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The exciting world of artistic in-fighting >> Michèle Assal brings peace to two battle-weary genres by KEITH MARCHAND
Perhaps the consummate example of this rather tedious struggle reached its nastiest with the Abstract Expressionist school--the dominant group of painters during the '40s and '50s. Rothko, Gorky, Gottlieb and yes, the ubiquitous Pollock would enthusiastically announce that anyone painting pictures of anything recognizable should really think about getting their head examined. In other words, non-representational = good; representational = all the ills of humanity vomited onto a canvas. Generously, the group was happy to conduct the examination themselves. But everything changed when a new crew, who were equally convinced of their righteous infallibility, strode onto the scene, flipping the artistic middle digit at the moldy figs. Mentioning Mark Rothko's name at a coffee house was no longer the way to score a date. You stood a much better chance pretending that you were among the select few patiently waiting for Lichtenstein to articulate the grooviness that you felt was trapped in your soul all along. To this day, there remains an uneasy relationship between figurative and abstract art. At Galerie Trois Points until November 15, there is a show featuring Quebec-based artist Michèle Assal that addresses and explores these two battle-weary genres. On large canvases that could be best described as tranquil and lonesome, Assal places photocopies of photographed objects onto almost "classic" abstract colourfields reminiscent of 1960s minimalism. Appearing on backgrounds that are carefully balanced and constructed (owing somewhat to traditional theories of representation) lay inert, yet evocative, images. Whether it's an empty park bench or a suitcase ready to be picked up and whisked away, these monochromatic images seem to represent something highly personal for the artist, yet their ambiguity leaves these images open-ended and poetic. The backgrounds work as both landscape and architecture, bringing the works in and out of a variety of settings with surprisingly little stylistic variation. These "contemporary still lifes" are successful precisely because of the natural tension that occurs from the meeting of the two genres. Assal does not bully the two dimensions together; nor is this a banal exercise in cutting and pasting. The flatness of the background, punctuated by the suggestion of the gestural stroke, contradicted by the detail and reality invoked by the objects, creates something rare: a mixture of genres that is both unforced and harmonious. These evocative and discursive images sit so well with their abstract counterparts that it is a wonder that we do not see this type of thing done well more often. At galerie Trois Points (372 Ste-Catherine W., 866-1288) to Nov. 15
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Nowhere in the art world has partisan politics been more vigorous than in the all-out battles between supporters of either abstract or figurative art. The last 75 or so years have seen both schools of representation come and go as Old Man Zeitgeist has played a game of ping pong with our cultural sensibilities.