"Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, Part Two" reception this Sat. at Institute Library

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, Part Two
Through May 3, 2014.
Reception: Sat., Apr. 5, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release from Stephen Vincent Kobasa

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling. More than 30 people were killed and over 100 were wounded. In response to this attack upon a cultural treasure of the Iraqi people, the poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil founded the al-Mutanabbi Street Project which to date has assembled 130 broadsides by letterpress artists, 260 artist books, and a literary anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here with contributions by over 125 writers from around the world.

Also included, on special loan from the artist, is a book by Daniel Heyman, Sing With A Lovely Voice, hand-printed from woodblocks based on watercolors drawn during interviews which were part of a fact-gathering mission concerning torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

This is the second of two exhibitions curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa out of this larger collection. There will be a panel discussion on books in a time of terror on Sat., Apr. 5, at noon.

"Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here" exhibit opens Sat., Mar. 1, at Institute Library

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here
Mar. 1—May 3, 2014.
Reception: Sat., Mar. 1, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release from Stephen Vincent Kobasa

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling. More than 30 people were killed and over 100 were wounded. In response to this attack upon a cultural treasure of the Iraqi people, the poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil founded the al-Mutanabbi Street Project which to date has assembled 130 broadsides by letterpress artists, 260 artist books, and a literary anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here with contributions by over 125 writers from around the world.

Beau Beausoleil and Andrea Hassiba: "Until It Is In Flame"

Out of this larger collection, Stephen Vincent Kobasa has curated two exhibitions of material which will go on display consecutively for one month periods between March 1 and May 3.

There will be readings from the anthology during the opening reception on Saturday., Mar. 1, and a panel discussion on books in a time of terror on Sat., Apr. 5, at noon.

"Crossing the Line" opens at Institute Library this Saturday

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Crossing the Line: A Collection of Drawings
Oct. 5—26, 2013.
Reception: Sat., Oct. 5, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release from Stephen Vincent Kobasa

Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Crossing the Line features works by Anna Held Audette, McCrady Axon, Joan Backes, Dave Bassine, Riley Brewster, Pamela Cardwell, Jan Cunningham, William DeLottie, Kate Ten Eyck, Teresa Fortsch, Laura Gardner, David Livingston, Lenny Moskowitz, Perry Obee, Ronnie Rysz, Kelly Schmidt, Jean Scott, Rick Shaefer and Anita Soos.

Laura Gardner: "Lily"

Saturday reception for "Dressing Up" at Institute Library in New Haven

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Dressing Up: Recent Works by Alan Neider
Aug. 3—24, 2013.
Reception: Sat., Aug. 3, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release from Stephen Vincent Kobasa

Finding inspiration in fashion and glamour, Alan Neider's work examines what constitutes adornment while looking closely at the beauty, boldness and whimsy of jewelry. There will be an opening reception for Dressing Up at the institute Library on Sat., Aug. 3, from noon—2 p.m.

Alan Neider: Drawings (details)

Reception for "War Books" at Institute Library Saturday, March 16

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
War's Books: Collages by Qasim Sabti
Mar. 9—30, 2013.
Reception: Sat., Mar. 16, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release from Stephen Vincent Kobasa

War's Books, an exhibition of collages by Qasim Sabti, will be on view at the Institute Library from Mar. 9—30. There will be a reception on Sat., Mar. 16, from noon—2 p.m.

Sabti, an Iraqi artist, fashioned the works from the war-damaged remains of a Baghdad library.

Qasim Sabti: "Untitled"

Picture book: Nathan Lewis reads the ruins

West Cove Studio Gallery
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
Nathan Lewis: Reading the Ruins
Closed.

Collapsing. Falling apart. The great industrial engine of the American economy increasingly decaying into ruin. Or let that be "ruins," plural. And in that desolation, some artists find visual inspiration.

