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ART

Tiemann, Rowe works examples of 'old guard'


If a poll were conducted among San Antonio art enthusiasts to find the most respected painters in the city, the list would be dominated by three names — Robert Tiemann, Mel Casas and Reginald Rowe. This month, two of these artists are exhibiting locally: Reginald Rowe at the San Antonio Art Institute and Bob Tiemann at Trinity University's Ruth Taylor Theater. They, along with Casas, have become the "old guard" of the San Antonio art world — the ones to be challenged by the "young Turks" like Robert Gonzalez, Jesse Trevino, Jan Tips, Marilyn Lanfear and Michael Kincaid. Judging from their present exhibitions they will enjoy their hard won reputations for some time to come — no one has come close to unseating them.
   As a matter of fact, in the Rowe exhibition "Red Passage II," the painting which, according to its date, was done most recently, is the most successful, indicating that Rowe is still growing, changing and refining his work. This is all to his credit, for he could have been content to repeat his handsome, sensuously colored Diebenhorn-ish canvases, injecting subtle variations here and there. Instead he chose the riskier path of developing ideas touched upon, but not fully explored

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This work is one of many made by Reginald Rowe on exhibit at the San Antonio Art Institute. Rowe is a member of the 'old guard of the San Antonio art world.'

in earlier work, and searching out more difficult color nuances which rob the current work of much of its "prettiness" (and public accessibility).
   The "Oracle" series paintings in the show are closest to Rowe's previous work, with triangular canvas shaped applied to a surface layered with semi-opaque "muddy" unnameable colors over a variety of clear transparent ones. The slightly off-center inverted triangle quite unexpectedly evokes connotations of landscape — horizon line and all. Momentarily we are seduced into the illusionistic space offered, only to be lifted back to the surface plane by collaged masking tape and vigorous drawing around the triangle. A band of purer color appears at the bottom of each canvas setting up a tension with the predominant murky hues, and indicating the possibility of yet another horizon.
   Many of the "Passage" paintings, like the "Oracle" series, are slightly wedge shaped, making the canvas seem tilted into perspective. Rough 

[[image]] JUDY URRUTIA

weathered boards, some with nails and some with rope nailed at top and bottom interrupt the surface. All have the "horizon" band at the top. The injection of the wood boards would ordinarily tend to make a canvas more sculptural, but Rowe's "Painterly" surfaces, the brushstroke which has become his personal signature, simply won't allow it.
   Several of the "Passage" paintings are further complicated by a boxed insert, not quite centered, in which traditional landscape forms, similar to the "Oracle" series, appear. These are extremely difficult paintings to assemble. Rowe uses just as much craftsmanship as he needs in constructing them. Any more would have resulted in a "slick" finish, denying the personal, somewhat aggressive mark of the artist — any less would have detracted from the seriousness of the work.
   The drawings exhibited, like the paintings, are energetic and speak of the artist's continued searching. Collaged with "things" — wood, tape, string and crusty paint, they strongly bear Rowe's aggressive marks and sometimes seem to allude to other art (I thought I saw a Motherwell open rectangle form and a series of Lanfear strings).
   If there is any fault to find in this show (which I believe is Rowe's best to date) it is a minor one. It sometimes seems as if — in his enthusiasm to question and explore — Rowe tends to try to cover too much ground in his work. Instead of resulting in a slow revelation of rich experiences, the issues involved tend to vie with each other for supremacy — in effect, cancelling each other out.

