by Roger Baldwin
1983
The pursuit of any art is at once solitary and collective. The formulation of idea, the form-rendering of the object most often demand the temporary of the isolation of the studio. Yet the entry of the results of that lonely genesis into the public arena of looking and reacting and persuading and challenging must be a task accomplished only by the many. It must be so because it is the point at which institutions (by their nature socially organized) cross paths with art and artists (by their nature singular). But in these times-by necessity - artists have shown and increased willingness and eagerness to band together, not so much out of shared ideological or aesthetic concerns (such as had been the case with the century's avant-gardes) as out of a need to deal with the pragmatics of survival, with the power structures around them, with the extra artistic issues of exposure and political and economic rights.
Strength in numbers; speech with a collective voice. And no less important, Self-made opportunities to air new work, test new ideas, be seen. Starts with a seed; grows idea, joining in, momentum, result.
When there is a dearth of institutions that can be utilized, or when those present are not responsive, artists find it incumbent upon themselves to fill, by their own institution creating power, the gap between private creation and public exposure. Witness two cases in point, in New Haven.
The Papier Mache Video Institute, founded several years ago by Paul Rutkovsky (currently on a teaching sojourn in Florida) has evolved into a shifting and protean congregating point for the area's most conceptually advanced and daringly experimental artists. PMVI is housed in an old factory building in and industrial district of the city. The huge dingy rooms have just that touch of romantic seediness that Soho had before it was raped by the bourgeoisie. Lately there has been an attempt to improve portions of the rambling building by subdivision into separate studio lofts. How successful-and even how necessary-this is, still remains to be seen.
PMVI doesn't conduct "exhibitions" in the conventional sense. Rather, every few months there will be an evening-long event. These events intermix work on the walls with temporary constructions and assemblages, with performance pieces, and with film and video. Just as PMVI is a democracy of artists determining for themselves the scope, guidelines, and contents of their events, so it is a democracy of media, creative energy assigned a higher value than the material means of its manifestation. Most of the participating artists (so fluid is the alliance that participants always change from event to event) work on their own, banding together when, if, and as a mutual momentum is recognized and shared in their current work. Thus each event arises virtually from scratch and arises naturally, organically, as part and parcel of the creative impulse. This artist-created and artist-run institution, then, integrates itself fully into the process, flows out of that process, and is not the stumbling block or source of pressure a conventional gallery can often be.
The latest PMVI event, in November, was built around the theme of 1984 (a la Orwell) and consequently took on a political tone related to current as well as future governmental abuses, like the nuclear build-up and the increasing militarism of present foreign policy. Four performance pieces were included and many of the works invited in one way or another direct participation from the visitors. The atmosphere was free and relaxed, despite the intervention of the local fire marshal with restrictions on attendance. (Even so, at least 500 visited this kaleidoscopic program before the evening was out.) Among the twenty-sum participating artists were Beverly Richey, Janet Lehman, Tim Feresten, Beverly Eliasoph, and Andrea Rossi. Works were seldom identified as to their makers, emphasizing the project's communal spirit.
While the PMVI acts as a focal point which can be utilized from time to time another artistic adventure in New Haven arose practically out of nowhere as an ad hoc effort to bring public awareness to the many painters and sculptures working in the city. Artists Working In New Haven was an exhibition held for a week at the end of October in the downtown business district. Ethel Berger, John Boorsch, Anna Bresnick, Jennifer Crane, Norman Nilsen, and Kathy White were the artists who organized themselves to create, fund, publicize and install this show of nearly forty city artists, who were selected and invited by the nucleus of six. A number of local businesses and cultural organizations were enlisted for support, most notably the Fusco Corporation, who made an attractive space available to the group through the interest of Lynn Fusco.
Accompanying the show was an "open studio" program in which many of the artists participated, thus making more work available to view and helping to break that public-private boundary line between audience and artist. The exhibition itself, handsomely and professionally installed, witnessed a steady flow of enthusiastic visitors through out it's run, while the artists took turns minding the gallery and discussing the works with visitors.
The work in this show was hardly as radical as that of PMVI, yet the quality was high. There was a blend of abstract and figurative work and some work that reflected strongly the New Haven environment. Richard Carleton's large etching, for instance, captures perfectly the mood as well as the topography of the dismal areas adjacent to the downtown sector-the lonely railroad overpass, deserted commercial building, and message less sign post.
Constance Lapalombara, on the other hand, creates mysteries of light and atmosphere. Her small oil "Pomeriggio" shows a bare room as a beam of light from the right picks out and radiates the curving contours or a white chair.
Among the abstractionists represented were Greg Little, whose violently aggressive handling writhed within highly angular shaped canvases. John Boorsch, who showed two small works with collaged fragments on a yellow field of variously inflected squares, and Kathy White, whose large and stark abstraction build of overlapping and interpenetrating triangular shapes evidenced a strength in execution and refinement of color that made it stand out. Ed Askew turned to the history of figuration in his large painting Figure Group, in which the figures seem to satirize the formal conventions of past movements and artists. Askew's personal emulation of cubist conventions, Shahn, Matisse, and perhaps even Bomberg, and the Vorticists all coexist.
Notable among the more modest selection of sculptures were Christine Gist whose untitled construction of black painted wood and glass generated an eerie feeling that an execution was about to take place as one looked through a small window to see a bowed figure in outline criss crossed by a red capital x. Anna Bresnick's construction from wood with encaustic and acrylic suggested house and home by its toy-house shape, yet explored sculptural concepts of space, gravity, and structural tension with the projecting wood slates that swept about its core.
From this year's improvisational base, something more durable can result for the New Haven community of visual artists. Already there is talk of an annual event the spirit, energy, and know-how of the areas artists have proven themselves, and the lesson has been learned: when nobody's gonna do it for you, do it yourself.
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