KEVIN REINHARDT
KR3
Opening: Monday, July 26th, 6-8 PM
July 26th - August 13th, 2021
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Southern California-based artist Kevin Reinhardt explores ideas by elegantly and painstakingly constructing a minimal universe of totems and signifiers, all in service of shining an aesthetic light on the nature of our collective human experience. In Reinhardt's world, a concept is revealed, at least partially, by that which traverses in microcosm of said idea. Another of way of thinking about Reinhardt's practice might be to think about revealing a subject by constructing a POV significant to that said subject, metaphorically speaking putting us the viewer into the shoes of the subject by crafting objects relevant to the subject. With "KR3", Reinhardt's first solo venture in NYC, the artist has undertaken the weighty task by adding to the towering critical dialogue surrounding the author, James Joyce. More specifically, delving into the forces that drove and inspired the enigmatic writer by way of his daughter, Lucia (1907-1982), a controversial and possibly wildly misunderstood who spent the last five decades of her life institutionalized, breathtakingly represented in, “Zurich, 1935", a 24" high, hand-carved by the artist, wooden bust. Widely considered her father's muse, Lucia's erratic behavior prompted Joyce to seek the medical treatment Carl Jung (who was not a fan of Joyce's work) which did little to alleviate the young woman's woes. The bust is based on a portrait of Lucia, in all her radiance on a balcony, the artist going to great pains to render the subject's flowing curls in a way that rivals even the most arresting likenesses of, say, Medusa.
In both rooms of the gallery are, also, the artist's dazzlingly muscular, minimal "blind paintings" originally inspired by childhood time spent in his parent's office and looking at the windows and blinds and imagining creating paintings that mimicked the effect of the hours that his parents spent in the room. In past forays, blind paintings have been based on windows from architecturally significant structures, for "KR3"and for the first time ever, the blind paintings have been created based on the significance of the resident -- Jung -- and not the building per se, with possibly the additional relevance of a patient, blinds which potentially provided a distraction to the probing nature of psychotherapy and may have offered slight solace to Lucia while the second most important shrink to ever grace the planet, tried without much success to unearth the demons that had commandeered his tragic young subject's skull. Another set of blinds, based on the windows in Jung's later in life retreat, the Bollingen Tower, limn the other gallery, one piece boasting a vibrant crimson reminiscent of Jung's iconic Red Book and the other piece, a panoply of shadowy, slashes. All the blind paintings on display employing a set of subtle threads that help give the works a sexy, nearly undetectable three-dimensional quality. In the artist's words, both sets of blind paintings are, "purposefully blurry" to evoke a sense of playful confusion as to whether, the view itself is from the indoors or outside. Also, included in the show are several examples of Reinhardt's "cut paper" works, one based on a photo of revelers gathered on Bloomsday, the day in Dublin devoted to celebrating the city's favorite son Joyce's accomplishments. The image, taken by daughter Lucia, is of "The Tower Sandy Cove" which the artist speculates was a daughter's attempt to capture and maybe even connect to her father's legacy. The "cut paper" pieces employ no conventional mark-making techniques but rather, consist of multiple sheets of paper stacked, each sheet carved with an X-acto Knife to express imagery in relief, a technique the artist arrived at borrowing from both stencil and collage strategies. Also, included is one of Reinhardt's forward slant rocking chairs which echoes an old Irish myth about bad luck surrounding any chair that stirs without a soul in it. Rounding out the show are two books the artist mailed to the gallery which will languish on the floor directly below the mail slot for the duration of the exhibit; a conceptual folly meant to strengthen the weave of the show's concept without possessing much in the way of value or collectability beyond the life of the installation. One book is a copy of Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake" which Lucia read in mailed chunks to offer critical insight to her father and Samuel Beckett's "Dream Of Fair To Middling Women" which some speculate contains a character based on Lucia as a result of their brief dalliance and lifelong friendship.
Arty Nelson
