STUDIO-ONLINE

Four Corners - Tower Road, 2005, oil and acrylic on canvas, framed, 11 x 22 1/2 inches

Albert Kresch leapt into public view in his late seventies–having toiled for decades in relative obscurity–with fine shows at Salander-O’Reilly Galleries and the Center for Figurative Painting.  His current exhibition of nearly 30 landscapes at Lohin Geduld shows the artist in top form.
 
Kresch’s motif of small horizontal landscapes, divided almost equally between earth and sky, would seem to be simplicity itself, offered up with seductive scumblings of vivid hues:  brilliant yellows and orange-reds, often, against darker, deeper blues and greens.  But as with the artist’s career, deeper rewards emerge slowly but surely.  Subtle plastic rhythms–traceable to his early years as an abstract painter just out of the Hans Hofmann School–charge his hues, which tug and lean against each other with poignant rigor.  Stare a while at “Four Corners-Tower Road,” and the ground plane takes on the aspect of a luminous, unfurling tablecloth, settling weightily, front to back.  Across the tensile ground planes of his landscapes, pressures of color provoke eruptions of form elsewhere.  Tiers of dark foliage separate bright fields in “Blue and Gold,” not in passive spatial recession, but as tensed incidents; slight diagonals converge behind the ball of a central tree, nailing its location and the fullness of the air beneath ultramarine and cerulean notes of sky.  In “September Landscape,” trees enter from the right as a procession of furry disks, gathering in height at the canvas’ center; they preside with quiet authority over distant fields and a foreground house.  New, in my experience, are the small figures in several canvases that rest, work or cavort in mute dances with the landscape.

Lohin Geduld Gallery
531 W. 25th St.
New York, NY
212-675-2656
www.lohingeduld.com

VIEW EXHIBITION

Studio Online is pleased to present Jennifer Andrews, a New York City based painter.  Ms. Andrews was born in Buffalo, NY and studied painting at Hartford Art School.  Working in thin layers of oil paint and beeswax, her semi-narrative paintings investigate the structure of memory, myth and our connection to the natural world.  Dividing studio time between her native US and abroad (previous work on location includes series from Viet Nam, Costa Rica and the Netherlands) provides Andrews a distance and perspective on her own culture and identity, as well as an opportunity to interact with a new culture and learn its individual and collective stories.

Andrews also works as part of the collaborative team Andrews LeFevre Studios (www.andrewslefevre.com) which creates site-specific commissions across the US.  In their public work, the team seeks to unearth the untold or forgotten histories of an area - including the native species, peoples and myths that disappear as concrete and pavement take over a landscape.  Working in collaboration with communities across the US, their bronze relief sculptures layer these stories with contemporary life.

Regarding her work Ms. Andrews writes:

Recent paintings explore my experience of nature as the fusion of mythology, science, and direct observation.  While the natural world is a system in which I am fundamentally planted, I often feel separated from it.  My work investigates how these connections and disconnections are formed and passed on within different communities.

What is a human’s relationship to nature in contemporary society?  The answer to this question will shape the history of our species - and all species by extension - within my lifetime.  Are we here to conquer nature, either through religion’s promise of an eternal life elsewhere or technology’s promise of an easier and longer life here?  Are we only able to connect with the animals we domesticate, identifying narrowly with the characteristics that we relate to as human? Can we ever truly feel part of this delicate, complicated system in a way that will allow us to live sustainably?  What is the source of our deep feeling of disconnection?

While seeking to answer these questions, I am repeatedly drawn to scraps of construction orange buried beneath a tangle of fresh green - searching for remnants of human activity in reclaimed, natural environments.  I often investigate the concept of “origin” and its familial, cultural and biological importance.  Image making is a manifestation of my own urge to control nature - creating a version of reality with defined boundaries is an attempt to select a manageable slice of nature’s chaotic constitution.  It also parallels the selective activity of memory.  I paint to gain a closer understanding of these processes.

For more information and to see additional works please visit www.andrewsjennifer.com

Opening reception to the public: Tuesday, February 16, 2010. 6-8pm.

The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art will feature 65 emerging and established artists selected by a jury of National Academicians. This biennial invitational is an inter-generational exhibition of non-Academicians that offers an opportunity for new artistic directions in contemporary American art to be viewed from the perspective of distinguished American artists. This national exhibition includes artists working in the New York area, the Eastern region, the Midwest, West Coast, and Hawaii.

