the context of the Carnivora Project

they fit the homage to Detroit and the Automobile as the strongest influence in the 20th century culturally. The works feel primal and are easily understood to be dark and consumptive, lacking natural elements. Machines are displayed and the atmosphere created by machines devouring natural non-replenishable resources is seen in each work. The likeness to or affinity between the gray background of Alien, as the artist’s friend and mentor Giger instilled in the imagery and sculptures for the films monsters years ago, is apparent.

The colors and forms are heightened to feel sensual in Gear I as red is introduced to the canvas becoming a strong focal accent and subdued, muted, void of life in Gear II as grayed-out. As George Bellows the early 20th century painter dialogues industry and machine in works such as Steaming Streets, 1908, these two canvases are indicative of the move away from figurative as Soviet Realism of the Stalinists era or European Post Impression to a more textural spontaneous experience. Paint is richly applied to these canvases in broad plains of area, comparable to noted WPA artist, influenced by Bellows as a young artist, Willem de Kooning’s use of paint as special plane to develop compositional interest providing definition for the subjects’ line. Anikonov has mastered the unified cohesive understanding of expression and subject in tandem in figurative modern painting within industrial landscapes. In these settings, he communicated a deep appreciation for the machines as subjects necessary and worthy of artistic interpretation: their place of importance and impact on our current cultural overview of urbanization and industrialization.

Reminiscent of the inspirational qualities offered by works of the Soviet Socialist-era art, in Thirst, Anikonov frames the worker, a focused cropped hard shot profiled, possibly close to the iron furnaces satisfying his need for water. The red makes the canvas hot, portraying the possible refection of liquid iron near by. This young face is defying the surroundings driving his thirst. Strong areas for color denote his inner determination possessed by all individuals in these conditions. In viewing this large canvas, the energy experienced sparks a response the viewer can feel—the dry unquenchable thirst. A heroic quality is lent to the subject by igniting the red with a dimensional dark background highlighted by pale ocher, to denote no real light source other than fire

Nameless Time I, 79 x 51”, oil on canvas, 2007

Nameless Time II, 79 x 51”, oil on canvas, 2007


brightens this setting. The artist’s deep heart-felt connection and appreciation for the subject is conveyed.

In the images Nameless Time I and Nameless Time II from his Decadence series, Anikonov experiments with nudes placed on, or arising from differing tonal backgrounds. Contrast is drawn in this diptych expressing a shift in mood and statement. There is a continued emphasis on gears as a machine. In each painting the clock is held in front of the modeling figure. The time on face of the clock is the same yet the statements are expressing different processes of the potential contemplations abstract within the images. In Nameless Time I, the nude female figure is walking upon abstract blocks of white and clear, clean blue. In Nameless Time II she is cropped emerging from a different orientation, yet the time of the face of the time piece is the same in each image offering the viewer a space within time. Nameless Time I is a pronounced negative print, like film hanging in a dark room. Nameless Time II is an exposure of the real time within the darker setting revealed. The artist seems to provoke the question of inner and outer landscapes within a person. What is intended may not always be seen and the variances in the color palette can introduce new perceptions.

Anikonov has adapted a unifying artistic grid in all of his works to fulfill the message of understanding that we are placed with in our personal landscapes, captured in an image or viewing an image, as he unites the plains, or time conceptualized in his art. His line of art description is strongly stated throughout his body of work as the universal Now, irrelevant to time or place as the artist strikes with his colors and palette the structural importance of the mechanism of the universe, placing the gears or the bones of his vision on the context of permanency, while fleeting as an impression of a moment.

What is intendedmay not alwaysbe seen

Gear II, 51 x 79”, oil on canvas, 2007

Gear I, 51 x 55”, oil on canvas, 2007

Anikonov’s work is available atwww.anikonov.com

English speaking customers, please contactAnya Garankova, curator and project manager,

617-974-0808

Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 1

ITA LEW BULLARD

STUDIO VALCOURORIGINAL PAINTINGS

SCULPTUREGICLEE REPRODUCTIONS

EXPERT ART RESTORATIONE-MAIL: [email protected]

PHONE 518 563-4019WWW.STUDIOITALEW.COM

“GOING NORTH,” Acrylic on Canvas, 60” x 60”, 2012also available in giclee

ITA LEW BULLARD, IN HER STUDIO, ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN, VALCOUR NY


Between 4-8 April 2012 the “Noah’s Ark Art Gallery” once again participated in the Arte Monaco contemporary art fair

and was awarded the Excellence Prize for representinga New Dimension in art known as Absurd Surrealism.

