Art space opens with collectors’ pieces, e-mailed art

 

October 15, 2000

 

By: Keri Guten Cohen

Special to the Free Press

 

For a space dedicated to the art of today, the Museum of New Art in Pontiac relies primarily on traditions from yesterday for its debut exhibition.

 

“Critical Eyes” features selected work from the collections of three respected metro Detroit art curators and critics – Dennis Nawrocki, Hope Palmer and Thomas Wojtas.  It’s a good idea, and one that lends legitimacy to this fledgling enterprise, but few of the pieces have the punch and edginess you’d expect from an enterprise that promises “to provide a forum for current creativity in the arts.”

 

 

The installation is pleasing but fairly traditional in presentation.  There’s no pop or sizzle.  The work is engaging, for the most part, but pushes no envelopes.  The most cutting-edge piece is an arresting manipulated photograph from Daniel Lee’s “Manimals” series based on Chinese zodiac signs.  This eerie portrait pulls you in repeatedly with its seamless blending of man and ox.

 

Though MoNA director Jef Bourgeau curated this show, it lacks the verve that’s made him notorious, especially after the Detroit Institute of Arts closed his exhibition last year amid complaints of censorship.

 

But don’t be too disappointed.  Venture into the smaller Gallery II for a look at “E-MoNA.”  Here’s edgy; here’s current.  Tacked frameless on the four walls are examples of fresh art sent by email from all over the world.

 

Bourgeau came up with a simple idea based on the instant technology of the Internet: He put out a call for artwork to be e-mailed to the museum and got more than 1,000 responses.  The show features 50 young artists from 24 countries.  Their work was blown up and printed on state-of-the art digital printers.

 

The collection – Bourgeau thinks it’s the first ever by Internet – can be stored easily on computer discs.  He says he plans to update “E-MoNA” regularly.

 

For highlights of the exhibition, start with “Critical Eyes” in the main gallery, a long space of fresh drywall and exposed beams that measures nearly 2,000 square feet.  As you enter the main door from the sculpture courtyard, you encounter critic Wojtas’ collection straight ahead.

 

The most traditional of the three, his collection – mostly work on paper – reveals his love of classic romanticism and of the figure.  Highlights include a Herb Ritts photograph of a glistening male torso, a bizarre children’s wedding in Portugal by Debbie Fleming Caffery and a Madonna and Child out of cabbage adorned with gold leaf by Lindsay Morris.

 

Nawrocki’s collection has the industrial edginess and energy that made Detroit’s Cass Corridor artists known nationwide during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Nawrocki, who writes, curates and teachers art history at the Center for Creative Studies, has known many of these artists since the 1970s.

 

He was drawn to their emotional, expressionistic work and its characteristic rough-hewn techniques.  Some of the best examples are Michael Luch’s punctured mixed-media “Rabbit,” Gordon Newton’s simple yet powerful wooden boat, Nancy Pletos’ ‘Blackboard House” of tar paper and scraps and Gary Mayer’s energetic “Zimbabwe” of colorful paper shapes stapled to plywood.

 

Palmer, a local artist, art historian, lecturer and teacher, reveals her love of art and her eclectic taste through her pieces, which range from a classic etched portrait by English painter Gerald Brockhurst to Lee’s computer-enhanced ox-man.  The latter was relegated to a storage room at home because it disturbed her husand, Detroit Institute of Arts photographer Dirk Bakker.

 

Palmer’s collection brings out the bigger names – a self-portrait etching by Kiki Smith, a painting by ceramicist Jun Kaneko, a silkscreen by grid-happy Jennifer Bartlett and a small head by English portrait painter Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

 

A favorite is a large oil painting of a fanciful Venetian scene by Tom Parish.

 

In contrast, the “E-MoNA” submissions are much rawer.  The glossy images feature a variety of styles and take on the world.  One piece is a sequence of images that stretch across an entire wall; the color frames show crowds, an airplane runway, parachutists – a story that has no explanation.  Others are more formal, such as a sensuous close-up of draped white, textured cloth.

 

Also compelling are black-and-white photographs exploring the contours of the face by Italian Giancarlo Dell’Antonia and classical figures with an updated twist – actor Leonardo di Caprio as a courtier, for example – by Russian computer artist Olga Tobreluts.  These certainly come across as fresh and current, especially as they are presented.  A binder filled with resumes and artist statements accompanies the work.

 

“E-MoNA” is the type of show that can help this new art earn a reputation here and beyond Detroit.