Stuart Hodges Riordan, Tallahassee Artist

Looking into the water, Stuart Hodges Riordan (c.1950-April 25, 2022) 

What do you see when you look at this image of a Stuart Riordan painting?  I see a highly stylized dramatic image of a muscular woman in a billowing white gown, enveloping her, richly textured, in a classic Narcissistic pose. But who is she seeing in the mirror? The bright blue water holds the image of a child with floating letters that the strong figure seems to be deciphering. The strange bird at her back holds the key. The key to what? Not sure. Perhaps her younger self, some hidden sense of self? 

Is this Stuart Riordan's re-creation of
 Lizzy Borden, the 19th-century axe murderer,
eventually acquitted of murdering her parents? Is
this powerful woman seeking revenge, about to kill
someone, perhaps her own demons? 

I usually discover artists on internet art sites or through postings of friends on social media.  Then, my curiosity aroused, I google their names, do some research, study the images. I'm especially drawn to the art of women and African Americans whose works are hidden in the shadows of the Western canon.

This Tallahassee artist comes through my sister Andy, who is a friend of the artist's sister Sally. Sally's become my dear friend too. But I never met Stuart, whom I am getting to know through some of her published paintings. She died recently and Andy sent me her obituary. I was moved to dig a little deeper. 

I must say her paintings fascinate me, and confuse me. I'm not sure what I'm looking at. I see strong women, tough, in various poses, but I'm not sure what to make of them. There are elements of Renaissance splendor, in the intricate folds and textures of her dresses, "exquisitely sumptuous...a sense of grandiose and epic scope," as one art critic put it (note 6). There's also some Spanish exuberance and lots of surrealist images. These paintings are personal, internal, deeply symbolic, perhaps depicting aspects of the artist herself. I haven't seen many of her other works, her smaller paintings, but these popular, larger works are stunning and evocative. 

Stuart Hodges Riordan was born in Lynchburg Virginia, grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, married and had two children.  She seems to have had a strong sense of her family tree.  After several dramatic life changes, travelling the world, living in exotic places like Morocco, learning the cello in Moldova, collecting dirt from various places to use in her paintings, she landed in Tallahassee, Florida (notes 1 & 3). I'm not sure if it was a smooth landing or not, in the larger sense of the term. But as noted, this is where her sister Sally lives, and that's how I learned about Stuart Riordan, the artist.  Stuart filled her life with her art and music, perhaps marched to a different drummer. Perhaps her oeuvre is her biography, although I have seen only a small part of it. I'd like to see more, her smaller works, her other visions, works in various mediums. I love this one, published by John Dos Passos Coggen (note 1). 

Stuart Riordan's lovely painting of Palma-de-Majorca.

An art critic, writing about an exhibit she had at the LeMoyne Art Center

Is she scuba diving here,
getting her dog?

 in Tallahassee in 2018, remarked that Riordan's paintings reminded him of Caraveggio and deVinci "with the drama of deep darks and blinding lights called Chiaroscuro...and also Rene Magritte and his surreal references with the impossible poses of her figures as they fly through space or descend as angels onto airport landings."  (note 3)

Stuart Riordan's art takes us on flights of fancy into the souls of mysterious women and places, some mythological, some super realistic, all full of rich textures and fascinating symbolism. Her women are physically strong, adventurous, some angry, some curious, all larger than-life, at least in the images I've seen.  It's an intriguing journey.

A good example of Riordan's fusion of the Chiaroscuro style and Magritte's surrealism,and Salvador Dali's too. This strong woman by
 the sea is surrounded by musical notes. Is the music making her sad?  

Sources:

1.  http://www.johndospassoscoggin.com/artists-and-innovators/artists-innovators-stuart-riordan-painter/

2.  https://m.facebook.com/SFAUniversitySeries/photos/a.240349806175184/240355949507903/?type=3

3.  https://www.tallahassee.com/story/00000/2018/05/05/lemoyne-presents-artist-stuart-riordans-first-tallahassee-exhibit-six-years/570904002/

4.  https://www.tallahassee.com/obituaries/tad065380

5.  https://www.tallahassee.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2022/04/29/tallahassee-artist-stuart-riordan-through-years/9576445002/

6. https://www.sfasu.edu/about-sfa/newsroom/2015/cole-art-center-exhibition-feature-work-florida-artist-riordan.  About an exhibition of Riordan's work entitled "Stuart Riordan: Sardines & Oranges," which was held at the Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches, TX, featuring Riordan's renowned paintings of the human form, according to John Handley, director of galleries at SFA. "Riordan has said of her work, "The human body has more gestures, mystery and intrigue, and everybody can relate to it. I think Socrates said an artist does his stuff but is not 'there' when doing it, and only after it is done can the artist formulate ideas of the work and viewers formulate their ideas." Quoting abstract expressionist artist Willem de Kooning, she said, "'It's all in the flesh' is what de Kooning said, and he was right."

