A Collector’s Fantasy on Display

“The Incomplete,” a huge exhibition filling all three floors of the Chelsea Art Museum, consists of work entirely from a private collection, that of Hubert Neumann — an awkward, though not unprecedented, arrangement. Still, it affords one the chance to assess the taste of a well-known and highly regarded collector, who in this case also serves as the exhibition’s co-curator.The show begins with work from the early 1980s, though it is heavily weighted toward paintings from the last decade. Why does the collection only work from the past 20 years? Because Mr. Neumann sees the art of this period as representing a complete rupture with Modernism, the dominant mode of artmaking for most of the last century. This may be true, but it’s not possible to gain a strong sense of the new dispensation by perusing the three floors of work here. Rather, what you’ll find is a worthy example of a collector’s taste, and a handful of wonderful pictures.Mr. Neumann, it seems, prefers generously colorful figurative paintings, frequently tending toward fantasy or comic-book extravagance, as well as the occasional hard-edged abstraction. The scattering of sculptural work feels almost like an afterthought. Yet within the somewhat narrow parameters of this cornucopia, you will find work by some of the better artists working today, and some of the trendiest.From the older generation, Ashley Bickerton certainly acts as a presiding spirit, though unfortunately you won’t find examples of his recent large, phantasmagoric, multi-figure mixed-media paintings on view. More typical of the paradoxically traditionalist sensibility evident here are two portraits, “Hula Girl” and “Hula Boy” (2006), individually framed, painted digital prints of a boy and girl. The skin of each is luridly mottled, as if bathed in red, green, and yellow lights, and each is adorned with highly colored floral headbands and leis.Mr. Bickerton’s dystopian virtuosity is shared by the spectacularly talented young English painter Nigel Cooke. His relatively small “Don’t Mess with the Message” (2002) is the only canvas by this artist included. In it, lighting bolts shoot from the eyes of a strange being — the tiny head of which is visible near the top edge of the canvas — down across a vast, black night, barely illuminating a landscape of burnt-out, graffiti-ridden cars and people buried to their necks in hard earth strewn with bones and rocks.In fact, despite the slight preponderance of fantasy on view here, the range of styles remains impressive. Kelli Williams’s sadomasochistic daydream, “Execution Style” (2006) mingles easily with the pattern-drunk suburban banalities of “The Step Dad” (2006) by Justin Craun. One can glide from Ridley Howard’s cool and witty realism to Benjamin Edwards’s high-tech urban cartographies to Eric Parker’s psychedelic maps, and then indulge in a handful of escapist pastiches of thrift shop paintings by Karen Kilimnik.Even the abstractions display a welcome broadness. I have a fondess for Haluk Akakçe’s untitled reliefs in wood, plexiglass, and acrylic, all in a style one might call retro-tech for the way they resemble old computer parts. A sensual, hourglass-shaped wash shading from orange to pink, “Sentient” (2005), by Christian Schumann, resembles updated stain painting, while Kristin Baker’s “Dirty Orange Cone #3” (2003) combines acrylic, reflector tape, and Mylar to form a convincing exploration of color and texture.In short, there is a wonderful sense of fresh possibilities, of artists marching out in many directions here. And yet one can’t escape feeling that the break with Modernism Mr. Neumann describes is woefully misrepresented. His is an extremely conservative, even incurious, take on the current scene. From it you would be led to believe there isn’t vibrant conceptual work being done today; you might imagine installation art, film, video, video installation, and photography have ceased to matter, and that sculpture is afterthought, something done every once in a while by painters. Worse, you would have no idea that many of today’s strongest artists in no way confine themselves to a single medium or approach: they might paint today, do a performance on Saturday, and shoot a video on Tuesday. Indeed, if anything defines the rupture with Modernism it has been an aesthetic of impurity and eclecticism, one consciously disregarding the old Modernist dictums about purity and medium (for instance, stripping painting of anything “inessential”).Which brings us back to the uncomfortable situation of a singleowner show, one comprised almost exclusively of market-pleasing paintings. I’d rename it “Far Too Incomplete.”Until January 12 (556 W. 22nd St. at Eleventh Avenue, 212-255-0719).

A Collector’s Fantasy on Display

A Collector’s Fantasy on Display

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