(So) Happy Together

by D. Dominick Lombardi

“Ever since the Big Bang, it’s ALL collage!”
Todd Bartell

Finding common ground in Contemporary Art today is not necessarily about aesthetic or messaging commonality. The age of Isms, or schools of art are rare, largely due to the fact that labels are limiting and many artists are experimental or in new media. One of the things I have noticed over the years is how much new art looks multidimensional. How it is common to see dueling perspectives and timelines, think Neo Rauch; or accumulations as art or installation with works by Mike Kelly, Faith Ringgold or Nick Cave.

The title of this exhibition, which refers to the 1967 song by The Turtles, was one of the first things I thought of when thinking about the art in this exhibition. That feeling that an artist reaches, at some point in the making of an art work, when the process and purpose of a work comes together and drives the artist to dig deep. For this exhibition, I have selected six artists who reveal both new and traditional ways of expressing great depth of vision while creating compelling, topical, beautiful and at times humorous works.

Joel Carreiro, Untitled b27fz (detail) (2022), 18 x 24 inches
Joel Carreiro, Untitled b27fz (detail) (2022), 18 x 24 inches

Joel Carreiro, who uses either classic collage methods or multiple image transfer, commingles various art ages and types with stunning results. With his transfers, Carreiro weaves wondrous visual transitions that ebb and flow, forming waves of optical transitions. Patterns develop, rhythm is created, and an overall composition becomes focused on referential glimpses and color connections. In his collage series, Carreiro combines a portrait painted by Picasso with an iconic offering from another notable Modern artist suggesting a humorous take on greatness, while the overall effect creates a compelling aesthetic conversation.

Yeon Jin Kim, Plastic Jogakbo #4 (detail) (2019), hand-sewn plastic bags, 56 x 40 inches
Yeon Jin Kim, Plastic Jogakbo #4 (detail) (2019), hand-sewn plastic bags, 56 x 40 inches

Another collector of elements is Yeon Jin Kim, as she updates the traditional Korean art process jogakbos, which is the creation of wrapping cloths from pieces of various fabrics, by using a variety of modern day plastics in place of fabric. In doing so, Kim switches indications of a once male dominated society that insisted on women being frugal, to focus on our big business dominated world of profit and ubiquitous waste. This contrast is both stunning and beautiful, as it sheds light on the fact that no matter how much things change, they in some way stay the same.

Don Doe, Dorothy Twister in Rimini (2021), oil on linen, 38 x 24 inches
Don Doe, Dorothy Twister in Rimini (2021), oil on linen, 38 x 24 inches

Don Doe falls into the multidimensional zone, where collages largely from fashion magazines and ‘mens’ periodicals result in oddly sexual, powerful, simultaneous juxtapositions of euphoria and despair. Having little concern for lining things up anatomically, Doe suggests a nod to the divergent imagery found in film montage, while the clarity in the contrasting bodily forms makes them appear more psychedelic or dreamy. Given all this, Doe manages to create a narrative that represents much of what both excites and represses.

Cecilia Whittaker-Doe, When Summer Went, ink, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
Cecilia Whittaker-Doe, When Summer Went, ink, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

Cecilia Whittaker-Doe brings us something of a kaleidoscopic view of a landscape. By combining multiple perspectives and stylistic approaches on one common surface, Whittaker-Doe leads us down a trail of wisdom and wonder. What really draws the attention of the viewer is her unique interpretation of ‘natural’ color, and how various elements seem to trade hues with adjacent forms. It’s all a puzzle waiting to be solved, or not, as the journey is the message.

Matthew Garrison, Invincible (2009), plastic, newspaper, wood, light bulb, 8 ½ x 11 x 3 inches
Matthew Garrison, Invincible (2009), plastic, newspaper, wood, light bulb, 8 ½ x 11 x 3 inches

Matthew Garrison is known for his experimental approach to media. Using video, photography, paint, found materials, Garrison brings to mind the art movement Arte Povera, with influences more coming from the home computer age than the ‘poor object’ or his predecessors. By employing references to the banal or the everyday, Garrison reintroduces popular culture as near venerable, while his sense of humor tends to guide us into the deeper meaning of his work and the odd possibilities that lie ahead.