One example of this was in the Anna Held Audette retrospective at the John Slade Ely House this past May. Audette concentrated on industrial sites and machinery as formal objects. Commentary was implicit and the art historical reference traced its lineage back to 18th and 19th Century painters who depicted ruins of ancient Greek and Roman antiquity. For the most part, Audette's paintings were industrial landscapes without a figurative presence.

In Nathan Lewis' painting show, Reading the Ruins, which closed this past weekend at A-Space Gallery in West Haven, the human element is present. The show features five large paintings, two smaller ones and four rough studies. In Lewis' paintings, people seem almost tourists of desolation, wandering dazed through factory rubble ("Orpheus") or stooping to pick up a small hardcover book off a detritus-strewn floor ("Book Keeper"). In "Light is the Lion That Comes Down to Drink," a bespectacled middle-aged man—seen through rusted diagonals of collapsed metal beams—carries what might be a piece of wood, a souvenir, in his right hand.

The backlit figure in "In the Dark"—not easily identifiable as a woman or man—reaches into a hole in a riven, peeling wall, searching for who knows what. The floor is strewn with debris and the old brick walls, painted white, are tagged with red and black graffiti. Lewis zeroes in on a tight cluster of seven upturned faces in the smaller painting "War Bells." The group—which includes local painters Paul Panamarenko and Larry Morelli as well as Anne Somsel, wife of art critic and curator Stephen Vincent Kobasa, and their daughter Claire—looks up at something outside the frame.

Hanging over these works is a sense of impersonal forces at work with the people in these spaces contemplating what has happened to their world. In fact, the only painting in which there is a real sense of active agency is "I Burn Today." In this work, the foregrounded figure—seen from waist down in torn blue jeans and sneakers—holds a kerosene can in their left hand (which has black-painted fingernails). Impersonal economic forces may have set in motion the demise of this factory but one individual can put the final nail in the coffin.

Lewis, who came to the gallery while I was visiting, says he has always been intrigued by these kinds of industrial ruins. He created the series as a challenge to himself to figure out how to depict this type of urban landscape. The results are exceptional. There is a tactile sense of the forms, capturing the feel of brick, rust, metal, wood and clusters of pink insulation material.

And the light. In "Light is the Lion That Comes Down to Drink," Lewis apprehends the nature of the foreground light—both the direct light coming down through holes in the ceiling, splashing on debris, and the surrounding diffuse light on the floor. Lewis tells me that seeing light as he hasn't seen it before is exciting. Similarly, in "Gate Keeper" (the large version), Lewis renders the subtle light in an essentially dark space; it is a painting primarily of shadow detail.

This series captures both a historical moment in late industrial capitalism and our response to that moment. Like the figures inside the frame, we absorb a certain kind of catastrophic beauty in these paintings like deer in the headlamps. Something is bearing down on us and it isn't good. But these paintings are. Very.

Friday evening reception at Giampietro Gallery for show of Castiglione Holocaust drawings

Giampietro Gallery—Works of Art
315 Peck St., New Haven, (203) 777-7760
Jerusalem Burning: The Holocaust Drawings of Edward Castiglione
July 13—Aug. 3, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., July 13, 5—8 p.m.

Press Release by Stephen Vincent Kobasa from Giampietro Gallery

Edward Castiglione (1948-2010):

"Three Studies for Geruseleme" is a way of explaining the incomprehensible and unbearable. It is not to be interpreted or approached with moral significance. In point of fact it should be as outside of reason, as a suspension of judgment, for to attach significance would be to place value and dimension to a horror which is beyond measure.

Many years afterward a Jesuit priest recalled a night in Hungary, late in the Second World War:

It was summertime, it was one of those very quiet nights… I woke up to a sound… I didn't know what it was at first… and then I realized this is the sound of people crying…children, women, men… that kind of chorus, wailing… The next morning… it was a gardener who told me that those were the Jewish people crying because at our station the Hungarian gendarmerie handed them over to SS troops to be deported… I didn't know about the death camps at that time, and I didn't know about the ovens, the burning… But I personally, at that moment, I felt a persuasion coming upon me that these people will all be killed… today, maybe, I would be ready to then run in front of the train and lay down…[but] at that time… it was just… running away, simply running away…it was beyond my experience… I was utterly unprepared.

