Cletus Johnson

The FORUM Gallery Jamestown, New York September 12 through October 24, 1992

Theaters and Collages by

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Cletus Johnson: Theaters & Collages It is indeed an honor for The FORUM Gallery to be able to

present this exhibition of work by Cletus Johnson . For the past nine years, Johnson has maintained his studio in the Southern Tier area of New York s tate (first in Jamestown, then in Cherry Creek, now in an old feed store in Ellington). Fittingly, all the work included in this exhibition was produced during his time in the region, and many pieces carry subtle allusions to his life here; in fact, several were made as gifts for his friends in the area.

Among artists in the Southern Tier, Johnson is an anomaly. WhiJe the area is certainly endowed with its share of very accomplished and gifted artists. no other artist in the region enjoys Johnson's high degree of critical success in the art world at large. Although Johnson has had only a handful of solo shows during the last twelve years, several of those exhibitions were h eld at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City, one of the most exclusive and most important contemporary galleries in the world. Johnson's work has received praise in the pages of the leading art publications and newspaper art columns from coast to coast.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1941), Johnson grew-up in White Plains, New York (twenty-five miles north of New York City in Westchester County). Neverthe足 less, he has consistently maintained his studio in rural settings since 1975: "I prefer having studios in the country. I had a studio forty miles north of New York City in Rockland County for eight years, but Rockland County was becoming more crowded and suburban: it was being overrun by urban ills. So I started looking farther up the Hudson Valley for a new studio space. I couldn't find anything I wanted, but I remembered Jamestown where

I have roots. My father is from Jamestown, and my family has a furniture business here. I took a trip up here and looked at the business's building, and realized that I could move my studio to the top floor of the factory very easily. In fact, the space that was available in Jamestown was identical in size to the space I had in Rockland County."

Despite the four-hundred miles that separate his studio from New York City, Johnson hasn't completely traded the high-pitched fervor of Manhattan for the bucolic life of southwestern New York. He consciously and deliberately maintains connections in both worlds.

'Tm as comfortable in the rural world as I am in the urban world. I like the truly urban and the truly rural. In addition to keeping a studio here in the Southern Tier, I kept an apartment in New York City until last year... I'd say that the country nurtures me, but I still feel that New York is a big part of me because it's like another room in my life. I don't feel that I'm that far away. Every Friday in the New York Times there are a coupIe of pages telling me what's happening: I see art magazines, and I'm in New York quite a bit. In the past two months, I've been in the City five times ."

Johnson had little fonnal art education. He attended Bard College, Annadale-on-Hudson, New York, for one semester and later spent a year at Parsons School of Design, New York City. He comments on his experience with formal art education: "I wasn't a successful stu足 dent-I always had a terrible time with curriculums."

However, Johnson did have a genuine interest in art: "Having grown up in the New York City area, I had access to art at an early age . When [was twelve or thirteen, I was

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taking the train from White Plains into the City to go to museums and galleries. It was a very ditTerent art world then-not the huge industry that it is now."

In his late teens, Johnson worked at the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in New York City. He later worked as a production assistant on the Broadway play, Some­ thing About a Soldier, an adaptation of a Mark Harris novel about a recruit in boot camp in Georgia during World War II. "I worked from the first reading right through closing night, so I got to see every detail of the production. " Johnson's involvement in the theater foreshadowed the major direction that his visual work would take in the coming years. However, Johnson's love for theater is not a love for the institution of theater; rather. it's a love for the psy­ chological and physical "space" of the theater. Over the span of his twenty-five year career. he has translated his faSCi­ nation with the theater into a substantial and eccentric visual vocabulary which includes meticulously crafted bas-relief boxes that depict extremely fanCiful the­ ater fac;ades. Moreover. he has produced a large body of related collage works that incorporate various found materials and residue from his theater constructions.

Theaters have become launching pads for Johnson's metaphOrical forays into wry humor. dreamlike speculations. and constrained melan­ choly. His works convey a sense of deja vu. Perhaps they resonate with vague recollections . or with something even more deeply submerged in the recesses of the collective psyche. In a May 28. 1976. article in the New York Times, Johnson explained his interest in theater to art critic Grace Glueck: "I've always been very enamored of theaters ... As a kid ... I went to play and movie houses and I was always building my own theaters and giving shows. Theaters give me a great sense of anticipation; they seem to be an entrance to the future. In the theaters

I now build... so many things are involved because of scale-they're both monumental and miniature."

In 1969. because of conflicting internal desires and extemal demands.Johnson became frustrated, destroyed all his work. and began traveling-first to Europe. then overland to Nepal where he spent conSiderable time contemplating his work and his career. With the aid of this detached perspective. Johnson decided to retum home and to continue working on his art. Shortly after his return to the U.S., Johnson took ajob as an assistant to the late sculptor Louise Nevelson. This association has had a profound impact on the way he makes art. "Louise had a behind-the-scenes influence on my work habits in

terms of studio scheduling and that sort of thing. I've been thinking about Louise this spring as I've been working because I admired the spiritual space that she worked within and the ease with which she worked. She had gone beyond the sort of verbal thinking in a way that I had not been able to. But this season. I've been working with a speed that reminded me of her. I'm very pleased because I seem to be getting into that space of having an ease with the work, communicating with the materials. and getting the idea into the piece. It's a language of form-a kind of instantaneous handling and manipu]a­

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tion of material."

