Dan's Papers - June 26, 2009 -

It's not well known that Grace Hartigan started her career as a mechanical draftsman, working through the Second World War. She wasn't exactly a Rosie the Riveter, but there were similarities. She became a small tool and fixtures designer in New Jersey and simultaneously studied painting, supported her son, and painted evenings and weekends. Moving to New York after the War, she met de Kooning and Pollock. While Hartigan is known for her Abstract Expressionism, it's curious that she was doing both accurate machine drawings (to support herself) and abstraction at the same time.

If Hartigan's exhibit, now at Guild Hall, reflects a penchant for drawing regardless of abstraction or her many other styles, it could be her background as a draftsman. If there's attention to detail and a sense of concreteness, perhaps that same background is at work. Consider "Broken Hammer with Butterfly" as a good example.

While her drawing skills are always present, Hartigan's style changes through the years, especially in watercolors like "Pena Castle," "Goldsmith" and "Scone Castle" (all done in the 1990s), these works becoming more expressionistic than abstract. Yet there are other pieces, done in the late 1980s and 1990s, that are somewhat impressionistic (for want of a better term), like "Diamonds," "Follies of 1934" and "Pale Horse Pale Rider." Here the mythic qualities of Hartigan's subjects are quite present.

Hartigan's interest in myth, history and women is also apparent during these decades, her females evolving into archetypical figures of power and strength. (There are, of course, other archetypical images without women, like "I Remember Lascaux.")

And although her women from earlier periods (like the 1970s) are somewhat more realistic and stylistically "primitive," their homage to ritual is potent. It's a motif that recurs throughout the body of Hartigan's work.

Taryn Simon's exhibit title, "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar," may also be applied to Hartigan's survey, although the denotative meaning is different.

Hartigan manages to reveal a philosophical worldview about women that is often "hidden and unfamiliar."

Simon's photographs are beautiful in themselves, regardless of their political purpose, which is probably the point, considering that extraordinary-looking images can be dangerous and evil as well. Most of Simon's objects are not iconic, so the wall texts are most important in establishing context and meaning. For example, "Cosmetic Surgery" shows a young woman undergoing hymenoplasty. Although the image seems more than what it is, it could simply be a medical document. Reading the text, we now recognize the arrangement of the objects and the fence-like background, which give the photo a sinister intent.

Another image shows the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Contraband Room at Kennedy Airport. All the objects were taken from passengers coming to the United Sates during a 48-hour period. A closer look reveals things like cane rats infected with maggots, fruit, mango, and pig mouths, a perfect mix of colorful produce and disgusting maggots.

A third photograph features "The Cage," an outdoor death row recreational facility.

The cage could serve multiple uses: to contain animals or to store things. Knowing its purpose makes the work less than aesthetically pleasing.

The Guild Hall exhibit with Hartigan and Simon will be on view until July 26. Call 631- 324-0806 for information.

Information about Grace Hartigan's early career was supplied by Profiles on Women Artists by Alexander Russo, 1988, University Publications of America.