The show runs from February 17 through June 8, 2010. It spans the gamut from realism to abstraction, including a mix of painting, sculpture, mixed media, and installation art. Selections represent diverse ideas, mediums and techniques from over 400 artists that submitted work for consideration. “The exhibition includes an array of artists and art-making strategies from emerging and veteran abstractionists to representational artists addressing issues of identity and sexuality,” notes Marshall Price, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Academy Museum.

National Academy Museum
1083 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street)
New York, NY 10128
Tel: 212-369-4880
www.nationalacademy.org

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 30, 5-8 PM
Art Alliance Preview: 4:30 PM

Get there early, the first 50 tacos will be $1 each!

Embracing Ambiguity: Faces of the Future features artworks by ten multicultural artists living and working in the Untied States who, in a world where labels are often forced upon them, are searching for new ways to define identity. In today’s cosmopolitan and increasingly global culture an individuals may describe themselves by gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or any combination of these categories. Through painting, sculpture, video and mixed media, these artists attempt to answer the question, “What are you?”

Presenting
Nzuji De Magalhães combines African and American art forms to depict issues of stereotype, myth, ethnicity and politics.

Kip Fulbeckis an artist, photographer, filmmaker, and slam poet have been exhibited in over 20 countries, and featured on CNN, MTV and PBS.

Nathan Gibbs, an internationally recognized mixed media and web productions explore race and culture issues in the U.S.

Loren Holland’s symbolically rich oil paintings of Latino and African-American women challenge perceptions of class, race and minority groups.

Bryce Hudson’s wall sculptures use bold color and shape to represent domination, conflict, separation and harmony among races and cultures.

Laura Kina, artist, curator and scholar who explores the results of the 1967 Supreme Court case that overturned our nation’s last anti-miscegenation law with charcoal portraiture.

Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry are an artist team producing large-scale public projects, performance/sculptures, paintings, photography, video and self-portraiture, exploring issues of race and social justice.

Delilah Montoya articulates the experience of minority woman in her photographs and prints.
Toni Scott draws upon her African, Native American and European heritage and world travels to produce sculpture, paintings and mixed media installations that represent the beauty and dignity of African-American people.

Curators
Jillian Nakornthap and Lynn Stromick

Related Activities
Art & Identity in Multicultural America: A Panel Discussion
February 2, 2010 6-8 PM

Titan Student Union Pavilion A
“Chasing Daybreak” Movie Screening
Date and Time TBA

Gallery Hours
Monday-Thursday 12 - 4 PM | Saturdays 12-2 PM | Closed Monday, February 15

Admission
FREE

Main Art Gallery @ Cal State Fullerton
800 North State College Blvd.
Fullerton, CA
http://www.fullerton.edu/arts/events

Private Reception: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 6-9pm

Purposely eschewing a curatorial theme, each show is a considered showcase of works that are meant to be viewed as a coherent personal collection. While retaining a consistent aesthetic across all shows, each salon explores the idea of a fictitious collector with a different vision or focus. Salon No. 4, Works 092 –140, explores the idea of a collector with an eye for codes, the obscured and the diagrammatic. The show also makes a humorous nod to the culture of art collecting. Being in a home setting, all the salons look to incorporate work which has a particular relevance to being viewed in the domestic context.

Presenting:
Jennifer Chen’s enigmatic watercolors and stone lithographs illustrate intimate psychological encounters. Her layered process creates images that are at once explicit and indecipherable. “The human condition is at the root of my work. I use relationships to illustrate universally blurred lines between needs, urges and fantasy in our society. I point to unspecific outcomes, reactions, or causes from a multitude of different experiences and reasons such as sexual drive, complacency, and isolation”.

Jason David’s “Hubris Cream” paintings depict the architects of Western culture seen in slapstick. Distinguished faces covered in a creamy residue, sour and destructively parasitic, these intimate portraits capture the giants of yesteryear as they revel in their decrepitude and obsolescence. David’s accompanying series of sculptures, “Hubris Tableaux” appear like pawns in a game of chess or colorful characters in a tableau vivant, forming a tangible extension of the portrait character’s thoughts and memories.

