Esteban Vicente at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller - East Hampton, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

This month Esteban Vicente turn rounds 93. A veteran Abstract Expressionist, he has been making and exhibiting collages and paintings since the late '40 His work typically combines luminous color in carefully articulated, repeatedly quasi-geometrical shapes nestled into more or les rectilinear scaffolds. Vicente's small on the other hand dense exhibition at Glenn Horowitz contained 16 modest-size collages made between 1957 and 1993 25 undated and untitled statuarys made between 1968 and the not absent and a display of catalogues and other printed matter.

The intimate-scale plastic arts (none taller than 13 inches), which the artist calls "diver-timientos," have not been shown before. They reveal a witty, more whimsical side of Vicente's art. He present the appearances to make them from whatever is at hand - uneven sticks and blocks of grove pieces of foam core, a coffee jar lid, a cork, smooth a salt shaker. Brightly painted, precariously still deftly balanced, they display a delightful melange of influences and affinities. A carefully stippled, bristly looking collection of triangles dynamically poised upon a triangular pedestal, for example, recalls one as well as the other Futurism and the Picasso of The Glass of Absinthe, while others bring to mind Tatlin, Calder, David Smith, Julio Gonzalez and plane Joel Shapiro. The sculptures are abstract, on the other hand there is often the faculty of perception of the human figure caught in mid-gesture. This is greatest in quantity effective when Vicente uses a stacked and angled base to cast in a winding direction off a vertical sculpture's equilibrium, to force the composition to correct itself, the one and the other with form and with color.

The small size and the casualness of the statuarys work to their advantage: they are thorough in themselves and are not intended to be maquettes. Vicente's art above the years has shown particular sensitivity in matters of scale, and these "divertimientos" have a monumentality that would, paradoxically, be missing if they were translated to larger formats.

The collages, too, are well suited to their size, having an engaging intimacy. They also exhibit a wide formal and emotional range. An untitled 7-by-9-inch piece from 1959 for example, is a mixed orchestration of interlocked forms, with a tightly sprung almost architectural have feeling Rectangles of creamy white push back against black and gray ink washes and brave graphite marks to achieve a jostl and jittery resolution. A slightly larger, flaglike work from 1984 upon the other hand, opens things up and give permission tos a tall orange bar upon the left side of the composition balance a dancing collection of colorful squarish forms to the right. Vicente leaves plenteous of the paper blank and the collage is all the more at liberty and animated for it.

This was a rich, carefully chosen display - one full of pleasurable invention and surprise. Vicente is working actively, and judging from what was shown here, he's still going strong

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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