Johnson has received support, encouragement, and friendship from artist friends including Nevelson , John Willenbecher, Jasper Johns, and playwright Edward Albee, but he reaches back into art history to find parallels and influences for his work. In describing how his theater pieces developed, Johnson explains, ~I didn't want to do what other people were doing.. .If I had begun painting, my work would have been like Edward Hopper·s.

There is an element of Hopper in my work-my work is very much about the same isolated sensibility, the de­ serted spaces, the play of shadows and light."

The first major recognition for Johnson's work came in 1974 when he participated in the New Talent Festival hosted by eighteen uptown Manhattan galleries. Johnson's work was shown, with the work of Susan Rothenberg, at A.M . Sachs Gallery on West 57th Street. In an otherwise negative review of the festival on June 6, 1974, former New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer offered only glowing words for Johnson's work: ~ .. . the outstanding talent for this observer was Cletus Johnson...The three shadowbox constructions Mr. Johnson is showing are immaculately crafted imaginary fa~ades of tum-of-the-century theaters, complete with marquees that light up. The details have a wonderful period authen­ ticity, yet the effect is mysterious and highly poetic. They are objects in a dream, a little ghostly and elusive, yet vivid in the feelings they evoke."

In the September 1974 issue of ARTnews, Hayden Herrera echoed the same sentiments: ~e bright spot of the New Talent Festival was Cletus Johnson.. .Johnson, who once worked as an architectural draftsman ... makes shadow boxes showing the grandiloquent fa~ades of old-fashioned theaters . They are immaculately crafted and could be architect's models, painted with flat gray-brown paint and true down to tiny white bulbs on the marquees. Yet they are as poetically fanCiful as Nevelson's recent Sky Gates. Blind windows, incongru­ ously placed and scaled, create an aura of quiet mystery.

Elements of the claSSical orders are mixed and

shuffled ...The deliberate eclecticism creates a dreamlike place that is convincing because of the overall coherence of design. Yet one suspects that behind the fa ~ades of these fantastic theaters there is no brightly lit interior, no crowd and no stage. The false front is like a theatrical mask. The fa~ade is a stage set for the play of the spectator's imagination."

Barbara Thomsen reviewed Johnson's work in the November/December 1974, issue of Art in America: "The boxes present architectural fa~ades of theater houses, constructed on the scale and according to the conventions of architectural models: flawless grisaille objects of wood and cardboard that are fairly abstract renderings of buildings. Each fa~ade is in flat frontal view and enclosed in a glass-fronted wood box that is shallow-less than a foot deep-and hung at about eye-level.. .By means of a knob on the side of each construction, small, starry lights can be brightened or dimmed, the whole scene thrown into opening-night brilliance or reduced to a drowsy, deserted shell."

Johnson has continued to use this technique of lighting through the years. The three theaters in this exhibition have two sets of rheostats controlling different sets of lights within each structure thus allowing for almost unlimited variations of lighting effects and mood possi­ bilities .

The craftsmanship in the theater constructions is impeccable; the overall conception ofthe dreamlike space is masterful; the attention to each detail is excruciatingly precise; and the painting of each element with a smooth, equalizing coat ofgray paint is extremely adroit. The total effect is a tight cohesion of form and content rendered as if the objects had actually been made by a crew of tiny artisans working in the dead of the night. Johnson comments on the illusionism of the fa~ades: "I never thought about the fact that you can't see the artist's hand in these, but I'd say it's an important aspect of the work.

I don't want a person to look at these and think 'How is that made?' It's the overall picture that I want. The viewer should notice the composition, not the physical means by

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Alexandria, 1990, wood construction , 41 1/2 x 36 x 12 inches. From the Collection of Maria Celis-Wirth , New York, New York.

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which I arrived there."

Alexandria (illustrated on page 5) is the most com­ plex theater in the exhibition. Named for the Egyptian city, the piece is embellished with columns, balconies, filigree, spear-like ornamentation, ladders and a bas-relief hawk. A seated Cleopatra figure. holding a long staff with a crescent moon on its end, dominates the composition.

