Suchitra Mattai "Osmosis" at Kavi Gupta

 

One, 126" x 180"

Detail

 

A review of Suchitra Mattai "Osmosis" at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

 

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In tribute to her ancestors who left India in the 19th Century, Suchitra Mattai (b 1973) has laid out this exhibition so that the viewer moves through the galleries as if visiting a Hindu temple. In the final room, the garbhagriha (inner sanctum) she has installed a four foot replica of a temple made of salt - as if it had just emerged from the sea of memory - leaning dramatically to one side - as if it will soon sink back beneath the waves of forgetfulness.

 It soon becomes apparent that the only deity being worshiped here is herself and the quality of the art need not represent any higher being - with two exceptions. Casts were made of Hindu temple sculpture to frame some of Mattai’s pieces. They remind us of just how effectively that tradition can conflate architecture with sacred narrative. 

 But the most remarkable exception is a wall size tapestry that Mattai made herself. Sourcing traditional saris from her own family as well as elsewhere, she has interwoven them into a magnificent, alluring design that has the exotic allure of the Ajanta cave paintings. The artist is probably familiar with other cycles of ancient painting, but the fifth century Ajanta frescoes are the ones best known in the West. Though superficially secular, they are treasures of world sacred art. 

 Titled “One”, Mattai’s piece shows us the backs of three women with golden halos. They appear to be leading us up from blue water as they ascend the peaks of a great mountain. Even if the artist intended them to only represent her own ocean crossing ancestors - I want to follow them too. Something about them is so passionate, glorious and mysterious. Hopefully the Textiles Department of the Art Institute will acquire this piece so I can see it again someday adjacent to other great fiber art. 

 Everything else in the show is also well made - especially the temple of salt. How the hell did she do that?  But is this show really about "the flexibility of storytelling" as the artist proclaims?  How much does it actually reveal about the artist and her family beyond that they identify as Hindus from India and that she identifies as female?  All of the figurative pieces are female-centric - even the one that actually depicts a male or two.  We may admire the artist for respecting her rich cultural legacy as well as  gender - but is that  controversial anywhere except in places like Afghanistan?

 

And is  "flexibility"  of storytelling" really  worth looking at anyway ? Wouldn't you rather have a storytelling that is convincing or intriguing or uplifting or shocking ? Gauging  flexibility is an academic literary project  - as is celebrating an identity that is currently acceptable ( female person-of-color).

Suchitra Mattai is a compelling artist only when she steps away from academic trends and shows what she really wants us to know about herself:  she is descended from three goddesses. And I am inclined to believe her.

James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings

 James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings

Kavi Gupta Gallery

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Spangled Star, 2022, 72"x72"

Calculated Risk, 64" x 74", 2022

 

detail

A Review of James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings at Kavi Gupta

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Racial identity currently dominates the artworld in America. You might even say it has done so for the past 300 years - though up until recently it was the white, rather than black, identity being front and center. What’s remarkable about this identity show is that it’s questionable whether the artist ever really intended it to be one. James Little (b. 1952), makes hard edge, geo-form abstract paintings, and he’s explicit about not engaging a concept. He wants to be free from all that and just make paintings as best he can. All his problems are technical - just as with fine cabinetry. A hundred years ago he would have been welcomed into the Bauhaus. His pieces are still probably best seen in the severe minimalism of a Miles van der Rohe interior.

Down in Memphis, the  patterns of colored stripes in his first museum show of the year was typical of his work. They’re as emotion free as a page torn from a book of color theory. There isn’t even a sense of wonder, balance, or humor. Just the pure, unfiltered energy of a technical investigation. 

But when his monumental “Black Stars” are shown beside his perforated “White Paintings”, the game changes. The black stars exemplify the drive and singularity of purpose that’s still required for blacks to rise above the dark legacy of oppression. The rows of regularly spaced tiny windows into his white paintings reveal an apparently limitless variety of colorful, sensual miniatures - like the urban grid of a trendy white neighborhood where every high rent condo shelters someone’s unique opportunity for self gratification. The artist acknowledges this racial binary in this exhibit, but also tells us “That whole racial aspect isn’t any more important to me than trying to paint some emblematic arrangements with two tones of black.” - so this may be the last time he crosses over into racial stereotypes - even though it would not hurt his career. These same black and white paintings were probably what got him into the Whitney Biennial this year - his first appearance ever.

Minimalism and racial conceptual art  appear to have accidentally collided, and the results are far more compelling than either of those genres by themselves. Likewise, the white paintings in this show are more interesting because of the black ones nearby - and vice versa.  Together they tell a story that’s personal, national, and cosmic — all at the same time.  And it does feel more more important than the artist’s less referential work. More seems to be at stake: social harmony instead of the private isolation.

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note: the New City Review tells us that the artist is "deeply committed to portray the challenges, complexities and possibilities of the Black experience, through the expressive capabilities of abstraction" -- but Black identity is more in the mind of the reviewer than the artist.  His own words, as well as his forty year career as an abstract painter, tell a different story..  

The Language of Beauty in African Art — Art Institute of Chicago

Guro, Ivory Coast, 19th to early 20th Century

This is one amazing show of African art - though it doesn’t really  "decolonize the Western aesthetic standards long placed on these objects” as gallery signage asserts. Indeed, the standard museum style installation reaffirms our world, not theirs. The dramatic lighting and attention to surrounding space encourages the viewer to see formal qualities, as does the arrangement of pieces that look good together, regardless of origin. The exhibit that came to Chicago in 1963, “Senofo Sculpture from West Africa" had a better opportunity to establish local context by focusing on just one people in one place. This exhibition includes many peoples from western and central Africa, from Mali down to South Africa, and often they share the same display case.

And then one might ask: just how were these pieces selected? Obviously 19th century Africans could not be given the job — but what about African artists and collectors from our time? Wouldn’t their sensibilities of life and Art likely be closer to that of their great grandparents? There are a few who are even carrying on their traditions.

 Instead the job was given to Constantine Petridis, the Art Institute’s curator of African Art. Being a Belgian, he is much closer to those who destroyed much of central Africa’s indigenous society. But he’s also much closer to many of the European museums and private collectors from which most of these pieces came. And if I may say so, his taste agrees with mine - which is why I find this show so enjoyable. Just as with European and Asian art, only a small percentage of African art is worth looking at - and Petridis brought us the very best. (for many examples of mediocrity, visit the Art Institute's permanent gallery of African art). So many genres are represented so well: Dan masks, Iginga figures, Luba staffs, Bamala puppets, Igbo helmets, Songye Nkishi, Fang reliquary guardians, Zulu headrests. 

 Yet what’s missing are more recent examples. It’s as if all African art traditions died out in the early 20th Century. And while it is an axiom of Euro art theory that you cannot enter the same river twice, traditional societies demand that you keep on jumping in.

 Petridis did such a great job, I really don’t wish any one else had been involved. But rather than all the virtue signaling about decolonization, I wish he had done something actually virtuous as well as ground breaking:  show us more recent African art  that’s related to the traditions seen in this show - like the Nigerian sculptor Moshood Olusomo Bamigboye   (which is not to say that I recommend him)

African art pursues a life affirming power  (as in the above image). that so much of mainstream contemporary art studiously avoids.

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A selection  of my favorite pieces is shown here

Dmitry Samavov in the Chicago Reader wrote pretty much the same thing. The "de-colonization" proclaimed in the signage is utter nonsense - but the spirit of life runs very strong in these carvings.