Henry Moore lithographs, etchings, and mixed media pieces on view in the East Village

Exposition Henry Moore, Steven Vail Fine Arts

May 11 - July 20, 2012

Review by Alissa

May 14, 2012

Des Moines is fortunate:  There is nothing unusual about an art exhibition opening on a Friday night in the East Village.  Every week, talented artists present their latest work in the many galleries scattered across our fair city.  However, when a one of those Friday night openings features the work of an iconic, world-renowned sculptor, it is exceptional indeed.  Last Friday’s opening reception for “Exposition Henry Moore” at Steven Vail Fine Arts was that type of pleasant surprise.

Henry Moore (British 1898-1986) is considered one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, and certainly is one of the most celebrated.  His abstract figures of the human form are easily recognizable for their fluid interaction between mass and space, and his best-known motifs, the reclining figure and the mother with child, have a rolling grace reminiscent of the hilly geography of Moore’s native Yorkshire.  Moore’s work is featured in some of the finest institutional collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Guggenheim Museum of New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of Washington, D.C., Tate Gallery of London, and, yes, the Des Moines Art Center.

“Exposition Henry Moore” at Steven Vail Fine Arts features a selection of Moore’s print work - lithographs, etchings, and mixed media pieces.  Moore’s work with print began in 1931 and continued for more than fifty years, evolving from a step in the planning of a sculpted work to a form of artistic expression in its own right.  

Art Beacon had an opportunity to interview Steven Vail and Breianna Cochran, curator of the exposition, regarding the show.  

* What can people expect to see at “Exposition Henry Moore”?  

Cochran:  Henry Moore has a large and varied oeuvre and we have narrowed the exhibition down to his two most prominent subjects, the mother and child and the reclining female form.  The included works demonstrate Moore’s graphic obsession with exploring diverse variations of backgrounds, hues and processes in his print work.  The work shows us Moore’s non-sequential progression from turning recognizably human figures into near complete biomorphic abstractions.  Many of Moore’s prints appear identical in subject matter and compositions, challenging the viewer to find the variances in his work.  

*Moore’s work is the type which one often expects to see in large museums or on a grand scale in public spaces.  How did Steven Vail Fine Arts come to feature such an exhibit?

Vail:  The works in the exhibition were part of the collection of the Estate of Henry Moore.  Past exhibitions of ours have included Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close.  As a rule, our collections and program of exhibitions feature artists who have an established institutional authority.  We also have a particular interest in representing works by artists whose work is included in the Des Moines Art Center collections.

* Moore passed away 26 years ago.  Where have the pieces in the exposition been in the intervening years, and how did they make their way to the public at this point in time?

Vail:  The exhibition has been a long time in planning and was made possible by our friends and colleagues at Osborne-Samuel, Ltd in London who generally represents the Estate of Henry Moore.  This is the first time a solo Henry Moore print exhibition has been shown in the United States at a non-institutional venue.

* In your opinion, how do you think this exposition adds to or fits with the Des Moines art scene at this point in time?

Vail:  We feel this exhibition, and our exhibition program in general, lends balance to art scenes in Des Moines and the Midwest.  There are several wonderful galleries in Des Moines which feature the works of some very talented Iowa and regional artists, and each gallery does a first rate job in their own niche.  We are different in that we make available to the Midwest works by established artists, American, European, and Latin American who have most importantly constituted the defining basis of major twentieth century avant-garde movements and on those who have most impacted our current (21st century) understanding of artistic significance in the context of twentieth century visual culture. 

Steven Vail Fine Arts is located in the Historic Teachout Building at 500 East Locust, Floor 2, Des Moines, IA 50309.  “Exposition Henry Moore” runs through July 20, 2012 and is open to the public.  Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday 11 AM - 5 PM, Saturday 11 AM - 4 PM or by appointment.  Phone:  515-309-2763.  Web:  www.stevenvailfinearts.com.

14 May Permalink

Architectural support device emotionally supportive too.

