Pam Marchin

Transmutations

Making art has always been a strategy of contingency; collaborations, collectives, alliances—the personal imperatives of the studio (solitude, reflection, false starts and abandoned projects) are replaced outside in the sites of the critical, commercial, political, and social world. No stranger to the caprices of these two universes, Barnett Newman, artist, writer and all-around catalyst and agitator, once remarked that he painted so that he would have something to look at, and wrote so that he would have something to read. It would not be too far of a stretch to assume that he might have thought of his role as advisor to Betty Parsons as curating the works of his friends so that he might have a show to see on a Saturday afternoon. Andy Warhol once remarked that the only artist who “made the scene” more than he was Newman. Artists are, in the end, manipulators of material—things, paint, metal, language, and, ultimately the context environment where the work of art meets the critical and historical audience.

Chris Randolph

James Covington
Untitled, 2006, Oil and Alkyd on vinyl, 30”

David Humphrey
Twin Pups, 2003, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 62”

Michael Rees
2 Hummer 3 (maquette), 10x12x4" (hxwxd"), selective laser sintering polycarbonate, 2005.

Michael Zansky
Untitled, 2006, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 30”

The interrelationship between art and science dates back as early as the 5 th century BC and was dynamically explored by Leonardo in the 15 th century. Today, the growing popular interest in genetics and the biological sciences has reopened a fascinating dialog with the intersection between art and science.

Marchin and Randolph have chosen artists who explore these ideas in a variety of ways. The work of Michael Rees, Bradley Rubenstein and Michael Zansky depict the imaginary anatomy of Lacan as a futuristic experiment gone awry, creating biological beings that press the envelope, where hard science might possibly meet aesthetics. Rubenstein shares with David Humphrey a sense of the absurd that these “creatures” might experience, a pathos of almost existential irony about their own situations.

In the work of James Covington, where chance encounters between materials create images akin to Leonardo's “stained walls”, the process of “morphing” is revealed. Gary Stephan's psychological landscapes, a cross between Chinese scrolls and dermatological samples, lushly illustrate the beauty and complexity of biological data.

Collectively this cross-sampling of artists present work that is challenging both visually as well as conceptually; Ms. Marchin and Ms. Randolph's vision, both as artists and curators, has provided a glimpse into not only the contemporary world of art and artists, but also, perhaps, a glimpse into our possible future.