From the scale suggested by the theater's entryway, the seated Cleopatra towers a daunting sixteen feet. An empty picture frame rests against Cleopatra's knee: the frame within the frame is a recurrent element in Johnson's work, He comments, "The frame to me is a metaphor for different pOints of view. Frames become portals and also prosceniums, subjective and objective; they symbolize different perspectives," Alexandria has seven very tall windows in the place of entry doors, making the theater's interior at once beckoning and resistant. An upper level contains three other windows-two that have physical space behind them and one that is painted with the same flat brown-gray as the rest of the construction, The only unpainted elements are the clear light bulbs, the white crescent moon, and the antique white translucent panels in some of the windows. An unadorned single door to the right of the ground floor windows appears to be the only entrance to the colossal stmcture, A ladder to the left of the windows apparently rises from the theater's ground level to the top of the structure that undoubtedly exists in a space well beyond the confines of the construction. The space of Alexindria is rather daunting, conveying a sur­ real sense of isolation and foreboding; the scale sug­ gested in the piece evokes a world slightly out of control where our expectations do not coincide with the reality that confronts us. According to Johnson, "Alexandria is built to a scale of three-quarters ofan inch to a foot. Those light bulbs become monsters. If you keep in mind the scale, if it were an actual building, it would be totally surreal. The piece comes from pulling feelings out of the air and out of memory It's a memory piece and an imagination piece about Egyptian, Greek, and Roman

architecture. I wanted to capture the feeling of what I think and have read about Alexandria."

A variety of material is used in the constnlCtion of Johnson's theaters. 'The primary materials include masonite, four-ply museum board, plywood, Bristol board, and wood moldings. In Alexandria, there are three pre­ fabricated pieces. The dominant object is the late-nine­ teenth century white metal statue of a Cleopatra which is rendered in that Late Empire mode. The columns are actually upside-down table legs that were found in a furniture factory in Jamestown. The reproduction of the bas-relief hawk came from the gift shop of the Metropoli­ tan Museum; it's a reproduction of a small bas-relief sculpture from their Egyptian collection. I collect small sculptures and turnings that can be used as architec­ tural columns."

Cave oj the Stars II, a theater completed in 1985 in Jamestown, is part of a series of four related works by the same title. Although this work lacks the marquee evi­ denced in Ohio and the statuary of Alexandria, Cave oJthe Stars II is dominated by two concentric archways ofwhite stars, each with a white light bulb at its center The outer ring contains over twenty alternating five-pointed and eight-pOinted stars; the inner ring contains seven of the five-pOinted variety The spires on the eight-pOinted stars are set at an angle, suggesting a pin-wheel and implying a spinning motion. The stars on the inner ring are connected to one another by elaborate scroll work that also suggests a twisting movement. There is a regularity in the placement of the outer ring and a bi-lateral integrity in the inner ring, but the star at the apex of the inner ring is curiously pointing downward in defiance of the logic implied by the placement of the adjacent ele­ ments. This aberration is heightened by the quirky off-center placement of a door on a balcony below the arches. A large illuminated number "2" on a gold back­ ground is visible through the filigree-covered balcony door. The number could be a reference to Charles Demuth's 1928 painting, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold or it may be an allusion to Johnson's friend JasperJohns, who has used

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Cave of the Stars /1, 1984, wood construction, 24 1/4 x 331 /4 x 11 1/2 inches. Courtesy Alan Brown Gallery, Hartsdale, New York.

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numbers in many of his paintings and lithographs. The compositional subtlety of this work and the unexpected appearance of the numeral gives Cave oj the Stars II a wonderfully sly irony and a playfulness that sharply contrasts with the somber mood of Alexandria.

Ohio, the smallest theater in the exhibition, is the most architecturally austere. Most traces of ornamenta足 tion have been purged; gone are the scroll work of Cave oj the Stars and the spikes and ladders of Alexandria.

Ohio, 1992, wood construction, 21 1/2 x 171/2 x 6 inches . From the collection of the artist.

Precision and simplicity in the piece's rigid symmetry are echoed and amplified even in the theater's marquee: "OHIO," Two sets of double doors flank the theater's tiny single-operator ticket booth which is reminiscent of those found in small-town theaters of the early twentieth century A large ball resting on top of the ticket booth serves as the footrest for the most com足 manding object in the tableaux: a scaled-down version of a twenty-four foot tall horse moving into view from the left (the scale is based on the height of the entry doors). The power of the animal, its muscles rippling, its mane tossed, is the perfect organiC foil to the inflexible geometry of the fa<;:ade. The autonomy of the animal. at once complex but unified , clashes mightily with the surrounding trappings of culture. Ohio serves as a monument to the duality we all embody Johnson has produced over two-hundred theaters since he began in 1967 but construction is a slow and arduous process: "Working on a theater is like working on a drawing. It's a work in progress and changes are made all the time, but the equivalent of erasing a line in these pieces means hours and weeks ofworkjust ripped offand thrown away" Johnson began making collages from found objects and other elements in 1976, as a way of working more directly and quickly with compositional ideas. "I saw two empty Plexiglas box-frames in my dealer's storeroom and I took them back to my studio. On Thanksgiving Day I made two collages using materials left over from the theaters. I had been thinking about collages for quite a while because working on the theaters can be very frustrating. A theater is the result of a very tedious process of going through hundreds of composi足 tional possibilities before deciding on the final one.

