Leslie Laskey: Windows by Bruno David Gallery

L ES L I E L A SK E Y Windows

bruno david gallery

LESLIE LASKEY Windows

September 6 - October 5, 2013 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: WINDOWS Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yuwei Qiu Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Leslie Laskey Cover image: Matisse’s Window, 2012 (detail) Acrylic on paper 24-1/2 x 32 inches.

CONTENTS

AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS A FRAME by Malcolm Gay WINDOW by Leslie Laskey AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

And suddenly, there was a frame. by Malcolm Gay

And suddenly, there was a frame. This Frame. Did it lend a view to the outside world, or enable one to peer in? Sure, it accentuated the objects within its borders. But what did it keep out? Was it a barrier? A passageway? Simply a void to be filled? Or was it an editing tool, silencing the inessential clamor and enabling focus? This frame… And what would it reveal if we moved a little to the left? These questions and more lie at the heart of Leslie Laskey’s latest exhibition, Windows, a mixed media show that continues the artist’s tradition of playing with the object as both muse and metaphor. Moving with the idea of the window, Laskey at times strips away context to explore its unvarnished physicality. In some works he employs the form to examine his own intellectual, personal, and artistic biography, while at others he coaxes it, through sheer painterly will, to reveal new and surprising cultural weights. Through it all, Laskey relies on his process, allowing the object to speak through the canvas, determining a work’s size, its media and tonal palette. A gesture in one work plants the seed for another, enabling the artist to move intuitively as he explores the multivalent layers of this most quotidian of frames. But if the frame seemed to appear suddenly, it had in fact been there all along. Early in the film, “47 Views of Leslie Laskey,” a documentary portrait of the artist that accompanies the exhibition, Laskey tells filmmakers David Wild and Lulu Gargiulo that his practice is, “a place where you make a task, or you choose a direction, and you expose and explore the ideas. It is physical, but a lot of it is spiritual. Unless you have that kind of focus or concentration, you’re just wandering.” In that sense, the choice of the window can also be seen as a painterly commentary on the mode d’etre that has sustained Laskey throughout his life. Using frames both real and imagined, Laskey dampens distraction. He focuses his attention, be it on a composition as simple as cooking a meal for friends, or noticing the play of rain through a windowpane, which in this case provided the germ for Window/Rain, a gestural work on paper that spawned the series of paintings, collages and woodcuts that populate his current show. From this safe interior view we witness a tumultuous storm outside. But Laskey quickly shifts his frame of reference in subsequent works, reminding viewers of the many roles a window can play. Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings and transitions, was often depicted with two faces, one oriented to the past, the other to the future; one looking to the external world, the other facing inward. So it is that with Looking In and Looking Out, Laskey explores the idea of interiority and exteriority.

Working on paper, the artist employs a palette of rich blues and shimmering silvers to describe two views of a full moon. To the right we are “looking out,” observing a moon against a blue nighttime sky. To the left we are “looking in,” but instead of affording us an interior view, Laskey slyly presents only the moon’s reflection, reminding us, perhaps, that interior life is ultimately unknowable, and we’re often left recognizing only our own reflection. Other paintings in the cycle pay tribute to his intellectual and artistic forbears, such as his Linnaeus Window (Looking In), a work on paper that imagines the Swedish botanist’s window, or a suite of mixed-media works that envision the windows of Matisse, Dali, and the Russian constructivist Kazimir Malevich. This last, Malevich Window, a monumental work on canvas, veers toward abstraction as the window’s reflection destabilizes the painting’s otherwise orderly forms. Still other works, such as The Plan Window, Relic Window and Window the Frame are painterly meditations on the window as object. With its blind panes, sagging frames, and cool blue and gray palette, Relic Window details the appalling effects of age, while The Plan Window, a study of light, shadows, and their disorienting geometry, is filled with anticipation of the vista yet to be revealed. But perhaps the show’s most personal work is its last, 1938 (Window), a work in oil whose tidy geometric frames are corrupted by violent shards of glass against a glinting background in blue and white. Laskey, a World War II veteran, here links the year 1938 with the infamous Kristallnacht, a series of coordinated attacks where German paramilitaries destroyed the businesses and homes of Jews, leaving the streets sparkling with shattered glass. “Talking about D-Day or the war—it changes in my mind as being the single most event…that had made me aware of myself,” Laskey tells the filmmakers Wild and Gargiulo. “I bring it to the kind of work that I do. It’s not what I live from, but it’s what I am, and what it made me.” In this sense, the final painting, 1938 (Window), can be seen not only as a loose framing device for this show of windows, but also for the artist and the innumerable frames he has constructed.

