Leslie Laskey: Tango by Bruno David Gallery

LESLIE LASKEY TANGO

bruno david gallery

LESLIE LASKEY: TANGO September 11 - October 24, 2009 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Leslie Laskey: Tango at Bruno David Gallery Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yoko Kiyoi Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Leslie Laskey Cover Image: Leslie Laskey. TANGO (Azul II), 2009 87 x 52 inches (220.98 x 132.08 cm) Acrylic on board

Contents

Essay by Jim Harris Afterwords by Bruno L. David Checklist of the Exhibition Biography

Essay by Jim Harris 2

A couple of years ago I was in Laskey’s studio in St. Louis. He was working on a series of drawings of very simplified figures, just a few lines; most of them straight lines but here and there a “v” or a segment of a circle. They were analytical as opposed to the predictability of stick figures but they were closer to stick figures in their simplicity than to gesture drawings. Laskey, a mature artist of great facility, was spending a lot of time to arrange half a dozen lines in a meaningful way, to capture the position of a figure, to summarize its essence. Later I saw those drawings clipped to a cord, hanging like Tibetan prayer flags at a party and then they disappeared. Last year in Michigan I saw the first of the “Tango” paintings. The stick figures were dancing! And, they were big. A grey and white one, of no more than a dozen lines, was charged with energy. A red, grey and black one was very complex and fervent. The next day much of it was painted over. Then it disappeared. I suspect it exists in a new incarnation or perhaps it is now part of history, part of experience. The Japanese potter Shoji Hamada had his assistants keep all in preparation for throwing pots every day. For periods he would not appear. Then one day he would come and throw hundreds of pots within a period of a few days and then continue to do the work of firing and glazing. Hamada had been preparing himself for the moment when everything was in order for creating. That preparation included inspiration, mental focus and physical well being. I am sure that those stick figures I saw in St. Louis were part of the preparation for “Tango”. Laskey is constantly experimenting, constantly looking, constantly searching for the idea that will engender a new body of work. Like Hamada, he believes in a simplicity that is a distillation of experience. When the hard work of preparation has been done, one creates with ease. The results are not easy solutions but they easily summarize all that preceded them. And, like Hamada when all is in order Laskey can be very prolific. The work flows as pots from the wheel. Creativity is different for every artist. I know that Laskey relates to the mystic sensibility of oriental artists such as the ceramist Hamada and the woodcut artist Shiko Munakata, who was his personal friend. I know that Laskey connects to the work ethic

of the Bauhaus—the artist as craftsmen and worker. I know that he admires the prodigious creativity of Picasso whose artwork revealed the various manifestations of his life. Laskey’s art results from a continuity or work. It is also about the mystical connection to the essence of experience. And, it is an ongoing work process that engages his entire life. The focus of his artwork changes constantly. Sometimes he discovers a new material such as automobile touch up paint, or roofing caulk, or water based printing inks. Those sources can provide the means for making new work. A new process likewise can generate new ideas. Using styrofoam packing elements as printing blocks or dragging a comb dragging through thick paint or using spray paint and stencils can suggest new forms. Sometimes it is a new visual stimulus such as Japanese kimonos, or an old doll, a salvaged hinge or watching a couple dance. With each new discovery Laskey probes the possibilities of its development in multiple forms. Perhaps the discovery lends itself to sculpture, or to drawing and painting or to monoprints, woodcuts, or photography. The change in Laskey’s artwork is in response to new materials, new processes, and new visual sources. It is about discovery. A friend said to me after Laskey’s last exhibition, “it was different from his other work but there was no mistake that it was Laskey.” The work generated by new discoveries does constantly changing but in a certain sense it is always the same. One recognizes Laskey’s forms, his color, his response to materials and his devotion to process. Whatever their manifestations Laskey leaves his distinctive mark. It is his vision, his visual language which manifests itself in multiple forms. Throughout his career, he has continued to test resources. He is a master woodcut artist, a needlepoint artist, a graphic designer, a jewelry maker, a painter, a sculptor, and architect. At Washington University he shared his passion for creativity and was a legendary teacher. A few years ago in Michigan, Laskey and I were driving down the road and were talking about the mailboxes that stood at the end of driveways. There would be a single mailbox, a couple together, an assemblage of three or four or a whole group. As you drove down the road these compositions would suddenly appear. As we talked about these changing compositions and how exciting it was to see what the next turn would bring Leslie said to me, “isn’t it fun to be a visual person.”