Working with the materials, particularly before they get the coat ofgray paint used in the theaters, I began to enjoy the compositional interaction of the wood moldings, the textures of the different papers, and the found objects.

The collages utilize a lot of residue from the theaters足 window frames, door sills, pieces of molding. The works all contain some sort of references to scale. It's like being

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a playwright with the images or like making a motion picture with a cast of characters on the work table with stock players that I can work with and put together in a scenario."

In a March 4, 1988, review in the New York Times, John Russell poetically described the collages as "ab足 stract low reliefs in which almost nothing remains of an elaborate architectural structure. Within the geometrical structure, the plain verticals and horizontals of a sche足 matic interior, Johnson plays with beading, with dado, and with the ghosts of entablature and the wraiths of ornament." Though Russell broadly describes the pieces, further generalization becomes difficult. Many of the pieces use unbroken expanses of unadorned paper, leaving the viewer to confront what is usually thought of as mere support for an image (Lapis Lazuli and Niobe) ; others simply use paper as an element to isolate a centralized image in a manner Similar to an extended mat board (Fate's Fan and A Bamyard Billboard). While many of the pieces are subtle and use a bare amount of color (Snow and Hail and A Car-Collage Jor Mr Liedyl. others fairly shout with hue and chroma (both Utopia works).

The collages are unified in their use of found materials and appropriated images, but unlike the work of other artworld appropriators of the 1980s (Salle, Schnabel, Koons, Levine, et aLl. Johnson's visual quotations serve more as building blocks than as ironic commentary on the proliferation of mass produced images or musings on the impossibly uncertain foundations of originality Johnson's creative process is astonishingly direct.

He combines his disparate images and materials guided partly by formal visual logic and partly by automatistic abandon . Nowhere is this way of working more evident than in a 1991 collage, CoUection oj Lusterware: "It's a collage using two images: an image of a cupboard con足 taining a lusterware collection and a postcard reproduc足 tion from the Louvre of Gerard's Cupid and Psyche. The two images were put together at the studio work table.

What attracted me and caused me to combine them was the similarity in their color-the sepia of the photograph

and the ink used in the soft printing of the photogravure.

Collection oj Lusterware is about juxtaposition: it's a classic collage."

Fate's Fan, a collage made in 1989, foreshadows the simplicity found in Collection oj Lusterware. An antique cardboard fan printed with a pattern of roses sits above

Col/ection of Lusterware, 1991 , collage, 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches. From the collection of Emily Fisher Landau, New York, New York.

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an image of a man's brown eye framed by eyeglasses, which are apparently cut from a magazine. The fan and eye are above a rectangular form that resembles a very delicate pedestal made with five very small pieces ofwood and two small round wooden legs. The pedestal sits on a three inch hOrizontal piece of wood which is decorated

Fate's Fan, 1989, collage, 30 x 24 inches. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, New York.

with a checker board pattern that suggests the tiles of a floor The piece alludes to the brazen image combina足 tions of early dadaistic and surrealistic collages. A related work, Fat Fate, simply but elegantly consists of only two combined images. The background image Is a color illustration from a turn-of-the century agricul足 tural book depicting a bunch of New York state grapes and two grape leaves (a line of type at the bottom of the page identifies the variety as "Cynthiana"). Nestled in the cluster of grapes is a black-and-white photographic image of an eye. The size of the pupil, closely matching the size of the grapes, causes the eye to blend alter足 nately with the fruit and to jump suddenly out as some sort of alien infiltrator The ambiguity of the transplant gives the grapes a darkly humorous, almost sinister, quality Johnson comments on the development of these related works: "I'll work around a recurring theme. I've seen the eye being used in unexpected places several times before, like in Rene Magritte's painting in which an eye is looking out from a ham steak on a plate. Twice I remember seeing posters in New York City with the rose and the eye-once for a William Inge play and once for the Gilroy play The Subject is Roses. The Gilroy play used an illustration of an eye as the flower of a long stem rose. My pieces have a Similar feeling, but they arrive at the feeling in a different way In Fate's Fan. the rose, the eye, and the pedestal become very architectural. Fat Fate plays on the similarity between the eye and the grapes. It's a very basic and crude collage because I haven't tried to fool the viewer with it. The eye in the image is black and white while the grapes are color, but it does make you think that it could be a bunch ofgrapes looking at you or it could just be light coming through from the back. I like that kind ofrealiza足 tion."

Lapis Lazuli (illustrated on page 14) makes extensive use of unmarked paper to set up a contrast between the right and left sides of the image. A fourteen by fifteen inch piece of paper, deckled on two edges, occupies the center of the image. The lower right comer of the paper has been

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Fat Fate, 1989, collage, 241 /2 x 20 1/2 inches. From the collection of Robert and PenelopeCreeley, Buffalo, New York.

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Soule Train, 1986, collage, 10 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches. From the collection of Mark Soule, Kennedy, New York.

