Sunday, November 30, 2008

if ARTwalk: Salon I & II: December 11- 24, 2008

For exhibition installation images, click here.


THE SALON I & II
Dec. 11 – 24, 2008
an exhibition at two Columbia, SC, locations:
Gallery 80808/Vista Studios
808 Lady Street
&
if ART Gallery
1223 Lincoln Street

Reception and ifART Walk: Thursday, Dec. 11, 5 – 10 p.m.
at and between both locations
Opening Hours:
Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday, 1 – 5 p.m.
& by appointment
Open Christmas Eve until 7 p.m.

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:
(803) 255-0068/ (803) 238-2351 – if-art-gallery@sc.twcbc.com

For its December 2008 exhibition, if ART Gallery presents The Salon I & II, an exhibition at two Columbia, SC, locations: if ART Gallery and Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. On Thursday, December 11, 2008, 5 – 10 p.m., if ART will hold opening receptions at both locations. The ifART Walk will be on Lady and Lincoln Streets, between both locations, which are around the corner from each other.

The exhibitions will present art by if ART Gallery artists, installed salon-style at both Gallery 80808 and if ART. Artists in the exhibitions include two new additions to if ART Gallery, Columbia ceramic artist Renee Rouillier and the prominent African-American collage and mixed-media artist Sam Middleton, an 81-year-old expatriate who has lived in the Netherlands since the early 1960s.

Other artists in the exhibition include Karel Appel, Aaron Baldwin, Jeri Burdick, Carl Blair, Lynn Chadwick, Steven Chapp, Stephen Chesley, Corneille, Jeff Donovan, Jacques Doucet, Phil Garrett, Herbert Gentry, Tonya Gregg, Jerry Harris, Bill Jackson, Sjaak Korsten, Peter Lenzo, Sam Middleton, Eric Miller, Dorothy Netherland, Marcelo Novo, Matt Overend, Anna Redwine, Paul Reed, Edward Rice, Silvia Rudolf, Kees Salentijn, Laura Spong, Tom Stanley, Christine Tedesco, Brown Thornton, Leo Twiggs, Bram van Velde, Katie Walker, Mike Williams, David Yaghjian, Paul Yanko and Don Zurlo.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Essay: Peter Lenzo

The Pink Chair, early 1990s
Wood, buttons, cast porcelain
25 x 16 1/4 x 16 in
$1,400

PETER LENZO
By Wim Roefs
2005

Peter Lenzo’s work of the 1990s was in part about dichotomies, both conceptually and aesthetically. In his Virgin Mary Gun Altar series, he combined symbols of Christianity and violence. In his Bed Pan Altar series, the bedpans first attracted Lenzo because of their beautiful shapes, which belied the revulsion the objects trigger with many. By combining the bedpans with altar constructions, Lenzo juxtaposed something sacred with a device designed to facilitate basic bodily functions, although the combination came about for aesthetical, not conceptual reasons. “I thought they looked beautiful together,” Lenzo says. “I liked the soft, succulent, curving lines of the bedpan contained by the rigid, perfect geometric lines of the altar pointing toward God.”

Lenzo began making portable altars after seeing them in European churches and a museum. The main impetus for the work was not, he says, a need to make a statement but his desire to make art that is aesthetically beautiful. “I think that in all art, no matter what message you try to convey, you need to satisfy the aesthetic element first. And if you are building something, you also need to satisfy all aspects of craftsmanship first.” 

He combined religious symbolism with guns in part because of his visceral, negative response to guns when he was younger, a response matched only at times by a – positive – religious experience. Lenzo also saw Christianity and violence, from domestic violence to war, as icons for American society, regardless of whether they go hand in hand. Reading his art as social and political criticism would surpass his intent, Lenzo says, even if it would lead to conclusions about society that ring true to him. “I am not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings or disgust people or make fun of religion. I’d rather have people look at the works as beautiful.”

Lenzo stopped making the altar pieces in the late 1990s. The increased frequency of epileptic seizures brought on by a 1981 traffic accident and the numbing effect of his medication made cutting small pieces of wood on a table saw too dangerous. Lenzo returned to ceramics, creating face jugs and full-body figurative sculptures. 

Wim Roefs

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Biography: Peter Lenzo

       Peter Lenzo         

Peter Lenzo in his studio in 
Columbia, S.C., August 2015
            Columbia, S.C., resident Peter Lenzo (b. 1955) is a widely recognized ceramic sculptor with a national profile. The New York City native, who grew up in Detroit, was selected for the 1995 and 1998 South Carolina Triennial exhibitions at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia; the 2011 exhibition Triennial Revisited and the 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial 2011 and 2013, all at 701 Center for Contemporary Art in Columbia; and Thresholds, a 2003 exhibition of Southeastern art dealing with religion and spirituality that traveled extensively throughout the Southeast.  
            The June, 2015, exhibition Peter Lenzo & Joe Scotchie-Lenzo: Origins 2000–2002 at if ART Gallery presented the origins of Lenzo’s current work through two dozen sculptures he produced with his son, who was around five years old at the time. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.
            Lenzo’s work is in several museum collections, including at the South Carolina State Museum, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., and the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. His solo exhibitions include those at the Spartanburg (S.C.) Museum of Art; the European Ceramic Work Center in Den Bosch, The Netherlands; Great American Gallery in Atlanta; and Ferrin Contemporary gallery in Massachusetts.
            Lenzo and his work have been featured in numerous books, exhibition catalogues and articles about ceramic sculpture and Southern art. They include the Threshold catalogue, 500 Figures In Clay (2005), Robert Hunter’s Ceramics in America (2006) and Poetic Expressions of Mortality: Figurative Ceramics From the Porter–Price Collection (2006). He holds an MFA from Wayne State University in Detroit and used to teach at the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Article on Bedpan Altars: Columbia Record