Malcolm Gay, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism, is a writer living in St. Louis. His work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, among other publications. He is currently at work on a book about the brain and technology.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows and through curtains call on us?

John Donne

it begins in glare and simple rain a layer of sky perhaps glass peering into secrets finding places framed for light and air piercing the landscape from shadow to light a window

Leslie Laskey, 2013

AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David I am pleased to present a new exhibition titled “Windows” by Leslie Laskey and, his fifth solo exhibition with the Bruno David Gallery. Leslie Laskey is not only one of the most successful and experienced working artists in the St. Louis area, but an innovative artist whose work never fails to make an impact on how its viewers perceive things. His new and engaging creations often have people walking away seeing something through fresh eyes. Previously, his work S.E.N.T. Security Envelopes Now Tampered (exhibited in 2011) consisted of collaged envelope pieces and guided viewers to a new way of thinking about their mail. Windows, however, as its name implies, invites its viewers to peer through windows. Each individual piece is a stepping-stone to thinking about windows and the series will change the way you have come to know them, too. Windows tend to be just ordinary things. They are so common around us and in our lives that we seldom really appreciate their nature of keeping rain out, letting light in, protecting us, or subtly and quietly reflecting back images of what surround them. They frame the world like a series of photographs. Laskey creates this notion in his work, occasionally abstracting these ideas and transforming the windows and what they represent into beautiful reminders of how we view our world each day. He is fascinated by the changing frame and focus: whether a window is allowing us to peer into a space or out of one, whether we are looking through it, at what it is reflecting, or perhaps at the window itself, whether it is broken or whole, there is a kind of majesty to them. Windows act as a transitional ledge between two spaces that can be symbolic of so much more. This series has been thirty-two years in the making for Laskey. His media of choice is ever changing, as is always characteristic of his work. In this body of work, he incorporates collage, oil paint, acrylic, and crayon. It is this variety of media and style that adds to the engaging quality of his work and its impact on his viewers. Without a doubt, Windows will offer a new approach to looking through to the other side and make you appreciate just how significant they can really be. Born in Michigan in 1921, Laskey served in a combat unit in Europe and was among the troops that landed on Omaha Beach early on 1944 D-Day. He studied at Indiana University and at the Institute of Design in Chicago (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) with founder and American Bauhaus pioneer Lászlò Moholy-Nagy. Currently, he divides his time between St. Louis and Manistee, Michigan and is a Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. 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 in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Malcolm Gay for his thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Yuwei Qiu, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Cleo Azariadis, Lona Moody, Sophie Lipman, Jackie Jevorutsky and Alex Lasko.

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

Matisseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Window I, 2012 Acrylic, oil on canvas 33 x 44-1/2 inches (framed) (83.82 x 113.03 cm)

Monarch Window (Dali), 2012 Acrylic, oil on canvas 49-1/2 x 56-1/2 inches (framed) (125.73 x 143.51 cm)

Living Room, 2012 Acrylic, oil on canvas 45-1/2 x 48 inches (framed) (115.57 x 121.92 cm)

Storm Window, 2013 Acrylic, oil on board 44-1/2 x 51 inches (framed) (113.03 x 129.54 cm)

The Window in the Eye, 2013 Oil on panel 53 x 50 inches (framed) (134.62 x 127.00 cm)

Malevich Window, 2011 Acrylic, oil on canvas 56 x 56 inches (framed) (142.24 x 142.24 cm)

Window the Frame, 2013 Acrylic, oil on panel 24-1/2 x 17-1/4 inches (framed) (62.23 x 43.82 cm)

The Plan Window, 2013 Oil on board 30-1/2 x 24-1/2 inches (framed) (77.47 x 62.23 cm)

Vacant Window, 2013 Acrylic, oil on panel 22-1/4 x 25-1/2 inches (framed) (56.52 x 64.77 cm)

1938 (Window), 2013 Oil on panel 25-1/2 x 28-1/4 inches (framed) (64.77 x 71.76 cm)

Wiener Werkst채tte, 2011 Acrylic, oil on panel 73 x 37-1/4 inches (framed) (185.42 x 94.62 cm)

Swallow Tail WIndow, 2013 Oil on panel 24 x 32 inches (framed) (60.96 x 81.28 cm)

Relic Window, 2013 Acrylic, oil on paper 18 x 26 inches (framed) (45.72 x 66.04 cm)

Shattered I, 2013 Acrylic, oil on paper 28 x 25 inches (framed) (71.12 x 63.50 cm)

