Word: rothenberg
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Blood. Breath. Violence, trauma, struggle, survival. These are the heady subjects of Susan Rothenberg's latest body of paintings, on display now at the MFA in Boston. The exhibit, which contains several paintings fresh from the artist's studio, befits an artist who once declared that Monet's paintings were essentially decorative because they packed no psychological punch. Rothenberg's own work, while often stunningly beautiful, is never merely decorative: the sum impact of the punch delivered by her last decade of work is enough to send you reeling...
...exhibit spans three rooms and 20-odd paintings Rothenberg produced in her New Mexico studio. In Dogs Killing Rabbit (1991-92), two dogs rip apart a rabbit as the dislocated outlines of human faces look on in horror. Four horse legs, familiar imagery to Rothenberg followers, loom above. The violence of the scene is captured in the hot, thrashing colors: the magenta of the horse's hooves, the reds and browns of the bloody bunny. The presence of the human heads in the upper right corner draws the viewer into an active engagement with the painting: as you observe...
...Rothenberg says she chooses the scale of her canvases partly according to how much energy she has. This certainly seems true: the energy that gives her larger pieces such presence peters out in smaller pieces like Ghost Rug (1994), where eyes float mysteriously above a ground the toxic pink of Valentine's Day cupcake frosting...
...paintings. What is significant in this series is the relationship of the subject to the background. She handles color in the grounds with the expertise of a mature artist- one could stare all day at her miraculous combinations of streaks of yellows, greens, warm browns and cool blue-grays. Rothenberg knows how to paint a truly beautiful ground, but still more remarkable is the way she deals with the relationship of the figure to that ground. In these paintings, the dancer is certainly the figure, yet her body is completely integrated with the ground. The effect is that the painting...
...revered museums in the country. Departments are strong all-around, especially the Asian, Impressionist and Egyptian (touted as the best outside Cairo.) Notably weak, however, is the spare 20th century collection. Nov. 14-Feb. 6, 2000: "Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen," Nov. 18-Jan. 17, 2000: "Susan Rothenberg: Paintings from the Nineties," Nov. 24-April. 30: "View From Above: The Photographs of Bradford Washburn," through Nov. 27: "Drawn to Design," through Nov 28: "Joel Shapiro," through Jan. 13: "Secret Gardens: 'Paisley' Motifs from Kashmir to Europe," through Jan. 17, 2000: "Martin Johnson Heade" through Feb. 2, 2000: "Contemporary...