The Tango series brings together the most recent of Laskey’s excitement about the visual world. They are the distillation of years of experience. Their simplicity contains decades of looking and making. They are classic Laskey.

— Jim Harris Jim Harris is an architect and a Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a former associate dean of the School of Architecture. As a woodcut artist he has studied for the last number of summers with Leslie Laskey in Michigan. He lives in St. Louis and Stillwater, Minnesota. This essay is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

Afterwords by Bruno L. David 6

I am pleased to exhibit a new series of works by Leslie laskey at the Bruno David Gallery. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding. Leslie Laskey’s remarkable and compelling works makes him one the most impressive artist of the gallery. Tango has been a great inspiration for artists, whether they are musicians, filmmakers or visual artists. His fascination for Tango isn’t surprising, when one looks at his previous work. Leslie Laskey has already explored the subject in 2006. His series of flower digital prints evoked the sensuality of the dance with hot colors and powerful graphic gestures. To create this series, he was inspired by the natural curves of tree branches reminding him of the stances and forms of Tango. His new work is an attempt to reproduce this visual correlation between human and natural forms. His memories lead him to explore the natural, abstract and figurative shapes which, according to him, “feed each other”. He has shown his interest for mechanical relationships in his series of paintings entitled Hinge. The gestures and steps of Tango dancers are similarly robot-like, their legs and arms tensed and frozen in ‘statuesque’ movements, nevertheless finding freedom in the arcs of limbs and the swift shift from static to whirling. His former series of trees may be seen as an early introduction to his new Tango series where comparable shapes come to life, now dancing on the canvas. The creative process is revealed in the drawings. The first ones show distinct figures dancing on a stage. Progressively, the dancer figures scribe circles, their legs and arms rotating as if they were mechanisms created under the artist’s hand. The resulting paintings offer great abstract vertical and circular shapes moving and interacting in this robotic ballet. As always, Laskey shows his mastery of colors and his continual exploration of process and realization, found in his Bauhaus roots. His sketches and paintings clearly represent the joining of two opposite forces, both attractive and repulsive. For Laskey, Tango is the balance of opposites, mannered, measured and inventive energies, an idea he successfully rendered in this work. One finds voluptuous and sensual movements followed by a remote coolness in his forms as well as his colors, something visually and emotionally inherent to the Latin dance that often reunites, in an endless pulse the Freudian Eros and Thanatos, love instincts and death drives. Leslie Laskey is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. He studied at the Institute of Design in Chicago (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) with founder and American Bauhaus pioneer Lászlò Moholy-Nagy and Indiana University. He currently divides his time between St. Louis and Manistee, Michigan. The Laskey Fund named after Leslie Laskey, is an endowment fund at Washington University in St. Louis and provides funding source for the Laskey Award.

— Bruno L. David

Photo by Jim Olvera

Checklist of the Exhibition and Images

TANGO (Azul II), 2009 Acrylic on board 86.5 x 52.25 inches (219.71 x 132.715 cm) 10

TANGO (Sombra), 2009 Acrylic on board 70.5 x 52.25 inches (179.07 x 132.715 cm) 12

TANGO (D’Ore), 2009 Acrylic on board 85.5 x 52.75 inches (217.17 x 133.985 cm) 14

TANGO (Vermelho), 2009 Crayon and ink on paper 82 x 52 inches (208.28 x 132.08 cm) 16

TANGO, 2009 Monotype on paper 25.5 x 19 inches (64.77 x 48.26 cm) 18

TANGO (Escuro), 2009 Acrylic on board 25 x 37 inches (63.5 x 93.98 cm) 20

TANGO (Trio), 2009 Ink on paper 25 x 36.75 inches (63.5 x 93.345 cm) 22

TANGO III, 2009 Ink on paper 25 x 36.75 inches (63.5 x 93.345 cm) 24

TANGO IV, 2009 Ink on paper 25 x 36.75 inches (63.5 x 93.345 cm) 26

TANGO (Solo II), 2009 Monotype on paper 25.5 x 19 inches (64.77 x 48.26 cm) 28

TANGO (Echo), 2009

Crayon and acrylic on Japanese paper 24.25 x 30.25 inches (61.595 x 76.835 cm) 30