Edward Kelley | The Flying Buttress is my Friend, Fluxx Gallery

May 4 - May 31, 2012

Review by Rachel

May 12, 2012

Without the flying buttress support system, Gothic pointed arches wouldn’t have stood as high or as long as they have. They needed help or a crutch to get to the epic heights gothic architects were aiming to achieve. This month at Fluxx, Drake Sculpture Tech and 3D Design Faculty member, Edward Kelley, takes on the Gothic arch himself in his show “The Flying Buttress is my Friend”. 

Before moving to Des Moines, Kelley was working in Lincoln, Nebraska making stucco foam trims and moldings used to mimic a variety of architectural styles. For example you could order Mediterranean detailing for your new West Des Moines franchisee or doric order columns for your front porch. Whatever you like.  Lots of today’s modern products are chameleons of the real thing. Engineers have transformed objects usually made of wood, metal and stone to be streamlined into foam illusions with the promise of unlimited pretending possibilities.

Kelley is not giving us a complete illusion of a gothic arch. His one-man architectural marvel is built from pink extruded polystyrene Styrofoam. Commercially, the pink foam is used as insulation. In this construction, he is honoring a past architectural value system by rendering it in his own modern day materials. It’s like a ghost or faint memory of its stone counterpart. Next to the cold, hard concrete floor and ceiling, the raw pink foam appears weightless and floating. 

Three prints accompany the arch in the show. They illustrate how the arch developed out of geometry and line. By calculating angles, diameters, heights and widths, the drawings show the birth of the archway now hovering humbly and majestically above. They add a warmth to the show, offering evidence of the process and history associated with this arch’s creation. 

Visit Fluxx before May 31st to witness the big pink archway for yourself. 

12 May Permalink

PedalArt Poster Show 2012

PedalArt, Des Moines Social Club

May 4-5, 2012

Review by Jon

May 7, 2012

The PedalArt Poster Show took place over the weekend at the Des Moines Social Club. The ballroom at the Kirkwood was brimming with solid iterations of bike themed posters. People flocked to the show, many on bicycles to show their support for area artists and designers. On the whole the show seemed to be successful, with many strong original works and it is evident that the screen printing culture in Des Moines is advancing. Many of the prints were very well executed on a technical level. The show will be hung at Raygun in the east village from May 8th to May 19th so if you weren’t able to make it out, you still have a chance to view the work. More information, including a list of artists, and other bike related events in the month of May, can be found at bike month’s website. Happy cycling!

Bike racks outside the venue were impressively full.

This grouping comprised about a quarter of all the work on display. The work was clipped to cables running the length of the room on both sides. The way the work was hung allowed the crowd to peruse work from left to right, and to get up close and consider each piece.

I had a personal “beef” with the fact the food ran out so quickly. All that was left by the time I got there was bacon grease drizzled popcorn (no joke). Behind the empty food-tray eyesore, and a gaggle of people, is a wonderful grouping on the East wall.

Illustrator David Kallemyn knocked it out of the park again this year. His ability to render light effects and create an illusion of depth in only 5 colors printed is uncanny. This is my personal favorite from the night.

Kate Allen created a poster that had a consistent crowd of people around it. Her humorous take on childhood ambition was incredibly executed.

7 May Permalink

IN REGAL SPLENDOR, the Great Byron Burford at the Olson Larson Gallery

Byron Burford, Olson Larsen gallery

April 13 - May 26th 2012

Review by Rachel

April 19, 2012

The paintings and prints of Bryon Burford are now on view until the end of May at the Olson Larson Gallery in Vally Junction. Student of Grant Wood and Philip Guston, Burford  was a professor of art, veteran and circus director for a large walk-in painting he called “The Great Byron Burford’s Circus of Artistic Wonders”. After years of traveling in the circus, Burford designed this interactive art exhibition with lights, sound and painted wood cut-outs to recreate the feeling of circus in pure form.

