FALSE FACE;
A Mask Exhibition at N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago, Ill. Review by Barbara Aubin
False Face as staged by N.A.M.E.

False Face, as staged by N.A.M.E., Chicago’s innovative artist-run alternative space, turned the ordinarily dull late summer into an exciting viewing adventure. N.A.M.E., the first of four major co-op galleries to move to the Hubbard Street area, has always been creatively maverick in nature. Hubbard Street is a ‘natural’ for artists due to its closeness to the downtown ‘loop,’ established ‘gallery row’ on Michigan Avenue, and the large convertible loft-like spaces. N.A.M.E. artists are infrequent exhibitors in their own gallery, preferring instead to offer their ample and well-traversed space to outsiders with or without galleries and/or reputations in the local art world, both from Chicago and regions beyond. They readily lend their space to experimental productions in film, performance, poetry readings, etc. They have also published various artists’ writings and are currently collaborating with Landfall Press on a folio of prints.

Artists were invited by N.A.M.E.’s Board of Directors to take their concept of ‘mask’ and produce a piece of work for the exhibition with the one stipulation that the work be within a three-foot width dimensional range. Fifty or so artists responded from around the United States, with a preponderance of artists, this time, from the Chicago region. N.A.M.E.’s False Face concept opened the way for its invited artists to feed upon the rich, treasured past, which in the finest works, was transcended so that they were not merely eclectic renditions. The best solutions were individual, personal, and highly diverse from one another. Materials varied to interact with concepts and the individual artist’s personal directions and interests.
Large thematic shows, however, produce their own problems: False Face was no exception. Obviously, some artists did not wish to be bound by the theme, or refused to cope with the concept altogether. Those artists turned in work from their storage bins simply to be represented in the exhibit. Fortunately, the vast majority of the artists participating treated the theme with sincere integrity, making the overall effect one of vitality and originality.

The works ran the gamut from an abstract watercolor by Keith Morrison entitled Jankuno to a haunting oil, Mask Man by Seymour Rosofsky, which depicts a face engulfed by a hinged aperture, and a figure with both hands bruised and bandaged. The figure’s attire is in disarray with pants’ fly open (Chicago style hoodlum?). There was also a lot of ‘found object’ art, mixed media, altered readymade … the non-art material syndrome, and some fiber sculpture and ceramics.

At least two California artists were included in False Face: George Longfish (originally from the Chicago area) and Joyce Jacobsen. Longfish wed the old with the new and Africa with his own American Indian heritage in Thunderstick Mask made of blue jean material inscribed with geometric patterns of cartridge shells, small conch-like sea shells, antique Indian beads, and current Woolworth pseudo-embroidered iron-ons. Jacobsen’s piece seemed more formal and formidable: woven leather and wire revealing a black void where the image of facial structure might naturally be expected.

Social Commentary art was represented too in the work of Mask of America by Earnest McBurrows and The False Face of American Justice by Keithen Carter. Outstandingly monumental in concept and execution was Joanne Carson’s 50 Ways to Blow Your Cover. It was composed of fifty diverse pieces representing the United States: a wearable identifiable mask done in thick impasto brushwork, a lei squeezed out of a pastry tube representing Hawaii, and a murky, ozone-infested Chicago skyline … Carson’s home state of Illinois.

Other works of interest were John Woodley’s shaped canvas with large mirror insert within an abstracted head image, and Mary Skaggs’ mixed media three-dimensional satirical work with an actual Rolliflex-like camera taking on the countenance of facial features. Jane Wenger’s Untitled work needed none as she zeroed in on and magnified a grimace amongst folds of fleshy chins … Horrible, but memorable … this was no ‘false face.’

Severe, restrained … cool Vermouth Mask presented Ray Yoshida at his typical best. The work, simple in execution, fashioned from a corrugated box, was complex in spirit. Relying heavily on traditions set forth in masks from New Guinea and the Northwest Coast Indians, Chicago imagist Roger Brown did Mask for A Chairman of The Board. Replete with his familiar lighted interiors, actual moveable eyelids contained window shades painted on them.

Sandra Strauss chose six artists (Cynthia Carlson, Harmony Hammond, Melissa Paca, Jack Cody, Ellen Lanyon, and Marilyn Minter) to paint and alter her own face and disguise or transform her identity. The photo documentation was the piece.

More traditionally oriented in every sense of the term, but equally individualistic were Ellen Lanyon’s ceramic wall pieces, entitled Viper Variations. Typical of her Surrealist orientation, this work showed the multifaceted technical proficiency of the ever-active, always visible, and highly versatile Lanyon.

N.A.M.E. has again implanted an indelible image with a Chicago first in False Face.