Zimmerli Museum Review

There were 2 new exhibits at the Zimmerli Museum since the last time I visited (last winter). The first was Trail Blazers in the 21st Century, the second called Four Perspectives Through the Lens: Soviet Art Photography in the 1970's-80's. I also spent some time looking around the Blocks of Color exhibit.

The Zimmerli can feel like a maze. The rooms are unsual shapes and sizes, and sometimes multiple artists are randomly interspersed through a room. In some ways, it can lead to confusion and difficulty following a specific body of work. On the other hand, it takes some of the pressure off of any one particular artist and allows the viewer to appreciate all the works for their differences and similarities. The division of the gallery also creates lots of varying spaces, some intimate and others that feel more communal. And thanks to thoughtful curation, I think the different artworks benefit from the diverse spaces they occupy. I certainly prefer this to a large white personality-less box room with pictures around the perimeter.






The Blocks of Color exhibit featured many artists, but the work of William Seltzer Rice and Sibyl Andrews stood out to me. Considering the medium (woodblocks), the line work is crisp and clean, and accentuated by the use only one or two fields of color. The work shows real mastery of the craft, solid fields of color with no mess or imperfections. In "Salmon Fleet-Oakland Estuary" (shown above left) Rice creates a highly controlled zigzag line of white through the field of blue, to indicate the reflection on the water. It couldn't have been down better with a paintbrush or a pen. There was something about these images: simple, yet assertive graphics that reminded me of comics or book illustrations.

The exhibit I came with the most hopes for, Trail Blazers in the 21^st Century, turned out to be the most disappointing. I was expecting to see something exciting, cutting edge, maybe using some new technologies. The exhibit consisted of about a dozen prints by various artists, none of which really seemed to "blaze any trails" in my opinion. Not to say that some of them weren't beautiful-- Petah Coyne's ghostly female image and Elizabeth Murray's colorful, cartoony abstract lithograph were quite striking-- but they didn't really challenge me. I was happy to see some straight-foward design work; Papo Colo presented 2 portfolio covers which I liked, particularly the "FAITH" cover featuring dual matchsticks. I would really like to see more design work in general in the galleries we visit-- unfortunately this seems prevailingly uncommon, and the timing never quite works out (the Sister Mary Corita design exhibit opens in 2 weeks).

To my surprise, I really connected with a lot of the work in the Soviet Art section of the Museum. There were 4 books on Soviet Art, which gave me a chance to compare different design approaches to common material. Diane Neumaier's "Beyond Memory" book was the most visually dense, displaying sketches, photos, paintings, collage, Photoshop work, etc. The balance of typographic elements to artwork followed no real pattern. Book #2, by Boris Michajlov, favored images over text, showing almost all photos laid in very minimal grid layout, sometimes with as little as 2 small snapshots to a page. The 3rd book, by Vladimir Kupriyanov, featured very compelling photo projects where a large image would be created by tiling (in the loosest sense of the word) 6 or more smaller photograph, resulting in large, uniquely-shaped panoramic images. I really enjoyed this spin on photography as art. Finally, my favorite book was Francisco Infante's, featuring the strangest landscape photography I've ever seen. His interest is in basic geometric shapes and textures, and his work deals with imposing, applying, and siphoning these shapes onto different landscapes often using mirrors or overlaying several photographs. I found his work innovative and absolutely stunning, and his commitment to finding new ways to explore his area of interest is really inspired.