Helen K. Kohen
The Miami Herald
Friday, August 6, 1982
The New Talent exhibition at Barbara Gillman Gallery, the second annual summer show that dares predict but makes no promises, has had a good track record thus far. Carlos Macia, whose works premiered in last season's show, is among the recent recipients of a coveted 1982-83 Fellowship Award for individual artists from the State of Florida. While no talent seems as sure as his in this year's lot, the 14 exhibiting artists have provided a pretty show, and some few have made it more than that.
To recognize those few, however, is to also admit to a little confusion. Connie Lloveras, for instance, by trying her hand at more than a comfortable number of expressive means, is both lost and found in this exhibition. Responding to her clay totems, a group of gauze-wrapped, incised and selectively painted artifacts, the fact that a clumsy, wire-worked wall piece was also from her hands came as an unwelcome surprise. Rick Yasko is another case in point. His Trophy Suite, a mixed-media series that features table tops whose tilted planes are variously set with partial images of fish and foul weapons, is both evocative and funny. His paper constructions, merely sleek and funny, appear to be of a different sensibility.
Dan Gunderson, on the other hand, is an artist we would like to see more of; he is under-represented in the show. Showing just two related stoneware pieces, Sphere and Cone, he makes wonderful use of a neo-Bauhaus decorative program that deserves more exposure on more examples.
Geoffrey Lardiere's abstract pastel studies, like calligraphy but a shorthand thereof, are very fresh. And there is freshness, too, in the works of Judy Horowitz and John Gurbacs, though both resort to additive gimmicks. Horowitz, with her clear plastics, and Gurbacs, with his use of real branches, signal a confession that their imagery though well-drawn - is too slight to carry through alone.
While these and others make their debuts in one gallery, the other Gillman space (Biscayne Boulevard) is given over to a reduced replay of the Artists Speak for Peace exhibition, which was originally mounted for the New World Festival of the Arts. Although it is true that no one can fault the theme of world peace, this showing just proves that even good politics cannot be counted on to inspire good art.
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