MARIO NAVES
Elizabeth Harris
Gallery
529 W. 20th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues,
New York NY 10001
212-463-9666
September 4 to October 4,
2003
By MAUREEN
MULLARKEY
Mario Naves The
Emperor's Dream 2003
acrylic paint and pasted paper, 28-3/4 x 30-1/2 inches
Courtesy Elizabeth Harris Gallery; more images will follow
AN ART CRITIC NEEDS NO PRACTICAL
TRAINING, no personal immersion in any aspect of craft. In theory, it
is enough for a critic to know his history and to have an eye for the
particular cycle of sensibility that marks his own time. The contemporary
critic's job is to articulate that ambient sensibility, increasing its
self-awareness and confidence. And he is expected to encourage public
recognition in a language useful at table and the lectern.
But there is more to schooling
an eye than the horse races of art history. More, too, than shelves
of theory, donnish jargon or-as an instance of same-strategies of discourse.
So much depends on the ways in which an artist's hand serves or stymies
sensibility. A good critic knows from within how a hand functions as
an extension of the eye. Without that fundamental empathy, criticism
is no more than a circle dance performed by critics for each other.
It is no accident that the most illuminating commentaries on painting
and painters have been penned by practitioners. From Vasari to Ruskin,
André Lhote to Fairfield Porter-to name only our betters-the
experience of painting is often communicated best by those who have
lived some time with the terrors of the studio.
Mario Naves, art critic for
The New York Observer, has both an eye and a hand. That was apparent
two years ago at his first exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery. This
current show confirms my initial regard for his art and deepens my delight
in it. In his artmaking, as in his criticism, his primary concern is
for the way a thing looks, not for one or another formalist theory.
On view are nine collages,
modestly scaled, their complexity increasing as size diminishes. Paint
is the starting point. Naves admits that his collages grew out of dissatisfaction
with his own painting . It is a disarming admission, one that prompts
him to paint "by other means." And the means are simple. Paint
is dripped, scraped, scumbled, sponged, patted and brushed on pieces
of paper that are then torn and rearranged. His technique preserves
the accidental aspect of the painting process while it subordinates
all randomness to the cognitive, disciplined basis of traditional painting.
Naves' method relieves him
of every painter's struggle to achieve a particular touch. It saves
him from over-painting and the hazards of sustained brush-work. His
texture derives from the quality of papers, their creases, folds and
variety of over-lapping edges. Color is already dry, fixed on the paper,
when he begins to manipulate it. This obviates any risk of slurred or
muddy passages. It frees Naves from the pressures of mark-making, permitting
him to concentrate exclusively on color and form.
The result is both sensuous
and discreet-all calculation hidden by the alchemy of his composition.
Everything hinges on shape and placement. His working method is nothing
if not deliberate. Yet the overall impression suggests playfulness and
the illusion of spontaneity. Each work develops by a process of accretion,
like a coral reef, around whichever color piece was fixed at the beginning.
The delicacy of Naves' touch
and the sensibility that drives it reminds me of the work of Kenzo Okada.
A Japanese-American painter blessed with an unerring compositional sense,
Okada created intricate, gossamer surfaces built on keen attention to
nuance and a love of Abstract Expressionism. Naves shares Okada's gift
for subtle tonal shifts within each color area. Every collage on view
is a record of delicate refinements, one inextricable from the next.
I only wish the titles [e.g.
Boy Genius, Hobnob] were less precious. The watch-while-I-toss-this-off
arbitrariness and arch tone is out sync with the intuitive, lovingly
observed adjustments that accumulate into an image.