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Lapis Lazuli, 1989, collage, 25 1/2 x 33 3/4 inches. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, New York.

cut away to fonn a four inch negative square. Another piece of paper of similar size rests, slightly askew, in the negative hole left by the cut in the larger sheet. A three by two inch photographic reproduction of lapis lazuli is just above the cut. A reproduction of a drawing of a dromedary on a moonlit desert night dominates the left side of the collage. The animal's shadow is eerily cast in the opposite direction of the crescent moon in the drawing. Pieces of molding frame the reproduction on the bottom and right side. The expanse of white paper separating the animal from the gemstone suggests the distance that often separates the reality of our exist足 ence from the objects of our fantasies and deSires. "I remember going to bazaars in Kabul and Kandahar and seeing lapis lazuli for the first time. Lapis Lazuli is very

much a piece about traveling across Mghanistan in 1969 and remembering all the camels, the great open spaces in the deserts, the desert nights, camping out in the desert and the lapis lazuli."

Similar to Lapis Lazuli, the primary structure of Snow and Hail is a heavy sheet of cream-colored, un足 marked paper which is divided into four unequal quad足 rants by pieces of decorative molding. In the lower left quadrant, an illustration, apparently from an old science book, catalogs twenty snow flakes and several hail stones.

The lower right quadrant contains a gray embossed card and a photograph of a watch face, apparently cut from a magazine advertisement. A similar watch face is roughly centered in the upper left quadrant. Though the numbers on the watch faces are illegible, the positions ofthe hands

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Snow and Hail, 1988, collage, 28 x 33 inches. From the collection of Emily Fisher Landau, New York, New York.

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indicate eight o'clock and two thirty Johnson com­ ments, "Snow and Hail is from a series called White Windows. Those lines that divide the paper into quad­ rants are much like window mullions, so you see window panes as though you are looking through a section of a window. It's an architectural elevation and the nine­ teenth century embossed card becomes a portal or a door in an elevation. As you get closer, you realize that the two dark spots are watch faces, but they can also be black holes in outer space. I think it's very clear that the composition is a vista."

The compositionally lean collage Niobe is named for the daughter of Tantalus who turned to stone while mourning the loss of her children . The dominant image, a reproduction of a sculpture of Niobe from the Vatican collection, occupies the right side of the collage. To the

right of the reproduction is a five by three inch gray picture frame that reveals the emptiness of the back­ ground paper The reproduction is offset on the left by a thirteen by fifteen inch expanse of white paper which is unbroken except for a rectangle cut into its lower left corner to accommodate a white window. The window, oriented hOrizontally instead ofvertically, is recessed into the backboard of the collage. This collage, possibly more than any other in the exhibition, exudes a stoic resistance to interpretive closure. The spatial emptiness of the image, broken most noticeably by the reproduction of Niobe, emits a coolness and distance that echoes the Niobe myth. It is as if the entire composition has been turned into stone. All its emotive values seem transmuted into a hauntingly beautiful, but impenetrably motion­ less, shell.

Niobe, 1989, collage, 23 1/2 x 43112 inches. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, New York.

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Utopia, 1990, collage, 161 12 x 20112 inches. From the collection of Jane Lombard , New York, New York.

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The severe detachment of Niobe sharply contrasts with the emotive exuberance of You Were Never Lovelier # 3. The piece is an extremely complex composition organized around a thirty by twenty-two inch sheet of paper containing a large drawn circle. A small piece of perforated plastic, a photographic image of a black tulip

You Were Never Lovelier #3, 1990, collage, 38 collection of the artist.

x 29 1/2 x 3 inches. From the

cut from a magazine, and a four by four inch mirror are attached to the top half of the paper The lower half of the paper is almost entirely obscured by a white stretched canvas. A simple piece of wood framing covers the lower right comer of the canvas; a piece of very heavy ornate wooden framing with gold leaf, canvas, and marbleizing, covers the upper left. An eleven by eight inch geometric ink drawing with a small glass eye attached to its center rests on the stretched canvas. A larger plastic cartoon eye is attached to the canvas about eight inches to the right of the glass eye. The eyes, together with the circular line on the upper half of the drawing paper, read as an abstracted human skull. Johnson remarks, "It's quite blasted apart compositionally, but it's very much a vanitas piece with the mirror, the tulip, and the skull."

Though highly abstracted, the collage presents elements artists have used since the Reformation to allude to the uncertainty and transience ofhuman existence. Johnson's collage, in the modernist tradition, coalesces into a highly evocative late-twentieth century version.

