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Orange County Register, Sunday, November 30, 2003 A 50-year retrospective of Rothman's work is on view at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana and at the Laguna Art Museum. The two-pronged show – the result of curatorial collaboration between Mike McGee, gallery director at California State University, Fullerton, and Tyler Stallings at the Laguna Art Museum – is worth a shuttle between the two cities. While both Laguna and Santa Ana show fairly standard vessels along with wildly inventive ones (the acclaimed "Sky-Pots" and "Sky-Jars" and curvy tureens), as well as plates and plaques evidencing abstract expressionistic ("Nine Wall Plaques") energy, the Laguna segment proves that, in the right mind and hands, the medium indeed becomes the message. Rothman provides social and political commentary that is timeless, despite its often-'60s-tinged manifestations. Works like "Pick a Side" speak of the battle for gender equality, while "On the Outside Only" skewers society's squeamishness about nudity while selling sex. "Coming Out" is a permanent installation at the museum, dedicated to the miracle of birth and to exposing pervasive ambivalence toward the activities that bring it about. His most recent work along those lines decries the precarious nature of our existence, albeit in an impishly humorous manner. Boyish figures wear dunce hats or baseball caps and surf, skateboard, shoulder buildings ("Caught") or wrestle with (symbols of) the medical establishment ("Why Me?"). However, the carefree skateboarder will be blown to bits should he drop the bomb he holds in his hands ("Riding"), and the figure bent under the capital building like a latter-day Sisyphus undoubtedly represents beleaguered taxpayers. Based on his interpretation of legends and mythology, his "Leda and the Swan" series and the "Hey Zeus" pieces are some of the most compelling in the show. They form a graceful counterpart to the few ponderous and convoluted experimental forms. Then again, the "Inscapes" and "View from the Deck" series demand that we scrap convention and think of clay as a medium of unlimited possibilities, as weightless even. To that end, he invented a clay substance that does not shrink in the firing process, fearlessly added plebian materials like Styrofoam and metal, and used acrylic paint in place of glazes. To Rothman's aficionados as well as others only marginally familiar with the myriad permutations of his work, the show will be an adventure, to say the least. A small exhibit in the museum basement shows works by Peter Voulcos, an early mentor, and by contemporaries of Rothman's as well. As they say, there's never a dull moment. At 70, Rothman is still innovative, edgy and evolving and worth watching. Feat of Clay: Five Decades of Jerry Rothman' |
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