Bedpan Altar, c. 1995
Found wood, enameled steel, varnish
20 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 5 1/4 in
$750

The Columbia Record
December 11, 2005

Artist Peter Lenzo's 1990s series of Bedpan Altars are on view at Gallery 80808, Vista Studios, at 808 Lady Street in the Vista district of Columbia. The artworks are part of a group show called "Construction Crew". The show presents works of art that have strong constructional or architectural qualities. In addition to Lenzo, who is from Columbia, the exhibition includes work by Edward Rice of North Augusta, S.C.; Kim Keats of Okatie, S.C., near Beaufort; and Klaus Hartmann of Kaiserslautern, Germany. The exhibition is on view through December 21. Opening hours are Sunday, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.; Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; and weekdays, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. For more information, please call the show's curator, Wim Roefs, at (803) 238-2351.

Lenzo's Bedpan Altars are the topic of an article by The State's art critic Jeffrey Day in the newspaper's Sunday Life & Arts section of December 11, page E2. Day discusses the minor controversy that has sprung up around Lenzo's altar pieces. In the artworks, Lenzo placed bedpans of enameled steel or antique porcelain in altar-like structures. After The State showed a photograph of one of the Bedpan Altars on Sunday, December 4, some readers were offended by the combination of the sacred with bedpans, which mostly are used by ill or injured, bed-ridden people unable to take themselves to the bathroom. Agitated readers presumably assumed that artist Lenzo's aim was to be critical of religion, especially Christianity. One reader wrote to The State that Lenzo's art is "sacrilegious garbage."

In the exhibition, Lenzo also shows two versions of his "Virgin Mary Gun Altar." Those are wooden boxes containing plastic and ceramic guns and statues of the Virgin Mary. 

In the catalogue to the exhibition, Lenzo says of the Bedpan Altars: "I thought they looked beautiful together. I liked the soft, succulent, curving lines of the bedpan contained by the rigid, perfect geometric lines of the altar pointing toward God." Lenzo said he began making portable altars after seeing them in European churches and a museum. The main impetus for the work was not, he says, a need to make a statement but his desire to make art that is aesthetically beautiful. “I think that in all art, no matter what message you try to convey, you need to satisfy the aesthetic element first. And if you are building something, you also need to satisfy all aspects of craftsmanship first.” 

Reading his art as social and political criticism would surpass his intent, Lenzo said, even if it would lead to conclusions about society that ring true to him. “I am not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings or disgust people or make fun of religion. I’d rather have people look at the works as beautiful.” If people look for meaning in the work, Lenzo told curator Roefs, he'd prefer them to look at the bedpans as devices of care, used by nurses and other caregivers to facilitate the natural, God-given bodily functions of patients. Roefs wrote the catalogue essay and posted this item on TheColumbiaRecord.com.

Lenzo told art writer Day: "The reaction (of those finding his work offensive) makes me sad a little bit. I felt my motives were always respectful. I have always had a deep and abiding respect for God."

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Inventory: February 15-26, 2008

Bedpan Altar, c. 1995
Found wood, enameled steel, varnish
18 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 6 1/2 in
$750


if ART
presents at
Gallery 80808/Vista Studios
808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C.

THE INVENTORY:
A Group Show of if ART artists

Feb. 15 – 26, 2008

Artists’ Reception: Friday, Feb. 15, 5 – 10 p.m.

Opening Hours:
Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m.
Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. and by appointment

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:
(803) 238-2351 – wroefs@sc.rr.com

For its February exhibition, if ART presents The Inventory, a group exhibition of artists from if ART Gallery. The show will consist of many new works by if ART artists as well as older pieces from the gallery’s inventory.

Included in the show will be work by Columbia artists Jeff Donovan, Mary Gilkerson, Marcelo Novo, Anna Redwine and David Yaghjian. Other South Carolina artists include Carl Blair, Jeri Burdick, Phil Garrett, Bill Jackson, Peter Lenzo, Dorothy Netherland, Matt Overend, Edward Rice, Tom Stanley, Christine Tedesco, H. Brown Thornton, Leo Twiggs, Katie Walker and Paul Yanko. Furthermore, the show will present work by former South Carolina residents Tonya Gregg, Eric Miller and Andy Moon. Also included are California collage artist Jerry Harris, Dutch painter Kees Salentijn and German artists Roland Albert, Klaus Hartmann and Silvia Rudolf.