If you're familiar with the art of Leonard Baskin, chances are his name evokes the distinctive delicate-but-grotesque style with which he depicted flora, fauna and humankind in some rather existentially fraught moments. His iconic series of birdman images, for instance — somber hybrid creatures sporting avian heads, wings and beaks paired with human legs, torsos and genitals — is hard to forget.
A new and quite moving exhibit at the Leepa-Rattner places Baskin's exploration of the nightmarish side of existence in the broader context of his belief in the difficulty — but, ultimately, the possibility — of living a moral life in a sometimes profoundly immoral world.
"Man of Peace," a large-scale woodcut from 1953, evokes the image of a Holocaust prisoner in a visual call to never forget, yet move on from that terrible event. (You've got to wonder, had he not passed away in 2000, what Baskin might have had to say about 9/11.) Here the artist's frequent practice of representing the surface of the figure as a spider-web of subcutaneous veins takes on the chillingly realistic implication of emaciation and suffering; in his hand, the figure grasps a rooster, whose sacrifice on Yom Kippur symbolizes the forgiveness of sins.
Also on display are haunting portraits of Native American heroes, contemporary political figures including Jesse Jackson and Mahatma Gandhi, and artists and authors whom Baskin admired for their commitment to social realism, from Géricault to Thomas Eakins. The diverse images showcase his success in all varieties of printmaking and the unique, almost sculptural, density of his painstakingly executed designs. (Baskin was also a renowned sculptor and considered that medium his native one.) An engraved plate in the exhibit gives a sense of just how much each print was a process of carving and chiseling for the artist.
Nearby, at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center, three unique exhibits offer another set of journeys into the far corners of the imagination.
Larger Than Life features fantastical creations by four different sculptors. Miami-based Christine Federighi adorns her jet-black ceramic mummies with symbols of natural life (leaves and vines) or the spiritual (in the form of a tiny figure tucked into a pocket at the mummy's breast). John Whipple, an Orlando artist, pieces together wood and other found materials to great tragicomic effect; the title of his sculpture, "Bissell," refers to a brand of vintage wooden sweeper that serves as the body for a hapless character — further dehumanized by a beak-shaped mask and the bird that perches atop his head — who evokes both laughter and empathy. Karen Windchild also emerges as a master storyteller, freezing her ceramic subjects in a moment of drama: a bird about to alight atop a miniature house or a sea goddess riding by on a crocodile. Raku-fired ceramic pieces by Steven Olszewski, including a nearly life-sized Buddha, offer a more restrained presence, but get up close to view their texture and they are just as engrossing.
An exhibit of narrative woodblock prints by Marvin Hill (a Wisconsin artist who died in 2003) depicts scenes from the tarot in colorful, diminutive images that resonate with gentle, knowing humor. Allegorical phrases ("water that does not wet the hands") combine with surreal, symbolic illustrations to teasingly proffer deep truth wrapped in obscurity. If you've seen the Baskin exhibit, Hill's prints will seem decidedly simple but engaging nonetheless.
New paintings by septuagenarian Irish artist John Kingerlee combine abstraction — in the form of rich, crusty impasto — with suggestions of the figure and found objects like stamps and postcards from the artist's visits to foreign places. The hotel insignia on a postcard or the image of a puppy on a postage stamp creates a focal point around which the textures and gestures of the painting play to create a story; the transformation is truly magical. Whether Kingerlee, who never went to art school but fetches the kind of prices that indicate art-world acceptance (British pounds in the five figures for a canvas recently), can be considered an outsider artist is up for debate; to learn more, check out a talk by New York Times contributing critic William Zimmer at the DFAC on Sun. Oct. 7 at 3 p.m.
Roll over to Platform Florida in Lakeland Friday night for an altogether different sort of getaway. "On the Road" is the theme for this eighth installment in a series of evenings jam-packed with visual arts, film, performance, music and fashion. Central Florida Eurocars, one of the biggest supporters of the arts in Polk County, plays host to the event in two of its new showrooms.
Platform Florida director Ann Wilson borrowed a good idea from her son, Christian Jurinka, and his friends, who began staging art parties under the name Platform five years ago in San Francisco as out-of-work dotcom-ers. The group pulled off 15 events, then had to get real jobs when the unemployment checks stopped coming, Wilson says. (Doh!) Meanwhile, she brought the idea to roost in her home of Lakeland, assembling an all-volunteer crew to stage the events, several times a year at first, but now twice yearly in response to demand.
Doors open at 6 p.m. — plenty of time to check out the displays of 15 local visual artists before performances begin. At 7 and 9, Lakeland-based Florida Dance Theater will present original on-the-road-themed choreography; at 8, Tampa's hat- and apparel-designing Komater Sisters take over the stage with a fashion show. Throughout it all, the duo FreeTime plays live jazz and blues, and a series of short films runs. $15 admission includes beer and wine; students are $8 with ID.
On the art front, look out for work by two Tampa artists, Matt Larson and Chalet Zell. Larson's striking photographs of roadside memorial crosses put a contemplative spin on the evening's theme. Zell will offer mixed-media collage and sculpture including a wooden "travel bag" for your next road trip. Other highlights will include Lakeland-based Thomas Monaco's hand-built motorcycles and paintings on panel by perennial folk art favorite Ruby C. Williams, an area icon whose works are often on display at her roadside produce stand.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2006.