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| Jack
Goldstein's most dazzling paintings are based on photographic images
of natural phenomena, science, and technology. They are violent images—the
result of Goldstein's intent to record "the spectacular instant,"
as previously depicted in photography. Goldstein is one of a group
of artists working in the 80s who used photographs or photo-based
imagery to reflect the media-saturated environment they had grown
up with: television, movies, advertising, rock music. He first came
to prominence in 1977, at a show called "Pictures" at New
York's Artists Space. Goldstein's body of work includes short films,
experimental records and meticulously scripted performances. Goldstein
stopped making art in 1990-91 and has since focused on teaching and
writing. |
CRITICAL EXCERPTS
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David Pagel, Los Angeles Times, 6/1/02, Artist on a Daring Mission;
Jack Goldstein's paintings, at Luckman Gallery, explore the boundaries
of freedom and a feeling of being untethered in the realm of utility.
"As a whole, 'Jack Goldstein: Paintings From the 1980s'
shows the artist to be a master at capturing some of the mystery
that lurks just beneath reality's surface. But an even bigger enigma
haunts the exhibition, infusing it with bittersweet poignancy. You
can't help but wonder what Goldstein would be painting today if
he hadn't abandoned his talents. In this sense, the show attests
to the hidden costs of creativity, the invisible difficulties that
sometimes make being an artist an impossible proposition."
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Roberta Smith, NYTimes, 5/22/87
"Looking at these images, we think of the Northern Lights,
sunspots, mushroom clouds or volcanic explosions seen either from
a great distance or in greatly magnified detail. These events are
depicted to meticulous, if not obsessive, perfection through a procedure
that involves a great deal of taping and stenciling, and that leaves
very little indication of human involvement. Each color of the spectrum
has its own separate physical layer. Both process and result suggest
topographical maps, but - even though there's an inclination to
read the darkest colors as ocean depths and the brightest as mountain
ranges -here it is the topography of light and hue that is being
charted. These are images of nothing, of ''the spectacular instant''
(as Ronald Jones writes in his catalogue essay), painted with exacting
verisimilitude. The best thing about Mr. Goldstein's new work is
the bright, hot, dematerialized color - green, yellow or pink -
that each canvas builds up to or gives way to, usually isolated
at its center like some irregular land mass or cloud. Also good
are the little terraces, the ebbing and flowing waves in which the
color moves - and it really does move - with rhythmic, filmic regularity.
It is a little as though a film of some passage of light has been
reduced to a single surface, or, conversely, as if painting's optical
effects have been extended into real time. Think of the optical
conniptions of a Bridget Riley painting seen in slow motion or under
a microscope."
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Cathy Curtis, Los
Angeles Times, 3/4/91
"Goldstein's longtime subject has been the allure and illusion
of surfaces and images. As if failing to trust the normal appearance
of skin and eggshells, the artist insists on trading his everyday
vision for what might be considered a more scientifically accurate
view. But there's no way he can transcribe the absolute essence of
these objects. As he once wrote, 'There is always a distance — a
space — between us and the world, that frustrates our attempt to
get closer to that world.'"
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Christopher Hume, Toronto Star, 10/6/89
"The huge canvases are covered in colors so hot they should
glow in the dark; precisely painted contours of brown and red give
way to patches of molten orange and yellow. These could be pictures
of a planet being formed or a star exploding. There's no way of
telling. One thing's certain, however, with Jack Goldstein's exhibition
at the S.L. Simpson Gallery, 515 Queen St. W., Toronto's art scene
is definitely heating up. The Montreal-born artist has lived in
the U.S. for nearly 30 years and has never exhibited in Canada.
That's why Goldstein remains largely unknown here except through
the art rags. The filmmaker/ photographer/ performance artist/ painter
has a substantial following in the States and with this show, probably
in this country too. Not that Goldstein's spectacle paintings will
be to everyone's taste. There's something quite disturbing about
these lurid, high-energy canvases. It is as if they form a record
of forces and events beyond not just our control, but also our perceptions.
Many of these untitled canvases are blurred in a way that's almost
painful on the eyes. No matter how much one tries to focus, these
paintings remain forever fuzzy and almost out of visual reach....But
for all the anxiety of Goldstein's paintings, they're as slickly
theatrical as anything seen here in recent years. With their deep,
brightly-colored frames and glossy acrylic surfaces, these works
might be stills from some special-effects epic set in the future.
More than anything, perhaps, Goldstein's work represents an attempt
to get at the violence that exists just beneath the surface of the
physical world. Whether these are depictions of cellular activity
or planetary upheaval doesn't matter. It's enough to know it's happening.
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