Born three years after the war, when the memory of the death camps was already being suppressed, Edward Castiglione struggled to imagine as an artist that place beyond experience that the priest ran from. These Geruseleme drawings were the largest single sustained series of works which he undertook in his lifetime. In them, he was a bystander after the fact, with his own conscience put to the test by the images he fashioned. The Isaac who carries the wood for these burnt offerings is not spared. A promise of fire is in every picture, the bodies turned to fuel and then ash and then, as the poet Nelly Sachs envisioned them, "refugees of smoke." Given their subject, there is no way to avoid saying that these pictures are one desperate failure after another; but it is in that procession of failures that the horror becomes finally clear.

Showing of drawings and texts opens Saturday at Institute Library

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Lined Up: Drawings and Texts
June 30—July 28, 2012.
Greeting of the Artists: Sat., June 30, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release

Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Lined Up opens this Saturday in the gallery at Institute Library on Chapel Street.


The participating artists are: Ethan Boisvert (Web), Emilia Dubicki (Web), Larissa Hall (Web), Kevin Harty, Jilaine Jones (Web), Nathan Lewis (Web), Willard Lustenader (Web), Larry Morelli (see image, Web), Tim Nikiforuk (Web), John O'Donnell (Web), Jeff Slomba (Web), Thomas Stavovy (Web), Jodiann Strimiska (Web) and Barry Svigals (Web).

There will be an opening reception on Sat., May 19, from noon—2 p.m.

Sculpture show opens Saturday at A-Space Gallery in West Haven

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
Local Builders: An Anthology of Connecticut Sculptors
May 12—June 9, 2012.
Reception for the artists: Sat., May 12, 5:30—8:30 p.m.

Press release

Beginning this Saturday, A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios presents Local Builders, a show by a comprehensive group of area sculptors. Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, the show will be on view through June 9; there will be a reception for the artists on Saturday from 5:30—8:30 p.m.


The exhibiting artists are:

Lani Asuncion, Anita Balkun, Janice Barnish, Dave Bassine, Meg Bloom, Susan Bradley, Aimée Burg, Natalie Charkow, Susan Classen-Sullivan, Susan Clinard, Paul Cofrancesco, Howard el-Yasin, Richard Falco, Tracy Walter Ferry, Silas Finch, Joe Gitterman, Kevin Harty, Shelby Head, Alexander Hunenko, Blinn Jacobs, Jilaine Jones, Robert Kirschbaum, Jacob Antone Könst, Tony Kosloski, David Livingston, Jacque Metheny, Jeff Ostergren, Dan Potter, Michael Quirk, Margaret Roleke, Joseph Saccio, Suzan Shutan, Jeff Slomba, Alison Walsh, Brian Walters, Jonathan Waters, Matthew Weber and Mark Williams.

(Image is of sculpture by Jonathan Waters.)

New Institute Library show, "Stone Work," opens Saturday

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Stone Work: Artists' Encounters with Hard Places
Feb. 11—Mar. 10, 2012.
Greeting of the Artists: Sat., Feb. 11, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill-
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.
— from Charles Simic,"Stone"


Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Stone Work: Artists' Encounters with Hard Places will feature works by Marion Belanger (Web), Frank Bruckmann (Web), Daniel Buttrey (Web), Anne Doris-Eisner (Web), Emilia Dubicki (Web), Keith Johnson (Web), Constance LaPalombara (Web), Roy Money (Web), Kerry O'Grady (Web) and Matthew Weber (Web).


Stone Work will be on view from Feb. 11 through Mar. 10. The "greeting of the artists" will be Sat., Feb. 11, from noon—2 p.m.

Image is "The Last Frontier" by Anne Doris-Eisner.

Elegy for Nature

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Out of Nature: An Exhibition of Alternatives
Through Jan. 14, 2012, 2011.

