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Art Review: Arts Festival's juried section harbors surprises
Wednesday, June 16, 1999 By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Arts Writer
The juried section of the Three Rivers Arts Festival is of mixed quality and has broad stylistic range, but that makes room for some surprises in three exhibitions that have great populist appeal and offer a chance to catch a rising star.
One of the founders' goals for the juried exhibitions, according to festival executive director Jeanne Pearlman, was to "serve artists at all points in their career." Its equal opportunity policy encourages young artists to apply and they do, often with some of the festival's most innovative works.
Once confined to artists living in Pittsburgh, applicants are no longer geographically restricted and work exhibited this year has come from New York, California and points in-between.
The "Sculpture and Crafts" division, in the PPG Wintergarden, is the most dynamic, partly because of the way the three-dimensional artworks move into the viewer's space, and vice-versa, and also because they are so tactile.
Juror Murray Horne, curator of The Wood Street Galleries, says that in reviewing works submitted, he "found the pluralism of the '90s alive and well." Of 69 works, nine entries are local and 17 more are from the Tri-State area.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania students have returned in force this year and again bring a selection of edgy sculptural forms that move confidently into their surrounding space. Dismissing timidity -- and the accompanying caution that can mummify potentially vigorous expression -- these youthful artists create works with movement that is part ballet, part jujitsu.
Chief among this year's entries are Jill Laura Feagley's "Scape," a gutsy undulating steel and handmade paper form of distressed beauty with tension added by fleshy protuberances that dangle underneath. Also, Bryan Lauch's engaging "Harold's Hommage," which creatively evokes religion through nuance: an upright tree branch suggests a cross, even though it is "y" shaped; a long sheet drapes away from the stark form like a roll of burial linens and only when the viewer moves closer does he learn that it is a player piano scroll for "The Old Rugged Cross."
Former IUP student and past festival exhibitor Wade Kramm, who's now doing graduate work at the Rhode Island School of Design, returns with two sculptures that address the idea of home and that uphold his reputation for craftsmanship and conceptual sophistication.
Stephen Edward Neff's "Termite" has a great body with exposed digestive tract, and the pile of to-be-devoured goods is on mark, but the connecting red knitted tube is a weak line in a good piece.
Taking risks sometimes puts one on thin ice, and Raymond Knoll's "Ascetic" has too many parts that are in conflict, as does Marilyn Poeppelmeyer's "Pig Rings." Making them simpler, or giving formal relationships more flow, would be one way to resolve these works.
Other sculptures to note are Ava Blitz's polished "Sawhorse," Brett Ervick's "fig2 Pulmonary/Systematic (heart)" which brings to mind British sculptor Richard Deacon's organic forms, and Carey McDougall's impressive gathering of "Little Women" which, unfortunately, suffered when last week's heat softened wax coatings and caused some of the pieces to go limp.
The crafts section is strongest in clay this year, including Pittsburghers Dale Huffman's tactile wood-fired vessel and Ceil Leeper-Sturdevant's fetish-like figures. Local fiber artists also shine, in Patricia Kennedy-Zafred's feisty art quilt, and Patty Gallagher's zany and delightful faux foliage and flower-encrusted creations that began as bustiers, moved into costumes and settings, and seem headed to a room at Phipps. "Eggplant Watering Vessel," by Lydia Van Nostrand, is exceptional with its lightness, finely worked surface and springy energy.
The "Photography" division, in the Bell Atlantic Auditorium, is the most stable in size and mood, and it's sprinkled with quiet gems. Jurors were Pittsburgh artist Lonnie Graham and Esther Parada, artist and photography professor at the University of Illinois, who looked for works that "captured the familiar in striking ways" and gave a "fresh look at the ordinary." In these they found "images which stretched our awareness" and "heightened our sense of the exquisite pleasures of seeing," no small accomplishment.
Of 66 exhibitors, 15 are local and 22 are from the Tri-State. Technical proficiency is the rule here, and some of the artists add individuality through unusual processes like photo manipulation, infrared film or hand tinting, but nothing space age.
Keith Sharp's provoking photographs from the series "Centralia, PA-Coal Town on Fire" have the sunken feeling of an Elliott Porter landscape gone wrong. David Stroup's "Catacomb," a nude male lying cruciform on the dirt floor of an old vaulted passageway, is arresting.
Light is integral to the composition of Gary Cardot's "Geauga Lake" scenes, whether it is decoratively in place or stopped in motion. His flattened planes reveal the two-dimensionality of this fantasy realm.
An excellent series by Blaise Tobia, "Direct Object," uses the directness of advertising format to connect images and musings that spark insights larger than the sum of their parts.
Most evident overall is that heightened quality of observation that the jurors allude to that results in the continual transformation by these artists of the ongoing everyday into frozen classic images.
The "Two Dimensional Work" category is the most erratic, as it has been in recent years, perhaps due in part to a relative diminished interest by young artists in painting. Some of the most interesting inroads have been made by self-taught artists whose work has gained acceptance in the larger art world in recent decades.
Juror Margery King, associate curator at The Andy Warhol Museum, says that she was "thrilled to have the opportunity to view work of such range and vitality." Her choice of more than one piece by fewer artists makes for a richer experience for viewers. Of 49 works hung in the yellow pavilions on TrizecHahn Plaza, Gateway Center, 15 are local and 17 additional are from the Tri-State region.
Powerful paintings by Mikhail Gubin -- like "Step Father," who pulls open a robe to leer at the body of a young girl as his nude wife climbs into tub behind them -- have harsh subject matter that makes for tough viewing in a festival format, but it's important to include work of this impact and quality. Dai Morgan's "Mystery of the Roses" is a potent trompe l'oeil work that is cross-referenced with symbols.
Turtle Creek folk artist Kathleen Ferri shows charming primitives from Pittsburgh past and present. Linda Marston-Reid's innocent works illustrate tradition and have strong narrative quality. Sequential festival exhibitor Jeff Zets staggers fine and folk categories with exemplary collages that are so slickly joined they belie the challenge of the technique. His title, "Martinique," a scene of a poor neighborhood framed with food stamps, is at odds with the U.S. Capitol in the background.
But there's a lot of chaff with this wheat, including gesticulating fairies, knock-offs of Asian figures, abstracts that are just happenstance swirls and representational works so elemental as to justify the often-heard remark "my kid could do that."
The man-in-the-street critic often gives a different spin to the works in these exhibitions. People look at them and talk about them, and it may surprise you to listen in and learn which are most popular among the casual viewers.
Hours for the Wintergarden are noon to 8 p.m. daily. Bell Atlantic and the TrizecHahn displays are open from noon to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
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