Robert Seydel: Curated by Peter Gizzi

2006–2007

511

west 25 th street, new york, ny www.cueartfoundation.org

10001

robert seydel

robert seydel

CUE Art Foundation March 15 - April 21, 2007

Curated by Peter Gizzi

LEAD SPONSOR OF 2006-07 SEASON OF EXHIBITION CATALOGUES: KYESUNG PAPER GROUP (SOUTH KOREA) ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY ELIZABETH FIRESTONE GRAHAM FOUNDATION

Foreward

CUE Art Foundation

Artists' Statement

Robert Seydel

We are honored to host this exhibition generously curated by Peter Gizzi. Mr. Gizzi, a writer

Making proceeds for me by serial invention, from piece to piece and across time. The means are

and poet, has chosen Robert Seydel, an artist who resides in Amherst, MA. Mr. Gizzi’s appreciation

collage and drawing, picture as writing, scaled intimate and to the hand. Essentially I want to

of Mr. Seydel’s work demonstrates how the Foundation’s discretionary selection process allows

write an art, to make of the visual a kind of text, and have it be as well a poor art, assembled from

for a natural cross-pollination between differing forms of expression.

scraps. Material is essential; scuffings carry history, which wanders throughout. In one of

her journal pages from The Book of Saul, Ruth Greisman, both eponymous and real aunt and the

CUE appreciates that geographic location can sometimes limit an artists

exhibition possibilities elsewhere, thus CUE is pleased to offer Mr. Seydel the opportunity for his

artist of the Book, wrote: “Art an ongoing limit, open to wind. I make it thru me, draughty R.”

first solo exhibition in New York. Mr. Seydel and we, together, wish him a future of fulfillment

Her formulation holds throughout the Book and also across the wider field. But the Book defines

and success.

the territory. It is composed of fragments and encompasses a rotation of styles, is a biography of her (our) making and consists of a pile of pictures in and across time. Artifacts of a life, both hers and mine; the refuse and rejecta of days, “open to wind.”

Other figures besides Ruth run through the work. Her brother Saul, for example (the two together make up my initials, and also carry my mother’s), and the recurring Droon, a maker of drawings (“Droon is to Draw as Draw is to Coleslaw”), and previously Welch, a professor, and Eckstein-Sousa, and others. Personas, altar egos, others, not myself. Every figure reveals aspects of the total form, which is open and green. Art, as creation and as sign of primary Imagination, is not objects but a state, a kind of fluid. It is revelation of a sort that both objects and figures are the excess of. Nor is it happenstance that the face, the portrait, the animal, fantastic or otherwise, is central. Everything starts from there. Children always begin with it: two eyes, a mouth, animal or human – a round, split and trussed and multiplied and confused. The portrait is also artifact, collage of time, a token and remnant. In her work Ruth is always speaking to herself: “To collage night, against and for stays.” The wind is what comes through, barely glued down, sign of what maker here.

Curators' Statement

Peter Gizzi

Robert Seydel’s compositions are saturated with visual pleasures but they also invite one to read, to enter, to be undone by them. Who knew such light could come from torn paper, or that the occult processes of time could be revealed by bricolage, wrack, spitball wads, wrappers, and bottle caps. He works almost exclusively in notebooks. He calls them “knotbooks”; that is to say, he works not on paper but on pages. And so many of his tools are a writer’s: whiteout, pencil and pen, erasers, tape, type, and newsprint which he uses to capture light and color, the movement between what is lasting and fleeting, conducting acts of salvage rather than consumption. In this way he makes something gorgeously animated out of raw material that is, on one hand, familiar and, on another, alien and even unwanted.

Seydel’s work, viewed collectively, has a voice as much as a vision whether its tone is elegiac, monumental, or whimsical. In the past decade or so, he has produced hundreds of works in multiple ongoing and interrelated series that move freely between lyric and narrative modes. Samuel Beckett once said the task of the artist is to find a form to accommodate the mess, a statement that describes well the openness and flexibility of Seydel’s art and its crucial link to the materials of everyday life. He is a strong believer in art-making as a process not just of representing but of uncovering a world that would otherwise remain hidden. The uncanny likenesses rendered in his various portraits show a love of metamorphic intensity and of mysteries on the verge of being revealed. So often what he is unveiling is the face. Blake’s notion that “the most sublime act is to set another before you” perfectly captures Seydel’s sense of the sacred in relation to the face, the image, and the made thing. Ultimately, his works convey perception itself as a devotional act.

