EXHIBITION REVIEWS ART IN AMERICA 151
tries to indicate real objects,” Greenberg wrote, “their shapes
latten and spread in the dense, two-dimensional atmo-
sphere. A vibrating tension is set up as the objects struggle
to maintain their volume against the tendency of the real
picture plane to re-assert its material latness and crush them
to silhouettes.”
Korty’s weariness withiguration, like that of the
historical avant-garde, arises from his distrust of the ictions
inherent to the illusionistic painted surface, as he told me in a
conversation about his exhibition of new works (all 2015) at
Night gallery.he central pieces were seven abstract canvases
that measure approximately 7 feet tall—slightly larger than
the human frame—and feature sections of silkscreen, ink
drawings and painted paper seamlessly collaged onto deep
indigo backgrounds. Also on view were ive paintings related
to the canvases but made on panel in a black-and-white
palette. Lastly, the show included two tables of ceramic vessels
and sculptures, which the artist began in 2005. hese pieces—
hand-built constructions of geometric, vaguely architectural
forms—served to reinforce the physical work that went into
the paintings: the kind of labor that illusionistic works are, by
deinition, meant to conceal.
Korty has completely conceded to thelat surface in
the new paintings, where his primary concerns are formal.
he structural underpinning of the compositions originated
with a mundane experience the artist had at a friend’s house:
looking at some sheet music, he noticed a graphic motif
of a wind-up marching tin soldier adorning the page. he
paintingsextrapolate upon this tin soldier. he ones made on
panel, titled “Paper Frames,” render snippets of the soldier’s
body amid textual fragments and areas of patterned designs.
he canvas-based ones, meanwhile, distill the soldier to
assorted straight and curved lines, using it as a visual device
for formal experimentation; these latter works are titled
“Figure Constructions,” the artist implying that the abstrac-
tions are somewhat representational.
Angular shapes resembling the letters “K” and “R”—
suggesting the lockstep of the tin soldier—govern the
composition of eachFigure Construction. Other body parts
appear here and there. Hands, variously represented in
paper cutouts and ink, appear in a central band inFigure
Construction #1. Two connected semi-ellipses inFigure
Construction #3imply breasts. A silkscreened image of
Isabella Rosselini, whom Korty unabashedly and earnestly
admires as a symbol of female strength and womanhood,
provides the face forFigure Construction #8, while thickly
impastoed brushstrokes inFigure Construction #2delin-
eate a visage not unlike alucha libremask. Pairs of circles
that read as Mickey Mouse or teddy bear ears counter the
severity and angularity of Korty’s Frankensteinian forms.
The cultural references in the various works—whether
purposeful or inadvertent—remind us of the limitations of
formalism proper, particularly its refusal of symbolic and
associative contexts. In the end, Korty’s new work, while
largely abandoning illusion, is enriched by allusion.
—Jennifer S. Liing a narrative of struggle with identity and artiice. his is
a painting about variability, convoluted feelings and mutable
identities. In short, it’s about freedom.
By 1952 Pollock had enlarged his technique, which
could now accommodate a wide range of igures or even
allusions to other artists’ works, as withNumber 12, 1952,
which resembles an early Rothko overlaid with an oil slick of
black. he drip method feels full of unruly potential here, to
the point that the critical fetish for allover abstraction, with
its overtones of heroic authenticity, starts to seem prudish
and one-dimensional.
—William S. Smith
LOS ANGELES
DAVID KORTY
Night
David Korty irst received critical attention in the aughts
for portraits and landscapes indebted to artists including
Alex Katz, David Hockney and the painters of the Bay
Area igurative school. With each proceeding body of work,
however, the elements in his compositions have becomelat-
ter and more compressed, as if he were illustrating principles
of Cubism that Clement Greenberg outlined in his essay
“Towards a Newer Laocoön” (1940). “Where the painter still
David Korty:Figure
Construction #2,
2015,Flashepaint,
paper, ink and
silkscreen on canvas,
84 by 58 inches; at
Night.