Tallahassee Democrat writer and columnist Mark Hinson wrote: "At first glance, Riordan's accomplished human figure paintings seem formal and even neo-traditional - far away from, for example, de Kooning's 'Women' series. But on closer inspection the viewer notices her attention to the gestural aspects of the painting - the swirls of color, the layering of paint, the strokes that have been created by using the other end of the brush, of the fractured sentences and phrases that run across the work as if yanked out of some larger sequence." Hinson notes that Riordan mixes her own paints, which are made from dirt, clay, pumice and dry pigments imported from distant locations such as Tasmania and Australia.

7. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-19th-century-axe-murderer-lizzie-borden-was-found-not-guilty-180972707/

Nanette Carter, Artist, Expressing the Complex Balancing Acts of Contemporary Life

 

Nanette Carter, Contemporary, "Cantilevered."

"Working with intangible ideas around contemporary issues has been my motivating force. Reading the news about different developments taking place around the world has turned me into a chronicler of our time. How to present these ideas in an abstract vocabulary of form, line, color and texture is the quest. These are the challenges and creative instinct that intrigue me most."

Nanette Carolyn Carter, born January 30, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, is an African-American artist and college educator living and working in New York City.  She is best known for her collages and assemblages with paper, canvas, and Mylar. 

The minute I saw the art, posted by my artist friend Peter Stebbins in Washington, DC and a friend of my late friend Lily Pilgrim, I was intrigued with the shapes, colors, composition. Some images looked like art teetering on the edge. I felt the relevance.

Al Loving, Abstract Expressionist, born
in Detroit, mentored Nanette Carver.

Carter's work embraces the brilliant African-American abstract art tradition created by the likes of Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, and Alvin Loving, Jr, her friend and mentor (note 4). These are some of my favorite artists of all time. The influence of Al Loving (1935-2005) is especially clear and direct, as seen in the Loving silkscreen to the right.  

Carter got her undergraduate degree at Oberlin, where she first began exhibiting in the mid-1970s, and art degrees at the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She spent time studying in Italy and won a Fulbright scholarship to Japan, where she studied under well-know Japanese woodcut printers. I can see that influence in her art. She taught at Pratt for 20 years, a popular and beloved teacher whose influence is far-reaching. She is now retired from teaching, devoted to her art full-time.

Her exhibition titled "Cantilevered" expresses her point of view and her perspective. It stems from the architectural term "Form Follows Function," which she translated into her own unique art forms. The shapes she uses inform the viewer of her intention and are choreographed in a way that tells her story, she says. "Since I have been working with conceptual abstractions for decades I have seen the correlation between this architectural idea and semiotics in the work. "Semiotics is the study of signs, symbols, shapes to communicate something. Once I've decided on a theme, I begin to think about how my shapes, colours, line and textures can best portray these concerns. How can I compose this imagery into a universal language." 

Carter uses the term cantilevered "as a metaphor for living in the 21st century."  I associate the term with Frank Lloyd Wright. A cantilever, Carter explains, "is when a strong horizontal structure is supported only at one end. It's a balancing feat." It's like life itself in this century of social media, divisive politics, senseless violence, a pandemic, climate change. "I feel we are all trying to maintain our balance and sanity."

So it appears in many of Carter's works that "the shapes are teetering, there's a sense of tension." In other works "it seems that somehow the structure is withstanding the weight." (Note 3)  I can see how the term "cantilever" fits the precarious political insanity of our time, the unnerving ebb and flows, the egregious injustice, the ever-changing realities of a democracy on the precipice, a world turned upside down.

Shifting Perspectives #1, 2022, recent works now at the Berry Campbell Gallery,
which is the exclusive representative of Nanette Carter's work..

A new exhibition of her recent work is now at the Berry Campbell Gallery in New York City, entitled "Shape Shifting."  It carries forward many of the same themes of "Cantilevered."  Life is a balancing act. It is signature Nanette Carter.

