Hank Virgona / The Metaphor of Objects
An appreciation by J. Stefan-ColeWhatever the artist Hank Virgona trains his critical eye on--bottles, cans, people on benches, city facades or matchbooks--he gets at the core of the matter. The first word that comes to mind as I view his work is alive. The second is honesty. Weber Fine Art is showing a mini retrospective of Hank Virgona's work on paper and collage, and I have been privileged with previewing the work. This means I got to sit alone with some seventy unframed pieces, to move them around the studio and spend an intimate one on one with the artist's oeuvre. When a work of art strikes us, hits us with an internal life that reaches across the materials used to create it and speaks to us, the natural inclination is to want to connect back, to say, in effect, yes, I see and now I have to touch. I confess my fingers ran lightly across many of the works to try and touch with my hand what had given so much satisfaction to my eye.
How does Virgona breath life into inanimate objects? How does he take a group of bottles and cans and render them so they seem like troupe of stately gentlemen at an appointment with an expensive haberdasher's? Or appear lordly, while other bottles seem passive and demure? He creates whole still life families on paper with all the dynamics a family implies. A group of early still lifes washed in black and grays and deep metallic blues, are so alive I half expected the objects in them to break into dance, or march across the paper to recite and certainly to express opinions. Yet there is no sacrifice of design and technique in these works. The bottles are not abstract, except in the setting which is a stage or foil for their bottle doings. In pencil and gouache we have arrived, with Hank Virgona's still lifes, at the personality, the metaphor of objects.
Another group, of cityscapes in watercolor, is washed at times to near transparency. These snatches of corners near the artist's Union Square studio are all about mood and light, ethereal at times, a city block as an island of form and light. Whether at pale afternoon, or foggy morning or in cold winter weather, the settings evoke an emotional sense of space. One piece, dating from 1984, has the only blue sky of the group, and it hovers like wings over buildings that appear as if a flash has gone off, or the afterglow of an atomic bomb, so bleached and fragile is the surface that it seems to predict a fragile future time for the city.
A third group, ranging from the mid-nineties to 2003, is comprised of still lifes with collage. This group is more diverse in tone and texture and use of medium, with a Morandi feel, but unmistakably Virgona-esque. More about shape and color, there continues to be the suggestion of character. Here washes are replaced with muted but rich color, and the use of negative space is quite different. Where the bottles and cans of the first group mentioned a sit on the surface, some of the objects here--earthware jugs, cups, pitchers and cans--are more tonally rendered and sit inside the space. There is a push pull tension going on between onject and space and it has much to do with the calm beauty of the colors which begin to almost supercede the objects. Some, like #6, water cans and jugs in acrylic and marble dust on paper, have surfaces that are almost hard, yet are becalmed by the exquisit use of tone and hue. In numbers 9 - 12, the forms are chucky and almost overwhelm the negative space. Here objects want to pull up, swallow the space seemingly to demand their independence.
Visceral is the word that comes to mind with yet another grouping of still lifes; the "dark series" as Virgona notes. Lots of deep browns and blacks, and big forms that nearly burst the edges of the paper or masonite they are painted on. They range in size from as small as 4 1/2" x 7" to 10 x 11", and these more recent works really wnat to assert matter over space. In #1, a pitcher, incised on masonite, with acrylic, resembles almost chewable thick, dark chocolate. There are caramel colored pitchers and deep olive and ochre-colored boxes, verdigris water cans on a table that some how made me think of cowboys. The sturdiness of these forms, the tactile sureness gratifies in a very physical way.
Humor is the keynote of the group called, "Match Boxes". These are all recent works, 2003 to 2004, and each piece is a delight in color--oranges, blues, vermilions, yellows, greens--and collaged textures that are a harvest of tangible abundance. The sizes vary from mere inches to twelve and thirteen inches. Here we are taken to a cafe, it could be Paris, it could be around the corner from Virgona's studio; the matches have been left behind or dropped or intentionally tossed. They infer stories, tables where people gather to eat and converse, flirt and make deals. A glass of wine is more important than a lowly match book waiting for the next cigarette or candle to be lit; except when Virgona turns his eye on the life of a match. A matchbook can carry the name of a posh restaurant and be kept, absurdly, as an item of status, or souvenir. Virgona's matches are savvy and they dominate the field. What pleasure, contemplating the life of a table as witnessed by a match. I touched this group probably more than any of the others. One piece, "Surreal Matchbox on Platform with Moon in Windows," is as whimsical as a Margritte, as moody as a Delvaux, and as full as any large Derain still life. Another, with the word, EAT, in collage realizes every roadside diner I have ever relished. Others, with pencil and newspaper clippings, suggest the stock market and contain subtle political innuendo. All strike the eye.
Chunky objects return in deep ochres and blacks and grays, and of all the groups, this one, in collage, is most purely about shape. Boxes, milk cartons, a watering can, matches in tense alliance. There is something almost claustrophobic about these objects, as if they have become uncomfortable, distant, alone, and somehow unsettled in their space, even uneasy among the other objects they are teamed with. How does Mr. Virgona do that? How does a group of simple, unadorned every day things take on diverse personality, even existential awareness? How does he create such strong relationships in a world created on paper? The answer has to do with the second word above, honesty. Virgona is an observer. He goes well beyond mere polished representation to point to the world beyond his art. A bottle can be a bully, a milk carton seem alone, a match stick sensuous because there are bullies, and isolation and sensuality in the world; what Virgona knows he imbues into his objects and they come to stand in for the world we all inhabit, showing us how it is.
In a final group are, "Figures in Collage". The colors and textures of teh matchboxes are back--bright vermilions, royal blues, yellows, greens, even pinks--always tonally true, never a false or glaring choice of color. The wry humor is back as well, and a subtle poignancy is added. These figurative pieces are full with personality. I do not know of any other artist who can make a collaged figure come so fully alive. Like the ink bottles and cans and pitchers, these fleeting city dwellers are snapshots of a bigger world. The use of collage combined with warm color affords an abstraction that allows these unposed figures to breathe. There is an immediacy that is uncanny in Virgona's figures, captured unawares in parks, on city streets or train platforms, inside subway cars and cafes. He has snagged something that is more alive than any photograph could ever be. One piece, of an old man reading, is so full of weight and weariness that I wanted to sit down and cheer the old fellow up, to hear his story, and he is made of paper and only inches big. There is one of a man with shopping bags, tulips tumbling over the side. As with the matches, I wanted to eavesdrop, follow the man home, or on his date--who is the recipient of the flowers? He's just a regular guy going home from work, a little self-important. A Black woman on a train, loaded down with packages, is she thinking about her supper? A girl walks along the street, oblivious in high boots, with the collaged word 'touch' floating before her breasts. A man leans on a post, watching; a mueum guard, his boredom palpable. There are subways riders, some with paperbacks, some asleep, all of them suspended in the strange subway reality. These are people going about their business, the life of the city, but they are also gems of light and color, media and composition.
It takes an artist a very long time to breathe life and honesty in their work. I felt elated sitting with these works of Hank Virgona's, and complete trust in the world he has created. True delight is the hallmark of great art; something that seems so simple, so available and easy is not just the gift of talent (which Virgona has to spare), but the fruit of years of work, of observation, of practice. Virgona has given us a full theater in these works on paper and collage, and for that we are richer, and just possibly wiser.
J.Stefan-Cole is books editor for the web journal, FREEwilliamsburg.com. Essays and fiction have appeared in, The Brooklyn Rail, Ducts, and Label magazine.