Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s decennial exhibition “I am what is around me,” devoted to Connecticut-based artists and cued by Hartford poet Wallace Stevens’ eponymous verse, is impressively catholic. Curators Amy Smith-Stewart and Caitlin Monachino have ranged throughout the state in making their selections, resisting any urge to stick too comfortably to New Haven and points west. They have also chosen works of considerable nuance and sophistication, eschewing overt political crowd-pleasers or regional pandering, from the studios of artists old, young, and middle-aged, established and emerging, their ages spanning almost 60 years.
Among representational and narrative work, Ellen Altfest’s beguilingly hyperrealist paintings, Julia Wachtel’s boldly enigmatic ones, and Jen Bervin’s systematic mapping of Emily Dickinson’s poetry are challenging and provocative, while Felandus Thames’s hairbead transmutations and Amanda Russhell Wallace’s dark phasal prints on wood panels are technically inventive as well as thematically penetrating. Identity politics and multiculturalism are hardly avoided, but didacticism and preachiness do not afflict (Ivorian) Faustin Adenirin’s associative compositions, (Chilean) Carlos Bautista Bierrnay’s self-consciously quiescent textile and ceramic work, (Indian) Anindita Dutta’s paean to hidden hardship Field of Flowering Bones, (Iranian) Arghavan Khosravi’s astringent acrylics, (South Korean) Jihyun Lee’s demure watercolor dolls, (Chinese-born) John Shen’s haunting photographs, (Sudanese) Azza El Siddique’s somber sculpture, (Dominican) Remy Sosa’s acute deconstructions, or (Venezuelan) Enrique Figueredo’s exquisitely ominous woodcut Paveando en mi Cadillac Antibalas (Cruising in My Bulletproof Cadillac).
purse, broken frame, artificial flower, 79 x 39 x 13 inches
Socio-political sentiments resonate in the loaded family portraits rendered by Gary Burnley, born in Missouri in 1950, Dominic Chambers’ lyrically stealthy oil paintings, Emily Larned’s insistent record of New Haven’s alternative policing philosophy, Sonja Langford’s foreboding photographic prints of thorns and buds dubiously utilized, and Danica Lundy’s lustily neo-Cubist, neo-Ashcan, underground-comix-inflected painting Labyrinth, but they are admirably subtle and thus burrow all the deeper. No less sardonic and broadly gauged are Chris Domenick’s pointedly non-functioning lamps. This being New England, rustic beauty and cultural legacy can’t be ignored. But they are freshly imagined and invigorated in Lizzie Gill’s paradoxically (galvanizingly) kinetic still life, Renee Gladman’s slyly discombobulated landscapes, Huê Thi Hoffmaster’s impressionistic blast on canvas, Tammy Nguyen and Grace O’Connor’s eerily restive paintings, Em Rooney’s archly out-of-whack multimedia constructions, and Lucy Sallick’s one-of-a-kind artist books incisively composed of selected ephemera from her personal archive.
As for the big art picture, perhaps the most conspicuous and telling aspect of the show is the prominence it accords abstraction in all its breadth. This feature tracks with a broader trend in American art, salient in New York and elsewhere as observed in ArtNEWS, which makes the exhibition that much more clued up and dialed in. The show’s abstract epicenter gathers on the second floor around Lula Mae Blocton’s diaphanously layered paintings, which fuse delicate color and precise line into emotion and principle. Anoka Faruqee and David Driscoll are more interested in painting’s philosophical heroism, applying scientific processes to linen to create uncanny if iterative beauty, while, contrapuntally, sculptor Kristy Hughes’s casualist geometry punches nonchalant holes in this tired dimension, Kern Samuel’s insouciant bars and blocks destabilize its once steadfast grid, Aki Sasamoto’s innovative sounding lines rate its capacity to calibrate relationships, and Jilaine Jones’s disarmingly clunky statues expose its structural tenuousness.
installation view
On the more expressionistic and referential side of abstraction are Beck Lowry’s mixed-media wall pieces Before the Rains and Carry Us Away, joyful in their construction but solemn in the suggested arc, Philip Taaffe’s notionally conspiratorial ferns, and Scott Carrillo Azevedo’s baroquely distressed trappings of respectability. Despite a multiplicity of tones and attitudes, this large group show sustains a steadily downbeat knowingness appropriate to the moment. Even ostensibly lighthearted fare turns rather dark. Behold a few of the sculptors. Carl D’Alvia’s banana yellow HotRod would move like a snail, and his Alien is a sickly green. Edward Henderson’s Snakeskin, albeit inspired, is in essence a derelict steel pipe. Dan Gunn’s “ungrateful sons,” never mind the poxy rhinestones, have all turned into frogs. I am what is around me indeed. It is, abashedly, what it is.
“The Aldrich Decennial: I am what is around me,” The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT. Through January 10, 2027. Curated by Amy Smith-Stewart and Caitlin Monachino. Artists: Faustin Adeniran, Ellen Altfest, Scott Carrillo Azevedo, Jen Bervin, Carlos Bautista Biernnay, Lula Mae Blocton, Gary Burnley, Dominic Chambers, Carl D’Alvia, Chris Domenick, Anindita Dutta, Azza El Siddique, Anoka Faruqee & David Driscoll, Enrique Figueredo, Lizzie Gill, Renee Gladman, Dan Gunn, Edward Henderson, Huê Thi Hoffmaster, Kristy Hughes, Jilaine Jones, Arghavan Khosravi, Sonja Langford, Emily Larned, Jihyun Lee, Beck Lowry, Danica Lundy, Tammy Nguyen, Grace O’Connor, Em Rooney, Lucy Sallick, Kern Samuel, Aki Sasamoto, John Shen, Remy Sosa, Philip Taaffe, Felandus Thames, Amanda Russhell Wallace, and Julia Wachtel.
About the author: Jonathan Stevenson is a New York-based policy analyst, editor, and writer, contributing to the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Politico, among other publications, and a regular contributor to Two Coats of Paint.
Follow the artists on Instagram: Faustin Adeniran @faustinadeniran / Ellen Altfest @altfestival / Scott Carrillo Azevedo @scottcarrilloazevedo / Jen Bervin @jenbervin / Carlos Bautista Biernnay @cbautistabiernnay_art / Lula Mae Blocton @lulamaeblocton / Gary Burnley / Dominic Chambers @chambersdominic / Carl D’Alvia @carldalvia / Chris Domenick / Anindita Dutta @aninditadutta.studio / Azza El Siddique @az__za / Anoka Faruqee @anokafaruqee / & David Driscoll @faruqeedriscollstudio / Enrique Figueredo @enriquefigueredo / Lizzie Gill @lizzie.gill.art / Renee Gladman @prosearchitectures / Dan Gunn @dangunn7 / Edward Henderson / Huê Thi Hoffmaster @huethihoffmaster / Kristy Hughes @kristybluejeans / Jilaine Jones @jilaine_jones / Arghavan Khosravi @arghavan_khosravi / Sonja Langford @sonjalangford / Emily Larned @emilylarned / Jihyun Lee @jihyunlee.studio / Beck Lowry @becklowry / Danica Lundy @danicalundy / Tammy Nguyen @tammowhammo / Grace O’Connor @graceoconnor / Em Rooney @em__rooney / Lucy Sallick @lucysallick / Kern Samuel @k01123s / Aki Sasamoto / John Shen @jcklbyfsh / Remy Sosa @needsrum / Philip Taaffe / Felandus Thames @felandus / Amanda Russhell Wallace / Julia Wachtel @juliawachtel
