Review by JD
Jarvis, Art
Critic/Artist and coauthor of "Going Digital: The Practice and Vision of Digital
Artists" (ISBN 1-59200-918-2) [Note: This review was written for
the first
exhibition of MY DEAR
MALEVICH at the Art Gallery, Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University,
Zhaoqing, China (April 2 - 15, 2007).][USA]:
"Can an
exhibition of art be both physical and virtual, a historical yet avant-garde,
forward-looking homage with one foot
in
the current 21st century digital art scene and the other in the rich 20th
century history of Modernist art? The answer is, "yes," if you are Tom R.
Chambers.
Which
brings us to one of Tom Chambers' own most recent and personal exhibitions
entitled "My Dear Malevich". Consisting of black and white prints of hard-edged
geometric designs the project is an homage to Kasimir Malevich, the Russian
artist who carried earlier Cubist work entirely into the
abstract
and non-representational. Malevich founded the Suprematist art movement around
1913 and opened the door to true non-objectivity in modern art.
This
exhibition expands inward (so to speak) from research into the progenitors of
Minimalism, an artform in which Mr. Chambers has been experimenting for several
years with his series of "Pixelscapes" exhibitions. Utilizing the most basic unit of any computer graphic; the
single pixel, his "Pixelscapes" serve as
colorful pathways into
the
purely metaphysical aspects of art which, by virtue of presenting so little,
leads the viewer to so much in terms of their own emotional
content.
With "My Dear Malevich,"
Chambers describes for the viewer a process by which he travels (via
magnification) into a digitized photograph of Malevich and discovers at the
singular pixel level arrangements which echo back directly to Malevich's own
totally abstract compositions. This process is such an apt metaphor
for
Malevich's own journey deep with himself, as well as, his discovery of the
non-objective soul of art contained within the objective world as to constitute
a form of visual poetry.
This
visual poetry contains the ironic connection between Modernist philosophy which
moved visual art from figurative representational pictures of the physical world
into an expressive and emotional world of abstraction; and, the digital realm in
which the purely abstract unit of one
pixel
off - one pixel on, has been utilized to reproduce once again, with breath
taking accuracy the physical world. Now, Chambers' has shown a path by which
this tool, which so often serves hyper-reality, is forced to reveal the abstract
soul at its very core.
Was
Malevich thinking in "pixels" without knowledge of the term and even many
decades before the fact of the technology, which utilizes this basic component?
His association with Futurism might account for
this
sort of metaphysical connection. And, so it is that we have the aspect of this
exhibition that straddles a whole century of art. From the earliest beginnings
of Modern art to the latest developments in the tools by which the newest works
are being made.
The ground
that is covered is immense, but the time between the two virtually disappears in
this exhibit. It seems that with "My Dear Malevich" it is not a matter of what
is old (or new) being new (or old) again;
but
that what is "old" and "new" exists simultaneously. That which is "gone" is
also, at the very same time, ever-present."
MDM-1
from "My Dear Malevich" will be shown as a part of the "Homage" exhibition in
California:
MDM-1 [My Dear
Malevich] (Group Show), Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media, Art Institute
of California, San Diego, California, U.S.A., September 11 - October 15,
2010.
My Dear Malevich and Pixelscapes: First and
Second Generations, The H
Gallery, Houston, Texas, U.S.A., July 10 - August 9,
2010.
MDM-1 [My Dear
Malevich] (Group Show), Homage: Contemporary Art in Digital Media, Escondido
Arts Partnership Municipal Gallery, Escondido, California, U.S.A., July 9 -
August 21, 2010.
Contacts:
