Factory Guy
Landscape painting is traditionally a vehicle for capturing effects of weather, light, and space — in short, for goals that may seem a bit shopworn for some gallery-goers today. At a glance, these appear to be the intentions of Greg Lindquist (b. 1979), whose paintings of abandoned factories and warehouses radiate a romantically desolate air. A second look, however, finds hardly a trace of sentimentality in these nine canvases at Elizabeth Harris. His rendering technique is efficiently distilled rather than emotive, his palette mostly reduced to muted grays. Indeed, the most passionate aspect of these works lies elsewhere: in their titles, which reflect an overarching political viewpoint.
Mr. Lindquist's simplified forms and almost mordant hues impart a wan massiveness to crumbling buildings on the Williamsburg and Red Hook waterfronts. In "Decay of Industry, Industry of Decay" (2007), a thin layer of modeling paste, sanded down to a matte offwhite, becomes the vacant sky vividly silhouetting a factory, setting off the dark richness of its brushy tones. Close inspection shows that the building and the river in front are underpainted with metallic paint; this glimmers through the gray brushstrokes of the river to convey its rippling surface. In "The Similitudes of The Past and those of The Future" (2007), a broad streaking of yellowy gray — a forgettable note in any other context — resonates as the ground plane stretching tautly across the painting's breadth.
Most canvases, however, reflect a far narrower range of subdued purplish- and greenish-grays and umbers, relieved by the metallic shimmer of sky or water. This tonal density, along with the 2-inch thickness of the paintings' edges, suggests a material heaviness, and yet these scenes feel ethereal rather than leaden, as if aerated by a radioactive wind. Plant life appears as stringy, khaki tufts at the edges of empty lots, while the occasional corner of an apartment building or a splash of graffiti hints at living, human traffic. The true denizens of these eerie worlds, though, are construction cranes. They loom like prison watchtowers above a jagged wall in "Ikea Site (Design for Consumer Choice, Parking over Preservation)" (2008), a painting executed on a sheet of stainless steel.
And as for those prolix titles:They add a political earnestness not immediately apparent in the images themselves. Every work, it turns out, engages an argument about urban development. The sardonically titled "Red Hook's Residuum (New Products, New Ideas, New Designs)" (2007) depicts the soon-to-be-completed Ikea megastore with the same rawness as the rusting factories elsewhere. In Mr. Lindquist's recounting, decadence replaces decay. The title of "East River State Park (Endangered Site for Preservation, Nest Egg for Luxury)" (2007), a rendering of a Greenpoint construction site, makes clearer still the "green" message behind the grayed tones.
The artist's activist and aesthetic ends never completely mesh in the exhibition. The fervent political engagement vies improbably with the otherworldly desolation of the images, in which a new Ikea warehouse can seem as exotic as an abandoned sugar refinery, and development as uncanny and primordial a force as urban decay. In relegating his message to his titles, the artist seems to acknowledge this, wisely letting us appreciate the visual and social complexities one at a time.
Mr. Lindquist's cityscapes ply an intriguing route between the time-honored and the contemporary. The artist forswears the tightly knit, "composed" designs of traditional painting for subtly schematized, atmospheric observations of the environment. But he's driven by a decidedly non-postmodernist urge: a passion for social policies that stands out from the elliptical irony of much art today. A civic conscience rings through these canvases, inspiring but never containing their peculiar visions.
Until March 8 (529 W. 20th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-463-9666).