Can I get to New York to see it during this busy period in my life, selling my house, looking for another place to live? When I get back from Florida, I'm going to think about it. Nanette Carter's art is elegant, intellectual, profoundly creative in concept and execution. I can see how it enriches our mind and our senses at the same time.  I think we can all feel our own shifting shapes in her art. 

Sources 

1.  https://nanettecarter.com/

2.  https://www.theartblog.org/2022/04/nanette-carters-journey-as-artist-educator-and-anonymous-was-a-woman-award-winner/

3. https://www.hunterdonartmuseum.org/exhibitions/forms-follow-function-the-art-of-nanette-carter/ Current exhibit. Carter describes her work. 

4. https://www.berrycampbell.com/exhibition/143,  Nanette Carter's series, "Shape Shifting," on view  at Berry Campbell Gallery, NYC. My friend Peter Stebbins keeps me up-to-date.

5..https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/nanette-carter-shape-shifting/

Faith Ringgold, Artist, Triumphant

Faith Ringgold, Groovin', at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, 2018 Exhibit

 "When I see my work from all the different series and media assembled together, I feel a great deal of satisfaction that I was able to produce so much and that I had the freedom to find my own voice, against all odds. It’s deeply gratifying — I hope my story can be an inspiration for all artists." Faith Ringgold

"At 91, Faith Ringgold is having a big moment. Six decades of her art are on view in a retrospective exhibition at the New Museum in New York titled American People, paintings, sculptures, works on fabric, and the story quilts, a mix of writing, painting, and quilting, for which she is best known." Jeffrey Brown (note 1 below)

Faith Ringgold, The Sunflower Quilting Bee, one of her famous story quilts.

Faith Ringgold's roots go back to Harlem, where she was born in 1930 and became a talented artist of the late Harlem Renaissance, a painter, quilter, mixed media sculpture, performance artist, writer, teacher. She went to City College of New York (CCNY), travelled in Europe and Africa, made waves in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and Anti-Vietnam War protests. It was during this time she created her first political paintings. She moved toward sculpture, fabric art, and mixed media, establishing her voice and her legacy in the 1970s and 1980s until today. She wrote several books, including wonderful art books for children, and an autobiography, "We Flew Over the Bridge" (Duke U Press, 2005/1995)

"Recording history through her art," that's how Faith Ringgold views her oeuvre over time. And she did it her way, a pioneer in using a variety of mediums to tell what she saw, a pioneer in how she told the stories of her experiences, how she felt, a unique perspective. .

I love this! 

Nigeria, Africa!

This retrospective exhibit is at the New Museum in NYC until June 2022. I hope I can get there to see it. The Artistic Director, Massimilano Gioni, says of the artist: "She's opening doors and windows and making the house of art much more complex and hospitable. The great thing about seeing this work together, seeing 60 years of this work, is you understand how many times Faith Ringgold was right before her time."

Sources:.
1.  https://artscanvas.org/arts-culture/artist-faith-ringgolds-lifes-work-celebrated-in-new-york-exhibit?Great interview with Faith Ringgold on Judy Woodruff's PBS News Hour, by Jeffrey Brown, Anne Azzi Davenport and Allison Thoet.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Ringgold

3. https://www.selvedge.org/blogs/selvedge/faith-ringgold, by Dr. Catherine Harper. 

Odessa: In Putin's Sights with his new General Dvornikov, the Butcher of Syria

Odessa is preparing for RU attacks. Intel says it's coming as Putin's eastern front ramps up. 

I think Odessa holds a special place in Putin's twisted mind.  And it is now in imminent danger of his brutality. A massive naval squadron sits in the Black Sea blockading the beautiful port city, awaiting Putin's word to unload their lethal weapons.  

The apocalyptic scenes uncovered in Bucha, in Chernigov, Kherson, Mariupol, war crimes that have horrified the world, will play out in Odessa in time, unless the Western allies help Ukraine repel them.  

Putin's paved the way to Odessa with his earlier assaults on southern Ukrainian cities. Today, the world awaits his campaign to annihilate the Donbas.  His new general, Alexander Dvornikov, known as the Butcher of Syria for his unspeakable war crimes there, for his "utter disregard for the laws of war," is more than ready to carry out Putin's orders. An 8-mile holocaust convoy loaded with weapons is headed to Sloviansk, the platform for Putin's eastern and southern campaign. Train stations filled with terrified refugees will be easy targets everywhere, as will all evacuation routes, apartment buildings and other civilian targets. Zelenskyi warns this offensive will be worse than World War II. This has to be a red line for NATO and the western alliance. 

Odessa is the Ukrainian city created by Catherine the Great in the 1790s, with a lustful eye for dominion over all of Ukraine, then the bread basket of Europe.  She also ordered the creation of Dnipro, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Sevastopol on Crimea. 

Putin has invaded all of them, destroyed most of them, all front lines to the Black Sea and to the critical seaport of Odessa.  

April 4, 2022, multiple artillery attacks on Kherson & Mykolaiv, the southern towns around the Black Sea, along the front to Odessa, as you can see on this map. Mariupol has been totally 
destroyed. Its Mayor says it looks like Auschwitz. Pres. Zelenskyi says tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.  
.

Catherine presented herself as an "Enlightened" autocrat who was guided by the rule of law but at the same time she annexed much of Ukraine through wars with the Ottoman Empire and the partition of Poland, and she brutally suppressed the largest peasant rebellion in Russian history (wikipedia).  This chapter of Russia's history of empire is part of the complex and tortured history of Ukraine, long a political football in that part of the world. That tortured history is true as well for the other former Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs) and most of eastern Europe.  Historian Timothy Snyder calls them "The Bloodlands."   

Odessa in spite of its origins grew to become one of the most vibrant multicultural cities in the 19th century, a free port that attracted wealthy merchants and traders and people from around the region and the world.  Odessa was multinational, multi-linqual and multiethnic. It was a vibrant center of Jewish life.  I am amazed at how many friends tell me their grandparents, their ancestors, came from Odessa. 

The iconic Robert Sears' Guide to the Russian Empire, first published in 1855, described Odessa this way: “There is perhaps no town in the world in which so many different tongues may be heard as in the streets and coffeehouses of Odessa, the motley population consisting of Russians, Tartars, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Italians, Germans, French, etc.”​  Sadly, World Wars I and II changed that, and the Jewish population was decimated. 

Today, thankfully, Odessa feels a lot more like it must have been in the 19th century than what it became during the 20th century. It's a mix of nationalities with a  tolerant upbeat spirit. It is noted for its multicultural cuisine, joie de vivre, sense of humor, resourcefulness. 

Peace Corps volunteers loved meeting in Odessa, loved the cafes, the Turkish street vendors, the Potemkin steps and port, the beautiful architecture, the people most of all. It's like a European city, easy to enjoy, easy to  embrace. A friend I made at Camp Sosnovy, a summer camp for kids of all ages from all over Lugansk oblast, the head counselor Iryna, said I should move there. I could stay at her apartment. I was tempted. I must say I think about those wonderful kids, wonder what's happened to them. 

Putin shares Catherine's lust for Ukraine, but he means to take it by obliterating it. 

Why? Because Ukraine no longer identifies with Russia, the Russian empire, or the Soviet Union. Ukraine has become fiercely independent, fiercely Ukrainian in its soul and spirit.   

Odessa Opera House. I can't remember the
Opera we saw, but oh I remember the
stunning beauty.

Moreover, Odessa, like Mariupol, like Kherson, Severodonetsk, Trostyanets, resisted Russian advances after Putin invaded and occupied Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014/2015. Putin, in his diabolical revenge, has destroyed these cities, and he wants to do the same to Odessa. If he can't have it, nobody can. His offensive is underway from the East.  

The Generals say Putin's escalation in the greater Donbas region will be "reminiscent of World War II." Russia bombed a train station in Karmatorsk, not far from Lugansk city, not far from where I served with the Peace Corps.  Yesterday another train station was hit. Civilian corridors, Escape routes. All targets. Putin's new commander will gladly kill as many civilians as possible. He's a red flag of disaster, of war crimes. What more does the US and the West need to see before it gives Ukraine everything it needs to stop Putin right here and now?

Odessa, stunning Odessa, will stay in Putin's sights, his grand prize if he is not stopped in the Donbas.  Odessa is preparing, but will it be enough? 

Odessa collage.

