Selected Reviews

School of Good Sense Emerges

​Northside People, March 10, 1994

 - Ed Bode

School of Good Sense Emerges
I am accepting the fact that I am getting old.  My appetite for the trendy is dissipating.  No longer do I peruse the columns to find out what is playing at midnight at the Inwood. Symptomatic of my ennui is that I am really tired of the abrasive, undisciplined and mostly untutored outpourings of tortured souls.  “I have angst, ergo I am an artist” doesn’t cut it anymore for me.  About 30 years ago the art world lost contact with the reality that an inconvenient concomitant to being an artist is some basic academic training, some exposure to composition, anatomy, form and color and possibly, history.
So for years we have been meandering through exhibitions of kitchen tiles glued to plywood; white squares (framed) and then titled White #1, White-Reprised, etc.  We have seen ironing boards bolted to bedsprings before being spray-painted.  To guide us through these bewildering mazes we are provided with useful “artist statements” which favor words such as holistic, ecological-tech, agony, rage and primal fury.  Perhaps my favorite example is this out-of-context jewel, “Degradation, abuse, and pain are familiar comforts to me, as are the memories of love, hate, lust and jealousy stemming from (sic) relationships I have known.”  No hint as to where or what the “artist” studied just an evocation of the poor me justification.  This self-indulgence is encouraged by quite a few “Galleriatti.”  There seems to be many who believe that there is a Basquiat born every day.

Fortunately, there is an emerging school of good sense.  We have been treated to a spectrum of artists this year who are academically trained and whose technique and imagination match the credentials.  The corner of Maple and Cedar Springs might become the Florence of the 1990s.

Adams-Middleton opened its most satisfying show in several seasons on Friday.  On display were egg-tempera panels by Andrew Young.  Home-based in New York, Young is the objective correlative of the new breed of real artists who have mastered and learned their discipline.  He draws his inspiration and mood from his studies in Siena, but projects the intellectual authority of a sound grounding, including Phi Beta Kappa at Berkeley and an MFA from the Chicago Art Institute.
                             Proceed in Heart, 1994
                        Egg tempera on wood panel,
                                     44 x 31 in.
He has rediscovered and reconstructed the still-life.  His colors are poignant and glowing.  The themes are soothing.  He features a waxy, lustrous lily, rather like a Yucca blossom, frequently combined with architectonic fragments.  His simply are the most desirable things available in Dallas right now.  Go see, go buy.

I mentioned earlier that this School of Good Sense is taking hold of the better galleries.  Back in September Edith Baker treated us to a first encounter with Frank DiPlacido, a post-modernist whose color sense and anatomy are spectacular.  He does historically-sized pieces, but is right on the mark in terms of the new mood.

Another New York artist who has chosen to settle in the “city with no reason” is Keith Tucker, currently hanging at Craighead-Green.  Tucker got his classical ambiance from a couple of years in Florence.  His control of light and flesh tones are reminiscent of Caravaggio.  His themes are unsettling, but he is a trained and directed talent and proven to be a best seller. To cut this short, I just feel like we buyers and patrons should expect our arbiters, the gallery owners, to edit and perhaps inspire their stables.  Some are doing it well, some are not.