Window / Reflections, 2010 Acrylic, oil on paper 21 x 27-1/2 inches (framed) (53.34 x 69.85 cm)

Window / Rain, 2010 Acrylic, oil on paper 32 x 22-3/4 inches (framed) (81.28 x 57.79 cm)

Looking In and Looking Out Acrylic, oil on paper 15-1/4 x 32-1/2 inches (framed) (38.74 x 82.55 cm)

Window / Maker (Looking In), 2012 Acrylic, oil, collage on paper 23-1/2 x 33-1/4 inches (framed) (59.69 x 84.46 cm)

Window / Vanity (Looking In), 2012 Acrylic, oil, collage on paper 23-1/2 x 33-1/4 inches (framed) (59.69 x 84.46 cm)

Linnaeus Window (Looking In), 2012 Acrylic, oil on paper 30 x 35-3/4 inches (framed) (76.20 x 90.81 cm)

Matisseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Window, 2012 Acrylic, oil on paper 24-1/2 x 32 inches (framed) (62.23 x 81.28 cm)

Matisseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sill, 2012 Acrylic, oil on paper 32 x 24-1/4 inches (framed) (81.28 x 61.60 cm)

Window with Birds, 2011 Ink on paper 36-1/4 x 24-1/4 inches (framed) (92.08 x 61.60 cm)

Window Shadow, 2012 Ink on paper 34 x 24-1/2 inches (framed) (86.36 x 62.23 cm)

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 38

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 39

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 40

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 41

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 42

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 43

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 44

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail) 45

LESLIE LASKEY: Windows. at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (installation view - detail)

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 2013 2011

2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004

Bruno David Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Windows, September, St. Louis, MO Manierre Dawson Gallery, Leslie Laskey, Community College, Scottville, MI Bruno David Gallery, Leslie Laskey: S.E.N.T., September-October, St. Louis, MO Steinberg Hall Gallery, Leslie Laskey: Retrospective, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, September 9-October 1, St. Louis, MO Bruno David Gallery, Portrait: Artist and Friends, November, St. Louis, MO 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 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 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

2003 2001 1999 1995 1989 1987 1987 1985 1984 1980 1979 1978

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 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2002 1988

BLUE-WHITE-RED, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO W.O.P. I, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO OVERVIEW_10, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO 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

1987 1986 1983

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 Griesbach, Hermes Sarah

“Artists plumb their unconscious for Bruno David.” St. Louis Beacon, September 23, 2013

Gay, Malcolm

“And suddenly, there was a frame.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) September 2013

Fowler, Nancy Harris, Jim

“Leslie Laskey: The Art of Life, A Life in Art.” St. Louis Beacon, September 7, 2011 “Leslie Laskey.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) September 2011

Vallowe, Megan Harris, Jim Bonetti, David. Gay, Malcolm Duffy, Robert ____________. Gay, Malcolm Friswold, Paul . Duffy, Robert Drury Dubinsky, Yvette. Miller, Rob. ____________. Murphy, Ann ____________. Crone, Tomas. Beall, Hugh.

“S.E.N.T. Security Envelopes Now Tampered.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) September 2011 “Leslie Laskey: Tango.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) September 2009 “Leslie Laskey: Shows Illustrate Art-design Connection.”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 30, 2008 “Art Capsules: Leslie Laskey.” Riverfront Times, March 12, 2008 “A Testament of Blossoms and Bones.” Bruno David Gallery Publications (catalogue) March 2008 “Leslie Laskey.” Art-Patrol, March 19, 2008 “Everything’s Coming Up Laskey.” Riverfront Times, September 28, 2006 “Coin of the Realms.” Riverfront Times. p. 25, May 4, 2006 “Ars Botanica: Works by Leslie J. Laskey.” Riverfront Times, November 2006 “Leslie Laskey: Realms.” Bruno David Gallery Publication, May 5, 2006 “’Leslie Laskey: Realms” Saintlouisart, May 24, 2006. http://saintlouisart.blogspot.com/ “Doll face”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 21, 2005 “ARTful Living,” The Healthy Planet, February 2005 “Leslie Laskey”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, September 27, 2005 “Bruno David to Open on Friday”, 52nd City, October 2005 “The Bruno buzz”, West End Word, October 26, 2005

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

“’Over hung’ show or ‘Hung over’ critic?” Saintlouisart, November 17, 2005 “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 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 Laura Beard Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman

Joan Hall Richard Hull Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Peter Marcus Patricia Olynyk

Judy Pfaff Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Mario Trejo

Damon Freed

Gary Passanise

Ken Worley

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