Margaret Roleke, Pink (detail) (2022), wire, spent shotgun shells, brass, 15 x 13 x 14 inches
Margaret Roleke, Pink (detail) (2022), wire, spent shotgun shells, brass, 15 x 13 x 14 inches

Margaret Roleke gathers contentious objects to make potent political statements in her desire to prompt positive change. Women’s rights, gun reform, cultural and racial oppression all seem to have some overlap in her prolific, spent cartridge series of sculptures and wall hangings. Which, when displayed in a gallery or museum setting become optical plays on gesture and form. In the end, we are confronted with sheer numbers, of scary symbols all too abundant that have become a sad defining reality.

(So) Happy Together opens January 21st at Artego, 32-88 48th St, Queens, NY 11103. The exhibition closes February 25th. For more information, go to: https://www.studioartego.com/exhibitions/forthcoming/

Top 10 at the 2022 Venice Biennale

by Graciela Cassel

Giardini della Biennale and the Arsenale: Cecilia Alemani curated The Milk of Dreams: The connection Between Bodies and Earth

Sonya Boyce, (Feeling Her Way), British Pavilion
Sonya Boyce, (Feeling Her Way), British Pavilion

Sonia Boyce: Drenches viewers in a rhapsodic kaleidoscope of voice, color and geometry.

Francis Alÿs, ‘Nature of the Game’, Belgium Pavilion
Francis Alÿs,  ‘Nature of the Game’, Belgium Pavilion.
Francis Alÿs, ‘Nature of the Game’, Belgium Pavilion

Francis Alÿs: Gigantic screen projections capture children frolicking in public spaces. Snail races and jump rope games unequivocally switch our minds to a pure state in which laughter and time are without limits.

Uffe Isolotto,’We Walked the Earth’, at the Denmark Pavilion
Uffe Isolotto,’We Walked the Earth’, at the Denmark Pavilion

Uffe Isolotto: A Centaurus near death, an unbearable family story.

Simone Leigh, ‘Sovereignty’, USA Pavilion
Simone Leigh, ‘Sovereignty’, USA Pavilion

Simone Leigh: Leigh allures us to Mother Earth.

Jade Fadojutimi, At that Day She Remembered to Purr, at the Arsenale
Jade Fadojutimi, At that Day She Remembered to Purr, at the Arsenale

Jade Fadojutimi: Harmony and conflict in a fantastical landscape.

Barbara Kruger, ‘Please care, Please Mourn’ at the Arsenal
Barbara Kruger, ‘Please care, Please Mourn’ at the Arsenal

Barbara Kruger: Sound and images: A real blaze for human kindness.

Nan Goldin, Sirens, 2019-2020 at the Padiglioni Centrale
Nan Goldin, Sirens, 2019-2020 at the Padiglioni Centrale

Nan Goldin: Goldin composed this film with found scenes of exhilaration, sexuality, bliss and ravishment.

Monira Al Qadiri, Orbital 2022, at the Arsenale
Monira Al Qadiri, Orbital 2022, at the Arsenale

Monira Al Qadiri: Spinning jewel cities in a Persian Gulf-landscape, beaming mythical stories.

Outside the Biennale: Anish Kapoor and Anselm Kiefer

Anish Kapoor, Pregnant White Within Me, 2022, at the Gallerie dell’Academia

Anish Kapoor: A synergy of science, architecture and humanity.

Anselm Kiefer at the Pallazo Ducale, ‘These writings when burned, will finally cast a light’, 2020-2021

Anselm Kiefer: Daunting memories, Kiefer in dialogue with master painters.

The Loggia Paintings: Early and Recent Work by Robert C. Morgan

by Mary Hrbecek

Robert C. Morgan, Loggia XII, 2019, acrylic/metallic paint on canvas 22 x 22 inches
Robert C. Morgan, Loggia XII, 2019, acrylic/metallic paint on canvas 22 x 22 inches

The Scully Tomasko Foundation presents “Early and Recent Work,” an exhibition of twenty-one acrylic and metallic paintings on canvas and an installation of thirty-three ink on paper drawings by curator, art historian, teacher and artist Robert C. Morgan. The paintings impress the viewer in a timeless cohesive way as though they were organized as a site-specific project that is designed to catch the cool ambient aura that pervades the space filling it with diffuse white light, reminiscent of a secluded sanctuary. The salient tones of warm earth brown and dark blue-brown in many of the works act as triggers to subconsciously generate remembrances of the somber ambience of the early Sienese Italian Renaissance. As a group, the paintings create a hushed atmosphere that invites contemplation and reverie, triggered by the clear minimal content and the conceptual reductive intentions they embody. The metallic paint interacts with the earth tones to mitigate their absorption of light by reflecting it; the effect is both calming and stimulating. Perhaps because the works radiate a spirit of peace, they evoke a sense of joy that seems infused with personal meaning.

