THE JAMES KALM REPORT
Artist and art critic, James Kalm, has been making his way around the city for more than 10 years, visiting gallery’s and giving honest critique to their shows.
Mary T Smith at SHRINE
James Kalm is out for an early summer Sunday pedal when he decides to take out his camera, and expose viewers to the spectrum of aesthetic delectation on display As a longtime champion of “outsider art” and particularly Southern Black vernacular art, your correspondent was attracted to the work of Mary T. Smith for its authenticity and boldness. This is the first major one artist show in New York by Smith, and though most works are medium to modest in scale, one can see why she’s regarded as a major talent.
Billy White at SHRINE
James Kalm is back in the saddle, and back in the streets, after the longest hiatus in this projects fifteen year history. Your correspondent went into self imposed quarantine on March 10. This spontaneous visit to Billy White’s exhibition at SHRINE is the first report in four months, and is indicative of Manhattan’s entry into “phase 2” of the 2020 Covid-19 un-lock-down. Reporting from behind masks and maintaining “social distance” your reporter brings viewers along for some glances of paintings by Billy White, and a brief discussion of the challenges gallerists are now facing with Scott Ogden. These rugged figurative pieces represent a rouges gallery of people and personalities that have captured the attentions of Billy. From Elvis to Mr. T. these paintings are constructed with a unique color sense, and segmented compositions, recalling passages from Abstract-Expressionism.
Prophet Royal Robertson at SHRINE
James Kalm on his Sunday cultural cruses drifts hither and thither around the Lower East Side, scouting out exhibitions and events of interest to his worldwide audience. But, if there’s one thing that attracts him like a bee to honey, it’s a show of “Outsider Art”. Prophet Royal Robertson is a prime example of the “Outsider,” an amalgam of both the visionary and the tragically pathetic. Working as a sign painter in Baldwin Louisiana, Robertson fell in love, but due to his fragile grip on reality, lost his wife and family to his ever increasing mental instability. Yet, he continued to make paintings and diagrams depicting space ships, calendars, his lover Adel and his own unique interpretations of scenes from the Bible.
Hak Vogrin at SHRINE
James Kalm begins belatedly, his reporting on the 2019 art season with a couple of exhibitions that foreground the notion of the “outside” or the “outsider artist”. Hak Vogrin’s “Don’t Waste Yer Time Lookin’ at this Painting! Git Ta Tha Mall an Buy! Buy! Buy!” is the first posthumous exhibition of this artist’s work. Although self identified as an East Village street punk, radical vegan, Feminist, and pacifist, the challenges and political establishment that nurtured his outrage are still in place. Although choosing to avoid the commercial art market, Vogrin’s work resonates among his contempories within the very influential movements of the 1980 such as Neo-Expressionism and the Trans-Avant-garde.
GARDEN at Sargent’s Daughters and SHRINE
James Kalm is at the bottom of the Lower East Side to take in a viewing of “Garden” a show featuring the work of artists, presented by both Sargent’s Daughters and Shrine. Taking “Garden” as their theme, the curators selected works that feature floral arrangements, landscapes and bucolic scenes. Mingled among the contemporary New York painters and sculptors are a group of classic “outsider” artists which add the tang of naïve authenticity, while also demonstrating the powerful influence the ideas of art brut and “outsider art” is having on this generation of practitioners.
Derek Aylward at SHRINE
Derek Aylward mashes together a sensibility tainted with the scruffy ruggedness of street art cartoons and graffiti. “Screen Door on a Submarine” presents this with a hefty portion of early modernist cubism, and Action Painting, left to simmer for a satisfying stew that might distract viewers from its subtle coloristic presence.
Annex at SHRINE
“Annex” is designed as a supplement to the “History Refused to Die” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, a selection of works from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation’s recent gift. This show features the works of: Ike Morgan, J.B. Murray, Henry Speller, Minnie Evans, Bessie Harvey, Mose Tolliver, Joe Light, Mary T. Smith, Hawkins Bolden and Charlie Lucas.
Casey Cook at SHRINE
James Kalm is out for his Sunday acculturation tour on the Lower East Side and begins his visits at Shrine Gallery. Scott Ogden gives viewers a brief introduction and description of Night Waves a two person show by Casey Cook and Matthew F. Fisher. These artists share a unique distilled vision that melds obsessive technical practices with strange depictions of figures and images.
Sarah Schechter at SHRINE
Zipping from Chelsea to the bottom of the Lower East Side, viewers can slip into view “Kasual Bagel” the debut exhibition by Sarah Schechter at Shrine. This show presents a selection of paintings that though also using glitter and reflective nuggets is highly urgent and expressionistic. Fantasy beasts, and personages are rendered with slathers of oil paint in which stones, sand, tinfoil, beads and other objects have been embedded, and echoes of “art autre” (Art of Another Kind) might be discerned.