Dan's Papers -November 6, 2009

Entering the Avram Gallery at Stony Brook's Southampton campus is a bit perplexing at first. We expect to see the usual: arresting, cutting-edge imagery - even conceptual forms - that the Gallery has become known for. (The last show, featuring Milton Glaser's outstanding graphics, paintings and prints, is a good example.) Instead, we're confronted by large-scale maps, still eye-catching, to be sure. But the display is not supposed to be art. Or is it? The question is, therefore, when is a map not a map? The answer? We believe the exhibit serves several purposes, one of which is art.

One intention of the mapping project is to provide a forum for "investigating issues that affect Southampton's environment," including shellfish closures and plover nests, aquifer protection and prime soils, among others. Even so, this critic sees the maps as abstract art. Such an idea is admittedly somewhat unusual, although artist Julie Mehretu refers to aspects of mapping and architecture in her paintings; bird's-eye views (like the maps in the current show) articulate urban grids, defining the images as fragments.

This idea is seen in the map featuring "Color Infrared Imagery," for example, where red lines fragment space, recalling blood vessels racing through the human body. Various colors also divide space, like in "Prime Soil," where blue, orange and grey define boundaries. Another map ("Tax Sections") recalls a Jeff Koons animal with its dark floating shape. Perhaps we're "seeing things" that aren't there and dismissing the political, biological and historical purposes of the maps pointed out by Exhibit Coordinator Marc Fasanella.

In a strange way, there's a connection between the mapping exhibit and "American Landscapes" at the Parrish Museum. The former is one method of defining landscape using a map format; the visual arts provide another way to explicate the environment. Like the maps' bird's-eye views, Jane Freilicher's "Grey Day" is seen from an aerial perspective, evoking a unique mood that articulates the brush strokes.

Conversely, a worm's-eye view defines a setting by Alex Katz ("Untitled") as well as Fairfield Porter's "Backyard Southampton," both providing an unrealistic effect.

Like the maps at the Avram Gallery, space is divided up in Jennifer Bartlett's "At Sands Point," where brush strokes again define the subject and style. The weeping willow tree in the foreground helps to articulate the space as well. Sheridan Lord's "Landscape, Autumn" is also fragmented, with foregrounded lines or grids similar to Bartlett's work in that regard.

Jane Wilson's "Trees at Mecox" presents an opposite effect, where there is no division between objects as spatial areas blend together. The result is much more abstract than in the works of Bartlett and Lord.

"Seeing Southampton" is on view at the Avram Gallery on the campus of Stony Brook, Southampton. Call 631-632-5161 for hours. "American Landscapes" is on view at the Parrish Museum until Nov. 29. Call 631-283-2118.