There is a playfulness in effect despite the obviously serious intensions conveyed by the paintings that provides a sense of ambiguity, despite the clearly carved nature of the highly specific honed smooth shapes.

There are architectural underpinnings in many of the works in the Loggia series, while other pieces suggest a debt to natural configurations. They evince the mental action of an architect whose job requires that he get the spaces to fit perfectly within the whole structure at hand; the thirteen paintings in the “Loggia” series share this essential quality. The magnitude of each shape in relation to the interrelated elements forms a code within the confines of the four edges of each work. The “Elements, Parts I and II” recall game-boards that create enigmatic hidden meanings which relate to secret undefined puzzles. They suggest chess boards that display their subjects with uncanny discretion and respect.

Light and darkness play a major role in the unfolding dramas, as the viewer’s visual perception is sharpened by the necessity to gaze deeply at closely mixed tones, to discern the end and beginning of many of the forms. With continuous viewing, the shapes may appear to vibrate, to move, to resist efforts to pin down their perimeters. Although the works may seem simple, their reduced number of elements compels the viewer to detect changes wrought from barely discernable alterations in movement and placement of shapes.

Robert C. Morgan, B.B.O. in Rio #3 (Katana), 2013, acrylic, metallic paints on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
Robert C. Morgan, B.B.O. in Rio #3 (Katana), 2013, acrylic, metallic paints on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Clearly the paintings fall into the rubric of the honed geometric forms and primary structures characterized by alterations that identify them within the post-painterly abstract genre. The play of movement and spatial divisions challenge the eye to perceive the minuscule changes within the context of this visual dance.

The pieces radiate thoughtfulness; equally, they are well defined, creating pictorial space at times by overlapping flattened forms, or by the juxtaposition of warm and cool hues to generate depth. Through his use of metallic paint and earth tones, the artist intends to capture the moment when light is reflected and absorbed, embodying the reuniting of opposites set forth in the Tao Teh Ching, 500 B.C. Morgan’s use of line animates the works, drawing the eye in unexpected directions through and around forms to differentiate and delineate them. The earth-tones in many of the “Loggia” paintings recall raw nature as a backdrop that surrounds sophisticated dark shapes. The earth red and metallic gold break with traditional notions of minimal essence to create an offshoot rich in suggestiveness.

Robert C. Morgan, Loggia XI, 2019, acrylic/metallic paint on canvas 22 x 22 inches
Robert C. Morgan, Loggia XI, 2019, acrylic/metallic paint on canvas 22 x 22 inches

“Lissajous 3” and “Lissajous 2” disclose quite diverse concerns when compared with the “Loggia” paintings. Both pieces display adorned gold and metallic circles that could represent planets or even machine parts separated from their mechanisms. In the rectangular and square formats of the “Optical Flip” (diptych), 2010, the artist carves the terrain of each segment into three similarly sized portions. Tension develops as the eye travels horizontally across the format, to be pulled back to center by the elongated pale gray rectangles. The subtle play of vertical thin and thicker bars in the middle draws the eye and activates the mind’s curiosity. “Pyramid Shift” creates an area within a black plane that holds the gray pyramid at a distance from a thin rod that carves the warm rectangle. This structure establishes tangible space that invites the viewer’s speculation. The “Living Smoke and Clear Water” installation of Chinese ink on Conte paper drawings flows organically from one to the next, giving the impression of small Haiku poems quickly noted, in a reverie engendered by the attributes of the materials and the vision of nature.

From the standpoint of an instinctual, intuitive observer who derives essence and intentions experientially, this exhibition discloses a tremendous reverence for each separate form and each relationship in which the shapes participate. Care and investment define each piece. If art can embody love, I believe there is evidence of such feeling in these paintings.

