get visual

Madame Butterfly 2000 - woodcut on three sheets of handmade paper

Labor Day doesn't have to mean the end of summer, especially when two summer blockbuster-worthy exhibitions of work by the great Helen Frankenthaler are still on view for several weeks to come at The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Not ashamed to say, I am a big fan of Frankenthaler, so I went to these exhibitions with high expectations - and I was quite simply blown away.

Milkwood Arcade 1963 - acrylic on canvas

As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings, which features 12 major works on canvas, is on view through Oct. 9 in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill, a transcendentally airy space that brings the woodsy surroundings into the galleries, making it the ideal setting for this selection. No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts, on view through Sept. 24, fills the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper with 17 virtuosic prints, spanning the artist's several decades of experimentation with the woodcut medium.

Both exhibitions take their titles from Frankenthaler quotes, and both quotes serve well to introduce the viewer to the essence of her thought processes in relation to making abstract art. The paintings can be understood as landscapes - or inspired by landscapes - but to me, that's not important, except where that concept serves to help a viewer uncomfortable with the abstract to open up to it.

Summer Harp 1973 - acrylic on canvas

Here's the quote for As in Nature:
Anything that has beauty and provides order (rather than chaos or shock alone), anything resolved in a picture (as in nature) gives pleasure - a sense of rightness, as in being one with nature.

My interpretation of that quote, along with viewing the works it is attached to, would be to crystallize Frankenthaler's pursuit of beauty, order, pleasure, and rightness in the form of abstract images that are resolved equally as well as are things in nature - and that the painter (or viewer) may feel at one with nature (their own nature, perhaps) in having the experience of the paintings.

The quote for No Rules evokes quite another sensation and understanding of the artist's process and intentions:
There are no rules, that is one thing I say about every medium, every picture ... that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about.

Savage Breeze 1974 - woodcut on handmade paper

Now we have a person in pursuit of things distinctly other than beauty, order, pleasure and rightness. Yet these thoughts, this insistence on iconoclasm is equally crucial to the life of any artist worth her salt. Viewing the prints in No Rules, one confronts astonishing breakthroughs - just as promised. First, in the earliest prints from the 1970s, there is the freshness of completely abstract imagery, as Frankenthaler delves into a difficult new medium with a simple approach.

Later, her innovations mount up: Dying pulp to insert background colors into almost absurdly large prints (don't ask where they got wood big enough); combining crazy numbers of blocks and colors into one image (the highest count in this show is 102 colors from 46 blocks, for the print shown at the top of this post); and developing textures and color effects never seen in this medium before (such as "guzzying" the block with sandpaper, dental tools, cheese graters, and gauze).

Cedar Hill 1983 - woodcut on light pink handmade paper

With these works, Frankenthaler exploded the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing into shards, and put it back together as a new, powerful form of modern art, all the while retaining the best qualities of the original medium's craft, through extensive collaboration. It is a stunning achievement.

As for her innovations in painting, Frankenthaler was the first to stain thinned paint directly into canvas, a technique that greatly influenced the more celebrated Morris Louis, and may also have been the spur that influenced Jackson Pollock to work in drips above a canvas placed on the floor. Needless to say, being a great abstract woman painter in the 1950s had its complications in relation to the dominant art movement's insistent macho characteristics, and she therefore struggled at times to be considered on their same level.

Snow Pines 2004 - woodcut on handmade paper

But she came through. And the pieces in this show do a great job of demonstrating why, as they span the '50s to the '90s without even the hint of a loss of power. These paintings are a joy to behold, particularly for their colors, which range from greens and browns through primaries to the hottest pink you ever saw - and a totally grey painting of equal oomph.

Returning to the prints for a moment: Be sure to understand these are not in any way efforts to reproduce Frankenthaler's paintings; rather, they are fabulous immersions into color and forms all on their own. Yes, they resemble the style of the paintings, and provide similar pleasures - but they also offer distinct characteristics due to their birth as woodblocks inked onto paper, and are delectable as such, as well as technically jaw-dropping.

Extend your summer of art - go see these two shows.

Red Shift 1990 - acrylic on canvas

Venus with an Organist and Cupid by Titan is on view at the Clark this summer.

