ARTS
The Michigan Daily
Friday, September 9, 1983
Page 7
Museum exhibits Kamrowski
By Suzanne Ramljak
A ARBOR IS harboring a treasure.
Gems, waiting to dazzle the
receptive eye, glow and effervesce in
an exhibit at the University Museum of
Art entitled Gerome Kamrowski: A
Retrospective Exhibit. It is a rich
display of a vital artistic career.
It is appropriate that Kamrowski's
first retrospective exhibit be held at the
University since he served as a faculty
member at the School of Art for 37
years before retiring this year. He is
the most distinguished of Ann Arbor's
artists with an international reputation
and many credits to his name.
Kamrowski has found the university
mileu, distant from the vogue and
commercial hype of art centers and art
dealers, very congenial to his personal
developement and creative ex-
ploration. The exhibit documents 50
years of Kamrowski's artistic growth
and transformation. Beginning his
career in the '30s, Kamrowski was a
member of the American Abstract Ar-
tists Group, working and studying in
New York and Chicago. Surrealism
became a major influence on his works
of the '40s.
"Surrealism allowed for certain
developements and freedoms...instead
of repeating the stereotypic modes of
previous styles...it was primarily op-
timistic," says Kamrowski. "In
Surrealist work the idea was to ap-
proach the work without moral or
aesthetic considerations so there was a
sense of adventure and surprise in the
works," he explains.
The works of this period bear the
mark of this creative freedom and ad-
venture. These paintings are filled with
seething shapes and sensuous con-
figurations. They evoke both the
microscopic world of cells and fibers
and the cosmic world of stellar ex-
plosions and invisible forces. They are
glimpses into hidden regions, dynamic
and spacious terrains, familiar yet
exotic. In viewing these works one en-
ters an' enchanted garden nourished
and invigorated by Kamrowski's
generous and poetic spirit. Evocative
titles such as "Visceral Flowers",
"Sensations", and "Embalmed
Universe" accompany these works.
The works of the '50s and '60s show a
new emphasis on pigment and surface
texture. Whereas his earlier pictures
had visual depth yet were physically
flat, these later works live in three
dimensions, projecting outward into the
viewers space. These works are more
abstract with fewer recognizable
shapes. Kamrowski describes the ap-
proach here as "letting the material it-
self, and the play of the material,
suggest the image."
Kamrowski's preoccupations with
the dynamic properties of materials led
him, in the late '50s, to organize the
Hylozoist Group of Michigan Artists.
Hylozoism has as its basic premise the
doctrine that "matter is animated: that
matter and life are inseparable." In
light of this doctrine these textural,
material-based works can be read as
representations of the active, evolving
qualities of matter.
Kamrowski continued exploring the
expressive possibilities of various
materials into the '70s and '80s. One
finds styrofoam, wood, enamel, marble
dust, metal shavings, beads and other
substances integrated into his
geographical imagery. His interests
also led him beyond the painted image
into experiments with painted geodesic
domes and wind menageries.
In a less philosophical vein
Kamrowski also created wildly
decorated, genital-bedecked beaded
beasts. Commenting that "Everyone
takes life so seriously," he offers these
beasts as caricatures of pop culture and
certain overplayed aspects of the
sexual revolution.
The exhibit gathers works represen-
ting each of Kamrowski's artistic
developments. Moving through the
exhibit you traverse a variety of lan-
dscapes encountering throbbing
jungles, arching stalagtites,
psychedelic creatures, various
planetary surfaces, oozing gardens and
seas of currents and tentacles. It is a
pleasure to get lost in the topography of
these other-worldly terrains.
The exhibit will continue through
October 16 and has its official opening
this evening with a reception at 8 p.m.
Kamrowski's 'Automorphic Ostrasized Eulogists (1940)' is an example of his
surrealist period.
Prince Charles.
Not fro mEngland
Attnion Artists
You Can Enter Your Art Priced at $15
or Less in the Starving Artists Sale
Canterbury Loft will present a Starving Artists Sale September
15-17 to give students a chance to purchase inexpensive locally
produced artwork for their rooms. Student and community artists
who have items which could be priced at $15 or less can enter
the sale by calling Canterbury Loft at 665-0606 as soon as
possible. There is a $5 registration fee and all proceeds go to
the individual artist.
You must call to register by
5 P.M.,TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
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For further information &nd reservations: 761-9149 (b c4r
If you can read this message, please
beware. What you are hearing on Black
pop radio stations at this moment has
nothing to do with the following an-
nouncements: on September 9, at
Todd's in Detroit, Prince Charles and
the City Beat Band will perform.
To be honest, Prince Charles does not
play pop music; rather, he emits a
series of concrete projectiles in the
direction of your eardrums. Needless
'to say, his latest album is called Stone
Killers. However, the music he makes
is dly Apart of the story.
He's a rough and tumble guy, this
Prince. An admitted felon, gang mem-
ber, and one-time resident of Bad, Bad
Roxbury. Roxbury is in Boston.
However, I am told that if you perchan-
ce wanted to visit this part of the town,
you should carry a small ther-
monuclear device in your pocket.
Growing up in this environment had a
great effect on the Prince Chuck, and
his songs (lyrics and music) try to
reflect life with multiple club wounds.
One ear on the streets and one eye on
your little sister, Chuck and his boys
play pretty monstrous funk not heard
since the heydey of the Clones of Doctor
"I can snort so much cocaine it is silly"
P-funk Clinton. So risk your existence,
and go down to Todd's (8139 E. 7 Mile at
Van Dyke).
I
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