TANGO, 2009

Crayon and ink on paper 22.5 x 19 inches (57.15 x 48.26 cm) 32

TANGO, 2009

Crayon and ink on paper 27 x 20.75 inches (68.58 x 52.705 cm) 34

TANGO (Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Tela), 2009

Monotype on paper 23 x 20.25 inches (58.42 x 51.435 cm) 36

TANGO (Rouge Noite), 2009

Monotype and crayon on paper 22 x 19 inches (55.88 x 48.26 cm) 38

TANGO (Dueto Tela), 2009

Monotype on paper 22 x 19 inches (40.64 x 30.48 cm) 40

TANGO (Astor), 2009

Acrylic on board 51.5 x 51.5 inches (130.81 x 130.81 cm) 42

TANGO (Solo), 2009

Collage and acrylic on masonite 23 x 31.5 inches (58.42 x 80.01 cm) 44

TANGO (Ferro), 2009

Oil and spray paint on board 17.5 x 20.5 inches (44.45 x 52.07 cm) 46

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 48

Photo by Jim Olvera

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 50

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 52

Photo by Jim Olvera

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 54

Photo by Jim Olvera

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 56

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 58

Photo by Jim Olvera

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 60

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 62

Leslie Laskey: TANGO at Bruno David Gallery, 2009 (installation view - detail) 64

Photo by Jim Olvera

Leslie Laskey in his studio, 2008. (Still frame taken from Forty-seven Views of Leslie Laskey, a documentary film produced and directed by Lulu Gargiulo and David Wild

LESLIE LASKEY American, b. 1921 Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri and Manistee, Michigan EDUCATION Institute of Design (Illinois Institute of Technology), Chicago, IL ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2001 1999 1995 1989 1987 1985 1984 1980 1979 1978

Bruno David Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Tango, September-October, St. Louis, MO Bruno David Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Work, March-April, St. Louis, MO New Space Gallery, Leslie Laskey and Frank Schwaiger, May, St. Louis, MO Bruno David Gallery (New Media Room), Archeologie, July-August, St. Louis, MO Sheldon Art Galleries, Ars Botanica: Works by Leslie Laskey, September 29, 2006 – January 27, 2007, St. Louis, MO Ellen Curlee Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Lilium, September-October, 2006 Bruno David Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Realms, May 5-27, St. Louis, MO Gallery of Contemporary Art, Journeys, Territories, Adventures, (St. Louis Community College-Forest Park), February 7-25, St. Louis, MO Columbia Foundation, MMIII (with Frank Schwaiger), St. Louis, MO Cherokee Gallery, Doll (Portraits), St. Louis, MO Columbia Foundation, Redux: Work on Paper (Amaryllis Suite), St. Louis, MO Columbia Foundation, Duet (with Frank Schwaiger), St. Louis, MO Columbia Foundation, New Works (with Frank Schwaiger), St. Louis, MO Gallery of Contemporary Art, Opus 1995 Variations, (St. Louis Community College-Forest Park), September, St. Louis, MO Elliot Smith Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Encounters: Prints, Drawings, Paintings, Sculpture, September-October, St. Louis, MO Bixby Gallery, Leslie Laskey Retrospective, St. Louis, MO Elliot Smith Gallery, Sticks, St. Louis, MO North Carolina State Museum, Leslie Laskey, Raleigh, NC Elliot Smith Gallery, On Paper: Leslie Laskey Suite of New Drawings, St. Louis, MO Martin Schweig Gallery, Leslie Laskey, St. Louis, MO Talisman Gallery, Leslie Laskey, St. Louis, MO St. George’s Gallery, Leslie Laskey, London, England

