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painting.  Some of the artists fit neatly into organized schools.  Among them were Arlyne Bayer, who makes cool geometric paintings; Judy Penzer, whose photo-realistic watercolor of a young couple had a unique twist because it was a cut-out; and Marjorie Abramson's vaginal sculptures.
The best in show were those artists who didn't fit into categories.  Bea Kreloff included four charcoal panels-bigger-than-life portraits of women's faces.  Although here approach seemed at first quite academic, the size and power of the faces gives them fresh meaning.  These four panels were from a series of 48, which will have an incredible accumulative effect when shown together.  Carla Tardi's two-tone drawing resembled a star, but the imagery clearly took second seat to her manipulation of the surface.  Tardi molded the thick paint into continuous ripples that were charged with mystery as they simultaneously confirmed and denied the artist's hand.  The only other sculptor in the show, Wopo Holup, showed six small constructions made from building supplies.  Holup added a touch of acrylic here and there, but the seductive color and patterning in her house-life structures came mostly from the natural (non-precious) materials.
The gallery and its members are not obligated to such invitationals; they see them rather as a community service.  This policy is highly commendable, for it gives us (as viewers) a broad look at new talent, and keeps those artists who have already acquired (or created) a showcase in touch with those who still seek their first.
-Jill Dunbar

Tina Freeman
(Cunningham Ward Gal., Sept. 21-Oct. 15)
In her first solo show in New York City,

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Tina Freeman, Diana Vreeland, 1975. Photograph

Tina Freeman demonstrates both her technical prowess and her keen eye in creating remarkable photographs.  Her show as Cunningham Ward featured portraits and landscapes, and included some of the most luscious color in photographs I have ever seen.
Freeman's work is consistently dignified.  Her human subjects include art world socialites and other persons I've not hears of.  Many of her portraits are taken from a distance, situating her subject within his or her home or studio environment.  It is interesting to reflect on judgments one makes regarding the psychology of the person photographed, based on what is rendered visible about his or her lifestyle.  One assumes certain connections between the posh interior full of art work in which we find Peggy Guggenheim or the chic, boldly colored stripes surrounding Diana Vreeland wit the values each of these women embody.  And yet in a series of four photographs of Carlos Perez-as a well-dressed young gent on a country estate or a street punk in front of a dilapidated house-Freeman presents the power and folly of the medium said to be worth a thousand words.
Freeman's landscapes, including a series of Japanese temples, are equally dignified, and respectful of a world that is not her own.  Here in these black and white works formal relationships are stressed between bits of Temple architecture and surrounding shrubs and trees.  As with her human subjects, the photographs are carefully composed, stressing balance and reserve.  Freeman is a distinguished photographer of considerable merit.
-Jane Heit

Howardena Pindell
(Just Above Midtown, Oct. 11-Nov.5)
The television screen projects a multitude 

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Howardena Pindell, untitled #85, Mixed, media, 15 1/2x20" (detail).

of images to a mass audience; a hole puncher produces dots of uniform size.  Howardena Pindell has taken these impersonal forms and transformed them into highly personal works.  The pieces in her recent show consisted of video drawings which are photos of images from television, and drawings utilizing the dots made from a hole puncher and the resulting templates.
The dot pieces originate in drawings executed in various media which Pindell proceeds to use as material for the hole puncher, thus recycling and transforming the original works.  The dots and templates are placed on a base-another drawing by Pindell-are piled generously in some areas, sparsely in others.  In some instances she uses a string grid which offers another section of space for the dots to occupy.  The drawings seem to expand and grow in a constant flow of movement.  Pindell's colors are lush and the works resemble topographical maps, galaxies swirling through space, the colorful excesses of a carnival.
The video drawings are a result of earlier dot pieces, monochrome works of numbered dot.  She associates numbers with distance, size and mass, quantity and identification.  She arranged these pieces much the same as the works described above.  In the video drawings Pindell has taken an acetate sheet and using pen and ink has made a drawing consisting of small numbered ink dots and arrows indicating various directions.  The drawing is placed onto a color television screen and held by static electricity. The set is turned on and photographs are randomly taken.
Pindell enjoys using video in a non-narcissistic way which explains her partiality to television.  The resulting photos of sports figures and evens are sometimes blurred and distorted.  The commercially produced prints, issued in a series of 10 over a period of time, are all different from