Summer has arrived and it's usual for a spate of blockbuster shows to open at our region's major museums. But, alas, this year is a disappointment - there's no Van Gogh and Nature (which smashed box-office records at the Clark Art Institute last year); there's no Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George (which put The Hyde Collection - and Glens Falls - at the center of the art world's focus in 2013); and there's no Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera (which exemplifies the drawing and staying power of a well-formed exhibition, as it went on tour from Stockbridge's Norman Rockwell Museum in the summer of 2010 and, since then, has generated over 12,000 page views on my review of it here).

The closest thing we have this year to a summer blockbuster is the Clark's Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado (which opened on June 11). However, in our age of ubiquitous Internet pornography, it is almost quaint in its outdated immorality, and rather uninspiring compared to the usual star-studded summer fare offered by Williamstown's queen of art museums.

Instead, we seem to have a season of prints: The Hyde is presenting Dürer and Rembrandt: Master Prints from the Collection of Dr. Dorrance Kelly (set to open on July 10) and the Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown has Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Bohemian Paris (which opened on May 28), featuring posters, prints and drawings - but no paintings.

We also have a summer of outstanding contemporary art, in venues as diverse as the Albany International Airport; The School in Kinderhook; libraries in Albany and at Union College; small galleries in Lake George, Hudson, and Schuylerville; and the vast MASS MoCA in North Adams, where conservative skeptics are won over every day by consistently excellent selection and installation of today's most challenging living artists.

Here are my recommendations for summer viewing, in approximate descending order of scale:

1. Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder, MASS MoCA through April, 2017. I could recommend this show on the basis of the title alone - but it includes a grand swath of international artists, at least one of whom I know I love, so there's reason to believe it delivers on the promise. And there are nine (count 'em) other current exhibitions there as well. Just plain go.
2. Dürer and Rembrandt: Master Prints from the Collection of Dr. Dorrance Kelly, The Hyde Collection through October. When it comes to classical European printmaking, Dürer and Rembrandt are widely considered to be the best in history, and this collection is described as "one of the most distinguished private collections of prints" in the US. Should be a terrific show.
3. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Bohemian Paris, Fenimore Museum through Sept. 5. Lautrec was known for his color lithographic posters advertising Parisian entertainments, and these will be the centerpiece of the show. This summer the Fenimore also features exhibitions of early Ansel Adams photographs (from when he made the prints himself) and a traveling show of Whistler lithographs from the Speed Art Museum - so this is the perfect combination destination with the Hyde for lovers of works on paper.
4. Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado, Clark Art Institute through Oct. 10. Williamstown is a heckuva lot closer than Madrid, so why not check out these 28 master paintings? Please forgive my lack of enthusiasm for what could turn out to be the best show of the summer. And let me know how you liked it!
5. Staying Power, Albany International Airport Gallery through Jan 2. After 17 years, founding director Sharon Bates is retiring from the Arts and Culture Program at the airport, and this brilliant show is her swan song. More than a commentary on time's passage and the agelessness of the creative process, it is a gathering of eleven of the region's most vital artists of any age. Remember - you don't need to pass security to see it, and parking is free with validation from the gallery or gift shop.
6. Change of Place: Four Solo Exhibitions, The School in Kinderhook though the summer. New York City gallerist Jack Shainman opened his upstate showcase two years ago and I must admit I haven't been there yet (being open only on Saturdays makes it a challenge). But this space has earned raves from all over and the current set of solos by Pierre Dorion, Hayv Kahraman, Richard Mosse, and Garnett Puetta is a strong incentive to get there now.
7. Fence Select and Ray Felix, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, July 16 through Aug. 27. An annual favorite, plus a solo show by last year's top prize winner. On a sad note, Felix's Fulton Street Gallery in Troy has just closed, ending a long but worthwhile struggle to maintain a membership gallery that featured many good shows over the years and was a co-sponsor of the Photography Regional. It will be missed.
8. Too Many Words, Albany Public Library Pine Hills Branch through Oct. 2. Six artists are organized by able curator Jess Cone into a quirky but also elegant exhibition space that brings art to the library-going public. These shows are always good, and the open hours are extensive, so access is easy.
9. Woodcuts and Sculptures, The Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville, through July 10. Two of the region's best artists (Allen Grindle and Mary Pat Wager) in a strong pairing at one of the few local commercial venues that has survived showing contemporary fine art.
10. Corwin Lewi and Barbara Price, Lake George Arts Project July 9 through Aug. 12. Consistently (along with Albany Center Gallery) one of the two best small nonprofit exhibition spaces in the region. These two artists produce subtle, delicate drawings connected to life's passing moments.

A painting by Scout/Pines at TSL in Hudson through June 30.