Who could blame nature for fighting back? The human species has been delivering blow after blow against the natural world for centuries.

Out of Nature, an art show in the wonderful little Institute Library space, isn't really about Mother Nature going on the offensive. Still, Michael Oatman's deadpan collage "Study for the Birds I" depicts a platoon of our feathered brethren and sistren packing some heavy heat. This collection of prints, collages, paintings and sculptures with (mostly) representational and figurative depictions of natural subjects does bring to mind our alienation from nature and the blowbacks that increasingly portends.

Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Out of Nature offers a menagerie both playful and prosaic. On the prosaic end of the spectrum we find Amy Arledge's (Web) taut, naturalistic copper plate etchings—a crow, horseshoe crabs and the grim "Honey Bees: Colony Collapse Disorder."


Over at the whimsical pole are the wall sculptures of Kim Mikenis (Web)—colorful animal characters like something out of children's literature. The goat-like "Marbles Dunleavy," crafted out of paper and colored with acrylic paint, has its big yap open as though it's haranguing its fellow barnyard inhabitants. Occupying pride of place on the floor is Laura Marsh's large Frankensteinian soft sculpture with hard internal armature. "Squawk" is an imposing hybrid turkey and peacock.


While all the works in the show evidence the technical skills of the respective artists, Joseph Smolinski's "Narwhal" (image courtesy of the artist and Mixed Greens, New York) particularly moved me. Smolinski regularly juxtaposes nature to its technological simulacra—trees and cell phone towers being his most common motif. This trope is manifest in "Narwhal," a simple composition of the unicorn-like marine mammal breaking the surface of the arctic seas. In the misty distance we can see what might be an offshore oil platform. Beneath the waters a plant akin to a palm tree hides cell transmitters amid its fronds.


If "Narwhal" were just a graphite drawing—a favored medium of Smolinski's—it would still be evocative. But his color work is so strong that the image rises to another level. One senses both the arctic chill and the ebbing of the arctic chill in the wake of climate change. Climate change's victim—the narwhal—is foregrounded, its proximate cause—the oil rig—is there in the background.

It is elegiac, suffused with loss.

Institute Library show opening and greeting of the artists this Saturday

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Out of Nature: An Exhibition of Alternatives
Dec. 17, 2011—Jan. 14, 2012, 2011.
Greeting of the Artists: Sat., Dec. 17, Noon—2 p.m.

Press release

W.B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium":

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing...

Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, Out of Nature: An Exhibition of Alternatives will feature works in various media by Amy Arledge (Web), Mia Brownell (Web), Paul Daukas (Web), Brian Huff (Web), Barbara Marks (Web), Laura Marsh (Web), Kim Mikenis (Web), Michael Oatman, Amy Jean Porter (Web, see image) and Joseph Smolinski (Web).


The exhibition will be on display through Jan. 14, 2012. A greeting of the artists will take place this Saturday, Dec. 17, from noon to 2 p.m.

Printmaking exhibition at new venue Institute Library; artists' greeting Friday of next week

The Institute Library
847 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 562-5045
Identifying Marks
Oct. 15—Nov. 5, 2011.
Greeting of the Artists: Fri., Oct. 21, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

The work of six local print makers—Oi Fortin (Web), Aniko Horvath (Web), Fethi Meghelli (Web), Roxanne Faber Savage (Web, see image below), Thomas Stavovy (Web), Jonathan Waters (Web)—introduces a new gallery space in downtown New Haven. Curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, this exhibition is an example of the library's commitment to offering a venue for small scale works by artists in the greater New Haven community.

Edgy photo show up through this Saturday

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
At The Edge of Things: Twenty-Four Photographers
Through Sept. 17, 2011.

At the Edge of Things is a rather open themed photographic show in the A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa. Through Kobasa's eyes, the show is organized around poetic interpretations of the concept of "edge"—formalistic, emotional, sociological, political. These edges are more rough than smooth.

