Figureworks is pleased to present Jacquelyn Schiffman’s recent sculptures with Richard Lindner’s provocative lithographs. Each artist has created a body of work that reflect on memorable people from places they have called home.
Referencing family, friends and places from her childhood hometown of Detroit, Michigan, Jacquelyn Schiffman has produced a striking body of ethereal hanging sculptures. Schiffman says of her work, “Detroit is my hometown, where I grew up and where my aesthetic sense was formed. The people I knew and the places where they lived and worked form an essential part of what remains for me of the City. Through memory and fragments of material and paint, my Detroit is reconstituted.”
For many years, Schiffman has used spun web as a canvas for her painting. Spun web is a polyester-based material that resembles rice paper but with sturdy, archival qualities ideal for accepting encaustics and other various mediums. In this series, she has painted fragments of this unique material and sewn them together to form figure-based sculptures that are suspended from the gallery ceiling. Being lightweight, Schiffman’s creations truly come to life with the slightest change in air current.
During his lifetime Richard Lindner (Hamburg, Germany 1902 – NYC 1978) was acknowledged as a significant and unique European-American painter. He was erroneously called a precursor of Pop art, but his paintings of pimps and armored women were cultural commentaries far removed from the banal images of Pop.
This exhibition includes Lindner’s lithographs from the 1971 portfolio Fun City. He loved the diversity and gritty culture of New York City, which allowed him ample opportunities to explore his interest in the superiority of aggressive women to submissive men. Shortly before he died, he told the American critic John Gruen, “My work is really a reflection of Germany of the ’20s. On the other hand, my creative nourishment comes from New York and from pictures I see in American magazines and on television. America is really a fantastic place.”
Bringing these two artists together clearly showcases how each stylistically fragment their subjects, even though they are working in very different mediums. Lindner isolates his challenging subjects with blocks of intense color and Schiffman passionately hand-sews each painted fragment into a three-dimensional memory. In both cases, the viewer is given a special glimpse into the artist’s extended family and naturally encouraged to reflect on one’s own influences.
Figureworks is located at 168 North 6th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211, one block from the Bedford Avenue “L” train. The gallery is open to the public Saturday and Sunday from 1-6 PM and is dedicated to exhibiting contemporary and 20th century fine art of the human form.
