Haiku Review of "Pour"

A survey of mostly east coast artists organized by Florida Atlantic University, “Pour” documented a tendency among painters to exploit the relative viscosity and fluidity of various pigmented materials. In other words, they paint by pouring. It is, of course, an approach with a firm modernist pedigree, but the contemporary approach (at least in America) is to balance the exploration of chance with controlled effects. These artists, all entirely non-objective, are formalists extending the practices of 1960s-70s “post-painterly abstraction” (not to mention “lyrical abstraction”) into methods that distinguish their styles from one another as well as from other painterly practice. Thus, David Reed’s glowingly colored, rigidly boxed swirls evince a relationship, but cannot be confused, with Jackie Saccoccio’s sensitively suffused blotting, and Carrie Yamaoka’s deeply resonant veils of monocolor can’t be mistaken for Ingrid Calame’s thrillingly nervous tendrils and squiggles (which are actually not so much pours as traces of poured deposits she finds outside the studio). Color is the clear raison d’être for certain pourers, notably Carrie Moyer and Carolanna Parlato, but others such as Angelina Gualdoni, Roland Flexner, and Kris Chatterson de-emphasize hue and investigate poured forms for their shapeliness, whether trickled, mushed, or allowed to flow freely. In its selection of artists “Pour” emphasizes stylistic and technical differences, but allows pouring to come forth as a thing in itself, a cohesive element among disparate painters that suggests their like-mindedness – and that other pourers may be out there as well. (Full disclosure: I organized two shows of southern California artists under the rubric “Flow,” so yeah, other pourers are out there.) (Asya Geisberg, 537B West 23rd St., NY, closed, www.asyageisberggallery.com; and Lesley Heller, 54 Orchard St., NY, closed, www.lesleyheller.com)

– Peter Frank