Joe Davidson’s sculptures are quiet classifications of his life shown through the ghosts of everyday objects. In “Inventory”, 2008, Davidson measured his alcohol consumption over a six month period. He saved each bottle and then did a casting of each bottle in scotch tape. In “My Shoes”, 1996-2006, Davidson created cement casts of the insides of his shoes, revealing the impact of his feet have had on the shoe’s interior. “The compulsive or obsessive acts required to create the pieces necessitates the omission of other perhaps more traditionally meaningful or useful activities. The viewer is asked to contemplate this notion of what has been lost through the time consuming details of the piece”.

Jow’s delicate Braille Skylines are made from text borrowed from influential novels set in New York City. Each word creates a building and in unison they form a skyline. If you were blind you could read the buildings and form a piece of the story, for the sighted they form an ambiguous visual. In Jow’s diptych “Sold”, a simple red dot is placed on the left piece of paper, titled “For Sale” and the artist’s red ink fingerprint marks “SOLD” on the right. What is being sold in art – the work, the artist or perhaps ourselves?

Dennis Koch’s dense and matrix-like color drawings are disarming. The density with which his color pencil drawings are rendered help to solidify what appears to be a hidden visual language and coded system within the work. His ability to create visual shifts in depth results in large part from the artist’s mark-making, which, though repetitive, dogged, even tedious, produces an unexpectedly rich and saturated palette.

Chris Natrop is concerned with the more elusive aspects of his surroundings. “Things that typically go unnoticed tend to shape and define my perception the most. I try to corral these things in my work, to set in motion a new type of space, and to give light to the emptiness.” In his large-scale, cut paper installation, “Glitterati Swap Thing”, Natrop breaks from creating his usual immersive gallery experiences by making a site-specific work that responds to the home setting and collection of works as a whole.

Erica Prince’s mixed media collages address the culture of art collecting with both a witty and whimsical eye . Her drawings explore the implications of distinct design decisions within interior spaces. By arranging furniture, art, clutter, and décor, Prince creates environments of indulgence, frivolity, and dramatic potential.

Julie Weitz’s historically loaded representations of people’s faces hidden from view by masks directly question the traditional portrait. “By meticulously rendering a portrait of an individual whose identity remains concealed, I intend to present a contemplative way of understanding an already loaded and overstated image, while taking into account the contradiction indicative to the representation of a hidden individual. The image of the mask, itself, evokes various yet familiar associations from terrorist to prisoner, superhero to villain, and religious figure to thief”. Through the process of veiling her subjects, her paintings explore the human desire to understand what remains hidden from view.

Brian Wills’ rigorous exploration of color through the use of everyday objects such as dental floss, string and wood make for both majestic and seductive sculptures and paintings. His layered constructions appear to be in constant flux, embodying a certain synaesthetic quality and vibration, much like the strings on an instrument.

Marine
A contemporary art salon
716 Marine Street
Santa Monica, CA, 90405
310-804-0211
www.c-artmarine.com

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 4, 6-8pm

Mariángeles Soto-Díaz’s second solo exhibition at Soho20 Gallery Chelsea, the utopian tense of green.

Soto-Díaz unsettles the autonomy of painting by probing its “limiting conditions” in a critique of abstract painting’s self-referential position. Both conceptually and formally, her work engages the legacies of modernism and their failed utopias. A native of the oil-producing country of Venezuela, Soto-Díaz subsumes the modernist promise and reinscribes its formal referents with a new set of meanings. The utopian tense of green is a series of abstract paintings and drawings on linen, sustainable wood panels and duralar. Based on preliminary sketches made on the computer, her exacting process is enlivened by an organic sense of motion, broken symmetries and open fields. Soto-Díaz owes her love for color and hard-edge geometry to her graduate studies with West coast abstractionist Karl Benjamin as well as early exposure to Venezuelan colorists Cruz-Diez and Jesús Soto. She lives and works near Los Angeles.

SOHO20 Gallery Chelsea
547 West 27th Street, Suite 301
New York, NY 10001
212-367-8994
www.soho20gallery.com

Thomas Garner’s paintings are a conceptual take on looking at historical painting. His composition is based on a distorting photograph, taken while moving the camera, of Baroque artworks. The resulting, blurred or distorted images, are then painted on stitched linen, sometimes with exposed seams or raw canvas areas. The result is an exploration of the way we look at art, including the glare, material substance, and original subject mater, all presented as equal parts of a whole.

Miguel Osuna’s Commute Series are paintings of space in motion. The type of space that many people spend much of their time (in the car) remains largely unexamined and considered interstitial and
mundane. Osuna celebrates these places, and any viewer knows exactly where that space can be found,
as we have all been there many times.

