July Portfolio: Mohawk Hudson Revival

Each summer, the “Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region” exhibition is the big party on the Capital Region art scene. As with the Salon of the old French Academy, many apply, but only a select group of works is chosen for the show. Artists know that being included in the Regional depends to a certain degree on who the year’s juror is, yet while the juror changes each year, and the exhibit moves on a revolving schedule among the area’s leading art institutions, many of the same artists are selected again and again. This A-list of talent lends continuity to the exhibit, which is now in its 71st year. At the same time, an ever-changing roster of new names gives the show a feeling of perpetual discovery.This year’s Regional is hosted by the Albany International Airport Gallery, which is not only one of the best galleries of its kind in the country, but also, under the leadership of director Sharon Bates, one of the most innovative art venues in the area. Of 191 entrants, 40 were named by juror Leah Douglas, art-program director at the Philadelphia Airport. While most of the artists are from the immediate Mohawk-Hudson region, there are participants from Oneonta, New Paltz, and Johnstown, New York and Holyoke, Massachusetts. The show Douglas chose, while possessing the Regional’s usual variety, is perhaps more weighted toward craft than is usual for a contemporary art exhibit—craft, in this sense, meaning the expert use of materials as a defining element of the work. From Ginger Ertz’s chandelier made of pipe cleaners to Roger Bisbing’s fastidious miniature model-making to Torrence Fish’s video installation of himself building his video installation, much of the emphasis is on handwork. This too harkens back to the 19th-century Salon, when painters of unassailable technique ruled the exhibit while the upstart Impressionists were refused entry. There may well be a population of young genius refusés waiting to take over the regional art scene. If there is, no doubt many of them aspire to having their work accepted into a future Regional. For more information: www.albanyairport.com. The exhibit is on view through September 30.

FOUR ARTISTS ON THEIR WORK

Soft Chandelier, pipe cleaners and steel, Ginger Ertz

Ginger Ertz, Soft Chandelier (pipe cleaners and steel)

I had made a piece a couple years ago for the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Vermont, a site-specific piece of a giant eight-foot diameter pipe-cleaner doily. It was for a show of people using unusual material in a neo-Pop spirit. After that show, I wanted the doily to live on in a more three-dimensional way. When I saw in the prospectus for the Regional this year that the airport was requesting proposals for a sculpture to stand in the stairwell I felt this was a great opportunity. I took the original doily and I added a new structure to it. The bottom part is the original piece, and everything above it is the new structure I built to make it a chandelier. The chandelier has about 10,000 pipe cleaners in it, plus or minus. I started using pipe cleaners with a group of Girl Scouts who were working on their sculpture merit badge. The troop leader called and asked me if I could help, and I designed an activity using pipe cleaners, and my hands just fell in love with them. Within a week I ordered my first 10,000. I’ve been through many tens of thousands since. They’re really great because the armature and the surface are contained in one material. There’s a kind of humor, hominess, comfiness to them, and because we associate them with kids, a childlike quality too.

Idiot Pool, oil on canvas, Brian Cirmo

Brian Cirmo, Idiot Pool (oil on canvas)

Most of my work is derived from cartoon-based art. When I was in art school, high modern art was an influence. Then my interest in the Sunday funnies started to mix with issues of abstract painting, so I blended the two together. I always wanted to tell stories with the paintings, albeit ambiguous stories. That’s always been my enjoyment, to build this other world, this weirder world. This bald head has become my character. Just like Peanuts had Charlie Brown, this character continues through each painting, in different landscapes, different setting. I like the idea of cartoons where the character can keep dying, gets smashed, blown up, torn apart, then comes back in the next story. Idiot Pool began as a bunch of stupid heads floating around in a pool, then it became more grotesque, more violent. They began to feel like soldiers left for dead. I don’t have blueprints when I sit down to make my paintings, but the things we live with day-to-day make their way into the work. I’m not a political artist, but in a way it’s hard not to be. The painting does feel more political, more about the world of war and politics.