Date: Fri 23-Feb-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Quick Words:

In-The-Flesh-Aldrich-Snyder

Full Text:

("In The Flesh" exhibit & programs at Aldrich Museum, 2/23/96)

Aldrich Exhibit Really Gets Under Your Skin

(with photos)

By Shannon Hicks

RIDGEFIELD - In its spring exhibition, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art

has taken a look at the concept of skin as a boundary. Museum director and

curator Jill Snyder has collected works by eleven artists from around the

world, each of whom offers his or her view of skin, the largest organ of the

body, as a protection, a boundary, or a barrier, whether strong or fragile.

Works range from graphically realistic to abstract, leaving the viewer to

ponder what the artist may or may not being trying to state in each piece.

Evident throughout "In The Flesh" are artists' different takes on skin as a

conceptual and physical boundary.

"This is a show that emerged from looking at works," Ms Snyder says. The

museum's director, Snyder took her post with the Ridgefield museum last July.

A few days after "In The Flesh" opened, Ms Snyder presented the first of four

lectures the museum will offer in conjunction with this exhibit. "Aspects of

Contemporary Artists" features artists talking about their works in an

informal gallery setting.

"I did not go out with the idea in mind of putting together a show," she

continued. "It started when I visited a number of artists ... at their

studios, over a period of a few months ... and saw works that were wholly

unrelated on any visual level. That is to say, they were stylistically very

different.

"But after seeing their work, I had this period of thinking, there was

something that brought them together," the director said.

That "something" was the broad use of materials - almost every medium is

included in this show, save photography - to represent human skin, its

strength and fragility (the fragility is immediately observed in viewing one

of artist Carol Hepper's works in the Aldrich's Gallery 3: one of her works,

already fragile upon completion, has begun tearing across the work's face),

its boundaries and barriers.

Nearly two years ago, Ms Snyder visited three artists at their studios -

sculptor Carol Hepper, painter Dennis Kardon, and sculptor Harry Philbrick.

These were the initial studio visits which eventually led to the formation of

"In The Flesh," which remains on view at the Aldrich through May 5.

The exhibit presents works by eleven contemporary artists, using skin as a

boundary - either as a container or barrier. Using paper, canvas, latex,

stretched hide, tape, resin and wax, the artists - Lesley Dill, Prudencio

Irazabal, Byron Kimm, Simon Leung, Glenn Ligon, Kiki Smith, Jack Whitten,

Telma Zunz, and the aforementioned Hepper, Kardon and Philbrick - in their

works have explored the translucency, texture and malleability of skin.

"By the time I got to Harry [Philbrick]'s studio, I knew there was something

here about their relationship to their work, the way they stress the

importance of touch, the way in which the work really brings to the core the

appeal of sensation, and all of them began to appeal to me about skin, the

different concepts of skin," Ms Snyder stated during her well-attended lecture

at the beginning of the month.

The museum regularly offers a lecture series with each of its exhibits, all

open to the public, and usually led by a participating artist. The audience is

generally comprised of nearly 50 percent teachers/educators, and the other

half is a combination of Aldrich Museum members and the public. Teachers can

receive credit towards degrees, which helps explain the high level of interest

among the educational community. But the lectures appeal to all backgrounds.

"The purpose of these lectures is to give people a chance to meet the artists

in the shows," explained Harry Philbrick, director of education at the museum.

Although some of Philbrick's works are also included in this exhibition, it is

important to note the friendship between Philbrick and curator Snyder was

formed long before the concept of "In The Flesh" was born, well before Snyder

assumed her position as Aldrich curator.

"They are informal lectures," Mr Philbrick continued. "It's a real chance for

people to come in and ask questions."

Indeed, lecture participants are encouraged to not only question what the

lecturer is offering them in information, but to offer their own opinions and

reactions, adverse or otherwise.

Although Ms Snyder viewed works by a number of photographers, as she began

forming the show in her mind she decided the focus of "In The Flesh" would

remain on the sensuality of the materials used to create and represent skin,

rather than simply re-creating the look of skin through film. Artists have

always been very interested in "touch," Ms Snyder offered, which was what she

wanted to focus on - the traditional appeal of skin, rather than the more

contemporary recreation of skin through a relatively new form of art.

Photography, then, removes viewers from the sense of touch a sculpture or

painting can offer.

"It's a different kind of medium, and I didn't feel that was what I really

wanted the show to be about, so I eliminated all the photographers I was

considering," Ms Snyder said.

From that point on, Snyder was able to follow a focal point: how artists use

materials to evoke the sensations of the flesh. It was around this time Snyder

also realized her artists were not doing traditional illusionistic

representations, but were instead more poetic and metaphoric. These are works

about getting under the skin.

Snyder also became very interested in tattooing and scarification of skin

through history. The identity of many cultures, she feels, has been dependent

upon the various markings man has put onto his skin. This led the curator to

notice also how ethnicity and skin pigmentation marks each of us as well.

"There started to be multiple layers of what the meanings of flesh really

were," she said.

"In The Flesh" will remain on view at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,

258 Main Street in Ridgefield, through May 5. Participating artist and Aldrich

director of education Harry Philbrick will offer the final lecture coinciding

with this exhibit on Thursday, February 29, from 4-6 pm. Cost is $3 per

person, $2 for students and seniors.

Programming for the exhibit also includes a brunch Sunday, March 17, at 11 am,

with a gallery tour by director Jill Snyder. Call the museum, 438-4519, for

details on the exhibit, programs or directions.