Michael Pearce debuts two site-dependent works, one sculptural and one a series of paintings, which employ ancient ideas about God and Man, and demonstrate personal journeys of the spirit. Both works use ancient methods of construction: clay, wood, gold, carbon. Pearce’s practice is grounded in the earth while soaring free of cultural restraint.

In the Project Windows, Jerico Woggon’s The Four Seasons is a four-part installation which will change with each season. Made of custom shapes and fluorecent paint, The Four Seasons interprets seasonal fluctuations in Woggon’s signature graphic style, using color and black light.

Bert Green Fine Art
102 West 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213-624-6212
www.bgfa.us

Saturday, February 27 - Sunday, March 7, 2010
Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater
631 W Second Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
TICKETS: Only $5 per screening!
Call 213 237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org

Festival Screening Schedule 2010
 
February 27, 2010

12 pm | What A Wonderful Land
This fast-paced program takes audiences on a whirlwind trip around the world with films that are musical, moving, funny and full of adventure.

Head Dwellers (Mária Boros, Hungary)
Nappy Heads (Sabrina Moella, Canada)
For a Fistful of Snow (Julien Ezri, Switzerland)
The Mouse That Soared (Kyle Bell, USA)
Hello Antenna (Veronika Samartseva and Anna Samoylovich, Germany)
Betty–The Doll (Anna Guldager, Sweden)
Crane and Digger (Leonore Poth, Germany)
The Moth and the Firefly (Daniel Stedman and Aron Epstein, USA)
Getting Dad (Hailey Bartholomew, Australia)
The King of the Island (Raimondo Della Calce, Italy)

All ages. Total running time: 60 min.
 
1:30 pm | Totally Tall Tales
Gather around for a high-spirited collection of Greek myths, African fables, Mexican and Brazilian legends, Hungarian folk tales, Irish yarns and new fantastical tales.
 
Just So Stories: The Beginnings of the Armadillo (Jean-Jacques Prunes, France)
¡Xáni Xépika! (Dominique Jonard, Mexico)
Long Long Ago: The Salmon of Knowledge (Michael Algar, Ireland)
Long Long Ago: The Warty Tree (Michael Algar, Ireland)
Ideation (Jeremiah Dicky, USA)
The Legend of the Bat (Lucia Morgan, UK/Mexico)
Josué e o Pé de Macaxeira (Diogo Viegas, Brazil)
SOL (Harry Wormald, UK)
The Wee King (Lajos Nagy, Hungary)
Leila (Louise-Marie Colon, Belgium/Burkino Faso)
El Relato de Sean Brennan (Tonatiuh Moreno, Mexico)

 
Ages 7 and up. Total running time: 67 min.

3 pm | On My Way
The kids in these films are growing up fast, expanding their horizons and learning about the world as they tackle everything from bad hair days to much more complicated problems.
 
Dreamscape (Pelle Hybbinette, Sweden)
Iker Stubborn Hair (Sandra Garcia Velten, Mexico)
The Magic Stamp (Tomoko Oguchi, USA)
Cocoon Child (Sonja Rohleder, Germany)
Mr. Mack’s Kitchen (Mike Attie, USA)
Father Gave Water (Mahdi Jafari, Iran)
Frog (Cecilia Torquato, Sweden)
Immersion (Richard Levien, USA)
Something to Hold Onto (Barbara O’Halloran, USA)

 
Ages 8 and up. Total running time: 69 min.
Three films have English subtitles.

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February 28, 2010
 
Nickelodeon Family Fun Day
Nickelodeon programming showcases the most watched and loved of children’s programs, and at this year’s Nick Family Fun Day, attendees will have the opportunity to meet the costumed characters of Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. favorites–SpongeBob, Patrick, Dora and Diego–and receive giveaways.
 
12 pm | Nick Jr.
Nick Jr. will host a sneak peek of its highly anticipated series for 2010 in addition to its widely watched pre-school programming.
 
Team Umizoomi “The Elephant Sprinkler”
Dora the Explorer “Swiper, the Explorer”
The Backyardigans music video
Fresh Beat Band music videos

 
Ages 2 to 6. Running time: approx. 50 min.
 
3 pm | Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon will host special advance screenings of its highly anticipated series for 2010 as well as episodes from top-rated hit series.
 
The Penguins of Madagascar “Kaboom & Kabust”
Fanboy and Chum Chum “Cold War”
SpongeBob SquarePants “Yours, Mine and Mine”
Open Mic Shorts “Rockville,” “Mall Spies” and “Josh Mud”
International SpongeBob Promos

 
Ages 7 and up. Running time: approx. 50 min.

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March 1, 2010

Highlights From Cinemagic, Belfast
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Northern Ireland’s award-winning Cinemagic International Film & Television Festival for Young People hosts four feature-length live action films–each one a festival favorite.
 
10:30 am | Waveriders
Skilled Irish surfers link up with world champions Kelly Slater, Kevin Naughton and the Malloy brothers to ride some of the most exciting surf Ireland has to offer in this exhilarating and inspiring documentary.
Ages 12 and up. Running time: 80 min.
 
1 pm | Mickybo & Me
In the summer of 1970, while Belfast’s lines of division were still being drawn, two young boys from “up the road” and “over the bridge” swear an oath of brotherhood and scheme to flee an imploding city.
Ages 15 and up. Running time: 96 min.
 
3 pm | A Shine Of Rainbows
On Corrie Island, Tomás finds magic everywhere, in the secret of the seals and the mystery of the stone giant. But when tragedy strikes, Tomás must find magic within himself, and the transformational power of love.
Ages 8 and up. Running time: 100 min.
 
6:30 pm | The Race
For 11-year-old Mary, life on a struggling farm in rural Northern Ireland is far from ideal, but she has other plans for her future–fulfilling her dream of becoming a race car driver. The road to success isn’t going to be easy!
All 12 and up. Running time: 83 min.
 
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March 6, 2010

12 pm | Creature Comfort
The festival’s youngest viewers will love this tailor-made collection of films filled with colorful animals, cheerful music and gentle stories. Some films have subtitles–so snuggle close and read along!
 
Green Leaf (Harry Flosser, Germany)
Pink Nanuq (Jeanine Reutemann, Switzerland)
When Apples Roll (Reinis Kalnaellis, Latvia)
Tales for Tiny Tots (Gun Jacobson and Anna-Clara Tidholm)
Saari (Veronica Lassenius, Spain)
Electric Car (Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, USA)
Miriam’s Broken Picture (Priit Tender, Estonia)
¿Y por qué? (Germán Anzola, Venezuela)
Cuento de Lac: The C Story (Carlos Navarro, Spain)
Hajar’s Wedding (Mahin Javaherian, Iran)
Un Duelo (Felipe Esquivel, Mexico)
Glow (Jenna Byun, Canada)

 
Ages 3 and up. Total running time: 62 min.
Three films have English subtitles.
 
1:30 pm | Chills And Thrills
Fasten your seat belts for a cinematic roller coaster ride, filled with spooky animation and surreal stories. If you like your movies served with a side of goose bumps, these films are for you!
 
Teleportation (Markus Dietrich, Germany)
The Portrait for the Pest (Lucia Las Heras, Argentina)
Bob’s Knee (Mike Attie, USA)
The Royal Nightmare (Alex Budovsky, USA)
Alma (Rodrigo Blaas, Spain)
Les Escargots de Joseph (Sophie Roze, France)
Careful with that Power Tool (Jason Stutter, New Zealand)
Price 2,70 Fts (Roland Ballai Tóth, Hungary)
Elephants (Sally Pearce, Wales)

 
Ages 8 and up. Total running time: 69 min.
Three films have English subtitles.
 
3 pm | Passport
On this cinematic voyage you’ll hear stories from Madagascar, Mexico, Iran, Brazil, Palestine, India and Kenya, and meet real-life kids who are making a difference.
 
Bamiyan (Patrick Pleutin, France)
To Be a Child in Iran (Behrooz Karamizade, Iran)
The Scarecrow Girl (Cássio Pereira dos Santos, Brazil)
Madagascar, a journey diary (Guilaine Bergeret, France)
Warda (Louise-Marie Colon and Delphine Hermans, Belgium/Palestine)
Breakout: The Power of One (Lalita Krishna, Canada)

 
Ages 9 and up. Total running time: 77 min.
Five films have English subtitles; brief non-offensive nudity in one film.

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March 7, 2010

12 pm | Animation Brigade
Since the 1990s, a talented group of Latvian animators have been creating puppet animation films that have delighted children all over the world. Join us for a special salute to AB Studio’s “Rescue Team,” “Munk and Lemmy” and “Animals” films, and travel to a wonderland full of brave, roguish and mischievous creatures.
 
The Swan (Janis Cimermanis, 1991)
The Tart (Janis Cimermanis, 1995)
The Bird Cage (Janis Cimermanis, 1996)
Cats (Dace Riduze, 2002)
Magician (Maris Brinkmanis, 2001)
Munk and Lemmy: Let’s Fly (Nils Skapans, 1994)
Animals: Home Hole Horrors (Maris Putnins, 1999)
Firefly (Dace Riduze, 2002)

 
All Ages. Total running time: 56 min.
 
1:30 pm | Magic Carpet
This screening of inventive international animation will make you see the world in a whole new way.
 
Panic Painter (Johan Hagelback, Sweden)
El Armadillo Fronterizo (Miguel Anaya, Mexico)
Heterogenic (Raimondo Della Calce, Italy)
Home Sweet Home (Pascal Adant, Belgium)
Chicory ‘n’ Coffee (Dusan Kastelic, Slovenia)
Melvin (Magnus Holmgren, Sweden)
The Sand Piper (Jimmy Marakami, Ireland)
I’m Hungry (Louise-Marie Colon and Delphine Hermans, Belgium)
The Mouse with a Mouth (Andrea Kiss, Belgium/France/Hungary)

 
Ages 7 and up. Total running time: 82 min.
Three films have English subtitles.
 
3 pm | Green Screen
This environmentally conscious program blends fiction and fact to foster awareness and guide kids on how they can make a difference in the health of the planet.
 
Wasting Earth (Cassia Mary Itamoto and Celina Kurihara, Brazil)
Shrug (Alina Constantin, Norway/France)
Locally Unwanted Land Usage (Kate Balsley, USA)
Inukshuk (Camillelvis Thery, France)
A Water Tale (SJ Chiro, USA)
Breakout: Environment (Lalita Krishna, Canada)

 
Ages 8 and up. Total running time: 66 min.
One film has English subtitles.

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The REDCAT International Children’s Film Festival is funded in part with generous support from Virginia and Austin M. Beutner, The George and MaryLou Boone Fund for Artistic Advancement, Nickelodeon, and Wendy Keys and Donald Pels.

For additional information about the performance at REDCAT, images, media and interviews, please contact Diana Wyenn at 213-237-2873 or dwyenn@calarts.edu.

Links
Download a PDF of the 2010 REDCAT International Children’s Film Festival brochure:
www.redcat.org/sites/redcat.org/files/redcat2010filmfest.pdf

Northwest Film Forum’s official website:
www.nwfilmforum.org

Cinemagic’s official website:
www.cinemagic.org.uk

Nickelodeon’s official website:
www.nick.com

Deborah Martin. Leonard Knight. Chromogenic Print

Artist Reception: Saturday, February 13th, 2010, 6-10pm

The Deborah Martin Gallery presents “Home on the Strange” with new works by Deborah Martin and collaborative works by Amy Sather Smith and Juli Vizza. These works are based on Polaroids taken over a four year period, depicting aspects of the reality of life while living on the Salton Sea. In her trademark style of haunting American realism, she questions the psychology of a place and the search for a sense of home.

Amy Sather Smith text is a contribution to Martin’s work, providing a history of the Salton Sea and the psychology behind what compels the attraction to the area and how that cycle continues.

Video artist Juli Vizza accompanied Martin on trips to the Salton Sea, her footage inspired the series. The results are masterfully pieced together as a visual translation of the unspoken language between landscape and painter.

Presenting:
Deborah Martin
Amy Sather Smith
Juli Vizza

Deborah Martin Gallery
209 W. 5th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
310-428-6464
www.deborahmartingallery.com

The Last Station (2009)

Directed by Michael Hoffman

Based on the book by Jay Parini (Henry Holt, 1990), screenplay written by Michael Hoffman

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

A century after the death of one of the world’s greatest literary masters, scholars, critics and admirers have rallied behind efforts to celebrate Leo Tolstoy’s achievements. One remarkable highlight of the Tolstoy fanfare is a new documentary consisting of rare black-and-white footage filmed in 1908 at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate south of Moscow, Yasnaya Poliana. With people around the world traveling to Yasnaya Poliana museum, enjoying new editions and translations of Tolstoy’s works, and rereading their treasured copies of Anna Karenina, War and Peace and other favorites, perhaps the most accessible of all is Michael Hoffman’s dramatization of Jay Parini’s 1990 novel The Last Station. In fact, Hoffman’s movie works best for those whose only acquaintance with Tolstoy occurred during a college literature course.