As a boy, Burford’s father ran a YMCA in Mississippi and regularly offered a refuge for traveling circus and sideshow performers. This was Burford’s introduction to the cast of characters who would evolved into the subjects of his paintings and prints over the course of his life. As a kid, he was hired to run candy and soda pop to Baby Ruth Pontico, the 750-pound fat lady who dreamed of weighing 1000 pounds. On another job, Burford babysat twin microcephalics or “pinheads”. These early relationships taught Burford about how to see a person for who they are, not what they look like.

“I began to wonder about ‘normal’,” said Burford. “Who’s was abnormal? Who was normal? Grownups would tell me about this business man who was normal, but he didn’t seem half as nice as some of the show people I knew. I started to wonder just where a human being starts.” -Iowa City Press Citizen Wednesday June 30th 1976

Burford’s father acknowledged young Burford’s interest in the circus and arranged for him to travel in the Tom Mix Circus. This experience solidified a lifelong dedication to the circus, both in participation and documentation. During his 38 years as art professor at the University of Iowa, he spent his summers traveling in circus troupes, playing drums in gorilla suits and painting circus advertising and signage.

His years designing the visual aesthetics for the circus appear conceptually in his painting style, emulating the attractive and eye catching qualities of a hand painted circus sign. The composition is designed like a map, his figures constructed from a flattened geometry of light and shadow.  The application of paint is thin with quick scratchy brushwork. The portraits painted in monochromatic tones of green, red and yellow feel other worldly and intimate.

“I would like to be remembered by the total body of my work as a printmaker and painter. It all comes out of the whole conception. I’m a figure painter. I don’t paint the figure as if it were a hunk of meat. Not as an object, but as a vehicle with internal feelings.” -Byron Burford, -Iowa City Press Citizen Wednesday June 30th 1976

The pieces on view in this mini-retrospective feel like a tease. It’s just a taste from Burford’s large body of work. When I arrived at the opening, I was greeted by Burford’s son Kevin and Kevin’s wife Helen, and their daughter Maddy. Together they began to tell their story of the late Burford, but struggled to find the exact words to describe the immensity that was Byron. “He was bigger than life,” said Helen. 

From the words of an old fellow circus traveler, the following memory was written in response to Byron’s death last summer. It offers a peek into the life and experiences that brought together the works at Olson Larson.

The last time I was with Byron Burford was under a wet circus tent.  It was in Walnut, Ill., and both of us were with the Franzen Bros. Circus. Byron was playing drums while I worked the center ring as Silly Billy the clown with another goofy white face I knew only as Dutch.

It was an awful night. It was pouring and blowing. It was blowing so hard that the handful of performers and Emma, who was working the front end selling hot dogs, ran into the downpour to pound wind stakes and tie down ropes in circus knots.

We were scared of a blowdown, which strikes terror into all circus people. A blowdown is when the quarter poles jump out of the ground like sticks and the center poles begin to sway before the big top collapses on the crowd.

The winds calmed, but the rains kept soaking the big top. The show went on. I kept fumbling the plate spin with Dutch in the center ring. That was no distinguished honor because there was only one ring in this tiny show with which I was spending my vacation as a clown.  

Burford, a noted American artist who was a professor at the University of Iowa, kept drumming away in the two-piece circus band. In all the chaos of the storm, Byron smiled. He said that a circus band always sounded better in a wet tent.

AS A SERIOUS HOBBY, Byron drummed with many circuses. He loved the circus. I knew that Byron was good as a drummer, and I knew that he was a good artist, but I didn’t know he was that good as an artist. Before the storm at Walnut, I had watched him draw a sketch of a tiger, snarling like all circus tigers should snarl. The sketch was to be a pattern painted on one of the Franzen Bros. circus trucks. I don’t think it ever got painted because, in a season to come, Wayne Franzen, the circus owner, was killed by a lion while performing in the steel arena.

 After the night of the great storm at Walnut, Byron — along with me and my son, Tim, who had been working the circus with me — wandered into a town bar to call our wives and report that we were still alive and well. The bartender growled that he smelled elephants and didn’t like that smell. We had elephant doo on our shoes. He walked the three of us out of the place.

