*NY Reviews Feb 2011:Layout 1 12/30/10 5:20 PM Page 4 reviews: new york Larry Poons Loretta Howard This mini-survey of Larry Poons’s output between 1976 and 1993 provided a fascinating study in how this artist’s paintings have evolved since the early ’60s. The encrusted surfaces of the ’80s and ’90s featured here were a far cry from Poons’s early optical Color Field dot paintings and the lush cascades of poured paint from the ’70s. Materiality of paint had become the focus, and the accumulation of “stuff” on the surface during this period starts to look geological, referencing natural phenomena such as solidified lava, rock formations, and fallen leaves. The What Sonata (1989) resembles the ashy aftermath of a volcanic eruption, its lumpy terrain monochromatic, dense, and sculptural. Rogue Stadium (1987) combines the rough allover-ness of a Kiefer with the atmospheric headiness of a Monet. Often closer to wall reliefs than paintings, these pieces appear limitless. Two of the three large paintings in the gallery’s upstairs room represented a different style and time from the third one. Untitled (1976) is classic poured Poons, creamy and slippery, sensually sliding down the unprimed canvas. Like a macho Pat Steir, Poons manages to add a certain muscularity to an essentially fluid about as impressionistic as the artist got here. Divided on an approximate diagonal from top left to bottom right, the painting contrasts a mossy green with a section of violet-hued pours, evoking a riotous tangle of plants and flowers. Peretheia (1993), the most recent painting in the show, offers a reddish conglomeration of hieroglyphic-like 3-D shapes that approach text, as if the rough earth itself were trying to spit out a message. —Amanda Church to Goya’s “Proverbios” and “Caprichos.” For more than 50 years, Dobbs has painted humans dwarfed by their envi- John Dobbs ACA Beautifully balanced images of a world spinning out of control, John Dobbs’s paintings are visual koans for contemplation. Dogs battle over raw meat, a blindfolded man swings a truncheon, one naked wrestler locks anJohn Dobbs, Untitled 9, 2010, watercolor and gouache, 51⁄2" x 3 7⁄8". other in a choke hold— ACA. these were scenes from the 64 small watercolors and gouaches in this ronment. His men and women have lurked in the glare of plateglass windows moving and disquieting show. Together, they suggest and the ozone haze of city streets. Recently, he’s taken on freaks, clowns, and a tarot deck that invokes other performers as subjects. Tottering tightrope walkers menace one another the past as it augurs the above angry crowds. White-faced contortionists twist into inhuman shapes. One future. senses the lions are waiting in their stalls. Some are Dobbs’s circus is more Roman than Barglimpses of num & Bailey. a macabre In his latest work, the artist explored 21st-centhis imagery on a smaller scale. Reduced tury carnito miniatures, the characters become val, where more powerful archetypes: an enorhalf-male, mous, pink man carried by a thin, brown half-female one telegraphs racism and gluttony. characters While the social commentary is obvious, tap-dance and tiny fig- these pieces are nonetheless dark, poures run like etic, and frightening, conveying volumes with few deft brushstrokes. In the 5-byhamsters on 4-inch Untitled 9 (2010), backlit by a a gigantic Larry Poons, The What Sonata, 1989, acrylic on canvas, 87" x 118". blazing red, Dobbs paints a figure teeWonder Loretta Howard. Wheel. Oth- tering on the edge, his eyes downcast, his knees bent, his arms raised for balers, like the paintings of stilt walkers medium. Grays and maroons dominate ance. Is he going to fly, or will he jump? swinging cudgels and a group of women with interludes of aqua and orange entossing an effigy into the air, pay homage livening the field. Tantrum 2 (1979) is —Mona Molarsky Copyright 2011. Not for reprint. ARTnews LLC 48 West 38th Street, NY NY 10018 ARTnews February 2011 105