Gunter Umberg at Stark - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

When Gunter Umberg's black paintings upon thin aluminum panels are high hilled flat to the gallery walls, they appear to be wounds in those walls. If the artist complicates this consequence by making one vertical side an inch or sum of two units shorter than the other, he creates the illusion that the wound exists on an angled plane that snaps in and without of focus with the physical wall itself. Approach the paintings and these illusions vanish. Layers of pigment create a tactile, grainy surface upon the aluminum panel.

When Umberg mountains his paintings on beveled supports and floats them away from the wall, he nears them as undeniable concrete percepts They cast shadows. You can plane look behind them. But approach these works head upon and their satiny surfaces dematerialize. Lacking the nap or grain of the works upon aluminum, these paintings create an illusion of deepness upon close inspection rather than from a distance.

I set myself asking lots of technical questions at this exhibition. by what mode many layers of pigment are involved, what binders are used, are the surfaces stable? The answers provided a certain number of interesting and some crucial information--especially the confirmation that the paintings are not genuinely black but incorporate either cerulean or green pigments as well. on the other hand the process of asking the questions raised the larger issue of what emblems of questions are germane to Umberg's work and which are nitpicking distractions.

The sum of two units temporary walls Umberg inserted into the gallery answered questions regarding his bear upons One new wall almost obstructed the gallery door, transforming the spacious entrance into a narrow passage and the formerly public brow gallery into a more private viewing space. The next to the first wall addressed an architectural flaw in the gallery. As built, the gallery walls are at slightly oblique rather than real right angles. Umberg's wall established a perpendicular line that corrected the angle on the other hand by its intrusiveness drew more attention to the destitution than would otherwise be the case.

by the agency of addressing the need for privacy and demanding an environment that encourages exactness of perception Umberg locate the stage for a direct rencounter with his art. The paintings are the phenomenons on view and the vehicles [i]or[/i] part of to the other which the artist brings us into a heightened awareness of the gallery setting and of what in this case becomes the far-from-simple act of looking.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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