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reviews: new york
Larry Poons
Loretta Howard
This mini-survey of Larry Poons’s output between 1976 and 1993 provided a
fascinating study in how this artist’s
paintings have evolved since the early
’60s.
The encrusted surfaces of the ’80s and
’90s featured here were a far cry from
Poons’s early optical Color Field dot
paintings and the lush cascades of
poured paint from the ’70s. Materiality
of paint had become the focus, and the
accumulation of “stuff” on the surface
during this period starts to look geological, referencing natural phenomena such
as solidified lava, rock formations, and
fallen leaves. The What Sonata (1989) resembles the ashy aftermath of a volcanic
eruption, its lumpy terrain monochromatic, dense, and sculptural. Rogue Stadium (1987) combines the rough
allover-ness of a Kiefer with the atmospheric headiness of a Monet. Often
closer to wall reliefs than paintings, these
pieces appear limitless.
Two of the three large paintings in the
gallery’s upstairs room represented a different style and time from the third one.
Untitled (1976) is classic poured Poons,
creamy and slippery, sensually sliding
down the unprimed canvas. Like a macho
Pat Steir, Poons manages to add a certain
muscularity to an essentially fluid
about as impressionistic as the artist got
here. Divided on an approximate diagonal from top left to bottom right, the
painting contrasts a mossy
green with a section of violet-hued pours, evoking a
riotous tangle of plants
and flowers.
Peretheia (1993), the
most recent painting in
the show, offers a reddish
conglomeration of hieroglyphic-like 3-D shapes
that approach text, as if
the rough earth itself
were trying to spit out a
message.
—Amanda Church
to Goya’s “Proverbios” and “Caprichos.”
For more than 50 years, Dobbs has
painted humans dwarfed by their envi-
John Dobbs
ACA
Beautifully balanced images of a world spinning
out of control, John
Dobbs’s paintings are visual koans for contemplation. Dogs battle over raw
meat, a blindfolded man
swings a truncheon, one
naked wrestler locks anJohn Dobbs, Untitled 9, 2010, watercolor and gouache, 51⁄2" x 3 7⁄8".
other in a choke hold—
ACA.
these were scenes from the
64 small watercolors and gouaches in this ronment. His men and women have
lurked in the glare of plateglass windows
moving and disquieting show. Together,
they suggest and the ozone haze of city streets. Recently, he’s taken on freaks, clowns, and
a tarot deck
that invokes other performers as subjects. Tottering
tightrope walkers menace one another
the past as
it augurs the above angry crowds. White-faced contortionists twist into inhuman shapes. One
future.
senses the lions are waiting in their stalls.
Some are
Dobbs’s circus is more Roman than Barglimpses of
num & Bailey.
a macabre
In his latest work, the artist explored
21st-centhis imagery on a smaller scale. Reduced
tury carnito miniatures, the characters become
val, where
more powerful archetypes: an enorhalf-male,
mous, pink man carried by a thin, brown
half-female
one telegraphs racism and gluttony.
characters
While the social commentary is obvious,
tap-dance
and tiny fig- these pieces are nonetheless dark, poures run like etic, and frightening, conveying volumes
with few deft brushstrokes. In the 5-byhamsters on
4-inch Untitled 9 (2010), backlit by a
a gigantic
Larry Poons, The What Sonata, 1989, acrylic on canvas, 87" x 118".
blazing red, Dobbs paints a figure teeWonder
Loretta Howard.
Wheel. Oth- tering on the edge, his eyes downcast,
his knees bent, his arms raised for balers, like the paintings of stilt walkers
medium. Grays and maroons dominate
ance. Is he going to fly, or will he jump?
swinging cudgels and a group of women
with interludes of aqua and orange entossing an effigy into the air, pay homage
livening the field. Tantrum 2 (1979) is
—Mona Molarsky
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