New Haven Register
by Shirley Gonzales
January 1984
The John Slade Ely House on Trumbull Street shows fun and funk in its two current shows. Downstairs, "Points of View" is based on architectural prints by Wes Goforth and furniture designed by Karl Nordstrom and Bair Cook. The latter are innovative, if impractical, and even good looking. In Cook's case the materials are concrete and glass, in Nordstrom's they are slatted wood and concrete. Her Rock-In-Chair looks like an old fashioned wheel chair with its base set in concrete. A round table has a curving split across the middle of the top, split again into curving slits held apart by chocks. Cook's glass suggests more formal and frail compositions.
"Buy and Sell" in the upstairs gallery was organized by Beverly Richey, Paul Rutkovsky and Jack Harriot. It also blends tradition tradition, in the form of Harriot's photographs of shops that sell furniture with what is what is close to a sixties happening rather than an exhibition. Unlike what is seen belowstairs, there is a lack of craftsmanship in evidence, which is probably appropriate considering that most of the show seems to be a condemnation of America as a television-advertising scam and a purveyor of war as a game. Even the refreshments were cakes topped by toy soldiers, American flags and white doves. The materials and techniques are appropriate for the concept.
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