SHAPE OF ART TO COME
Abstract artist’s early work captivated local collector
For its two most recent exhibits, the Pizzuti Collection played the part of world traveler. “Cuban Forever Revisited,” which opened in 2016, and “Visions from India,” which was on view earlier this year, presented a diverse assortment of works from artists associated with those nations.
In one of its latest exhibits, however, the Short North gallery is looking to its roots.
“Lines/Edges: Frank Stella on Paper” features works on paper by the widely admired New York abstract artist, whose creations were first encountered more than 40 years ago by future Pizzuti Collection founder Ron Pizzuti.
“He was in Paris and walked into a gallery and there were paintings by Stella,” said chief curator Greer Pagano. “He was not an art person, hadn’t studied art in college, but those paintings ... were Ron Pizzuti’s ‘wow moment.’”
Pizzuti proceeded to study Stella’s work and eventually began to acquire pieces — including those by Stella — that formed the basis of the Pizzuti Collection.
Despite the institution’s strong ties to the artist, the current exhibit is just the second to showcase Stella, who was born in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1936. The artist was previously included in an exhibit in 2013.
“We’ve got to take it slow,” Pagano said. “We’ll show more.”
Judging by the current exhibit, the gallery’s periodic Stella offerings are likely to be worth the wait. Featuring works spanning a nearly 30-year period — the earliest piece dates from 1967, the most recent from 1994 — the exhibit makes it easy to understand the qualities that drew Pizzuti to Stella.
With their spare depictions of cleanly rendered shapes, Stella’s early works have a cool, calm exactitude.
Highlights include the lithograph “Star of Persia I” (1967), which offers a rigid, six-pointed representation of the top of an onion plant. The “V” shapes that make up the work anticipate another lithograph, “Quathlamba I (From V Series)” (1968), which shows three “Vs” nestled together in the manner of a child’s toy blocks.
No less precise is “Purple Series” (1972), consisting of nine lithographs depicting basic forms such as a square, triangle and octagon, all rendered in a serene shade of purple.
Later pieces are less predictable and more frenzied.
In the last two decades of the 20th century, Stella turned his attention to Herman Melville’s 1851 novel “Moby-Dick.” Yet don’t look for the Great White Whale anywhere in “The Battering Ram” (1993), one of nine works on display from what amounted to a 266-piece series.
Instead, the work offers an incomprehensible grab-bag of forms: A striped lyre-like object hovers in the center, bordered by blotchy dabs of color on a black-and-white grid.
“Frank has said that he was not ever attempting to illustrate ‘Moby-Dick,’” Pagano said, speculating that the artist instead sought to capture “the momentum, the energy, the spirit” of the book. Yet a stronger, simpler evocation of Melville — like the early works included here — might have made a more lasting impression.
Also on view at the Pizzuti Collection is a two-person exhibit showcasing New York artists Glen Baldridge and Alex Dodge. Besides sharing the same year of birth (1977) and alma mater (the Rhode Island School of Design), the two produce pieces with sometimesstriking overlaps.
Pop culture is referenced in Dodge’s oil-and-glassbeads-on-linen work “MJ,” in which the sequin-gloved hand of pop star Michael Jackson emerges from beneath an object shrouded in a colorful quilt. Similarly, Baldridge’s woodcut “Double Dilly” features commercial imagery, positioning a pair of Dairy Queen logos beside each other like watchful eyes.
Also notable are Baldridge’s screen print “Lucky Sevens,” presenting what appear to be images of advertisements for caskets; and Dodge’s oil-on-canvas “Monument,” in which a red-and-white polka-dotted sheet covers a bulging object that oozes a thick yellow mass.
The trio of Stella, Baldridge and Dodge make for two of the season’s most memorable exhibits.