 

Preparing for the worst. Sandbags around the Opera House.
 Getty image/Scott Peterson

The Odessa Food Market on Richelievska, once a hipster paradise ablaze with neon signs advertising oysters and sparkling wine, welcoming one and all, is now a logistical hub for the war effort. Volunteers in orange and yellow jackets sort and organize donations onto shelves, ready to be taken to the front lines. The city stands, but it is watchful. "Time is of the essence," they say. Russians have already launched attacks on nearby oil tanks and suburbs from the air. That massive fleet in the Black Sea, ominous, threatening, is aimed directly at the city.  Odessans know what's coming. 

The US, NATO, the Western alliance know what's coming, too.  Unless Putin is stopped in the Donbas region on his way South around the Black Sea, the world will witness another apocalyptic disaster.   That it will be Odessa to fall is too much to bear. 

Sources:

1.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-catherine-great-invaded-crimea-and-put-rest-world-edge-180949969/ "Nearly 250 years ago, Catherine II played a similar hand when she attempted to impress the West while ruthlessly enforcing her authority over Russia & the surrounding region." 

2. https://contestedhistories.org/resources/case-studies/catherine-the-great-monument-in-odessa/

3.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great.  "Catherine, who admired Peter the Great, aimed to modernize Russia along Western European lines, but military consription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, one of the chief reasons for the Pugachev Rebellion of Cossacks".        

4. https://theconversation.com/how-catherine-the-great-may-have-inspired-putins-ukraine-invasion-178007

5. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/odessa-ukrainian-port-inspired-big-dreams  "Catherine's Black Sea port quickly emerged as a randy mix of nationalities and cultures.".

6.  https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/03/07/odessa-finds-its-ukrainian-identity-ahead-of-a-russian-advance  

7.  https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3448166-russian-military-abducts-tortures-people-in-kherson-region.html war crimes in Kherson, torture and detainments.

8.  https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3448765-ten-killed-by-cluster-munitions-in-mykolaiv.htmlMykoliav attacked April 4, 2022, civilians, schools, a hospital. More horrendous war crimes.

9.  https://scalar.usc.edu/works/odessa/a-brief-history-of-odessa by Isabella Buzsynski 

Boris Lurie, Holocaust Survivor, Artist, and the "No!Art" Movement

NOTE: I started this blog a few months ago, but it resonates now more than ever, when the world is screaming NO! to Putin's unprovoked war of total destruction in Ukraine, NO! to the real possibility of a World War III in the 21st century. 

Boris Lurie, Holocaust survivor, artist, poet, writer, co-founder of the NO!Art movement

                in New York City, post-WWII, using art to educate & protest man's inhumanity to man.  

Lurie, "Immigrant Suitcase."

He was only 16 years old in December 1941 when the Nazis captured him, branded and demeaned him, and sent him to Buchenwald. It was the end of the age of innocence.

Boris Lurie was born in Leningrad, Russia (now St. Petersburg) and raised in Riga, Latvia, where his father had moved the family when Boris was a young boy in order to be freer to explore new opportunities.

.. 

Boris' youth was taken from him and tragically, beyond words, so were the lives of his mother, sister, grandmother, and his teenaged girlfriend. At the end of December 1941, Boris' family was herded into a ravine in the Rumbula forest on the outskirts of Riga and shot to death. It was the place where Boris grew up, went to school, found his first love. It was the time when life as he knew it ended. 

The Rumbula massacre is considered one of the most horrific crimes of the Nazi era, its echoes heard to this day. It repeated exactly the massacre at Babi Yar in Kyiv, Ukraine, three months earlier, when Nazis herded the Jewish residents of Kyiv into a ravine and shot them dead. The SS soldiers stood around the top rim of the ravine, shooting bullets down into the innocent victims trapped below. I thought I heard the cries of the victims as I stood on that rim with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers during a walking tour of Kyiv. 

"The most difficult ingredient in all art is the
hardest to learn. It is courage." Boris Lurie

"Dance Hall Yellow,1955, Lurie's trauma
 comes out of the shadows into the light. 

At Rumbula, 38,000 Jewish residents of Riga were shot dead in cold blood: Nazi soldiers standing at the top of the ravine, like they did at Babi Yar, shooting bullets into the bodies of the people trapped below, falling in horror on top of each other, women, children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, friends, doctors, lawyers, teachers, shop-keepers. And this over a two-day period, carrying out Hitler's "final solution," the genocide of the Jews.

I came across Boris Lurie when I was writing about the Fritz Ascher Society and Ascher's art. His story, the stories of the Holocaust, continue to shock.  