Tjebbe Beekman: Tetris at Grimm in New York City

by Mary Hrbacek

Tjebbe Beekman, To pray for the living and the dead, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 80 x 60 cm | 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in Framed: 82.5 x 62.5 x 6.5 cm | 32 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart
Tjebbe Beekman, To pray for the living and the dead, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 80 x 60 cm | 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in Framed: 82.5 x 62.5 x 6.5 cm | 32 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart 

Grimm presents “Tetris,” an exhibition of seventeen new acrylic and acrylic emulsion paintings by Dutch artist Tjebbe Beekman. In Beekman’s deeply felt and strongly envisioned images, the components and fragments function as indefinable players in what can be described as confounding theatrical productions; they immediately impress the viewer with their powerful symbolic meaning. The title of the exhibition lends insights into Beekman’s artistic intentions. “Tetris” is defined as an “endeavor involving rearranging things of a different shape into physical space.” 

Beekman excels at making visually convincing painted “collage” details. The interconnecting dystopian elements read as layers of expressive recognizable objects such as cloth, balls, rope, pieces of wood, trays and sticks to name but a few, whose relationships to each other seem unfathomable. They convey deeply intriguing yet puzzling undefined messages. The variety of textures, colors, unspecified articles and entities grip the viewer in a psychic drama presented in many of the works, in the pictorial space of a Picasso collage or Synthetic Cubist still life. The shallow arena appears to be constructed of overlapping items that might have been dredged from a cellar, woodshed or attic trunk. 

Tjebbe Beekman, To forgive all injuries, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 80 x 60 cm | 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in Framed: 82.5 x 62.5 x 6.5 cm | 32 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart
Tjebbe Beekman, To forgive all injuries, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 80 x 60 cm | 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in Framed: 82.5 x 62.5 x 6.5 cm | 32 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart

The works on view with their attendant narrative titles, give the impression that they relate personally to the artist’s psychic and emotional states of consciousness. These pieces have underpinnings in Old Master compositions; Poussin comes to mind. They have no pop culture references beyond the 1980’s arcade video game entitled “Tetris.” Playing this game is said to thicken the cortex and possibly increase brain competence. The painting actually entitled “Tetris” integrates unrelated strata of abstract and figurative items, which may symbolize the chaos in which we live in the world. Arranging ultra-complex configurations woven within pictorial structures probably provides relief for distressing emotional experiences. Art-making can be a constructive venue for exploring feelings and venting emotions directed at the charged episodes that cling inexorably in our consciousness.

Tjebbe Beekman,The Miraculous Draught, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 133 x 100 cm | 52 3/8 x 39 3/8 in Framed: 135.5 x 102.5 x 6.5 cm. | 53 3/8 x 40 3/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart
Tjebbe Beekman,The Miraculous Draught, 2022, acrylic, acrylic emulsions, sand and grit on canvas mounted to wood panel, framed. Unframed: 133 x 100 cm | 52 3/8 x 39 3/8 in Framed: 135.5 x 102.5 x 6.5 cm. | 53 3/8 x 40 3/8 x 2 1/2 in. Tjebbe Beekman, Tetris All images Courtesy of the Artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam | New York | London, photography: Jonathan de Waart

The piece entitled “The Miraculous Drought” diverges from the collage-based still life works, with a storm setting in which four human figures reach dramatically into a trough to collect water, amongst a barrage of flying debris. A desperate peacock, the flamboyant bird that symbolizes personal vanity, cranes its neck to beg for water, verifying that human and animal needs intersect. In a mesmerizing display of nature’s chaotic powers, the debris blows wildly across the top of the format signaling an apocalyptic natural disaster which pits us not only against nature, but against each other.  It seems the artist is striving to reconcile life’s struggles with its rewards.  

The various collage-like and cubistic spaces seem to express their own particular emotional conundrums disguised within the undefined forms presented. “To Pray for the Living and the Dead” hints at aquatic looking shapes that seem to intersect a black empty area that conceivably signifies the “self.” Sensory stimulation gives a certain distraction and pleasure to life, when conflicts and unresolved relationships, especially from the past, become intolerable to bear.  

