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A psychic told me the other day that change is in the
air. Not the waning, Obama-style change, and not a heap
of 2010 presidential gold dollar coins raining down from
the heavens (which begs the side question: Millard Fillmore?
Really?). No, this kind of change is a rebirth of connection,
she said, a determination to resurrect the parts of ourselves
that have lain dormant for too long, a desire to reach
out, challenge ourselves, and see the world in a new way.
I would have found out more, but I didn’t have another
quarter to slip into Esmeralda’s glass gypsy-box-slot—that’s
the sort of change I still don’t have much of these
days.
In the vein of this new perspective, however, Pomona College
Art Museum Director Steve Comba and Museum Coordinator
Jessica Wimbley have put into motion a series of programs
designed to draw the surrounding civilian community into
the museum’s artistic fold. Reaching out to students
and citizens has been the priority, but recently, Comba
and Wimbley hit on an entirely new idea, one that not
only embraces local artists, but hopes to ignite interest
in the Museum’s extensive permanent collection from
patrons and would-be patrons of the arts.
Joining forces with Pomona’s dA Center for the Arts,
the Museum offered a select group of local IE creators
(who were invited by the Center) an intimate viewing of
the Museum’s collection of over 10,000 works. The
artist challenge: to select a work from this established
record that would ignite their own creativity, allowing
them to transmute the original vision into something entirely
new, yet directly connected to the old. The result is
an inspiring dance of renewal, a spectral morphing of
different eras and styles melding together and giving
life to a new form that is both fixed and transient.
Kate Thornton’s interpretation of a Kress Collection
Madonna and Child portrait from the 14th century is a
striking synthesis of this goal. Using the abstract style
palate of artist Sam Francis to influence her reimagining
of the iconic image, Thornton writes that she immediately
saw a connection between the two works—even though
on first glance, they might appear to be at opposite ends
of the spectrum (the Madonna is standard gilded piety
and Francis is a splotchy, splashy abstractionist). When
fused together into Thornton’s A Second Look, however,
the artist’s initial perception is keenly apparent:
while this Madonna is stunning and vibrant, it is symbolic
in dogma, yet also captures our modern desire to blur
the lines of religion to make it more philosophically
reflexive instead of humanly reflective.
Walter Christensen turns a master on his ear with his
series of playful oil pastels inspired by the nightmarish
etchings of Francisco de Goya. While Goya’s macabre
visions of witchcraft and corruption are chilling, filled
with violence and sorrow, venomous bats and weeping mortals,
Christensen’s carnival of souls presents brightly
colored and smiling winged-rodents paling around with
cute little owls. His mortals are less weary and confused,
and even the decapitated heads floating around in bubbles
don’t seem very upset over their body disconnect.
Anne Seltzer also makes a coup with her Fritz Scholder-Andy
Warhol-inspired giant screaming flowers and their screaming-sunglasses
wearing, squawking black bird companion—two exceptional
pop art-styled pieces that carve out a welcome niche between
the retro and modern worlds.
Juan Thorp's rendering of Giuseppe Niccolò Vicentino's
16th Century woodcut, Hercules & Nimean Lion using
Thorp's trademark Mechanos - detailed block-like shapes
drawn in isometric perspective - is simply astonishing
in its precision and intelligence; here, in the wilds
of the forest we no longer find an archaic god and beast
locked in combat, but instead glimpse what might be our
future gods - robotic beings void of recognizable humanity
and stripped down to the essence of our genetic coding:
power and strength.
Other pieces include Marcella Swett's gorgeously twisty
branches and berries, Athena Hahn's series of train engines,
Native American renderings by Fr. Bill Moore and Dee Marcellus
Cole, a re-envisioning of Goya's anti-war etchings by
Perry Marks, Cheryl Bookout's 14th century comment on
the modern transformation of cultural idol into icon (most
particularly in avatar-ruled cyber worlds) and Rick Caughman's
detailed dry point etching of an idyllic Mt. Baldy panorama.
It's an unusual landscape of perspectives-courageous and
evocative, and rebirth at its essence. Esmeralda would
be proud.
“In Front of the Real Thing” at the dA Center
for the Arts, 252 S. Main St., Pomona, (909) 397-9716;
www.dacenter.org. Wed-Sat, noon-5PM; Thurs, noon-9PM.
Opens Sat. Thru Jan. 30. Free.
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