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6
Landscape exhibit draws on variety of works
Jacqueline Humphrey
reprinted with permisssion of the
News & Record
The current landscape exhibit at
Guilford College begins with Jan
Van de Velde's traditional etching
of a dreamy 17th century village
and ends with Van Hettinga's
minimalist mountainscape in cal
ligraphic line.
A variety of media are repre
sented in the exhibit, including two
19th century woodcuts by premier
Japanese printmaker Ando
Hiroshige, a large number of oils,
as well as watercolors, drawings
and a sculpture. More than half the
pieces are from the collection of
Allen and Rachel Weller, the Illi
nois couple who made a major art
gift to the college in 1989.
Guilford curator Terry
Hammond occasionally disrupts
the chronological order of the ex
hibit to make suitable companions
between pieces not ordinarily per
ceived as connected. She also
avoids strict interpretation of the
term landscape to exhibit impor
tant pieces from the collection that
need to be seen.
Thus she includes a seascape by
Charles Parsons Knight, a delicate
composite photograph of
Chicago's "Michigan Avenue" by
Scott Mutter, and John Marin's
"Old Houses in Paris," a water
color dating to 1908.
Robert Broderson's murky,
mysterious "Isle of the Damned"
was not conceived as a landscape
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at all, but the barely
discernable form of
mountainside emerges
behind the bizarre, sub
human figures that people
his canvas.
Hammond'splacement
of Roger Brown's satiri
cal, stylized "Safariland"
next to Garfield Siebert's
"The Road Between"
forces the viewer to see
the naive stylistic tenden
cies that link these other
wise radically different
paintings.
Brown's painting fea
tures a flat pattern of hills,
trees, and lions in unnatu
ral shades of green and
yellow. It takes a jab at the
hunting and tourist indus
tries in Africa. While this
large, startling painting
seems to have a particu
larly hard time blending
with other Guilford paint
ings, it is a major addition
to the collection.
Hammond's objective in mount
ing the landscape exhibit was to
showcase new acquisitions, to keep
some of the most important works
in the collection on view (for in
stance, Grant Wood's atypical but
atmospheric "Butte Chaumont,
Paris"), and to rotate lesser-known
works out of storage and into the
gallery.
She includes three Marins, all
gifts of Isabella Bittinger of Win
ston Salem, NC and Charles
Perspectives
mgm
Bittinger, Jr. of Alexandria, VA,
that normally hang in the
president's office, away from the
public eye. All are superb examples
of this early 20th-century artist's
work.
Roberto Matta's delicate "Mexi
can Rowers" in yellow pencil and
graphite is a small, surreal
mountainside peopled by squig
gly, biomorphic figures of inde-
Review of "The Critic"
Meredith Drum
Staff Writer
I must say that I wholeheartedly
agree with Abe D. Jones, art editor
of the News and Record, whose
review in Saturday's paper No
vember 14 read, "'Critic' is rol
licking fun." I even concur with
Jones's silly phrase that the
comedy's proportions, if any
broader, might overflow the cam
pus and block traffic on New Gar
den Road.
For if anything the comedy is
overdone; but it is done with such
great spirit and talent that the whole
is completely enjoyable, if not al
ways intelligible.
The Critic was written by Rich
ard Brinsley Sheridan in 1779 as a
farce of the patriotism which satu
rated English culture, including the
Spanish Armada's invasion of the
Channel.
So why did Mark Rucker, guest
director, choose to set such a his
torically contingent late-eighteenth
century English play in late-twen
tieth century Los Angeles? What
everhis particular reasons, this style
of anachronistic setting is com
mon in contemporary theater (I
recall reading about a similar ef-
terminate identity, appendages in
tertwined in complicated and hu
morous fashion. This Chilean-born
artist had major influence on the
surrealist and abstract expression
ist movements in America in the
1940'5.
A recent acquisition, Peppino
Mangravite's lithograph
"Tomorrow's Bread" was the gift
of Richard Z. Smith. In it, a sin-
fort in opera: a daring someone
made a video version of Cosi Fan
Tutti set in a 1990's fish joint on a
wharf in NJ.).
At one point, I overheard Zerbe
say he had worked with Rucker on
directing Shakespearean tragedy
placed in modern set at
Shakespeare Santa Cruz.. After
such a staging Zerbe almost al
ways encountered the criticism,
"but why did you change the text?"
When in fact, as with the Critic,
few, if any, lines were altered.
The implication being that the
play's language transcends barri
ers of time and place (fooling the
audience into believing the lan
guage modernized). This is a de
finitive test for a great play; indeed
timelessness and universality is
unquestionably granted to
Shakespeare, but I would not say
the same for Sheridan's play.
Yet the historical contingency
of the play does not detract from
what I think the purpose of the
director must have been. I know I
can not unpack his whole intent,
for Icameoutof the theater amused
more than baffled. But his decision
to use a play about a play about a
political situation was certainly
made interesting by self-con
sciously framing the work in a
JjEobember 20,1992
ewy, angular-featured girl hastily
gathers sheaves of grain in ad
vance of an approaching storm.
The strong diagonal movements of
the girl and the waving grain, and
the skilled use of darks and lights,
give a heightened sense of drama
to this beautiful print.
The lone example of sculpture
in the exhibit is by Guilford faculty
member George Lorio, who has a
show at the Phillips Collection in
Washington. "Where Growing
Comes From" (1980) is a three
dimensional jungle—a wild con
coction of flocked velvet and taf
feta leaves, tufted satin, embroi
dery thread and craft paint.
Stylistic disparity and variations
in quality are key aspects of any
collection, including Guilford's,
that depends on gifts for growth. It
can be challenging, pulling ran
dom gifts together. Landscapes
work well here as a common de
nominator, but it is the high quality
so many of these pieces have that
gives this show its impact.
The gallery is housed in Hege
Library, which opened three years
ago.
Hammond came on board as
curator just as the building opened
and is responsible for implement
ing the vasdy improved lighting in
this room. The result is that the
walls of the large square room now
appear to be a little more neutral
and compete less with the art.
Photo courtesy of Terry Hammond
modern theater classroom, and in
jecting the look of the whole with
the latest hot fashions.
So it was clear, though, that the
Critic intended a reflection on
contemporary pop entertainment
what with the appearance of our
first Lady of Sex- seen through a
complex of lenses, the most obvi
ous being the history of theater - a
bit of Hamlet, a bit of Irving Ber
lin.
But there are other perspectives
in this dense production regarding
theater itself, and regarding every
thing beyond theater. This com
plexity owes much to the direc
tion; yet the play itself contained
the basic reflexive structure ex
panded upon by the direction.
For, according to Jack Zerbe,
the Critic was chosen by Rucker
from among a couple of plays from
the same time period that were
distinctly "meta-theatrical."
("Meta" is the prefix of choice in
post-modem communication. This
particular "meta" term signifies a
self-conscious theater that exam
ines the structure and meaning of
itself: theater about theater.)
And so it is. As the critic on the
Critic, I enjoyed it immensely.
Please go see it yourself.