The artist’s superb technical mastery of the medium comprises a striking underlying message that permeates this mesmerizing body of works. With images whose underpinnings in the old and new masters are articulated by honed elements with deeply saturated hues, few art shows today are more serious or more engulfing.

Tjebbe Beekman: Tetris (October 21 through November 12, 2022) at Grimm Gallery, 54 White Street, New York City, NY 10013

D. Dominick Lombardi: Cross Contamination with Stickers

by Matthew Garrison

D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 32 (The Studio) (detail) (2019), acrylic and ink on paper on canvas previously painted in 1986, 40  x 40 inches, all images courtesy of the artist
D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 32 (The Studio) (detail) (2019), acrylic and ink on paper on canvas previously painted in 1986, 40  x 40 inches, all images courtesy of the artist

D. Dominick Lombardi’s exhibition, Cross Contamination with Stickers, at Albright College’s Freedman Gallery brings together recent work that implodes linear expectations in art by attaching a subversive cast of characters and abstract forms on stickers to paintings, drawings and objects grounded in traditional techniques and figuration. The sticker imagery emerges from an automatic drawing process where Lombardi allows his hand and mind to move freely on the page, uninhibited, in the creation of bodies, faces and amorphous forms with anatomical implications. A clue to the origins of his stickers is evident in the drawing, D-6-21, where the subconscious is accessed through a constellation of linear characters and intestinal contours. Embedded in the lines are faces, bodies and colonic forms in dialogue with one another, yet isolated in placement and spacing.  The drawings might even be the dissection of a poor soul pinned across the page; each organ animated by its own disposition. While this process has its roots in Surrealism and automatic writing, it also brings to mind the drawings and distracted doodles of teens and the young at heart inspired by underground comics, animation and tattoos. The association of Surrealist history with adolescent attitudes and daydreams is further underscored by Lombardi’s use of satire and dissent in a collision of unruly worlds.    

D. Dominick Lombardi,  D-6-21 (2021), permanent marker on acid free paper, 17 x 14 inches
D. Dominick Lombardi, D-6-21 (2021), permanent marker on acid free paper, 17 x 14 inches

Lombardi’s application of stickers to charcoal drawings, album covers and sculpture brings into sharp contrast the disparate traditions and values embodied by their respective methodologies and subject matter. The figure drawings are repurposed from Lombardi’s demonstrations for students during his twenty-seven years of teaching life drawing. Well executed in composition and representation, they succeed in depicting the likeness and proportions of their subjects. Although, in the context of Lombardi’s work it feels absurd to look at these drawings through a formalist, academic lens. Together the drawings and stickers destabilize the histories and sensibilities behind their realization. Yes, there’s harmony in their composition and hue, but the combined attitudes and methodologies are unsettling. Lombardi negotiates an uncomfortable alliance in his work.  While the figure drawings endeavor to attain classical representation, the stickers undermine these traditions with humorous impropriety; an affront to the well-intentioned studies. Both hold their own by asserting divergent values all the more apparent by their proximity.  

D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 99 (detail) (2020), acrylic, ink and charcoal on paper on canvas, 24 x 38 inches
D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 99 (detail) (2020), acrylic, ink and charcoal on paper on canvas, 24 x 38 inches

Analogous to graffiti, Lombardi’s stickers bring to mind the “hello my name is” stickers filled in with the swirling, jagged monikers of their makers that dot New York City’s transit system. A misdemeanor tag rarely worth pursuing by the authorities, the graffiti artists interject themselves into the monotonous, engineered aesthetics of commuting. A declaration of self and markers of time, the subway stickers exist until peeled off or worn away.  Lombardi’s stickers, on the other hand, tag an introductory foundations course, life drawing, pitting the traditions of proportion and representation against the raucous attitudes of underground comics.  