It's no secret that I consider Robert Tiemann to be an artist who can hold his own with the best of them. I continue to be amazed, and delighted, that he has not defected to one of the established art centers of the country. His work and his teaching continues, after 15 years at Trinity, to be the most challenging and provocative around.
   Tiemann's work over the past decade has evolved from a personal mythological language to a more cerebral, disciplined confrontation with the nature of art as concept as well as object. In the three pieces exhibited at Ruth Taylor Theater he brings into question our traditional definitions of painting and sculpture by creating work that is neither and is both. If the work engages one at all, it cannot help but sharpen our perception and add to the language we have known as art.
   He offers us three works, which, for lack of a better word, I shall call columns. Fittingly, they have no titles — not even "Untitled." Each is about 8 ft. tall, about six inches wide and protrudes from the wall about six inches. The columns have a saw tooth surface around which has been wrapped canvas encrusted with grids of string and paint — lots of paint. All are of basically the same construction — only the grid and color systems vary.
   The first column encountered boasts the exhibit's only color statement in a metalic [[metallic]] salmon over grey matte front surface in a complex, patch-work string grid based on two systems — an interwoven grid over a diagonal grid. The sides are made up of a more predictable single grid thickly painted with flat medium value grey. Even when shown, as it is here, on a patched plaster surface with terrible lighting, the opulent surface and color communicates a kind of buoyant serenity which seems in distinct opposition with the physicality of the saw-toothed object. This piece, like the other two, was originally intended for a standard eight-foot (give or take an inch) ceiling. In such an installation it somehow assumes quite a different tone — becoming an architectural element of a bizarre nature. Trinity's high ceilings surround the pieces with space, robbing them of all aggressive tendencies and investing them with a lyricism I've not experienced in them before.
   Even more interesting are the two columns to the far end of the theater lobby — communicating with one another across another patched plaster wall (inexcusable for Trinity). One column is matte charcoal grey with an extremely complex grid surface, seemingly to refuse any logical system, and a strong pattern of diagonal lines along the sides. Next to it — about six feet away — is a column with a front surface similar to its charcoal grey companion coated with silver paint which drips like icing over its neutral grey sides. Behind the piece, and effectively separating it from the wall is a strip of neon. Consequently, the dialogue between the two columns deals with the nature of painting and sculpture and its relationship to its environment — most notably the wall.
   If this sounds esoteric and elitist, make no mistake, it is. Tiemann's work is experienced most fully only by those who have taken the time to consider the issues brought into being by contemporary artists and their century-old ancestors — the modernists. For those who don't care to invest in this kind of art involvement, the work will be of little importance. But for those (including the Trinity students I observed in the space) in whom there is a germ of interest, a vestige of openness left over from a less jaded existence, Tiemann's pieces may provide a passage into a more potent perception of art.
   Anyone interested in San Antonio owes it to himself or herself to see these two shows.

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This is one of the three pieces exhibited at Ruth Taylor Theater with which 'Robert Tiemann brings into question our traditional definitions of painting and sculpture by creating work that is neither and is both.'

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"'TRIBUTE' IS TERRIFIC."
GENE SHALIT, THE TODAY SHOW, NBC-TV

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JACK LEMMON
LEE REMICK
ROBBY BENSON

TRIBUTE


PG
LAWRENCE TURMAN and DAVID FOSTER present a JOEL B. MICHAELS, GARTH H. DRABINSKY Production a BOB CLARK film "TRIBUTE"
Starring JOHN MARLEY  KIM CATTRALL  GALE GARNETT and COLLEEN DEWHURST Screenplay by BERNARD SLADE
Based on the Stage Play  Produced on the Stage by MORTON GOTTLIEB Executive Producers THE TURMAN-FOSTER COMPANY and RICHARD S. BRIGHT
Produced by JOEL B. MICHAELS and GARTH H. DRABINSKY Directed by BOB CLARK "We Still Have Time" Sung by BARRY MANILOW
Words and Music by BARRY MANILOW, JACK FELDMAN and BRUCE SUSSMAN Music by KEN WANNBERG

THE GALAXY
12:00 2:30 5:00 7:30 10:00 12:00 MIDNIGHT
BARGAIN MATINEE DAILY $1.50 'til 1:30pm OR for capacity of 1st show.

NORTH STAR
12:15 2:40 5:05 7:30 9:55
BARGAIN MATINEE $1.50 'til 6pm MON.-FRI. AND for 1st show SAT. & SUN.

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Friday, February 13, 1981

THE SAN ANTONIO LIGHT

Weekend — 19
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