Out and about through the years following, I’d cross paths playing circuses with Byron. We’d part with the showman’s farewell, “See you down the road.” (Source)

Byron Burford’s works will be on display at the Olson Larson Gallery until May 26th.

19 April Permalink

Minneapolis artist Nate Young at Fluxx

Nate Young, How to Make a Slave/How to Make a God, Fluxx Gallery

April 6 - April 27, 2012

Review by Jon

April 11, 2012

The walk towards Nate Young’s show from the outside street had me looking past the vinyl lettering on the window at three suspended cardboard domes. The space within the gallery looked warm and inviting. Upon approaching one of the domes, I started to catch fragments of sound, unintelligible at first over the other sounds in the room. The remarkable thing about crossing the threshold and coming completely under a dome was how amplified the sound projected from a small speaker directly above my head became.

I was struck by the singularity of the experience, like being under an umbrella and how having three domes for people to stand under directed the flow of the crowd. It seemed some people were avoiding the framed pieces on the wall so that they wouldn’t impose upon the dome listener’s privacy. The domes were positioned right in front of nicely framed drawings. As I understand it, most of the drawings were vague representations of an imagined cosmology.

Looking at the drawn graphs was like looking at one of my 9^th grade math equations that failed to compute. And while attempting to discern meaning from the drawings, I was being blasted from above with either a monologue or a hip hop track depending on which dome I happened to be under.  It was unsettling and resulted in a feeling of dislocation and isolation. I found myself unable to look intelligently at the drawings or listen with a discerning ear to what was coming from the dome above, and in addition to that I was experiencing the dichotomous feeling of being alone in a crowded gallery.

As an installation the show is a resounding success. Nate’s ideas and approach are invigorating in their nuance, and I like the way there are several levels of concept and meaning coming together in any given piece. This show definitely took me out of my comfort zone and activated my senses while I was in the gallery space.

In Young’s statement for the show he explains:

“Moving directly under the dome the sound is isolated and the story of Willie Lynch, an infamous vicious slave owner is clearly heard…”

“…It becomes apparent through the interaction with the installation that shifts take place in a way that one begins to understand the signifiers within it. What at first appears to be babble becomes coherent, and what looks scientific becomes convoluted. What looks tied together in all aspects only makes sense based on the viewer’s projection of the missing information into it. History reveals anachronisms, dysfunction reveals purpose and science reveals mystery.”

How to Make a Slave/How to Make a God will be on display until Friday, April 27th. See photos of the installation on opening night here.  

Fluxx is located at 333 East Grand Avenue #104 in the East Village. Catch the show Thursday and Friday afternoons from 3 to 6 or Saturday from 11 to 3. 

11 April Permalink

Rich exploration of scale and materials at Drake

Verge, Anderson Gallery at Drake University

Old ladies love Drake art!

Review by Cat

April 11, 2012

Every spring, Drake’s Anderson Gallery hosts several shows by groups of graduating BA and BFA students. The latest one, Verge, opened on April’s First Friday, and showcased the work of Padraic O’Connell, Jill Jaworski, Megan Pierce-Cramer & Kjersten Lutz.

This was the strongest senior show I’ve caught at Drake — all four students had works on strong themes, well-made pieces, and compelling artist statements.

Padriac O’Connell’s work was an interesting mashup of splatter/drip painting and images which are traditionally cleanly screenprinted or digitally printed, like logos.

He applies paint to sometimes-wrinkled canvases using plastic knives and forks. Clearly he likes to experiment, but I hard a hard time connecting these details to the content of his body of work.

Lutz’s artist statement.

Kjersten Lutz won my heart.

Her work was many faceted, combining found-object sculpture, weaving, and abstract acrylic/spray paintings. Despite her many approaches to art-making, her body of work related via color and amorphous space-like shapes.

Even her geometric thread-and-wood-slice pieces fit so clearly into the body that they are a feature, not a distraction.

I’m excited to see how Lutz’s work evolves. Given her prolific experimentations, good grasp of color theory, and bravery, she will continue to put on great shows as she grows.

