Three Art Publications Worth Browsing This Summer
The three publications - exhibition catalogs - showcase the diversity of art currently being exhibited, analyzed, and reexamined. Collectively, they reflect the expansive perspectives of both art critics and artists.
1. Barbara Bloom, Ben Lerner - Gold Custody
Gold Custody is a collaboration between conceptual artist Barbara Bloom and writer Ben Lerner. Related to an exhibition at David Lewis Gallery in East Hampton, New York, Gold Custody examines how framing, arranging, and recalling images may or may not accurately portray real events. Eccentric, insightful yet perplexing, this "catalog" considers how we comprehend what we experience through our senses and later remember. It prompts questions about what we can truly understand or rely on. Bloom aims to evoke responses where viewers and readers act as detectives, crafting narratives from subtle connections. She might display photographs of eyes hanging near each other, or a framed photo of flower arrangements, two set in front of a painting within the display.
Lerner demonstrates how detection can operate in a story that links, unravels, and separates supposed evidence, yet leaves us comfortable in the fictional space where objects, ideas, and memories take form. As he noted, abstraction is important and abstraction is necessary.
2. Alan Saret, Matter into Aether
Another publication featured is Matter into Aether, focused on the sculptor Alan Saret. In a 1982 essay about Saret's early shows at the legendary Bykert Gallery, the late curator-critic Klaus Kertess observed that technology and the clarity of mathematics captured Alan Saret’s vision from an early age. This insight, later published in the book Alan Saret: Matter into Aether accompanying a recent show at Karma, Allies, provides a succinct introduction to Saret's work which has increasingly been exhibited in galleries and spaces like The Church in Sag Harbor, New York.
At The Church, his ethereal wire sculpture Zinc Cloud (1967/1990) stands out subtly among more physical, near-representational pieces from sculptors such as Liza Lou and Charles LeDray. Kertess further characterized Saret's work as a vision. The late curator-critic accurately defined Saret's appealing yet enigmatic body of work.
3. Abraham Palatnik: Experimentation/Enchantment
The catalog from Nara Roessler Books focused on the late Brazilian artist, designer, and inventor Abraham Palatnik (1928-2020) provides a wonderfully informative look into his groundbreaking work. The beautiful publication explores Palatnik's biography and fascinating experiments with kinetic sculpture. Palatnik ventured beyond traditional painting by integrating technology, psychiatry, film, biology, aesthetics, and design.
He harnessed color and light to energize his sculptures, termed “Kinechromatic art.” Born in Brazil in 1928 to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, he later lived in Tel Aviv before returning to Rio in 1947. Palatnik studied art and engineering and worked in a psychiatric hospital where patients inspired him. Feeling unable to match their skills, he did not pursue traditional painting for long.
He pioneered electro-mechanical creations based on the kaleidoscope, examining how colors vary or seem to change from the viewer's vantage. Major supporter Mário Pedrosa, an influential art critic, curator, and museum head, organized several São Paulo Biennales.