In work like Marion Belanger's "Rift #41," the white boundaries of an astroturfed miniature golf hole carve out the domesticated edge of nature, holding at bay unruly grasses and dandelions.

Phyllis Crowley's ominous "Moonlight" is a seascape of black water in the foreground rippled with lunar reflections. Clusters of clouds cloak the moon. The edge of the world—or horizon line—is just barely visible in the nocturnal murk.


A much different kind of edge is suggested by Paul Bloom's "Francisco Franco's Prison, Barcelona, Spain." The knife's edge of oppression and human suffering haunts this grainy image of a claustrophobic brick corridor with chains hanging from the ceiling.


There's more—much more—by many of the area's most respected photographers: James Ayers, Christopher Beauchamp, Joy Bush, Paul Duda, Ashley Estep, Joan Fitzsimmons, Andrew Hogan, Aniko Horvath, Keith Johnson, Clare Kobasa, Linda Lindroth, Eric Litke, Meredith Miller, Roy Money, Hank Paper, Thomas Peterson, Mark Savoia, Jess Smith, Maria Tupper, Marjorie Wolfe and Stefan Znosko.

The show is up through this Saturday, Sept. 17.

Photography show at A-Space Gallery the end of August

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 627-8030
At The Edge of Things: Twenty-Four Photographers
Aug. 25—Sept. 17, 2011.
Greeting of the artists: Sun., Aug. 28, 2011, 6—9 p.m.

Press release

Arranged and installed by Stephen Vincent Kobasa, At the Edge of Things showcases meditations on various ways in which photographs can render boundaries both blurred and precise, real and imagined.


The featured photographers are James Ayers, Christopher Beauchamp, Marion Belanger, Paul Bloom, Joy Bush, Phyllis Crowley, Paul Duda, Ashley Estep, Joan Fitzsimmons, Andrew Hogan, Aniko Horvath, Keith Johnson, Clare Kobasa, Linda Lindroth, Eric Litke, Meredith Miller, Roy Money, Hank Paper, Thomas Peterson, Mark Savoia, Jess Smith, Maria Tupper, Marjorie Wolfe and Stefan Znosko.

There will be a "greeting of the artists" on Sun., Aug. 28, from 6—9 p.m.

Darkness visible: "War Making" at A-Space Gallery

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 966-9700
War Making: An Exhibition of This Time
June 21—July 2, 2011.

The wars go on and on but are mostly invisible. The media hides the carnage, covers for the criminality. A tiny percentage of the population bears the burden—some reluctantly, some with relish—of carrying out the orders to kill and of sacrificing their bodies and psyches to our rulers' bloodlust and greed. The televisual screens chatter in a fog of mindless clichés like "They fight for our freedom." Meanwhile, freedom evaporates like a splash of water on summer's sidewalk.

War Making, an exhibition gathered by art critic and peace activist Stephen Vincent Kobasa and now showing at A-Space Gallery in West Haven, is one effort to resist the invisibility of the wars. This is war as maiming—of the physical body, the landscape and the human spirit.

The maiming of the body is manifest in works like Fethi Meghelli's (Web) "War Series," a collage and manipulated Xerox. Among the dark claustrophobic imagery are representations of brawny men—one wearing an "Army" t-shirt—with their prosthetic legs. Chris Alexiades' (Web) "Jar and Bones" accumulates stoneware bones in a large glass jar, the rawness of mass death as collective depersonalization. The individual is reduced to component parts.

Gerald Saladyga's (Web) "Playground in Rwanda," dating back to 1994, is a raw expressionist image of a child trying to jump rope with just bloody stumps where his hands and feet were. In modern warfare, it's not only the active combatants who suffer. Far from it. In fact, in drone warfare, the combatants slaughter civilians and purported "militants" while enjoying air-conditioned, videogame comfort. Point-and-click snuff film moviemaking.

