Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991 TAG: 9103080573
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANN WEINSTEIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The wars referred to in the show's title, "Soldiers for Common and Uncommon Wars," are corporate, cultural, political, spiritual and, most common of all, military. Logan uses military symbols, allusion and even a strong vein of pattern and decoration to render multiple meanings.
"Keepers of the Trust?" a series of neckties as tall as people, indicate personalities. Emphasized by the question mark and isolated by framing shapes and colors, the tie shapes take on connotations of bomb or pen.
In the "Soldier" series, peaked shapes signify army ranks, authority, a mausoleum in "White Line" and, in "Weekender," a female leg. In "Core of the Matter," the peaked stripes, silhouetted against a golden dome with a trinity of crosses, looks like a stylized mountain.
Domed shapes serve as roofs, helmets and, with two narrow rectangular slits, as a head in "South Africa." Defused by formalism, the two white, peaked heads with blank rectangular eyes in "The Invisible Empire" fluctuate between terrorism and a joke.
The single, stylized figure in "Sacrifice" suggests a crucifix. Filled in with red, a hanger at the lower edge of the painting amplifies the suggestion. It also relates to the ties and the similar shapes in the military insignia.
The show runs through March 19. The Armory Gallery, 201 Draper Road, Blacksburg, is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.
There is violence and bitterness in the lettered stories, linear, overall drawings and agitated fields of Faith Ringgold's "Story Quilts" in the duPont Gallery at Lexington's Washington and Lee University.
There is also resilience in "Women, Power, Poverty and Love" and the ineffable joy of flying in "Tar Beach 2." The latter reads in part, "I will always remember when the stars fell down around me and lifted me up . . ."
Ringgold's quilts include lettering, painting, tie-dyeing, silk-screening and photo-etching (on canvas and silk), as well as piecing and stitchery. A trained, sophisticated artist (and an independent woman), Ringgold is able to maintain the traditions of two cultures. She combines the African tradition of story-telling with Western technique and imagery. In the context of her work, "field" is a word that refers to both art and slavery.
The show runs through March 22. The duPont Gallery, Washington and Lee University, is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
> These two artists are black, one a woman, the other a man. Is it possible to discern gender or color from their work, which is so stylistically different?
Quilting generally is a feminine technique and the brown figures in "Tar Beach" suggest that they were made by a black artist. In a more subtle way, so might the lettering, as narrative quilts are an African tradition. Or the fact that they look less like colonial than outsider art, which they intentionally are.
Logan's technique is precise; Ringgold's is looser. His work is relatively dark, her work relatively light. Her work is multi-faceted, his focused. Her work is expressive; his is structural. Hers is sumptuous; his is too, in an intellectual way.
Their ways of expressing their particular concerns - not altogether removed from each other - seem gender-induced. But pattern and decoration was originally part of the feminist movement in art, whereas outsider art is made mostly by men.
To answer the question, I gladly defer to your best judgment.
The Maier Museum at Randolph-Macon Women's College is celebrating its 80th Annual Exhibition with its first-ever, but must-see, photography show. Some of the artists, among them Sally Mann, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, William Wegman, Sandy Skoglund, Emmet Gowin and Jerry Uelsmann, are very well known. Many more of them will be.
According to Ellen Schall Agnew, director of the museum, photography exploded out if its traditional, documentary role in the 1980s to its full potential as a medium of artistic expression through technical and conceptual inventions.
The works range from intimate and classical to high-tech and large-scale: from the oriental delicacy of Lois Conner to the monumental dignity of Debbie Caffery; from Stephen Frailey's theatrical humor to Anne Rowland's edgy fractured portraits of Jackie O. and Mary Magdalene.
David LaChapelle's vivid images describing religious iconography subvert traditional religious impressions.
John Pfahl introduces ordinary but alien materials into commonplace landscapes in order to contradict our normal perception of perspective. John Divola's abstract image, of a papier-mache rock falling into painted water, is a facsimile of nature. Richard Ross' bustling studies of taxidermied animals are stiff and unnatural, while Susan Unterberg's contained triptych brilliantly captures the distance and tension between fathers and sons.
In the spirit of art photographers everywhere, Frank Herrera's picture pays tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe's portrait, projected on the outside of the Corcoran Museum.
The show runs through March 31. The Maier Museum, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, is open Tuesday through Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
by CNB