UNIQUE VOICES
HISTORY AND MYSTERY PLAY OUT IN ALDRICH’S TWO NEW EXHIBITIONS IN 2022
Apair of exhibitions opening in January at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield may at first glance seem quite dissimilar. The artists’ backgrounds and their media and subject matter are very different but upon closer inspection the work of the two not only compliment one another, but share some similarities. Each making their solo museum exhibition debut here, Milano Chow is Asian-American and Duane Slick is Indigenous. Both artists create their art with a unique voice, born of heritages that are significant parts of the American experience. One artist explores the ideas of alienation through her architecturally-centered works while the other deftly balances modern abstraction with Native American mythology.
“Duane Slick: The Coyote Makes The Sunset Better” will be on view Jan. 17 through May 8, and includes 90 paintings, prints, photographs, and videos made in the last five years. “Milano Chow: Prima Facie” will be on view Jan. 17 through May 8 with more than a dozen new works on paper spanning two and three dimensions.
“Both exhibitions fall clearly into the Aldrich’s primary mission of giving opportunities to emerging and midcareer artists at critical points in their careers,” said the museum’s exhibitions director Richard Klein.
Early in his career, Slick was mostly painting landscapes but in the lead-up to Christopher Columbus’ quincentenary (1992), alternative galleries and some museums and groups were organizing counter exhibitions in protest. Slick was invited to show his art with a group of fellow Indigenous artists. It was around this time his work began to tell the stories of his heritage and the coyote became a key motif. Slick began collecting stories from his parents and Native American poetry.“I
was just interested in the kind of voice that they had and I decided to let the trickster character, the coyote, begin to make the work for me,” he said.
Chow methodically creates monochromatic collages that are very architectural, almost like blueprints, but retaining a ghostly air of mystery. A series of self-possessed women wander in and out of these landscapes and the viewer is left to wonder about who they might be and their stories.
“I like melodramas about women in distress and movies about alienation in cities, though the women in my work tend to be aloof and less emotive,” Chow said. Asked if these women could share their stories with audiences, she said they probably would not talk and would quietly observe the world around them instead.
Using reference images from architecture and art history books, technical drawings, blueprints, and lifestyle magazines, Chow chooses a variety of striking architectural focal points in which to place her women subjects. Cornices, eaves, window treatments and furniture build a backdrop where time ceases to exist for these “paper dolls” that the artist pulls from vintage fashion and lifestyle magazines. By viewing these women secluded in grandiose settings, the artist surveys themes of voyeurism, alienation, isolation, gender and social order.
The coyote is a powerful and longstanding figure in Native American culture and as both demi-god and trickster, it is known for imparting wisdom and foolishness. In his art, Slick harnesses this motif as a fluid subject, one that is in a constant state of flux in its intentions as well as character.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located at 258 Main Street in Ridgefield.