The attacks on the landscape, including the built landscape, is referenced in Bradley Wollman's photographs, Nathan Lewis' painting "Orange Was the Sky" and in Nomi Silverman's drawing "Elysian Fields." Wollman uses models and toys to create diorama-like representations of war. In "Bunker Busters," the blinding sky shines through a hole blown in a building, illuminating the inner darkness to reveal the rubble. "UAV" shows a drone—"unmanned aerial vehicle"—high over a mottled desert landscape. Silverman's "Elysian Fields" from the "Mud Flat Drawings" is an abstract drawing that evokes a rending of the earth, a furious disturbance. A procession of haggard refugees trudge through a winter's landscape in Lewis' painting, the sky the color fire and elevated threat levels.
Joseph Smolinski (Web) brings together the themes of body and landscape mutilation in his spooky "Trepanned Skull—Civilian Casualties" (ink, watercolor, charcoal and graphite on paper). An upended blown-out skull births the skeletal remains of a bomb-eviscerated bus. This drawing suggests that the thought of war consumes both the individual who puts it into effect as well as war—or terrorism's—victims.

This conflagration is a maiming of the human spirit. The distortion of what it means to be human may be the ostensible subject of Brian Kavanagh's "For they have sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind," Steven DiGiovanni's "Desert Sketch: Drone Pilots" and John Bent's "KYEO (Keep Your Eyes Open)."

Bent's painting presents the physical maiming of a soldier, in particular the mutilation of his face, as a metaphor for the spiritual mutilation of war. In DiGiovanni's oil on masonite sketch, war is almost play. Shirtless soldiers in the desert next to a trailer fitted with a satellite dish sit bored or act out gestures like they are flying, disconnected from the fact that their mission is technologically-inflicted, long distance death.

Kavanagh's ink drawing, which has the feel of a woodcut or block print, depicts generals and business-suited civilians plucking bombs, bombers and submarines out of a goody bag and dropping them willy-nilly into a churning sea. These are humans turned monsters, playing deadly power games devoid of compassion.

There is much more. Susan Nichols' (Web) two etchings hint at the disruption of the sanctity of the home by soldiers. Two artists riff on the plastic toy soldiers of childhood. Margaret Roleke's (Web) "White Men" features painted toy army men mounted on a large circular slab of wood. Mark Williams' (Web)three painted floor sculptures depict cutouts of posed military figures topped by contrasting playful forms—a bunch of bananas, a rooster, an elephant—derived from Play-Doh molds. The use of toys as a touchstone for both artists critiques the indoctrination in war that begins in childhood.

Considerations of the causes of war animate the works of Greg Haberny and Ronnie Rysz. Haberny's miniature assemblage "Gulf War Syndrome (with gold screw)" includes the word "Gulf" depicted in the oil company's logo. Ronnie Rysz's two linoleum cut prints, "Paper Economy" and "Shadow Banking," allude to the role of economic interest and greed in fomenting war.

Some of the artists represent the implements of war. Elizabeth White's sculpture is a disquieting visual pun: "Stickershock and Awe" encloses a hollow grenade in a cloak of burrs. Phil Lique's (Web) wall drawing "Out of Stock" employs cut vinyl to depict the silhouettes of three automatic rifles and the apology "Sorry…This item is temporarily out of stock." Jonathan Waters and Martha Lewis offer two very different takes on tanks. Waters' "Tank," dating back to 1980, is a small wedge carved out of ebony wood on a squat white pedestal. Martha Lewis' untitled pencil and watercolor drawing envisions the tank as intricate design of mechanical engineering. This raises a deeply uncomfortable truth: War, like art, is also a product of human imagination and creative ingenuity albeit turned to sulfurous, destructive ends.

"War Making" show at A-Space; gathering of the artists this Sunday

A-Space Gallery at West Cove Studios
30 Elm St., West Haven, (203) 966-9700
Wa Making
June 21—July 2, 2011.
Greeting of the Artists: Sun., June 5, 2—4 p.m.

We live in an era of war—wars declared and undeclared. Wars for purported high purpose leaving blood and carnage in their wake. Resources wasted, pillaged. Close schools and open the bomb doors. Our leaders and media are rank fabulists, realtors specializing in flipping stinking charnel houses.

Does this have anything to do with War Making, the new show at A-Space Gallery over at West Cove Studios in West Haven? We'll have to go and see.

Gathered together by art critic and resolute peace activist Stephen Vincent Kobasa, it features work by Chris Alexiades, John Bent, Edward Castiglione, Steven DiGiovanni, Greg Haberny, Brian Kavanagh, Martha Lewis, Nathan Lewis, Philip Lique, Fethi Meghelli, Susan Nichols, Margaret Roleke, Ronnie Rysz, Gerald Saladyga, Nomi Silverman, Joseph Smolinski, Jonathan Waters, Elizabeth White, Mark Williams, and Bradley Wollman.

Open Tues.—Sun., 1—4 p.m., or by appointment: (203) 627-8030.

Computer problems strike; & a response to Stephen Kobasa

I have gotten quite a few emails with announcements about this weekend's events. Unfortunately, my main computer chose this past Saturday to go on the fritz (screen went black: very Goth). It's in the shop.

Operating with my son's significantly slower eight year old iMac, I just can't post all the announcements as I would like. My apologies.

I did want to take just a moment to respond to Stephen Vincent Kobasa's article "Open and Shut It: A case against artists who sulk" from the Sept. 11, 2008 issue of the New Haven Advocate. I have to dissent from a couple of points made by Stephen (a friend and someone whose writings on art I much admire).

Stephen takes local artists to task—and, I suppose, myself, also—for taking a critical stance re the changes in City-Wide Open Studios. I've written on this question here and here and posted an interview in two parts with Artspace Executive Director Leslie Shaffer and Communications Director Jemma Williams here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

Stephen writes:

Since I have previously made clear in print my preference that the event should be abolished entirely, my willingness to grant the benefit of the doubt to the upcoming experiment with its form should be at least matched by those at the other end of the spectrum who want it enshrined without change. Even its most uncritical supporters would admit—or should admit—that it had evolved into a high-end flea market, flabby and unfocused.

Much of the ire apparently focuses on two juried exhibitions that will be included in the weekend's schedule. There is no point in lingering over the question as to whether those who claim that the process was somehow prejudiced would have made the same claim had they been chosen rather than rejected. In any case, one cannot have it both ways, to have Artspace grant its imprimatur, but not be able to render judgment.

The crucial point is that Artspace is not the only source of legitimacy for who makes art in this community. Why should artists depend on the gallery for a space when they could invent one? The neighborhoods that are the focus of the weekend are well-mapped.

Where are the guerilla galleries: Carts of serigraphs hauled down the sidewalk, sculpture sold from a van or out of a car's trunk, doors open to studio spaces that are not listed on the printed schedule?

I find the idea that hauling serigraphs out onto the sidewalk to be anything akin to a substitute for participation in a high profile art festival a little puzzling. Guerrilla galleries are a nice idea; they are to be encouraged. But that's like saying that writers and readers shouldn't complain when local papers like the Hartford Courant and the New Haven Advocate downsize, cutting staff and content. After all, the writers can take some chalk and write their articles on the nearest brick wall. They can put out their own mimeographed paper. "Why don't we do it in the road?" is unduly dismissive towards real concerns about what appear to be substantive changes to a cherished event (if not by Stephen).

I—and I am not alone—haven't seen the unfocused nature of CWOS as a drawback. It was one of the event's strengths.

A final, and perhaps the most important, point: the relationship between Artspace and City-Wide Open Studios and its participants has not been a one-sided one. It hasn't been Artspace all give, CWOS all take. Having followed CWOS since its inception, I say with some confidence that Artspace's sponsorship of CWOS has been a tremendous boon for Artspace. Without the inclusiveness of CWOS and the excitement it created, I don't believe Artspace would have thrived and grown as it has. Artspce would not now be occupying that choice piece of real estate on the corner of Crown and Orange if not for CWOS.

Not bad for a flabby, unfocused flea market.