Dan Perkins; Gold Cloister, 2024; Oil on panel; 50 x 40 inches
The Arc as a Symbolic Angel for Our Times
Rachel Uffner Gallery
by Chunbum Park
July 24, 2024
The Arc. It has been an iconic and symbolic shape in architecture, religion, and art throughout the millennia. It is a form that caves inward, protecting its center.
In a time of increasing political, social, and geopolitical chaos, instability, and strife, what does the symbol of the arc represent for us? Does it convey a sense of hope for stability and peace, or does it become a metaphorical place for inner exploration and inquisition?
The group show titled Arcus currently on view at the Rachel Uffner Gallery in the Lower East Side is curated by Lucy Liu and features 12 artists' works, who use mediums such as; paintings, ceramic works, and sculptural installation, where the arc is a unifying thematic element.
The sculptural installation piece is the most prominent in the exhibition, and it was made by Sacha Ingber, titled Conspiracy of Mass (2020). It is a triptych made of metal, chicken bones (with the meat consumed), wood, paper, and other materials. The work, which consists of three main arch-like figures, takes on a partially spiritual or religious meaning and context. The word “mass” in the title refers to the religious gathering of people, but the religious symbols cannot be easily read or discerned at first glance. A close reading of the work reveals the chicken bones as a reference to the holy relics of saints as celebrated within Catholicism. Other materials and organic structures come together in a symphony of orchestrated parts and puzzle pieces, including the movement of the celestial objects as suggested by the bright golden disc partially hidden by the triptych. Ingber’s work also reminds us of the Ukrainian artist Louise Nevelson’s assemblages.
Sacha Ingber; Conspiracy of Mass, 2020; mixed media; 114 x 93 1/2 x 3 inches
Like the American abstract painter Loie Hollowell’s style is the work of Dan Perkins, who works for the blue-chip artist as an assistant. Perkins’ Gold Cloister (2024) is an oil painting on panel that becomes a symbolic and imaginary shrine of pure energy, taking on a spiritual significance. The gradual crescendo of energy emanates throughout the arc-like enclosure with infinite yet ethereal qualities that evoke a great sense of wonder in the viewer. The architectural wonders of the Taj Mahal in India or the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem come to mind when seeing this work.
Brittney Leanne Williams is a Chicago-based artist whose works deal with figuration, symbolic imagery, and abstraction from a black and feminine perspective. An Arch Holds a Dome, A Dome Holds a Tulip (2023) is an oil painting that depicts five women of African descent in a group embrace that suggests grief and healing, underneath a ceiling or architectural framing device that arcs. They merge into the potent symbol of the human heart, which must function for one to live and exist. However, the human heart is also required to empathize with the marginalized, fight injustice, and grow into a real human being on a spiritual and ontological level. Justice is a process that does not stop at the moment that the powers that be apply retribution and compensation; it continues through the repetition of narration by the victims or the oppressed to achieve healing and empathy, as well as regaining their voice, power, and place in the world.
Ronan Day-Lewis’ Casino Pier (2024) is an entirely different kind of painting done in oil pastel, and it speaks of the wonders of looking at the world through a childlike lens of magical imagination. The transparent male creature with its internal organs visible is naked and exposed, yet he is calmly composed and standing in balance during the cold darkness that resists the distant lights. The arcs are visible as the outline of the lower side of the creature’s body. The artificial quality of the lights and the place’s focus on entertainment invokes the French arcade, as discussed by Walter Benjamin in his essay on phantasmagoria. (The French arcade featured frames of cities and mountain-scape surrounded by artificial light, which adds to its association with the scene of the casino pier as shown in Day-Lewis’s painting.) The illusion of the phantasmagoria is the sense of the “here and now” as experienced in cinema, which erases the distance between the spectator and the film and results in fetish. The French arcade similarly teleports the viewer to a distant place through the use of world panoramas, travel shops, and postcards, erasing the distance and creating an illusion of presence and accessibility. Is Day-Lewis complicit in the capitalist illusion of modernity and commodification of reality, or is he critical of it? Is the creature’s warping and distortion a symptom of the oppressive nature of our modern society and economic system? It’s hard to say.
Ronan Day-Lewis; CASINO PIER, 2024; Oil pastel on canvas; 48 x 60 inches
If Day-Lewis’s work is a shrine made of capitalist illusions, Ho Jae Kim’s work titled, Window (2024), is a different kind of sanctuary, where the nature of human identity is questioned and explored in its many layers. Looking at the centrally positioned figure in the painting, one can see the multi-layered head varying in angle. This indicates that at each dimension there is a turning of identity and a shifting of the focus or attention of the person. While the head of the power gives off vibes of questioning, the body of the person is holding a round, arc-topped container that carries the same person in an alternate universe or dimension in a caring and hopeful manner. Is the artist asking the question of whether to love and cherish oneself despite all the doubts that the person has accumulated over his or her existence? There are both elements of hope and cynicism in Kim’s work but hope and idealism appear to be on the dominant push forward.
While many other works by other artists were equally powerful in terms of the visual impact and the poetry of meanings, we must stop and have some concluding thoughts about the exhibition. Why did the curator choose the name “Arcus,” which refers to the abstract idea of the arc as the title of the show? Is Arcus a person’s name that references the ideal contour of the arc? Why not arches, for example? What is the difference between the arc and the arch?
Arches and arcs have slightly different meanings. Arches consist of arcs but are applied to architectural contexts and have both arms of the arc line pointing downwards (in an upside-down U-shape). Arcs are imaginary, mathematical models made concrete by equations and/or formulas. Arcs are present in arches, but arches cannot contain the core idea of the arc. The arc contains all possibilities and expressions of the curvilinear form including the arch. (Historical and modern examples of arches include the Roman canals, the Anji bridge in China, and the George Washington Bridge in the US).
It has been a common theme since ancient times that people would come together and pray to the higher powers for guidance and deliverance when hardships hit them. It only makes sense for the people of our time to humble ourselves (to overcome our human ego) and collectively pray in the cathedral of our collective religions, metaphorically speaking, if such a thing could exist in our collective imagination. And the arc is the abstraction of the imaginary cathedral that consists of arches in our earthly realm. High ceilings. Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals. Our human world and the heavens. The higher powers of divinity. We call upon them at these trying times to guide us towards a path forward into the light. We bid for peace and salvation. We summon sincerely, without wax, for a kind of triumph. And that’s what Arcus appears to be asking for, whether the exhibition becomes personified or is the imagined brainchild of the curator (Liu). Arcus is, metaphorically speaking, the symbolic angel for our times praying in the heavenly cathedral surrounded by arcs like multitudes of protective shields.
Arcus includes works by Piper Bangs, Anne Buckwalter, Sacha Ingber, Ho Jae Kim, Brittney Leeanne Williams, Ronan Day-Lewis, Nianxin Li, Asher Liftin, Miwa Neishi, Lucía Rodríguez Pérez, Dan Perkins, Angela Wei, and Suyi Xu.
Photos courtesy of the artists and Rachel Uffner Gallery.