Being my monomanical self, I forgot to add at the end of my previous post that also showing at The More Gallery are colorfield paintings by Christopher Deeton and paintings on collaged pieces of panel by Philadelphia artist Marc Salz.
Deeton’s strips of boffo color (shown, “Dive”) of industrial enamel on aluminum about 48″ wide bring to mind industrial design strategies, which is kind of chilly. Their shape made me think, Oh, little color Band-aids for the wall. The colors are swell, the variations minimal, and I’m going to restrain myself from ranting about the limits of minimalism here, except to refer people to a Peter Scheldahl piece that ran in The New Yorker three issues ago (I can’t get back to its link I’m afraid), in which he suggests that without the spiritual component in works by artists like Rothko and Martin, minimalism ain’t great.
Salz’s collaged paintings (shown, “Better Days”) had nice passages of markings that suggested script, pictographs and squiggles, but mostly I was thinking about aboriginal bark paintings without the sizzle. The connections amongst the collaged bits were weak.