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [A.S. Wolfe. Photographer], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Mixed media on card, 4" x 2 1/2"

Ruth Greisman, Untitled Postcard, from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Oil and ink on postcard, 3 1/2" x 5 1/4"

Ole? Boen, from A Fauna, 2005 Mixed media on card, 6 1/2" x 4"

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [to Joseph C.], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Paper, ink, and found photograp

Uncle Ole, from A Fauna, 2005 Oil, ink, watercolor, and white-out on card, 6 1/2" x 4 1/2"

Robert Creeley, from Series Homages, 2005 Collage and mixed media on paper, 6 3/4" x 4 1/4"

Untitled, from New Droon Works, 2002-2004 Graphite, sumi and ink on paper, 4 1/4" x 4"

Turkish Air (T21), from SiselnamĂŠs (or, Mixed Melodies), 2000 Collage and mixed media on paper, 8 1/4"

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [Woman and Bird], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Collage and mixed media on found photograph, 6 1/2" x 4 1/4"

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [Precipitation], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Collage and mixed media on found photograph, 6 1/4" x 4 1/2"

Ols!, 2005 Collage on paper, 4" x 6 3/4"

Old fig., 2003 Collage and mixed media on card, 4" x 2 1/2"

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [Orn Du], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Collage on card, 6 3/4" x 5 1/2"

Biography

Robert Seydel

Robert Seydel, born in New York, NY, lives in Amherst, MA, where he is Assistant Professor of Photography at Hampshire College. He received a BFA in English and Photography from New York University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has taught on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and the University of Connecticut at Storrs, and served for a number of years as Director of Exhibitions at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University.

Seydel received a regional fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for his serial work, A Short History of Portraiture. A selection from his ongoing Book of Saul was published in 2005 in 1913: A Journal of Forms, issue 2. In 2006 work from the series EcksteinSousa was exhibited in Five Contemporary Visual Poets at The Wright Exhibition Space in Seattle, WA. This exhibition at CUE Art Foundation marks his first solo exhibition in New York City.

Peter Gizzi

Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His books of poetry include The Outernationale (2007), Some Values of Landscape and Weather (2003), Artificial Heart (1998), and Periplum (1992). He has also published limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. His honors include the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets (1994) and fellowships in poetry from the Howard Foundation (1998), The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (1999), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005). His work has been translated into numerous languages. He currently works for the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Ruth Greisman, Untitled [Fine Hig], from The Book of Saul, 2000-2006 Collage on found photograph, 6 1/2" x 4 1/4"

Mission Statement

CUE Art Foundation

CUE Art Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization,

Board of Directors

is dedicated to providing a comprehensive creative forum for

Gregory Amenoff

contemporary art by supporting under-recognized artists via a

Theodore S. Berger

multi-faceted mission spanning the realms of gallery exhibitions,

Patricia Caesar

public programming, professional development programs and

Thomas G. Devine

arts-in-education. The Foundation was established in June of 2002

Thomas K. Y. Hsu

with the aim of providing educational programs for young artists

Brian D. Starer

and aspiring art professionals in New York and from around the country. These programs draw on the unique community of artists,

Advisory Council

critics, and educators brought together by the Foundation’s

Gregory Amenoff

season of exhibitions, public lectures, workshops, and its studio

William Corbett

residency program: all are designed to be of lasting practical

Vernon Fisher

benefit to aspiring and under-recognized artists. The entire CUE

Malik Gaines

identity is characterized by artistic quality, independent judg-

Deborah Kass

ment and the discovery of genuine talent, and provides long-term

Kris Kuramitsu

benefits both for creative individuals associated with CUE and

Jonathan Lethem

the larger art marketplace. Located in New York’s Chelsea gallery

Irving Sandler

district, CUE’s 4,500 square feet of gallery, studio and office space serves as the nexus for educational programs and exhibitions

executive Director

conducted by CUE.

Jeremy Adams Director of development

Elaine Bowen All artwork © Robert Seydel programs Catalog design by Elizabeth Ellis

coordinator

Beatrice Wolert-Weese Printed on TriPine paper of KyeSung Paper Group (South Korea) Cover: TriPine Art Nouveau 209gsm (78lb), Text: TriPine Silk 157gsm (106lb)

programs assistant

Printer: Yon Art Printing (South Korea)

Kara Smith

ISBN-13: 978-0-9776417-9-6 ISBN-10: 0-9776417-9-1