And to think that such ugly authoritarianism, fascism, Nazism, haunt us to this very day, warning us of the past, warning us to be diligent, to remember. How can we stand silent in the face of rampant, vicious anti-semitism that gave us Hitler and the Holocaust, that is on the rise right here at home? 

And now, today, I can't help but ask this: How can one man in a position of power, Vladimir Putin, decide to viciously attack a peaceful country that was no threat to Russia. None whatsoever.  An unprovoked war to annihilate Ukraine's cities, towns and villages, and murder its people. To attack not military targets, but civilian targets, deliberately, intentionally, bombing homes, neighborhoods, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools?

How can we be witnessing another European genocidal war in the 21st century? I wake up in the middle of the night and cry out "No.

N-o-o-o-o-o-o. It can't be happening. It has to stop."  

This was the anguished cry of Boris Lurie after he came to  America in 1946, the pain of his experiences still raw. He came to live free and to paint, to start a new life in New York City. But he could not forget. He found himself fighting against the post-War indifference of friends, of contemporary artists like Rauschenberg, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Johns. America wanted to forget the war and move on. This mood, a national mood, was reflected in the two most popular art movements of the era, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. 

In the camps.

But Boris had a hard time moving on, He was driven to say "NO" to the Holocaust of his youth, to the horror, the losses, the struggle to survive in the death camps. He was driven to tell about it.

In 1959, he, Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher, also artists and writers, founded the NO!Art movement. Its goal was to bring back into art the subjects of real life. It thus stood in opposition to abstract and pop art. I had never heard of NO!Art, but it seems altogether too timely to ignore.

In his art and also in his poetry and writings, including a memoir, Boris Lurie pushed the reality of man's inhumanity to man to the limit. It didn't make the New York art world comfortable. It doesn't make me comfortable. 

Railroad Collage, 1966.  A pin-up in front of a railroad car filled with dead Jewish victims, perhaps his own family among them. This is considered Lurie's most famous work. Besides showing us the horrors of the Holocaust, reviewers note that it brings together for the first time American consumerism and the brutality of the Holocaust and in a way that caused a furor in the art world. 

Lurie died in 2008 in New York City, after some sixty years of painting, writing, pushing against indifference to the Holocaust and human suffering, exhibiting his work, educating his audiences about the pain and loss of war. He is buried in Hof Hacarmel cemetery in Haifa, Israel. He found peace at last.  

Before his death and with the support of friends, he established the Boris Lurie Art Foundation. Its mission was "preserving and promoting the social vision of the NO!Art group in art and culture."  It's still going today, in Clifton, NJ, and exhibitions of Lurie's work are ongoing at various museums and galleries around the world.  

As we witness Putin's War in Ukraine, on TV, in our living rooms, on social media, we can remember Boris Lurie's obsession, his trauma and his fury. Sad to say, when we thought the Holocaust and World War II were tragedies of the past, we find them painfully alive in the present. We need a "NO!Art" movement today. 

SOURCES/NOTES:

1. https://borislurieart.org/about-boris-lurie

2. https://hyperallergic.com/707579/boris-luries-search-for-historical-truth-in-trauma/ 

3.  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/revolution-in-the-avanteg_b_868378, fascinating article by Lisa Streitfeld on women in Boris Lurie's art and in his notes. 

4. https://borislurieart.org/ Boris Lurie foundation still going strong in Clifton, NJ, educating about  and showing his paintings, drawings, collages and sculptures. "A Holocaust survivor who emigrated to New York in 1946, Boris Lurie was active in the post-war New York avant-garde scene. Always outspoken and often confrontational, he was never easy with his adopted home, America, or with his place in the art world. The loss of his mother, grandmother, sister, and first love in the massacres perpetrated by the Nazis at  Rumbula near Riga, Latvia in 1941 inflicted a lasting sense of suffering and loss on Lurie, which he attempted to process through his work."

5.  https://borislurieart.org/2021/boris-lurie-nothing-do-try an exhibit at the Jewish Heritage Museum in NYC. 

6. https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2005/01/boris_luries_noart_and_the_hol.html, article by Jan Herman

7.  https://ssuu.com/matt-bluelightstrategies/docs/lurie_catalogue_01.16.20

8.  https://arterritory.com/en/visual_arts/interviews/23488-a_conversation_about_boris_lurie/

9.  https://www.politicsartus.org/events/boris-lurie-exhibit/ 

10. https://kunstaspekte.art/event/boris-lurie-and-wolf-vostell-art-after-auschwitz, a January 2022 exhibit in Germany, "Art After Auschwitz."

