Alan Saret at the Drawing Center
On Tuesday November 27th, I joined my girlfriend and her Barnard art class to the Drawing Center in SoHo to view the Alan Saret exhibition. The art professor gave us a brief description of Saret and the 70’s NYC scene he was part of. He is one of the lesser known artists of the time, but his work is equally as profound as that of his more famous contemporaries.
Described as “pot art” by my girlfriend’s art professor, the pieces struck me more as the product of bursts of energy than mellowness - more like meth art. The drawings were small concentrated lines and scribbles done in clusters and bunches. Saret is very heavy handed and blends color beautifully into the dominant blackness of the pieces. It is an interesting study of space as Saret utilizes a tiny part of large canvases and pieces of paper. He defies the common perception of filling up space and presents the viewer with what essentially looks like a faggot (the bundle of sticks definition) of colored sticks. In some of the pieces he uses circular strokes which emulate circuitry and electrical schematics (this is further reinforced by his use of drafting paper and graph paper).
My favorite part of his show, however, was not the drawings, but rather one of two sculptures that the gallery included, despite being a gallery for drawing art. One was a mobile made of silver wire that stretched from ceiling to floor and looked like a stretched Brillo pad. My favorite was a ballish mess of colored and metallic wires that looked like a Brillo pad when you catch bits of fabric within its abrasive barbs.
Overall, I enjoyed his work because it was so egalitarian and simple that it made you feel inspired, as his skill was nothing so far out of reach for the average person. His talent is in his choice of color and ability to direct the viewer’s eyes to hints of color and form. Also, his pencil strokes, upon closer examination, are calculated rather than spontaneous - they look like a 2 year-old’s crayon drawing from far away, btu close up, one sees how each individual stroke is almost identical to the surrounding lines. For such accuracy it must have required a great deal of patience…perhaps he was stoned after all.