The desire to live free and have freedom of expression is first and foremost natural before being rational. All throughout history and all over the world, man fought and still does to achieve absolute freedom. Primitive Man was the one who enjoyed and expressed most this freedom, unfortunately the means available to him for expressing it were quite limited. However, the more he evolved and advanced, the more his freedom was restricted due to social, religious, economical and political constraints.

History has proven that all ages and regions have had, and continue to do so, their written and unwritten laws and regulations which have imposed restrictions on the artist who tried to rebel against them and liberate himself from them.

It is appropriate to mention that the Post-Soviet movement as we understand it today was already in existence after Stalin’s death (since the sixties in ateliers). But in the seventies and beyond the borders of Soviet realism many activists in the Modern Plastic Movement exhibited their work in residences, and underground clubs such as on Malaya Grunzinskaya 28 Street. During this period I have had the good fortune to personally attend some of these exhibitions where the works of Isachev, Mikhail Alexandrov and Plavinski especially impressed me.

ABSURD SURREALISM:FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES TO PRESENT

Vahram, Montgolfiere, 200 x 300cm, oil on canvas, 2012

Yuri Tsvetaev, Loss of Aim, 21 x 21cm, mm on panel, 1998


Today, when in the countries previously of the Soviet Union, the artist is no longer suppressed and imitates European art and searches for an easy path; a parallel movement based on healthy foundations and on a high level has started to bring freshness and inner strength which is reminiscent of the constructive ferment of the turn of the century.

At the forefront of avant-gardes such as Konstantin Khudiakov, Ruben Abovian, Alexander Maltsev, Vahram Davt ian, Yur i Tsvetaev, Yuroz, Gevorg Yeghyazarian Suren Vosganian and David Davtian each of these renewed artists has his own particular individuality and creativity style, but are united to each other under a common dominator, which is to create freely in the absurd surrealist atmosphere.

The desire to express oneself freely leads the disappointed artist from the existing realities to seek truths and values in a world in which restrictions and restraints are totally absent. It is here that the artist exploits all the available media and gives free rein to his imagination. In this respect Surrealism is as old as Primitive Man.

As such, similar to the animals, primitive man first lived naked. First due to the cold weather and later to feelings of shame, early man started to cover up certain parts of his body. Much later, these early ugly and formless covers evolved into the art of clothing and fashion.

Whereas, today Modern man not only has started to rid himself of his clothing, and is concerned more with undressing than dressing, in fact, the desire to be the least covered or the most uncovered has become second nature especially among women. Primitive man started wearing clothes instinctively and in response to the environmental conditions, whereas modern man started undressing in a conscious and attractive manner. Thus, the conditions of early man led him to rationality and knowledge, whereas modern man’s aspirations and pursuit of aesthetics led him to resort and make use of Surrealism.

It is here that Primitive and Modern man come face to face in the circuits of Surrealism. The former is forced to give up his freedom and is exposed to restrictions and constraints, while the latter starts to liberate himself from these restrictions and the limitations which were accumulated all throughout the years.

During the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the artist all of a sudden found himself in a void. His much longed for, dreamt about and yet “taboo” freedom, was all of a sudden handed

back to him, without any compromises. As much as artificial and unrealistic was Sovietism, its downfall was even more illogical and unbelievable. This is why the Soviet Artists truly felt the absurdity of their situation. A context in which not only could they really create and express themselves, but also entwined at the same time in the unsolved issues of mankind which can only be resolved through one’s dreams and imaginations.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of internationally featured Surrealist artists emerged who spontaneously represented absurd s i tuat ions, such as Micheal Cheval(USA), Thor Lindeneg(Denmark), Detlef Gotzens(Germany), etc.

