| |
Reviews
|
|
The art world is notoriously self-referential. This reflexiveness
makes it, at times, a sickeningly esoteric domain with a seemingly
bottomless capacity for ingesting self-critique, which, by some
bizarre Nietzschean backward somersault, nourishes it and makes
it stronger. In this spirit, Reeves' all-white painting, "A
Bunch of Minimalists Try Hard Not to Say Anything," lampoons
the work of staunch monochromists. Four vertical lines stick up
from the bottom of the canvas. Two of these emit verbiage: "I
love you," says one; "Would you shut the fuck up,"
says the other...
Reeves does well to let her personality, or perhaps her pent-up
rage at the art machine, shine through. Her work feels a bit like
Jorge Pardo's recent installation at the Dia Center for the Arts,
which overran the ticket sales booth and bookstore to make commentary
on the drive-by viewing and commercialization that taint art (expressive,
contemplative endeavor that it can be). Reeves provides welcome
pause. She's not jaded; she's savvy.
(The) new work provides the slightly exhilarating sensation
that comes from looking bad behavior in the eye. And it begs the
question: Would anyone like the art world so much if it were one-dimensional
and nice?
Jennifer Reeves — by Holland Cotter,
The New York Times, February 2001
Jennifer Reeves makes her solo debut at Protetch with a funny,
well produced, intensely disrespectful show. She has won attention
recently for her semiabstract landscapes, ornamented with paint
as thick as icing. Her new paintings are similarly built up -
she uses material similar to putty - but also incorporates texts,
schematic figures and an adamantly critical look at modern and
contemporary art...
Gauguin, Giacometti and Abstract Expressionism endure tributes
that are more like put-downs. Reeves titles are particularly important
for the paintings that focus on the present. In "Liberal
Minded Art Dealer Gets Drunk, Talks Too Loud," a thought
balloon carries the words "Beauty is hip art that sells who
gives a fuck if it means anything?", while three detached
mini-balloons read, "Definitely not you." ...Critics
as a species take hits, as do collectors and curators....
But only the most squeamish art-world loyalist could take serious
offense at these carefully wrought fusillades, aimed at an establishment
that, like any other, comes with its share of pretensions and
exclusions.
Jennifer Reeves at Max Protetch Gallery
— by Linda Weintraub, Tema Celeste March-April 2001
Truth seekers beware. What you discover may not be beauty and
nobility. Truth can be obstreperous. It can humiliate, infuriate,
and consternate those with whom it is shared. In such circumstances,
truth-sayers risk the consequences. Driven, presumably, by equal
measures of anger, impudence, and integrity, Jennifer Reeves braves
the repercussions...
Jennifer Reeves at Max Protetch Gallery
— by Robert Mahoney, Time Out Magazine, February 8-15, 2001
...All in all, while Reeves' sentiments are sometimes funny,
their significance within the paintings is often left unresolved.
One hopes that this show represents a transitory phase in Reeves'
work, and that her strong, robust and confident painting style
will speak for itself soon enough.
Jennifer Reeves at Roger Smith —
by David Ebony, Art in America, July 1997
In these haunting compositions, Reeves unleashes opposing forces
of representation and abstraction. It seems as if part of the
work's power has to do with the fact that she makes no attempt
to reconcile them.
Jennifer Reeves — Stefan Stux Gallery
— by Donald Kuspit, Artforum, Summer 1998
...It has been argued that what social scientists call the de-familiarizing
effect–take something familiar, change a detail or two,
and voila, you've got something new, even "original"
and disturbing– is the gist of avant-gardism. Reeves' paintings
use the de-familiarization effect in and for itself, with no apparent
irony. Thus, while her "place" is almost always the
same–there tends to be a fence or wall, presumably declaring
some unseen thing or locale off-limits, a grouping of trees that
sometimes becomes a forest, and clouds that hover in a sky as
empty as the ground space–its elements are ingeniously manipulated
in each work to keep the viewer from recognizing it. The scene
is precarious, threatening to unravel into components at any moment.
The surfaces are disjointed in any number of ways. Details may
suddenly surge with texture, in Place (4-38)Text, for instance,
where the fence is a richly colored grainy surface that stands
abstractly apart from the picture. Trees and clouds often rise
unpredictably above the otherwise flat, uneventful surface, forming
an impasto relief. The painterly gestures apparent in the relief
seem autonomous, each standing out with a clarity that contradicts
its function in the construction of the image...
Jennifer Reeves — by Matthew Biro,
New Art Examiner, October 1996
Reeves' works suggest that abstraction and representation are
the same "stuff" configured in different ways.
The more one examines Reeves' quirky yet engaging works, the
more abstract form seems to connote subjectivity, while representational
elements become flat and lifeless. Moreover, certain abstract
elements begin to form recognizable objects. Through these painterly
transformations, Reeves suggests unexpected continuities between
aesthetic form and the image world. This transformation, as well
as Reeves' anthropomorphic formal elements, combine to suggest
that abstract material and a sense of its constant flux can figure
human striving in a symbolic, yet utterly convincing way.
|
