In the Eye of the Beholder

February 12 - March 29, 2003

Robert Arneson
Lynda Benglis
Mel Chin
Don Colley
Rober Gober   Nancy Grossman
Andrew Lenaghan
Robert Mapplethorpe
Peter Saul Kiki Smith
Joyce Treiman
James Valerio
Joel-Peter Witkin

During February and March, George Adams Gallery will present In the Eye of the Beholder, a group exhibition featuring work by Robert Arneson, Lynda Benglis, Mel Chin, Don Colley, Robert Gober, Nancy Grossman, Andrew Lenaghan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Saul, Kiki Smith, Joyce Treiman, James Valerio, and Joel-Peter Witkin.

In the Eye of the Beholder explores the simultaneity of attraction and repulsion in individual works of art. Included in line exhibition, for example, is James Valerio's carefully rendered, large-scale portrait Frances, which depicts an elderly woman nude in her garish boudoir. Andrew Lenaghan is represented by Whiting and Porgie (1988), a small-scale, precisely observed painting of two dead fish, while in Oedipus Jr. Peter Saul portrays himself on a large-scale in imaginatively detailed, full-blown Technicolor cutting off his privates with a chainsaw.

Among the sculptors, Robert Arneson is represented by a classic mid-70s ceramic self-portrait titled Balderdash-dash in which the artist depicts himself on a heroic scale while unheroically grimacing with his pink tongue extended. More subtly, Mel Chin's Elementary Object is, literally, a pipe bomb, an object at once fascinating and dangerous (it is armed). In addition Nancy Grossman's elegant head sheathed in a leather mask and Lynda Benglis' series of lumpy forms cast in silver and polished to a bright shine will be on view.

Robert Mapplethorpe is represented by a black and white photograph of a male nude's posterior, and Joel-Peter Witkin, by a black and white of a still life incorporating a severed arm. Other works include a bag of donuts by Robert Gober, an etched portrait of Kiki Smith's (dead) cat Ginzer, a minutely rendered image of a clown by Don Colley, and a colored pencil drawing of a skull in a Roman helmet by Joyce Treiman.

In the Eye of the Beholder continues through March 29. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, Mondays by appointment. Images from the exhibition are available on the gallery's website at www.artnet.com/gadams.html and on the Art Dealers Association website www.artdealers.org.