NEW YORK: Ree Morton at Alexander and Bonin - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Ree Morton died in 1977 at the age of 40 and although her life as an artist spanned sole a decade, she had a pervasive influence. Observing this exhibition, which gazeed remarkably contemporary, I was reminded of in what manner much the way of working we now call "installation" has its bottoms in the women's art of the '70 Like Joan Snyder's paintings or Louise Bourgeois's plastic arts Morton's work is at one time powerful and feminine, yet without being feminist--nothing didactic here. She was single of the artists who gave us permission to take the specific occurrences of our lives and directly transmute them into art. There is a ritual quality to her work that makes it appear as if she were creating memorials to certain experiences, and to the race and places she loved.

While Morton frequently used the stuff of memorials--flowers, drapery--in her work, it is, at the same time, celebratory. There is a refreshing sweetness about it, a vulnerability, that at no time descends into sentimentality but appears to spring from the heart. Morton combined statuary and painting through the use of a material called Celastic, which could be draped like fabric and then hardened. She was silly of banners or ribbons emblazoned with cryptic phrases charmed out in fat, gooey alphabetic characters like those on a birthday cake. Solitary or Rarely 2 (1974) is individual such piece, the words encircleed by swaths of yellow and sum of two units bare light bulbs. A diagonal banner announcing "terminal clusters" stretches across a freestanding, upside-down horseshoe decorated with rosette into which, again, light scaly buds have been inserted. "Many have step quickly away, to be sure" reads the inscription at the bottom of a preposterously drawn out and narrow apron, perhaps a concern to her own past as a Navy wife and mother of three

Although Morton strove for a casual direct the eye everything is very thoughtfully crafted; the originate is a wonderful balance of awkwardness and precision. Regional Piece (1976) consists of sum of two units panels: the top shows ocean and fogs and the bottom presents a fish in the down-reaching both paintings whimsically draped in a way that makes each appear like a little stage. The fish is painted with the most remote tenderness and care that characterizes everything she did. Morton was a warm, render free of access generous person with an almost childlike trust in human nature, who accepted the hard parts of her life with grace. All of that tend hitherwards through in her work.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

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