Utopia has been an ongoing theme in Johnson's work since 1981 when he found several "cheap plaster repro足 ductions of Antonio Canova's statue of Paolina Borghese as the reclining Venus Victorious, on a pier in Santa Monica" and began using them in his theaters. The figures are prominently placed in the compositions, and the word "Utopia" is spelled out, usually in lights. Besides the obvious Utopian expression embodied in Venus, goddess of love and beauty, Johnson comments, "r just like the combination of the two elements in the composi足 tion. They arejust two players in a piece." Johnson is now completing work on his twelfth Utopia Theater and has recently completed three Utopia collages using postcard reproductions of the Canova statue. The collage with the unmodified title Utopia (page 17) is a very compact and colorful piece. A photographic illustration of a speckled egg, bordered on the sides and top by an illustration of an ornate frame, fills the composition. The frame illustration is part of a vintage chroma-lithograph that Johnson found in ajunk shop. The postcard reproduction of Venus

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Victorious and the word "Utopia" are attached to the bottom of the egg perhaps as a reference to the possibility of finding idyllic love and beauty in nature.

In a similar optimistic and lighthearted spirit, Utopia and Train depicts a locomotive at twilight rushing under a signal tower that contains. in addition to railroad traffic lights, the letters "Uto" "pi" "a ." The postcard reproduc­ tion of Venus Victorious replaces the rear section of Ule train and forms an almost seamless perspectival line. The postcard's background color closely matches the color of the sky above the train to camouflage further the image's crafty placement. But the lines ofthe train image, slightly blurred suggesting a high rate of speed, incongruously meet the crisp lines of the statue to present an ironic visual foil to the subtle substitution. Johnson reflects, "I've been having fun doing these compositional varia­ tions for a while. Part of the fun is being able to put the figure in a place where you don't see it right away In that composition Venus fits right in there; it's a great visual surprise."

Johnson also used a train image in a 1986 collage, Soule Train (pages 12-13). In it, the Burl.ington Zephyr, a short train consisting of an engine and two passenger cars, moves along a black background under a band of flfteen stars. "The stars are a xerographic print of stars that I use in the theaters, an arch of stars like the Milky Way The train is a 1930s model toy train that was reproduced in a copy of New York Magazine around Christmas time in the mid-1980s. It's a very specific piece; it was made as a Christmas present for my studio assistant, Southern Tier artist Mark Soule." The pun, a reference to the popular television program that spot­ lights contemporary African-American music, occurred to Johnson as he finished work on the piece.

A Car CollageJor Mr Liedy (page 20) was made as a gift for a car enthusiast friend of Johnson's. The primary image in the work is the steering wheel and instrument panel of a 1948 Packard. The car's controls are isolated­ blank paper is visible in windshield area and under the dash . The instruments are ripe with narrative possibili­

ties: the odometer displays ten miles, the temperature hand suggests the car is running "hot," the generator gauge reads normal, the gas tank is almost empty, and it's nine o·clock. A tiny red light appears above the headlight switch to indicate that the lights are in use. though they illuminate only the starkness of the blank paper Mounted to the left of the steering wheel is a piece of ornate molding that diagonally crosses a torn piece of white paper A geometric drawing with lines radiating out from a glass eye is to the right of the steering wheel; another eye is attached to the pivot point of the speedom­ eter needle . But the artificial eyes are the least prominent faCial reference in the collage. The steering wheel and the metal horn ring, together with the clock and odometer,

Utopia and Train, 1990. collage, 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches. From the collection of Mark Soule, Kennedy, New York.

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suggest the ubiquitous "happy face" of the 1970s. The face, not overtly visible at first, literally looks back while the viewer contemplates the cosmic implications of driv足 ing into the unoccupied space of the background paper, guided only by the directions mapped on the all-seeing geometric dra\ving.

A Bamyard BiUboard, made specifically to trade with an artist friend, is dominated by a pastoral scene of horses, chickens. and birds in the yard of a rustic farmhouse. A large dog stands poised to lick the face of a young boy holding an obligatory straw hat behind his back. The image, a piece of late-nineteenth century advertising ephemera, is framed on the top and left side by balsa wood strips. implying a billboard-like structure.

The Rockwellean image of the farmyard conjures notions of the good life. family values. and apple pie. There is a saccharine innocence in the image which may have rang true when it was first drawn but which now stands as a wistful icon to a bygone era. Repositioned as an image of late-twentieth century advertising. the image imparts nostalgia-a sobering reminder of the vicissitudes of

contemporalY reality As evidenced in A Bamyard Billboard, Johnson con足 sistently maintains a fine balance between eliCiting nos足 talgic feelings and implying slightly darker realities.

Johnson's work is attitudinally consistent and conceptu足 ally unified, yet thematically broad and exploratory It is possible to deSCribe Johnson's work, to put it into a personal context. to relate anecdotal information, and to discuss its art historical antecedents. but it is extremely difficult to convey in words the essence of his work.

Johnson's pieces grow not from a position of artistic dogma but from a reflective position that is sensitive to the properties of materials coupled, ever so gently. with the ideas and feelings they evoke. To experience this innermost level of his work the viewer must become still, abandon preconceptions, and quietly listen. Only then will a true appreciation of the subtlety and beauty of Johnson's visual language emerge.

Dan R. Talley, Director The FORUM Gallery

A Car-Col/age for Mr. Uedy, 1990, collage, 271/4 x 361/4 inches. From the collection of Kay Kofod Liedy, Sinclairville, New York.

