|
 Critic:
David Brickman
2003 was a challenging year in visual art in the Capital Region,
as nonprofit presenting organizations—many of them dependent
on government grants—continued to feel the financial effects
of 9/11, and sales at commercial galleries suffered from the
sluggish and war-distracted economy.
Nevertheless,
there was a lot of interest, from major museums to grassroots
organizations, some good and some not so good at all.
In Albany, two longstanding and beloved galleries devoted
to showcasing the work of regional artists lost their directors
on the same June day and are facing uncertain futures. Many
people are asking whether the Albany Institute of History
and Art will try to retain some aspect of the mission of the
Rice Gallery since the departure of Janis Dorgan; and Albany
Center Galleries continues to limp along without a director
or staff curator six months after Pam Barrett-Fender resigned.
In
the meantime, a new initiative on Lark Street by the name
of Firlefanz Gallery opened in March and has had a very promising
pilot season (as of this writing, Firlefanz has closed for
the winter and will reopen for business in the spring). The
homeless denizens of Miss Mary’s Art Space enjoyed an energetic
two-month residency at the Chapel + Cultural Center at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, and are again dormant as they seek
a permanent home.
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J.M.W. Turner’s Keelmen Heaving in Coals by
Moonlight.
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The
peripatetic Photography Regional appeared in a new setting,
Sage College of Albany’s sparkly new Opalka Gallery, and the
other regional—Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region, hosted
this year by the University Art Museum—raised a bit of controversy
when juror Maura Heffner pared more than 1,000 works by 220
entrants down to just 35 pieces by 17 artists.
The museums had their blockbusters, most notably the Clark
Art Institute, which hosted the international gem Turner:
The Late Seascapes, and the Hyde Collection, where famed
artist of the American West Frederic Remington got a nice
retrospective. The New York State Museum also weighed in with
two important shows brought up from New York: Strangely
Familiar celebrated postmodernism from the collection
of the Museum of Modern Art, and The Course of Empire:
Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School Landscape Tradition
brought many masterpieces from the New-York Historical Society
to our area for the first time.
Another museum show worth noting for its unusual bridging
of many decades of modern art, from early Dada to current
(even local) work, was the Tang Teaching Museum’s wildly ambitious
Living With Duchamp. Equally ambitious, and a huge
hit, was the Albany Institute of History and Art’s Matters
of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art
and Life (it began in 2002 and continued well into 2003).
Even better, though, from my point of view, was the Institute’s
50-year retrospective of the art of Richard Callner, which
not only demonstrated the stunning significance of this Albany-based
painter’s international career, but also showed he remains
at the height of his powers by including a major chunk of
very recent work in the selection.
Smaller
venues also made strides and added strong exhibitions to the
region’s offerings. Gallery 100 in Saratoga Springs reopened
after the winter in renovated, expanded digs, allowing it
to offer a wider and deeper selection of fine artists. Martinez
Gallery in Troy celebrated its two-year anniversary and mounted
many intriguing shows, and also provided a terrific roundup
of Latino art that showcased in two local venues (the NYSM
in 2002 and the C+CC in 2003).
Notably absent from the list this year are outstanding shows
of photography: Apart from a truly wonderful traveling show
of Malian portraits at the Williams College Museum of Art,
and Gregory Crewdson’s part of the Fantastic! exhibit
at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the region’s
photographic offerings failed to make many sparks. Other forms
of realism ruled instead—especially William Morris’ astonishing
glass creations in Myth, Object and the Animal at the
Berkshire Museum and Ugo Mochi’s equally naturalistic paper
cuts at the Opalka.
Additionally, there were quite a few shows I regret having
missed; some of them, including a solo by painter Ed McCartan
at Siena College’s Yates Gallery, sculptural survey shows
at Chesterwood and the Berkshire Botanical Gardens, Yankee
Remix at MASS MoCA (though there’s still time, as it continues
through the spring) and a duo by Stephen Lack and Noah Savett
at Aimie’s Lobby Gallery in Glens Falls, may even have made
it onto this list had I caught them.
Alas, we’ll never know. Of the rest, the top 12 shows of 2003,
six each for larger and smaller venues, were:
Best
of 2003: Larger Venues
1.
Turner: The Late Seascapes
Sterling
and Francine Clark Art Institute
2.
William Morris: Myth, Object and the Animal
Berkshire
Museum
3.
Richard Callner: 50 Year Retrospective
Albany
Institute of History and Art
4.
Ugo Mochi
Opalka
Gallery, Sage College of Albany
5.
You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of
Seyfou Keïta and Malick Sidibé
Williams
College Museum of Art
6.
The Course of Empire: Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School
Landscape Tradition
New
York State Museum
Best
of 2003: Smaller Venues
1.
Harry Orlyk: The Day’s Image
The
Arts Center Gallery at the Saratoga County Arts Council and
Gallery 100
2.
Girl Printers: Talented Women Strut Their Stuff!
Mandeville
Gallery, Union College
3.
Tanja Softic: Works on Paper
The
College of Saint Rose Art Gallery
4.
Tim Clifford and Bill Mead
Lake
George Arts Project
5.
Dan Mehlman: Prints and Collages
Arts
Atrium Gallery, Union College
6.
Mohawk-Hudson Regional Invitational (featuring Louann Genet
Getty and Deborah Zlotsky)
Albany
Center Galleries
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