Parini drew inspiration for The Last Station from diaries kept by members of Tolstoy’s household, piecing together from them an insider’s story. As portrayed in Parini’s novel and Hoffman’s film, Tolstoy’s last year was a crucible in which the conflicts in his life became an unsolvable predicament. Born into the Russian nobility, at age nine Count Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoi (1828-1910) lost his parents. Raised thereafter by his aunts and privately educated, he studied languages and law at the University of Kazan. Although he left the university without a degree, Tolstoy had begun to develop his personal philosophies. When he returned in 1849 to Yasnaya Poliana, he was determined to educate the peasants. Disheartened by the magnitude of this endeavor, Tolstoy pursued a carefree life in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Profligacy did not suit Tolstoy’s temperament but, like St. Francis, his sins endeared him to his people and subsequent generations. Even while he lived Tolstoy was lionized.

His status as a god or saint made him nearly untouchable by the tsarist regime; Tolstoy’s followers might be imprisoned or followed, but the master preserved his freedom. Meanwhile, tensions that had accumulated during his marriage to Sofya Andreyevna Bers erupted into full-fledged war between them. Man and wife since 1862, Tolstoy and Sofya forged a close and enduring bond between the births of 13 children and his many infidelities. From her education and station in life, Sofya could not help but argue with her husband’s views. It is not difficult to imagine that Tolstoy felt uncomfortable on many counts: aspiring to humility and cast as a saint; seeking harmony and raging at his wife; promoting poverty and living a privileged life on the estate; and loving his people and his wife.

Those who have studied Tolstoy’s life are bound to have opinions of Sofya and the success at which he was able to reconcile his conflicts. Without such background, it is unlikely that viewers will come away from Hoffman’s film without sharing his sympathy for Sofya and his less-than-godlike take on Tolstoy. Played by Christopher Plummer, Tolstoy is a good but flawed man who enjoys his physical pleasures. Frequently in the film, Tolstoy remarks that his followers are the better Tolstoyans, and Plummer’s body language aptly conveys his doubts. Helen Mirre’s Sofya is superb. Dramatic, hysterical, histrionic–a full panoply of psychiatric disorders comes to mind as she screams, flings herself across rooms and over furniture, collapses onto the floor and throws herself in a pond, all because Tolstoy’s flatterers, including her daughter Alexandra (Anne-Marie Duff), have encouraged him to leave his royalties to the Russian people. She identifies the villain as Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), leader of Tolstoy’s zealots. Tolstoy tells her she needs a Greek chorus, but in the film it seems that their arguments help Tolstoy to clarify his ideas.

To protect Tolstoy from Sofya’s influence, Chertkov enlists the young, starry-eyed Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) to act as the master’s secretary at Yasnaya Poliana. Bulgakov serves as stand-in for the audience, the eyes through which viewers experience the estate and nearby Tolstoyan commune where he is staying. At his first encounter with Tolstoy, Bulgakov cannot speak. Overwhelmed, his eyes tear. Requested by Chertkov to record all he sees, he soon becomes less of a spy on Sofya’s antics than a family confidant. Bulgakov grows from innocent, somewhat bumbling virgin to clear-eyed observer. Symbolized by his sexual relationship with a defiant resident at the commune, Masha (Kerry Condon), his transformation reveals contradictions that face everyone aspiring to ideals at odds with human nature.

Seeing peasant children lovingly offer Tolstoy sunflowers, viewers might feel, if only for a moment, that love is what it’s all about; Tolstoy as father of the sixties’ love generation. For the most part, the men in The Last Station are full of ideas, the women full of love’s joys and pains. Plummer’s Tolstoy recognizes that his real life is not ideal and so leaves the estate with his daughter. Bulgakov goes with him but continues to correspond with Sofya and Masha, who has left him and the commune. His sympathy extends to all but Chertkov.

In War and Peace, Tolstoy declared:

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”

For Masha, this one line defines an authentic life.

Tolstoy loved his country and Sofya. The Last Station succeeds by pointing to the master’s own solution to his quandary. When he died, Tolstoy’s family and his followers surrounded him; people throughout the world mourned. Love, not philosophy, prevailed.