A Respite from the Genocide of Ukraine: A visit to the Toledo Museum of Art

 

Guess where I was yesterday? My friend Janice, also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (she served in Africa), yanked me away from my 24/7 obsession with the destruction of Ukraine. 

 I wanted to see the cleaned up Cloisters, walk the galleries, see the ":Living Legacies" exhibit, "Art of the African-American South," and have a gourmet lunch at the Cafe. We did it all. 

The African American Art exhibit was wonderful.  From quilts to paintings to garden art and assemblage art using found objects from daily life, it was fascinating to see and embrace. When I think of Alabama I think of Selma and Birmingham. When I think of Georgia and the former slave states, I think of  lynchings, the KKK, virulent White Supremacy. When I think of the American South I think of  the violence on which our  nation is founded. 

When I saw the exhibit, I saw beauty, skill, powerful images through the lens of African-American artists. I saw unique points of view, pain and triumph, heard African-American voices. 

Ronald Lockett, Verge of Extinction,
a quilt-like sheet metal sculpture,
a combination of found tin, nails, wood.

The exhibit, I was happy to learn, presents the Museum's recent acquisition of major works by African-American artists from the southern United States. Twenty-four of them. It was partially funded by NEH, my former employer.

Leroy Almond, 1938-1997, The New Heaven," carved wood, light bulbs, glitter, ornamental pearls, paint.

The quilts were fantastic, and a video of the Freedom Quilting Bee added to their meaning, understanding their design, their purpose, the fabrics used. That Quilting Bee is still going strong. It's a reminder that "many of the artists featured in the exhibit were active during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Estelle Witherspoon (1916-1998), one of the founders of the Freedom Quilting Bees, was a driving force supporting the Civil Rights Act and participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965." (City Paper)

This was true of the Deal family of artists. This welded steel sculpture is by Richard Deal, which he calls "The Comfort of the First Born.. It's mixed media, welded steel, plastic tubing, paint. I love this especially. Richard is the brother of Thornton Deal, Jr, and their father is the painter Thornton Deal, all wonderful artists. Resistance and art is a family tradition and powerful legacy. And how exciting that these pieces are now part of TMA's permanent collection! 

We were also glad to spend time in the newly refreshened Cloisters gallery. The columns are cleaned and vivid in their detail, the art fresh and stunning to behold. The walls are painted blue, really similar to the new blue on my front door, and the lighting is exquisite. It feels like being in a holy place, closer to God. Janice and I said a prayer for Ukraine. 

I almost feel guilty feeling joy as we walk through the galleries, but I know my Ukrainian friends in my beloved adopted country now under vicious assault would say "it's okay, Fran. Все в порядке, Фрэн. Это хорошо." They taught me that we need to find happiness and peace wherever we are, whenever we can. 

Chihuly, near Grove Street entrance
 to TMA

But now. Now it's different. I want to envelop them in beauty, in imagination,in Chihuly's light (left). But they are literally fighting for survival. Their homes are being bombed, their schools, hospitals, their evacuation routes. If nothing else, this "Legacies" exhibit reminds us that survival against the odds is possible, painful, terrifying, but possible. African Americans in the USA have survived against the odds, survived and flourished. God, let Ukraine and its people survive. Let there be peace in Ukraine.

NOTES:

https://www.toledomuseum.org/art/exhibitions/living-legacies-art-african-american-south

https://toledocitypaper.com/art-to-heart/tma-explores-living-legacies/

https://www.toledomuseum.org/about/news/toledo-museum-art-reinstalls-its-unparalleled-cloister-gallery

   "After a year-long conservation and renovation project, the Toledo Museum of Art’s (TMA) Cloister Gallery will present a wider range of the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages when it reopens on Dec. 18, 2021. In addition to a complete reinstallation of works on view, the project entailed the comprehensive cleaning of the gallery’s three medieval arcades and Venetian wellhead, removing centuries of accumulated dirt; the conservation of three stained-glass windows and other works of art that have not been on view in the gallery for decades; and new casework, lighting and security. The Toledo Museum of Art’s Cloister Gallery is home to one of the finest collections of medieval art in North America."