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2002 1988 1987 1986 1983

OVERVIEW_09, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO OVERVIEW_08, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO ArtsDesire, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. OVERVIEW_07, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO OVERVIEW, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Inaugural Exhibition, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO RITUAL, Zeitgeist Gallery, October-November, Nashville, TN Mentors: Inspiration, Influence, Expertise, St. Louis Artists’ Guild Gallery, St. Louis, MO The Bauhaus Legacy in St. Louis: Woodcuts by Werner Drewes, Leslie Laskey, and Jim Harris, Curated by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis, MO Directions ‘88, Elliot Smith Gallery St. Louis, MO House, Garden: A Sense of Place, Elliot Smith Gallery St. Louis, MO Directions ‘87, Elliot Smith Gallery St. Louis, MO Directions ‘86, Elliot Smith Gallery St. Louis, MO Group Exhibition, Print Club Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

BIBLIOGRAPHY Harris, Jim “Leslie Laskey: Tango.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) September 2009 Cooper, Ivy “Leslie Laskey.” St. Louis Beacon, September 25, 2009 Bonetti, David. “Leslie Laskey: Shows Illustrate Art-design Connection.”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 30, 2008 Gay, Malcolm “Art Capsules: Leslie Laskey.” Riverfront Times, March 12, 2008 Duffy, Robert “A Testament of Blossoms and Bones.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) March 2008 ____________. “Leslie Laskey.” Art-Patrol, March 19, 2008 Gay, Malcolm “Everything’s Coming Up Laskey.” Riverfront Times, September 28, 2006 Friswold, Paul. “Coin of the Realms.” Riverfront Times. p. 25, May 4, 2006 Duffy, Robert “Ars Botanica: Works by Leslie J. Laskey.” Riverfront Times, November 2006 Drury Dubinsky, Yvette.“Leslie Laskey: Realms.” Bruno David Gallery Publication, May 5, 2006 Miller, Rob. “’Leslie Laskey: Realms” Saintlouisart, May 24, 2006. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ ____________. “Doll face”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 21, 2005 Murphy, Ann “ARTful Living,” The Healthy Planet, February 2005 ____________. “Leslie Laskey”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, September 27, 2005 Crone, Tomas. “Bruno David to Open on Friday”, 52nd City, October 2005 Beall, Hugh. “The Bruno buzz”, West End Word, October 26, 2005 Miller, Rob. “’Over hung’ show or ‘Hung over’ critic?” Saintlouisart, November 17, 2005

Cooper, Ivy. Bonetti, David. Crone, Tomas. Miller, Rob. Bonetti, David. Sieloff, Alison. Bonetti, David. Murphy, Anne. Miller, Rob. Beall, Hugh. Bonetti, David. Sieloff, Alison. Bonetti, David. Murphy, Anne. ____________. Otten, Liam. Church, Amanda

“Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Riverfront Times, November 9, 2005 “Bruno David Gallery”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 9, 2005 “Bruno David Gallery”, 52nd City, October 2005, http://blog.52ndcity.com/archives “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Saintlouisart, October 25, 2005. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2005 “Grand Grand Center”, Riverfront Times, October 19, 2005 “Gallery musical chairs”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2005 “Art News”, The Healthy Planet, September 2005, http://www.thehealthyplanet.com/sept05_artfulliving.htm “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Saintlouisart, October 25, 2005. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Illusion Junkie, October 25, 2005. Web Griffin, William Video. http://illusionjunkie.blogspot.com/2005/10/bruno-david-inaugural-exhibition.html “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2005 “Grand Grand Center”, Riverfront Times, October 19, 2005 “Gallery musical chairs”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2005 “Art News”, The Healthy Planet, September 2005, http://www.thehealthyplanet.com/sept05_artfulliving.htm “Leslie Laskey.” Riverfront Times, September 25, 2002 “Three degrees of Bauhaus”, Record, February 15, 2002 “Beautiful You.” Artnet Magazine, October 24, 2001

PUBLICATIONS - FILM “Forty-seven Views of Leslie Laskey” directed and produced by Lulu Gargiulo and David Wild. GRANTS & AWARDS 1982 1986 1987

Rockefeller Foundation Grant (Print Making and Graphic Arts) Washington University Distinguished Faculty Award Distinguished Professor Award (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) Washington University Professor Emeritus

ARTISTS Margaret Adams Dickson Beall Laura Beard Elaine Blatt Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Corey Escoto

Beverly Fishman Damon Freed William Griffin Joan Hall Takashi Horisaki Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Sandra Marchewa Peter Marcus

Patricia Olynyk Robert Pettus Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Lindsey Stouffer Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley

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