AL
HELD: BEYOND SENSE
Robert Miller Gallery
524 W 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
212 366 4774
November 20, 2003 to January 3, 2004
By BENJAMIN
LA ROCCO
Al Held Genesis
II 2002-2003
acrylic on canvas, 180 x 240 inches
Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York
However prepared
you are for Al Held's grandiosity, his work still overawes with technical
finesse and compositional drama. Held is best when he's big. His ability
to paint imaginative images at colossal scale sets him somewhat apart
from his contemporaries. "Genesis II," the largest painting
in the show, is also the finest.
Two pastel grid ground planes recede toward different vanishing points.
They are split by a wide cadmium orange pipe that curls off into the
distance. In the sky, if one can speak of skies in a universe as alien
as Held's, a fog composed of green, boa-like curls descends to penetrate
a cornucopian form at the painting's left. This form in turn splinters
at its outer lip to flip away in rings toward the grids below. At the
painting's top center, orbs that Alice might have found through the
looking glass float downward in a pack. Checkerboard patterning is omnipresent.
"Genesis II," like all the paintings in the show, is immaculate.
Examining its surface the scraped lines of discarded compositions are
apparent. These paintings are not pre-planned, they are found through
the making. This makes the inch by inch, taped edge design of their
surfaces all the more amazing.
Al
Held See Through IV 2002
acrylic on canvas, 108 x 108 inches
Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York
But the joy of
contemplating Held's new paintings is tinged with disappointment. In
his PS1 show last year, Held seemed to be trying to articulate something
very specific about painting's trajectory. There, he integrated motifs
from 19th centrury American landscape painting by recreating them in
the physics and mathematics-derived geometry of which he still shows
himself to be the master. He allowed earth tones a larger place in a
palette suffused in a deep baroque light. That show raised fascinating
questions about the role historical modes of painting might come to
play
Although elements of the PS1 show are preserved at Robert Miller, Held
seems to have abandoned his former historical perspective. The coloring
in Beyond Sense is far brighter, at times reminiscent of a candy store.
Although the show's press release states that the senses are of little
use in Held's world, the reality is that his paintings are aimed unabashedley
at optical stimulation. Every inch of the new paintings contains a twist
of form for the eye to follow. Although these formal acrobatics are
often billiant ("See Through" for example), Pop coloring and
repeating forms sometimes make the paintings feel more like a roller
coaster ride than serious art.
Beyond Sense has more in common with Frank Stella's recent work than
it does with nineteenth century American landscape. An emphasis on optical,
graphic impact at the expense of his earlier concerns is understandable
at a time when it is difficult for painting to make its voice heard.
I nonetheless lament the loss of the delicate motifs- earthtone monoliths
reminiscent of rocky outcroppings and distant horizon lines of sparkling
intensity- that accompanied Held's bravado handling at PS1.
Benjamin La
Rocco is a painter and writer based in Brooklyn, New York.
