Volume Number 1 Issue Number 4 | October 20 - 26, 2006
Art
Courtesy Denise Bibro Fine Art
Roy Kinzer, “Willamette Forest” Acrylic, marker and collaged map on panel, 20” x 20” (2006)
Talking Shop with Denise Bibro Fine Art
By Shane McAdams
Denise Bibro is one of the rare gallerists who have endured long enough to bear witness to sweeping shifts in fashions and ideas in the art world and still be around to show off her battle scars. With the wisdom that can only come from 25+ years in the art business, Ms. Bibro has learned to focus her attention on the more enduring qualities of art rather than the seasonal vogues that come and go. “I think after the first two or three times you burn yourself on the cinders of a dying scene,” she says with characteristic wit, “you start concentrating on more stable projects and artists.”
Bibro also runs one of the rare galleries in New York that maintains an unwavering faith in easel painting. She admits to being aware of the stigma that comes along with the art object and its “fetishization” — the common critique that the object itself should be disassociated from the concept. However, Bibro weathers this criticism with the belief that good, creative picture-making is not such an unsavory enterprise. It’s also untenable in reality — humans like to have “things,” and as she points out, most of painting’s idealist detractors are probably buying their clothes from a corporation exploiting the labor of children. In light of this, says Ms. Bibro, with a touch of dark humor, “Is the humble act of creating an original object with your own hands really such an unpleasant thing?”
In accordance with her celebration of painting and unwillingness to completely divorce herself from the art object, Ms. Bibro shared her thoughts on several painters and shows, some very familiar and some you may not have heard of.
Roy Kinzer
Roy is one of several new artists we’ve brought into the gallery that I have high expectations for. He’s another 2-D journeyman that we brought into the gallery after a great studio visit. He builds rich and complex surfaces by collaging sections of dissected road maps and aerial photographs. We liked the work when we saw it because the silky surfaces never negated the handmade mark or the traces of the decision-making process. His work is really clean and tight, but never suffers from being fussy. I can’t tell if this is because of the fact that his marks remain gestural in spite of their subtlety, or because he rides to the gallery on his Harley Davidson.
Mike Miga
Miga is doing wonderful things with non-traditional photographic techniques a la the photograms of Man Ray and more recently the quasi-painting/photography of Marco Breuer and Adam Fuss. I admire his lack of careerist positioning in terms of either market or theory — his concept is only inventiveness and curiosity about the marks that he can make by knowing his media and experimenting with it. I like his general artistic outlook; he doesn’t set boundaries for himself. He had a show with us of experimental Polaroids, and now he’s working on encaustic paintings made with snowballs. Once again, it’s a case where I admire the earnest creativity of an artist.
Jan Wunderman
Jan has been around since the forties, and, like me, she’s refused to chase what’s fleeting. I guess it would be fairer to say that she has always followed what inspires her. Her work has evolved beautifully over the past half century along a winding thread of personal abstract inquiry. She is having a mini-retrospective this fall at the gallery and I’m really proud of how it charts her development as a woman in art for over a half-century.
Picasso and American Art at the Whitney
I can’t wait to see this exhibition at the Whitney. I was just reading the recent survey of 20th Century art by Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster, et al and was taken by the lack of recognition of Picasso beyond Cubism. I think creativity has been under-regarded since I’ve been a gallerist — probably because of the lingering effects of Ab-Ex heroicism. But, at any rate, I’m looking forward to seeing someone chronicle and trace Picasso’s legacy in American art.
DADA at MOMA
I had really mixed feelings about this show when I saw it, but since its impression on me has gained. My initial feelings centered on the spectacular installation of the exhibition. The environment was very circus-like and busy – with spectators as well as art. It seemed that the atmosphere in the gallery was trying to recreate a DADAist experience indirectly though whimsy and quirkiness. I don’t know how much the show did for the actual philosophy of DADA or how much attention it brought to individual artists or works. The show made me consider the role of the museum and the strange responsibility it has to please a popular audience without compromising its mission. In a pluralistic art world, where nothing really gets ruled out, we are forced to consider if museum curators will slide in the direction of pacifying audience’s more basic needs. I’m sure if MoMA served nickel beers, got a mechanical bull, and had Glen Campbell to perform they would have the highest attendance of any museum in the world.
Denise Bibro Fine Art is at 529 West 20th Street 4th Fl., 212-647-7030.
