November 30 – December 18, 1964
Art Gallery, Eugenia Fuller Atwood Library
1964 BEAVER NEWS
“Contemporary Art Exhibitions Represents Two Significant Modes of Expression” by Carole Huberman
The current exhibition of 28 prints by Al Blaustein and Andrew Stasik is one of the most significant shows that the fine arts department has ever presented in the Atwood Library Gallery. Both Blaustein and Stasik are associated with Pratt Institute of Art, both are recipients of awards and fellowships, both are excellent contemporary printmakers – but their personal aesthetics diverge in two different directions, representing the two major modes of expression found in twentieth century art, Blaustein’s work is figurative and representational while Stasik’s manipulates pure form. Initially and quite commonly the first reaction of a casual observer is automatic discontent with the almost non-objectivism of Stasik and a great affirmation of faith in the drawing ability of Blaustein.
Blaustein’s realistic figures, filled with emotion, seem reminiscent of another age. They are rendered with a line of almost Renaissance quality. A pensiveness exists in the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought I and II through the restrained but dramatic light and solidity of the two enthroned figures. Expressing the opposite emotion, his Restless Woman is dissatisfied; her young, angular limbs in an informal seated position want to move. She too is thinking, but of future action. Blaustein expresses another emotion in the cynically wry figure of the Happy Man, who symbolizes the eat-drink-and-be-merry philosophy by his large dominant belly, scraggly legs, sinister smile, and small demonic head peering out from the darkness of the background. The most eloquent of Blaustein’s intaglio prints is The Tangle. The flow of the form itself is beautiful as it creates a five-sided circle of life.
Blaustein’s landscapes express less emotion and show greater attention to formal values, as in the Dark Tree. These landscapes are profound expressions of realism and emotion as compared to Stasik’s completely formal and abstract approach to nature
A recurring thematic form is apparent in several of Andrew Stasik’s colorful prints. In Sheet 10-10-61, he creates the feeling of an apple orchard in the loose moss greens and off-red apple forms. In a round serigraph (silk screen) called Summer A-P, the artist emphatically presents a prominent red, abstract apple form. In Orchard, a lithograph, the same form emerges as negative space in a block of red within a bold blue, white and black composition. The most significant print in this group is a composition of Spring in which small light and gay color patches emerge from a dark brown rectangle which suggests the “hatching” of a new season. Stasik is very clever in inferring subtle meaning in his graphically strong forms, especially as he expresses with a simple and abstract vocabulary, the bleak weather from January to March in an intaglio called State 1-3-21-61.
Blaustein seems to exhibit a greater sense of monumentality by expressing universal emotion in his work. He does not, however, neglect the formal aspects. Stasik is purely non-objective. Abstract to his thinking, he uses related forms, but departs from recognizability.
His prints have definite and immediate visionary impact while Blaustein’s statements are more lasting and contemplative.
