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ELAINE LUSTIG COHEN: MY HEROES
PORTRAITS OF THE AVANT-GARDE
An exhibition of portraits in collage by Elaine Lustig Cohen titled "My Heroes" will open at Adler & Conkright Fine Art on October 10 and remain through November 14.
Arp, Brancusi, Duchamp, Ernst, Klee, Lissitzky, Malevich, Marinetti, Schwitters, Popova, and Taeuber-Arp are just some of the subjects of these works, all artists who have deeply influenced her life as an artist, graphic designer and pioneering modernist dealer.
Like puzzles to be solved, the collages contain references to the identity of each artist. These clues, created from pasted elements of photographs (including photographs of the respective artist), torn or cut paper, printed ephemera and painted shapes and lines, take us on an exploratory journey of each artist's style while at the same time revealing Lustig Cohen's own creativity.
In this meeting of artists, Lustig Cohen introduces us to the subjects as much as the subjects introduce us to Lustig Cohen. The dialogue between the portrayed and portrayer is vibrant, witty and refined. Lustig Cohen, a distinguished practitioner of collage since the late 1970s, not only pays homage to each artist's history and aesthetic but, as she has done throughout her long career, creates her own visually dynamic and inventive vocabulary expanding upon the modernist principles she shares with these artists.
In Duchamp's portrait, for example, disks, one containing a blurred Mona Lisa, and roto reliefs spin across a background of upside down Dada New York text while his silhouette is poised from above looking down. Mondrian is composed of squares cut out of yellow, red and blue Dutch maps referencing his birthplace and use of grids and colors that are emblematic of the artist. The surface is further animated by painted squares and lines.
Lustig Cohen, the subject of a joint retrospective in 2007 at Julie Saul Gallery and Pavel Zoubok Gallery, has exhibited widely since the 1970s. Her work is found in the collections of the Whitney Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among many others. A retrospective of her graphic designs was held at the Cooper-Hewitt in 1995. Ex Libris, which she ran together with her husband Arthur Cohen, was highly regarded for its exhibitions of 20th century avant garde books and ephemera. Their catalogues are invaluable guides to the field of modern artists' books.
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