All the creative artistic attempts to save the man and to provide for him a “heavenly” life, although they had to a certain extent a positive impact, yet at the same time they could not eradicate or diminish human suffering and pain. The Humanitarian ideas and their noble and beautiful expressions continued to be abused and exploited by the Forces against the Good.

Injustices and wrongs continue to be committed and the human worries increase and go whereas the crisis get even more complicated and wide spread.

David, The Forbidden Fruit, 120 x 100cm, acrylic on canvas, 2009


Not only the nations of war-torn countries, but all people everywhere are undergoing critical conditions nowadays. The feeling of insecurity persecutes them and they are skeptic about the future.

Every day, everywhere innocent people die, and it is obvious that neither civilizations nor the riches of the world, or the Humanitarian organizations and not even the religious teachings have succeeded in keeping man away from Greed, savage and inhuman actions and unjust behaviors.

Why???The reason is that in spite of the existing numerous and varied

humanitarian ideologies and beliefs, the inalienable value of the human being still remains ignored.

Religions have for thousands of years, promised good and happiness to their believers… in the afterlife. The communists, after rejecting the afterlife, promised mankind to provide them with an

earthy paradise; but they failed.In fact, it is obvious that all throughout history human

civilizations have failed to produce civilized and peaceful human beings.

And the millennia struggle to achieve it still goes on…Man fights against himself. The only means still available to

him to embellish life, and to refine and tame himself is still ART, the most noble and beautiful means which enables man to escape the realities of this world and reach the cores of his inner self.

Aesthetics is the most complete and highest art that still succeed to save mankind, because it deals with man’s essences and uncontested values without any mediation. Art can only appreciate and evaluate man in his natural and naked reality without the external and artificial reasons for that. Whereas in reality and practice, man is esteemed due to his social milieu, his ethnic or religious belonging, his education or wealth – or based on the car he owns and the clothes he wears, while he is ignored and disregarded in his very essence and unfortunately this continues to go on.

We are rational human beings and we often forget (or ignore) that man’s intellectual wealth is in itself unique and an inalienable value. Just as in birth and death, human beings become equal, so the true human values cannot also have different criteria and standards. It is here that the strongest and the weakest, the triumphant and the defeated acquire inhuman interpretations. The struggle against Greed and its ensuing cruelty can only become effective in Art and through Art.

Nowadays the world and man suffer from chaos. The political, social and moral equations seem to have all mixed up. The human and humanitarian ideologies and beliefs of the 20th century have failed and human values seem to be totally ignored and even scorned at.

While the most sensitive and committed artist seems to have become tormented and in crisis.

A New Century, New Values, A New World Order (Outlook).The future is pregnant with novelties. The Artist most probably

is again going to seek inner peace and harmony in the circles of Surrealism and the Absurd. And the world awaits a new form of Art…?

Movses Zirani (Doctorate in Fine Art)

A. Isatcev, Salome, iconographic pigments on panel, 1979

Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Verdict, 90 x 100cm, oil on canvas, 1994


CIRCA SOMETHING GALLERY

SHOWS OFF NEW LOOK IN BELLPORT

Bob Baker, gallery owner with Mr. and Mrs. Donald Stewart, Chairman Emeritus Public TV

Bob Baker, David Goldsteiin, Christopher and Karen Gallagher enjoying the Troyans

Chris and Luann of Bellport Art and Framing, The Baker Family (Mrs. Carla Baker, her mother the artist Pierina Leonardo and daughter/granddaughter Aimee Marie Baker, partner and jewelry designer)

Anatoli Kharlanov of AKJ Construction and Aimee Marie Baker admiring her designs for her

Pacific Reef Collection which consists of salt water south sea pearls, jade and coral

Portrait of the pop star Laura Branigan painted by Pierina Leonardo, at the gallery. Ms. Branagin died at age 47 of an aneurism, an ageless beauty

indeed.

Circa Something Gallery is located at 117A South Country Road, Bellport, NY - [email protected]

Author/Fine Art Editor-in-Chief Victor Forbes The family jewels

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fine art magazine summer 2012

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