21

A Barnyard Billboard, 1988, collage, 15 1/4 x 183/4 inches. From the collection of Dan and Elizabeth Nord, Jamestown, New York.

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Exhibition Checklist & Bibliography

Works in the Exhibition: Utopia. 1990. collage. 16 1/2 x 20 1/2 Inches. From the

collection of Jane Lombard. New York. New York.

A Barnyard Billboard. 1988. collage. 15 1/4 x 183/4 inches.

From the collection of Dan and Elizabeth Nord.

Jamestown. New York.

Utopia and Train. 1990. collage. 201/2 x 16 1/2 inches. From

the collection of Mark Soule. Kennedy. New York.

A Car-Col/age Jor Mr Liedy. 1990. collage. 27 1/4 x 36 1/4

inches. From the collection of Kay Kofod Liedy.

Sinclairville. New York.

You Were Never Lovelier #3. 1990. collage. 38x291/2x3 inches.

From the collection of the artist.

Alexandria, 1990. wood construction. 41 1/2 x 36 x 12 inches.

From the collection of Maria Celis-Wirth. New York.

New York.

Cave oj the Stars II, 1984. wood construction. 24 1/4 x 33 1/4 x II 1/2 inches. Courtesy Alan Brown Gallery.

Hartsdale. New York.

Collection oJLusterware. 1991. collage. 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches.

From the collection of Emily Fisher Landau. New York. New York.

Fat Fate. 1989. collage. 24 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches. From the

collection of Robert and Penelope Creeley. Buffalo, New York.

Fate 's Fan. 1989. collage. 30 x 24 inches. Courtesy Leo Castelli

Gallery. New York. New York.

Lapis Lazuli. 1989. collage. 25 1/2 x 33 3/4 inches. Courtesy Leo

Castelli Gallery. New York. New York.

Niobe. 1989. collage. 23 1/2 x 43 1/2 inches. Courtesy Leo

Castelli Gallery. New York. New York.

Ohio. 1992. wood construction. 21 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 6 inches. From

the collection of the artist.

Snow and Hail, 1988. COllage. 28 x 33 inches. From the collection

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

1974 A.M. Sachs Gallery. New York. New York. September 17 October 10.

1975 Neuberger Museum. State University of New York at Purchase. Purchase. New York. September 23 De足 cember 7 1976 The Arts Club of Chicago. Chicago. Illinois. January 14 February 13.

Theaters/Collages/Drawings . A.M. Sachs Gallery. New York. New York. May 15 June 10.

1980 Theaters. Leo Castelli Gallery. New York. New York. April 26 May 17 1981 Cletus Johnson: Theaters. Ace GallelY. Vancouver. B.C. Canada. March 25 April 30.

Cletus Johnson: Theaters, Ace Gallery. Los Angeles. Cali 足 fornia. September 24 October 31.

1988 Constructions & Collages. 1974 1986. Leo Castelli Gal足 lery. New York. New York. and Michael Walls Gallery.

New York. New York. February 6 March 5.

1990 Cletus Johnson. 578 Broadway. New York. New York.

October 20 November 17 1991 Cletus Johnson Robert Creeley. Nina Freudenheim Gal足 lery. Buffalo. New York. April 6 May 1,1991.

1992 Cletus Johnson: Theaters. Stamford Museum. Stamford, Connecticut. October 13 March I. 1992.

Selected Group Exhibitions:

of Emily Fisher Landau. New York. New York.

1974 Soule Train. 1986, collage, 10 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches. From the

collection of Mark Soule. Kennedy. New York.

New Talent Festival. A.M. Sachs Gallery. New York. New

York. June.

Art on Paper Weatherspoon Art Gallery . University of

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North Carolina at Greensboro. Greensboro. North Carolina.

1975 34th Society for Contemporary Art Exhibition. Art Insti­ tute of Chicago. Chicago. Illinois.

Collectors Choice XV. Philbrook Art Center. Tulsa . Okla­ homa .

Spring Purchase Group, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Uni­ versity of North Carolina at Greensboro , Greensboro.

North Carolina.

1976 Artworks, Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee. Wisconsin, April 25 May 16.

40 Years oj American Collage. Buecker and Harpsi­ chords. January 3 - February 28.

1980 Spoleto Festival, Charleston. North Carolina. May 22 June 8 .

Architectural Sculpture, Los Angeles Institute of Contem­ porary Art, Los Angeles, California.

1982

Drawings to Benefit the Foundation Jor Contemporary Peiformance Arts, Inc.. Leo Castelli Gallery. New York.

New York, November 29 December 20.

Artists Choose Artists , CDS Gallery, New York, New York.

April 15 June 12.

Castelli and His Artists: Twenty-Five Years (organized by

the Aspen Cente! for the Visual Arts). La Jolla Mu­ seum of Contemporary Art. LaJolla. California. April 23 June 6: Aspen Center for the Visual Arts, Aspen.

