Exhibition at Mark Borghi, installation at Silas Marder

While blue chip artists are the usual fare at the Mark Borghi Gallery in Bridgehampton, their inclusion comes as a bit more of a surprise at the nearby Silas Marder Gallery, which typically exhibits primarily local mid-career and emerging artists.

Although no one piece is likely to make an indelible impression, the current selection of works from the Pace Prints collection—including such artists as Jim Dine, Chuck Close, and Ryan McGinness—offers a powerful visual impact in and of itself, especially in view of the context of Marder’s somewhat unique space.

This is particularly true of the Chuck Close works, such as his “Self-Portrait Woodcut” (2007) which, in its looser than usual cellular construction, takes on an entertainingly fluid sense of movement that constantly keeps the eye moving smoothly across the picture plane.

I had a similar reaction to Jim Dine’s prints, which are drawn from his series examining robes, a prominent and iconographic image in his works that continues this artist’s investigation of artistic import derived from everyday objects.

Interestingly, while the high priced established artists are clearly the main draw in the Marder’s exhibition, it is local sculptor Michael Rosch’s “Ghost” that is by far the most interesting work in the exhibit. Located in one of the garden sheds near the main viewing space, the installation is memorable for its energetic juxtaposition of stolid power and elegant elasticity.

Approximately 30 pickax heads embedded in the floor in a loosely constructed pattern are contrasted with a large coiled spring in the center of the room that holds suspended a number of shovel handles that appear burnt where the heads would be. Offering a strangely delicate vertical contrast, the central object seems like some sort of decaying bouquet of proletarian tools caught in a surrealist rain shower.

The exhibition of Pace Prints and the sculptural installation by Michael Rosch will remain on display at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton for the next week or so.

Meanwhile, at Mark Borghi Fine Arts, also in Bridgehampton, is a constantly rotating exhibition of the work of mostly modern masters, such as examples of the crushed car pieces by John Chamberlain, a Richard Poussette-Dart work from the early 1940s that is surprisingly reminiscent of works by the French Fauvist and Expressionist painter Georges Roualt, and a truly stunning Claude Monet study of the Charing Cross Bridge from 1899 which is marred only by the decision of his estate to put a somewhat disconcertingly obtrusive signature stamp on the surface of the work.

Also of particular interest is an Eric Fischl painting titled “Dog in Godhouse” (oil on canvas, 1997). The piece is reminiscent of works done in the artist’s “Rome” series of scenes within cathedrals although, in this case, completely absent any human figuration. Instead, the central focus is a small dog asleep in a shaft of light incongruously wearing a gaily decorated party hat. In the deep background to the right, a statue in an alcove seems to writhe in a singularly seductive pose, offering an understated sense of sensuality to an otherwise hushed and reverential moment.

There’s also a sense of understated hush in Franz Kline’s “Kitska” (oil on canvas, c. 1949-50) but what is more engaging is the hint in the artist’s use of brush strokes at his development as a pure abstractionist in his later, much larger, calligraphic images.

Interestingly, much as is the case with the Michael Rosch installation at Marder’s, amid the names drawn from the pages of art history at Borghi is a mild surprise in the inclusion of a small, untitled aluminum sculpture by East End artist Phyllis Hammond that is both rhythmically engaging and whimsically thoughtful. Using thinly sliced metal that is bent to conjure apparitional harmonies in space, the work is dynamic despite its size and echoes in form and sensibility the Alexander Calder mobile that hangs farther back in the gallery.

Other works of interest include Frank Stella’s “Michael Koolhaas” (collage, 1999), James Brooks’s “Hoslem” (oil on canvas, 1981), David Hare’s “The Couple” (bronze, 1946), and Wayne Thiebaud’s “Mexican Beach Boys” (oil on canvas, 1961).

The current exhibition at Mark Borghi Fine Art in Bridgehampton continues into the foreseeable future with various works featured in rotation.