Turning on to Leaf and Dickinson
The Whitney Museum is honoring Sherrie Levine, an artist who helped usher in postmodernism—as if New Yorkers needed another reminder of that movement’s deadening intellectual certainties. Better the arbiter of American art should dedicate its institutional clout to June Leaf, a veteran painter and sculptor whose prodigious oeuvre needs a broader berth than can be provided by Edward Thorp Gallery, the venue currently exhibiting her recent efforts.
June Leaf, “Untitled (Theater),” 2010-2011, mixed media, 53h x 23.35w x 36d in. Courtesy of Babcock Galleries
Leaf’s art is included in the Whitney’s collection (MoMA’s, too), but that’s not the reason she deserves a full accounting. Over the 30-some years Thorp has been exhibiting her work, Leaf has proved consistently intriguing and hard to pin down. Though she makes Manhattan and Nova Scotia home, Leaf was born in Chicago and, during the 1950s, proved an integral player in shaping the city’s artistic identity.
Since then, the gritty finesse and stern air of existential resignation typifying the work has garnered Leaf the sobriquet “The Best Artist Nobody Knows About.” How “best” is she? That’s where the Whitney should step in.
At Thorp, we have diverting drips and drabs: scrabbled paintings of a post-apocalyptic Second Avenue; egg-beaters as signposts of mortality; anonymous figures, rendered in paint and tin, ascending staircases that lead nowhere; and “Untitled (Figure Cranking)” (2010–2011), wherein a vintage sewing machine is transformed into a parable about fate, all the while channeling Dante, Bosch, Giacometti and Calder. It’s an impressive achievement—one you’d think would make our culturati sit up and take notice.
Any credible accounting of American art will place an emphasis on intractable individualism; the hard-won visions of sundry loners, originals and eccentrics speak more to the country’s can-do spirit than any spit-and-polished category you’d care to name. (An example: Abstract expressionism seems a false conceit at this late date, less a matter of shared stylistic interests than a convenient tag for a specific social subset.)
Seen in this light, a contemporary like Leaf and a historical figure like Edwin Dickinson (1891–1978) appear less marginal—though good luck convincing those sold on the received wisdom. The folks at Babcock Galleries, which is hosting an array of Dickinson’s canvases, know what they’re up against. When the gallery makes a point of letting us know that Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning admired Dickinson’s art, it does so as a means of conferring popular legitimacy on a painter who is nobody’s idea of “user-friendly.”
June Leaf, “Untitled,” 2011, acrylic, collage on canvas, 20h x 16w in. Courtesy of Babcock Galleries
What, after all, are we to make of Dickinson’s dour meditations on the body, the landscape and dressing up in outdated military gear? That “Self Portrait in Uniform” (1942) is among the strangest self-portraits extant, sure. But mostly, Dickinson was incapable of putting brush to canvas without embodying the transitory nature of memory and, not least, evoking its burdens.
Modern without being modernist, Dickinson’s poetic reveries are closer in tone and affect to Ingmar Bergman, say, than to either Gorky or de Kooning. But don’t kid yourself: Dickinson is in their league—and maybe better. Here is a superlative chance to acquaint yourself with this vexing and elusive master.
June Leaf: Recent Work
Through Jan. 28, Edward Thorp Gallery, 210 11th Ave., Ste. 601, 212-691-6565, www.edwardthorpgallery.com.
Edward Dickinson in Retrospect
Through Jan. 27, Babcock Galleries, 724 5th Ave., 212-767-1852, www.babcockgalleries.com.
Gallery Openings
Nohra Haime Gallery: Valerie Hird: “The Fifth Day.” Opens Jan. 18, 730 5th Ave., 212-888-3550, nohrahaimegallery.com.
The Pace Gallery: “Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years.” Opens Jan. 20, 510 W. 25th St., 212-255-4044, thepacegallery.com.
Museums
Brooklyn Museum: “Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919.” Opens Jan. 20. “Question Bridge: Black Males.” Ends June 3. 200 Eastern Pkwy, Brooklyn, 718-638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org.
International Center of Photography: “Weegee: Murder Is My Business.” Opens Jan. 20. “Perspectives 2012.” Opens Jan. 20. “Magnum Contact Sheets.” Opens Jan. 20. “The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet.” Opens Jan. 20, 1122 6th Ave., 212-857-0000, icp.org.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: “New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture & Decorative Arts.” Opens Jan. 16. “Breaking the Color Barrier in Major League Baseball.” Opens Jan. 18, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org.
Museum of Modern Art: “Print Studio.” Opens. Jan. 23. “9 Scripts from a Nation at War.” Opens Jan. 25. “Sanja Ivekovi: Sweet Violence.” Ends March 26, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400, moma.org.
National Academy Museum: “The Annual: 2012.” Opens Jan. 25, 1083 5th Ave., 212-369-4880, nationalacademy.org.
Whitney Museum of American Art: “Sherrie Levine: Mayhem.” Ends Jan. 29, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600, whitney.org.
Music & Opera
ChamberFest: The Juilliard school presents 7 free chamber concerts by 87 Juilliard musicians & 4 pre-college performers, featuring works by Brahms, Crumb, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky & others. Ends Jan. 21, juilliard.edu/chamberfest; free with advance tickets.
Church of Saint Luke in the Fields: Organist David Shuler performs Bach, Buxtehude & others in “Baroque Blockbusters.” Jan. 19, 487 Hudson St., 212-414-9419, stlukeinthefields.org/store; 8, $20.
Church of St. Agnes: Female-oriented vocal ensemble Amuse, conducted by Robert Isaacs, performs in “Angels + Demons: From Heaven to Hell (& back again?)” with the music of Palestrina, Byrd & more. Jan. 25, 143 E. 43rd St., amusesingers.org.
Peter Jay Sharp Theater: Julliard singers perform songs about & with dancing—with works by Brahms, Berlin, Sondheim & others—in “Invitation to the Dance,” a collaboration with New York Festival of Song & The Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts. Jan. 18, 155 W. 65th St., 212-769-7406, juilliard.edu; 8, free with advance reservations.