Colorado, June 17 August 7: Leo Castelli Gallery.

October 9: New York. New York. September 11 Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Portland. Oregon.

October 22 December 3: Laguna Gloria Art Museum.

Austin. Texas, December 17. 1982 February 13.

1983.

Homage to Joseph Comell. Cabrielle Breyers Gallery. New York. New York. November 19 December 31.

Selectionsfrom the Collection, Neuberger Museum. State University of New York at Purchase, Purchase. New York. November 1983 The House That Art Built, Art Gallery. California State University at Fullerton. Fullerton, Califonia.

Habitats, The Clocktower. Institute for Art and Urban Resources. New York, New York, March 9 - April 9 .

1984 NightUghts, Dart Gallery. Chicago , Illinois, November 6 - December 1 1.

1985

Images in Boxes. Museo Tamaho, Mexico City. Mexico,

1986

Surrealismo, Barbara Braathen Gallery. New York. New

July 18

September 8.

York.

1987 Leo Castellt and Castellt Graphics at Gabrielle Breyers Gallery, Gabrielle Breyers GaJlery. New York. New York, November 29. 1986 January 3. 1987 1989 Group Show, O.K. South GaJlery. Bay Harbor Islands.

Florida. December 1 29.

Selected Articles and Reviews: "NewTaJent FestivaJ at 18 Galleries." by Hilton Kramer The New York Times, June 6 , 1974 (illustrated).

"Review," by Hayden Herrera. ARTnews , September 1974.

"CletusJohnson at Sachs." by Barbara Thomsen. Art in America..

November-December 1974 (il.lustrated).

"Art People: by Grace Glueck. The New York Times. May 28.

1976.

"Cletus Johnson," by Jeffrey Hoffeld. Arts Magazine. May 1976 (Illustrated) .

"Cletus Johnson's 'Theaters' "by Hilton Kramer The New York Times. May 21. 1976 (illustrated). ''Tableaux Combining Painting and Sculpture." by Stephen WestfaU . Artweek, November 26. 1977 (illustrated) .

"All His World's a Theater." by Vicki Goldberg. Quest January / February 1981 (illustrated).

"Diverse 'Sensibilities' " by Vivien Raynor, The New York Times.

February 1. 1981 (illustrated) .

"Artist playing post-modernist games, " by Art Perry, The Prov­ ince (Vancouver. B.C .). April 9. 1981 (illustrated).

"Cletus Johnson." by John Russell, The New York Times, March 4. 1988. ''Theatres of Threnody: Box Seats for the World-Spectacle of Cletus Johnson," by Richard Martin, Arts Magazine, April 1988 (illustrated) .

"Cletus Johnson at Michael WaJls and Leo Castelli," by WaJter Thompson. Art in America.. January 1989 (illustrated).

"Movie Palaces in Stamford Exhibit," by Vivien Raynor, The New York Times, December 1. 1991 (illustrated) .

"A too-literaJ attempt to make visuaJ art of Creeley poems ." by Richard Huntington. The Buffalo News. April 21, 1991 (illustrated).

24

Acknowledgements The FORUM Gallery gratefully acknowledges the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, New York, and Nina Freudenheim at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York, for their support of this project. We are also indebted to all of the individual lenders to this exhibition. This exhibition was made possible by their willingness to share pieces from their private collections.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. - 5p.m .. Thursday 11 a.m.- 8 p.m.

Gallery Staff: Dan R. Talley, Director; Michelle Henry, Assistant; Nelida Ruiz, Student Assistant.

Gallery Development Committee: Nancy Bargar; Renate Bob; William Disbro; Mike Fitzpatrick; Robert Hagstrom; John Hiester; Gloria Lasser; Julia Militello; Don Mudge; Alberto Rey; Lois Strickler; Gary Winger Programs of The FORUM Gallery are funded in part by the Jamestown Community College Foundation; The Faculty Student Association at JCC; The Chautauqua Region Community Foundation; The Sheldon Foundation; and our corporate and individual members.

Catalog design: NeoText: Photography' Nord Photography, Jamestown, New York; Printing: Register Graphics, Randolph, New York.

Thanks to Shelley Grice and Nelson Garifi. Special thanks to Craig Frischkorn for his editorial assistance.

All dimensions are listed in inches with height preceding width, then depth.

The FORUM Gallery presents significant and professionally executed solo and group exhibitions of contemporary art and related programs, events, and services to both the artist and non-artist residents of Chautauqua County, New York, and the surrounding area. Our programs primarily focus on the leading edge of today's art. Through our programs, we strive to stimulate discussion, to challenge assumptions, and to present artwork relevant to the social and cultural life of the general and special populations within our service area.

The FORUM Gallery is an Associate Member of the National Association of Artists Organizations.

The FORUM Gallery at Jamestown Community College 525 Falconer Street Jamestown, New York 14701 (716) 665-9107 Š 1992, The FORUM Gallery