Still Smouldering

Harriet Zinnes

The Fire Under the Ashes: from
Picasso to Basquiat focuses
on Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964), Jean Dubuffet
(1901-1985), and Joaquin Torres-Garcia (1874-1949). The works were shown
earlier in the year at the gallery’s booth at the Basel Art Fair, and their
figures and forms have been largely drawn from tribal art, “art brut,” street
art and graffiti. Jan Krugier, the gallery owner, comments that the
“underlying primitivism [which he likens to shamanism] in each work makes the
exhibition a visceral viewing experience,” and adds appropriately that “there
is a very beautiful expression that sums up the role that shamans play …. If you
are looking for fireÃ¯Â¿Â½ you will find it beneath the ashes. Shamans find fire
beneath our ashes. They rediscover our truth and transmit it to us. It is a
message that has to be deliveredÃ¯Â¿Â½ that is absolutely vital – because
without that fireÃ¯Â¿Â½ we are nothing.”

So it is in the works
of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who so quickly became an art world star with his
childlike drawings and scribblings, and died of an overdose by the age of
twenty five. Gaston Chaissac, the French artist was connected to the Art
Brut group as can
be seen in his work from India ink and brush on brown kraft paper here. Jean
Dubuffet also uses India ink in his collage on paper. Perhaps because Joaquin
Torres-Garcia makes use of geometric and figurative abstraction with grids and
symbols drawn from ancient and modern cultures emphazing somehow man’s
relationship to the cosmos, there is an immediate excitement to the work. This
is a show that requires contemplation of man’s strange relation to a mysterious
universe. Surrounded by the glowing pictures, it is hard to think of the
recent broadcasts of “Chinook Down” as art turns terror into solace, even as
the terror is never left behind. The fine catalogue assists that contemplation.

Still Smouldering – Harriet Zinnes

Still Smouldering