Art Review: Associated Artists' Annual admirable and provocative
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Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette photosOne of the exhibition's few sculptures is Carol Stremple's ceramic "Flushable."
Click photo for larger image.
The juror cuts may have been stringent, but the resultant 2005 Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Annual at The Andy Warhol Museum is an exhibition the 95-year-old organization can be proud of.
More than 450 works were submitted to the 95th Annual, and juror Terry Smith selected 74 by 48 artists, about half the number that hung in the 2004 show. That year, 155 works were chosen by that year's juror from more than 500 submissions. Memorial works by Edna Weber Judkis and Girts Purins are also included.
That the Associated invited Smith to shape the show -- he's the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh -- indicates that it was looking for a critique, and the direction is a good one. Smith will hold a free gallery discussion at 7 p.m. Friday that promises to be rewarding for artists and visitors alike.
The majority of work, as in years past, is wall hung, though not necessarily two-dimensional, as with Peter Wargo's fine built pieces that combine primitive and contemporary formal sensibilities, and Marinda Stretavsky's ritualistic pulp and found object figures that speak to gender issues.
More lighthearted (perhaps) is Carole Stremple's ceramic "Flushable," one of the exhibition's few sculptures. A controlled but triumphant 41/2-foot-tall woman holds a wiggling tiny man in one hand over an actual toilet bowl.
Gender issues also figure into Shawn Quinlan's fiber "Creepy Cake: Fear Quilt Series," which garnered two prizes including the Carnegie Museum of Art Purchase Award. Quinlan's star has been rising meteorically in recent years, and the recognition is well deserved.
He also exhibits "Jesus Get Your Gun," which some viewers may find offensive, along with Terri Perpich's "The Power of Images," a bravado work that seems to reference the Terri Schiavo ordeal, or Jeff Zets' commentary on race relations, "Graduation," or Penny Mateer's fiber "Election 2004," which features a patchwork of images of the 15 anti-Bush posters the Partisan Project distributed before the last presidential election.
First Published June 1, 2005 12:00 am
