Installation view
By Jessica Shearer for Boston Art Review
New Expressions of Traditional Genres at LaiSun Keane
If art is, as so many claim it to be, an extension of a person’s unique internal life, their creative subconscious and conceptual concerns made visible, then it has never stood to reason that modes of artistic expression could either be “in” or “out.” So I was pleased to discover that “What’s New In Still Life, Portrait, and Landscape,” a new show at LaiSun Keane curated by poet and critic John Yau, was dedicated to young and emerging artists tackling these once “outmoded” themes. I was further pleased to discover that—rather than conceiving of the concept and selecting artists to match—Yau determined the direction after recognizing the trend occurring naturally while visiting MFA programs and juroring young artist competitions. As he writes in the show’s accompanying catalog essay:
After the rise of modern art in America, and a long stretch of time dominated by Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Neo-Expressionism, where direct observation was seldom if ever considered, these young artists were working in genres that had largely been sidelined. For these artists, using imagery derived from the mass media and pop culture seemed of little interest. It was as if [after] years of the art world’s practice of promoting the “New,” this generation of artists recognized how quickly the standards of the avant-garde devolved, replaced by imitation and parody.
With works from artists Lauren Petrick Brooks, Kevin Cobb, Abigail Dudley, Samuel Alexander Forest, Calvin Kim, Meghan Murray, and Lizzie Zelter, the show explores how varied and innovative these genres can be in the current moment, with drawings, sculptures, and paintings both large and small depicting the way we encounter and navigate the small or significant (or, my favorite, small and significant) moments of our lives.