D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 92 (2020), acrylic, ink and charcoal on paper on canvas, 40 x 36 inches
D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 92 (2020), acrylic, ink and charcoal on paper on canvas, 40 x 36 inches

The painting, CCWS 92, exemplifies this tension between dissimilar practices. The canvas consists of six sketches interspersed with black and white stickers. Two of the six are charcoal drawings repurposed from the figure drawing classes and four are studies in marker reminiscent of early 20th century abstraction. Suspended like stalactites across the top are stickers of gelatinous mechanical forms. Throughout the canvas are Lombardi’s ill-behaved characters. Disembodied heads hover over models while exaggerated figures are in dialogue with each other and the models on fields of pink and yellow. Internal organs seem to have developed outside the bodies of some. The best artists instill their unique perspective and spirit irrespective of the subject matter. Lombardi accomplishes this by disrupting the technical origins of the charcoal drawings with stickers rooted in underground pop influences. Lombardi’s fusion of academic concerns with an alternative mindset questions assumptions around “high and low” art by presenting contradicting motivations side by side with equal authority.  

D. Dominick Lombardi, (left) before over-painting and stickers, (right) CCAC-1 (2018), ink on paper and acrylic on album cover, 12 1/2 x 12 ½ inches
D. Dominick Lombardi, (left) before over-painting and stickers, (right) CCAC-1 (2018), ink on paper and acrylic on album cover, 12 1/2 x 12 ½ inches

Humor is central to Contamination with Stickers. For instance, Lombardi has placed stickers in conversation with the remains of imagery and text on album covers. The wit in this work not only stems from connecting disparate aesthetics, but also from his seamless over-painting of elements on the albums.  The humor is subtle, labor-intensive and easy to miss. There’s no Photoshop to assist Lombardi with the detail and time required to remove by hand all the text on a Barry White album, or text and a section of the dock on a Freddy Heimweh cover.  Lombardi’s modifications separate the artists from their personas. Instead, Freddy Heimway is reenvisioned as “Reddy St.” and the faces of both are covered with stickers. Now unrecognizable by most, the album format remains while promotional expectations are subverted with irony and finesse.  

D. Dominik Lombardi, CCWS 25 (2018), mixed media, 21 x 14 x 12 inches
D. Dominik Lombardi, CCWS 25 (2018), mixed media, 21 x 14 x 12 inches

The most audacious piece in the show is the freestanding painted assemblage, CCWS 25.  Visitors to the exhibition openly laughed when confronted with its punchline, a rare reaction in the polite confines of an art gallery. The armature of the sculpture consists of plastic bottles from various products and discarded wood objects embedded in a biomorphic paper mâché arrangement. Although the bottles are no longer visible, their origins reference ubiquitous plastic waste and determine the shape of the sculpture with implications of mutation and survival. A table leg serves as one of its legs and the rounded end of a wooden spoon is recast as an ear. The proportions of the sculpture are reminiscent of a teddy bear except here the creature is headless with ears protruding from its torso. A green and yellow appendage in the form of a grapefruit is attached to its side. Stickers of abstract designs punctuate the sculpture. CCWS 25 seems to have taken shape from one of the stickers on a nearby painting. 

D. Dominick Lombardi,  CCWS 25 (2018), mixed media, 21 x 14 x 12 inches
D. Dominick Lombardi, CCWS 25 (2018), mixed media, 21 x 14 x 12 inches

The sculpture greets its guests with a cheerful, positive demeanor. Its pudgy proportions and stickers function as a comedic buildup to the sculpture’s posterior. Moving around CCWS 25 reveals a cherubic figurine with its face buried in the creature’s buttocks. The discovery is jarring and unnerving. Most will respond to this encounter by recoiling, laughing or both. The conditions are difficult to discern and impossible to ignore. This might even be interpreted as an investigation into sensory deprivation and teamwork. The figurine with arms wide open does not appear to be distressed and, perhaps within the conditions proposed by Lombardi’s exhibition, is in an amenable and unremarkable situation. It’s as though the figures in CCWS 25 and throughout the exhibition need each other to navigate the intractable worlds they inhabit.  

This is where the collision of ideologies in Contamination with Stickers is most subversive. Assurances found in taking sides are called into question. Lombardi destabilizes bias in the exhibition by composing dissimilar characters, values and forms into harmonious pandemonium. Discomfort with the show most likely arises from the assumptions and predilections projected onto the work, while the work itself remains confident in its lively exchange between high and low aesthetics and ethos. Meanwhile, the characters and figures sourced from personal history and internal realms remain in buoyant conversation – happily indifferent to outside decree and assessment. 

D. Dominick Lombardi: Cross Contamination with Stickers runs through December 8th, 2022 at the Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, Pennsylvania.