Date: Fri 02-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Neuberger-Messer-acquired

Full Text:

Neuberger Museum Of Art Acquires Sam Messer's `Enough'

(with cut)

PURCHASE, N.Y. -- The Neuberger Museum of Art has acquired Sam Messer's

"Enough," an oil on canvas painted in 1995. The museum purchased the work with

funds from Zita and Edward J. Rosenthal.

"Enough" features a flag with rippled stripes pulsing across its field that

solidify into tiles. The stars, in their own outsized, misshapen rhythm, march

far askew, pushed back by the encroaching stripes.

The careworn figure at the center, vibrating in this dissonance, reveals his

inner set of flag-red bloodshot eyes. Messer's exact reference may be unclear

in this work, but he taps into a universal angst and isolation beneath the

flag of nationalism and martial iconography.

Sam Messer's works have become increasingly raw over the years, shucking their

stylized surrealist figures to reveal an idiosyncratic form of Expressionism.

After earning a BFA from Cooper Union in 1976 and an MFA from Yale University

in 1981, Messer painted with formalist references to Picasso and Matisse.

Retaining this highly stylized figuration, he subsequently added thick brutish

backgrounds, altered his scale, and experimented with fewer and fewer colors

to eventually reduce his palette to little beyond black and white.

The personal content of this work corresponds with an intense palette and

fervid application of paint. The thick impasto builds a tangible, fleshy

surface onto his figures, as they stand in almost sculptural relief against

the background.

Messer has shown primarily at Nielsen Gallery in Boston and David Beizel

Gallery in New York. He has participated in group shows at Lincoln Center,

Cooper Union, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine

Arts in Boston and Hirshl and Adler Gallery.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Yale

Museum of Art.

For more information, call 914/251-6100.