Not every day does a veteran painter produce a body of work that suggests he is making a fresh start, but that’s what Robert Barnes has done in his new oils and caseins on view at the Sonia Zaks Gallery.
A year ago Barnes moved from Indiana to Maine, and the change in locale prompted several other shifts, from subject matter to palette. The fantastic element that once had the artist imagining worlds for a friend of Lord Byron has suddenly here become more subordinate to things actually seen in a watery environment.
Of course, Barnes being Barnes, the sights have been filtered through the experience of earlier paintings from Eastern and Western cultures. Then, too, there is the sumptuous decorative effect of ancient textiles and enamels plus, in the largest paintings, an engagement with the “vanitas” theme that symbolically reflects on mortality.
The setting has caused the artist not only to test himself on different kinds of subjects but also to become more himself in, say, the filling of each picture with incident that often hovers on the threshold of abstract mark-making. Barnes’ new world, it seems, has become richer, demanding even more time from us to take it all in.
What he has achieved through the matte, tempera-like appearance of casein also is in itself a subject for study, enlarging the artist’s power with oblique references to ceiling and wall painting.
Few living painters are as familiar and well-received as Barnes is in Chicago, but this time he brilliantly introduces himself all over again.
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At 311 W. Superior St., through April 19. 312-943-8440.
Vladimir Grigorovich
Vladimir Grigorovich’s paintings at the Maya Polsky Gallery all have a representational image, though their appeal comes from surfaces that are resolutely abstract. The image is that of an antique mirror, viewed from an angle that reflects nothing in the spectator’s environment but emphasizes patterns that apparently have arisen from irregularities in silvering or extreme oxidation.
Each canvas meticulously depicts part of a wall, the mirror’s frame and a glass surface. Yet every piece resists a plunge into illusionistic space, focusing viewers on flat overall patterns. Representation is here at the service of an abstraction achieved through a severely restricted palette.
The artist manipulates our associations with and expectations of mirrors, particularly old ones that have been, in effect, witnesses and agents of memory. However, such play does not lead to the easy emotion of nostalgia; Grigorovich’s abstraction distances us.
The title of the show is “Poetry of Mirrors,” though we might easily substitute the word “sobriety,” for there’s little fanciful or frivolous about it. Instead, each oil on canvas emphasizes the passage of time and fading of all things. This certainly is not cheery, though the delicacy with which the artist achieves it is ultimately life-affirming.
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At 215 W. Superior St., through April 30. 312-440-0055.
`Abstract Sculpture by American Artists, 1920-1950′
“Abstract Sculpture by American Artists, 1920-1950,” at Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, is a small show of just 10 pieces, but it proves rare and involving. This is partly because the history of abstract art in the United States is usually traced through painting. Curator Katherine Kuh wrote in 1947 that “Americans are definitely not sculpture minded,” and while far from true, the scarcity of sculpture exhibitions gave her illusion the appearance of fact.
Adams begins with John Storrs, the pioneer who is best known in Chicago for his figure of Ceres atop the Board of Trade building. His finest pieces were in the forefront of sculptural abstraction in the United States, and the show includes two architecturally inspired pieces, the earlier one important for being from Storrs’ first exhibition of totally abstract work.
Theodore Roszak follows with two machine-age rarities, little seen since he created them before and after World War II. Then comes a carved masterpiece in onyx by Isamu Noguchi, complemented by other biomorphic abstractions by Leo Amino and Jose de Rivera. Bronzes by Seymour Lipton and Herbert Ferber complete the ensemble, which also includes an exceptional cast stone piece by George L.K. Morris, an artist known as an abstract painter.
Each piece is documented in a handsome catalog, which includes a brief, cogent essay. Students of abstract art should not miss this first-rate effort.
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At 715 N. Franklin St., through April 7. 312-642-8700.