Go see the early work of four strong artists at Verge in Anderson Gallery, open through April 20.

11 April 1 Permalink

Jolynn Reigeluth illustrates her Alter Egos at Ephemera

Jolynn Reigeluth’s Alter Egos, Ephemera 

Review by Rachel

April 10, 2012

Last Friday, I was introduced to a donkey who is always celebrating his birthday. Above you see him in his party hat, standing patiently, awaiting final judgment in Purgatory. He is one of many characters in Alter Egos, a series of prints illustrating the invented world of Jolynn Reigeluth. With methodical consistency, she explores who these creatures are by studying their personal belongings like an anthropological researcher.

Through image, I am addressing a wide range of qualities that comprise this world, such as who inhabits it, what vegetation exists there, what the inhabitants make, what kind of tools they utilize, etc. – Jolynn Reigeluth

In Neuter and Spay Your Pets, we see to a big haired lady with no arms rattling on about her daily routine. Reigeluth’s research into this other world manifests into pictorial speech bubbles and residents looking calm and comfortable in their own lumpy skins. Her discoveries have just scratched the surface. Further assimilation into the lifestyles of her Alter Egos will allow her to lean less on cuteness and more on richness in character.

The beautifully screen printed series will be on view for the month of April at Ephemera in the East Village. Reigeluth has a line up of shows listed on her website, Moon Man Print. In May, she will receive her BA in Visual Arts & Graphic Design from Grandview University. 

10 April 3 Permalink

VIEW THIS SHOW BEFORE WEDNESDAY!

ARTtomatons: the Art of D. Ryan Allen,Raygun 

Closing this Wednesday April 4th.  

Review by Jon

April 2, 2012

2 April Permalink

Sink your teeth into “Monkey Brains” at Moberg

Chris Vance’s Polar Opposites, Moberg Gallery 

.

Review by Jon

March 30, 2012

The Surface//The Spatial-

Chris Vance’s latest work is on display at Moberg Gallery on Ingersoll in Des Moines. Upon entering the show I was struck by the consistency. The vibrancy and potency of the colors he uses has not lessened. His show still delivers the instant sick-gut punch to me as a fellow artist. I can’t say that I am jealous, but his work does inspire in me the desire to learn how to “finish” paintings. He has an inspired way with surface. Pinning blurry glazes, shape and line under much crisper glazes shapes and lines. Despite all this layering, the surface still shouts its flatness. The spatial starts to suggest its self but is then firmly denied by the way marks draw me back to the surface. I like an artist that can make a fellow surface devotee step to within inches, and then back. There were four pieces on mylar that felt like a new direction for Vance.  They exhibited more depth and they felt less self conscious than the other work in the show. It’s amazing what a new batch of materials can do for an artist!

 The Cluster//The Style-

There is a section of the show that is entirely composed by a cluster of his “character work.” These clusters are nicely handled and some works are actually framed rather than put on his signature deep-dish art boards. This is an interesting way to hang work because it becomes about the mass presented rather than about each individual piece standing alone. It’s also a chance for some weaker pieces (or pieces of lesser size or expense) to exist near blockbusters. Much of the work on the west wall of the gallery is brimming with fanciful faces on distorted cartoon bodies. The whimsical nature of the work is underscored by a style and technique that bring the pieces to life.

Chris Vance has style for miles and miles. His style has reached its smooth apex with his abstract work, which for the most part is constrained to the east wall of the gallery. His line work, blending, shading, and color overlay all come together with a slick mix and match of technique. The stylistic epitome of his work comes to the fore with the piece entitled “monkey brains.” This work is the proverbial centerpiece to the entire show and it employs a confidence in mark making and a marriage of the representational and the abstract. I feel it displays a strong advancement in Vance’s work. Overall the show may prove to be a culmination of Vance’s stylistic progression over the last five or six years. 

Exhibit runs through May 12^th at Moberg Gallery , 2921 Ingersoll Ave, Des Moines Iowa 50312.

30 March Permalink