What Works Better in Bushwick? 

     On January 11th, 2013, ArtHelix Gallery in Bushwick opened an exhibition that positions both the artwork found within, and the neighborhood outside in a perplexing light. The artist, Jene Highstein, has been exhibiting his work for more than 40 years, and is known internationally in the collections of museums, private individuals, and corporations. How does his work fit in to the edgy, counterculture vibe of this neighborhood that is the fertile soil for emerging artists in Brooklyn? Uncovering the details behind the artwork, the venue, and the people involved will point to whether the match is a good fit for all, or a round peg in a square hole.

   

 Cape Breton Drawing, 2012 

watercolor and gouache on rice paper 

    Jene Highstein: The Cape Breton Drawings showcases a loose and colorful series of abstract watercolors and gouache on paper created between 2008 and 2012 at the artist’s summer home in Northern Canada. Better known as a sculptor and installation artist, Highstein’s organic, nature-based work is most often created from stone and wood. The artist spent one year studying drawing at the New York Studio School in 1966, but since then has worked almost exclusively in three dimensions. Despite the apparent focus on three-dimensionality, his practice has never strayed from the fundamentals he learned while young.
“Drawing is an integral part of how I think…The drawing has always driven the work.”

    For this sculptor, drawing is the armature on which his work is built. Until 2008, few exhibitions were comprised of his drawings. Of those that have been shown, his black and white examples were geometric studies or frenetic “Splash Drawings.” Any drawings in color were flat, mostly monotone, and geometrically-based studies of glass vessels. The work in this series is the artist’s first combination of bright, multicolored, and vibrant abstract imagery.

 

A Hexagon in Space, 2006

bone black pigment on paper 

 

Blue and Yellow Double, 2006 

watercolor on rice paper 

     At 71 years old, Highstein forges into new directions when most would enjoy the slower pace of retirement. Instead of migrating to Florida, the Baltimore native, New York transplant heads north every summer to Cape Breton, an idyllic woodland island midway between Detroit and the southern tip of Greenland. Long walks with friends and family through the island forests inspired the watercolors, and prompted Highstein to say, “The sky and sea are constantly changing color. It is a magical landscape.”

    The Cape Breton Drawings are Highstein’s responses to these nature walks, which were approached in the same way that he begins his sculptural work; by asking the question, “How can I depict space?” Beginning with the paper, Highstein used Xuan, or rice paper, a material that complements the calligraphic style of this series. It is extremely thin and accepts watercolor and gouache in various and often unpredictable ways. In fact, the rice-product is so thin it is partially transparent and at times the bravado of the colors and strokes appear to shimmer in midair. Even handling the paper when it’s dry carries a risk of tearing, let alone when using water-based applications. Choosing the truest media for the task is only part of the challenge, as Highstein acknowledges how the atmospheric qualities are coded into abstraction. “It’s the hand…Seeing what happens…It’s very intuitive.”

    The resulting impressions produce a range that vacillates between jagged and airy. All things considered, the mood of the exhibition, curated by the insightful and creative independent curator Bonnie Rychlak (formerly of the Noguchi Museum), is professional, yet successfully resists the urge to sound pedantic. The Cape Breton Drawings, closing on March 11th, is the inaugural show of ArtHelix Gallery, headed by the eccentric and alchemical artist/gallerist Peter Hopkins. Hopkins’s former endeavor, the Bogart Salon, is reimagined into ArtHelix, a constantly shifting culture of ideas and activities. Ten minutes in the room and a mere five with Hopkins will convince visitors that trying to anticipate what’s next from this team is futile. Anything could happen. For this show at least, an awarded and respected artist comes up with something new in his twilight years. Is Brooklyn the most likely choice for its first destination in New York? That much is doubtful. However in the words of the artist, “For me to show my art here [in Bushwick], is a great privilege.” The Cape Breton Drawings benefit from keeping good company amid so many talented emerging and mid-career artists, while on the other hand, Highstein has a down-to-earth longevity and staying power in the art world from which many of the less-experienced could learn.

 

Cape Breton Drawing, 2012

watercolor and gouache on rice paper 

 

Cape Breton Drawing, 2012 

watercolor and gouache on rice paper