Capsule Reviews

Judith Rothschild: Abstract and Non-Objective–the 1940s While the paintings of Judith Rothschild may look old to the discerning eye, merely the recapitulation of midcentury abstraction, they are in fact bristling with the vibrancy of an artist just on the cusp of her prime. Rothschild made the large oils, midsized collages and petite gouaches now showing in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center at SMU in the 1940s, when she was in her early to mid-20s. She’s the real deal, not an artist infatuated with regurgitating the past but an Abstract Expressionist in her own right. After studying at the Arts Students League with Reginald Marsh and privately with Hans Hoffmann in the early ’40s, Rothschild emerged onto the bustling New York art scene just as the city was about to “steal the idea of modern art from Paris,” as the art historian Serge Guilbaut famously put it. This small exhibition betrays something rather rare to the seminal midcentury movement in painting, namely the work of an Abstract Expressionist who was a woman. Being a female artist within a movement whose trademark machismo seemingly set the tenor for the many Oedipal art movements that would follow makes her exceptional. That is not to say you would ever know this work was done by the hand of a woman; there is little that is putatively “feminine” about these works. Inasmuch as one is wont to correlate scale with gender, the smaller gouache and collages works, such as the untitled compositions from 1947 (which happen to be some of the best work of the show), might hint at her gender. Even more important than the gender of Rothschild is the manner in which her painting provides a peek into the bohemian life of the Village in the immediate postwar era–male, female and otherwise–with her the puzzle-like juxtaposing of muted primaries in “Tenement” (1947) and the Stuart Davis-esque silkscreen “Greenwich Village” (1945), intimating a life bubbling forth with bebop and a new vocabulary of non-figural forms. Through October 9 at SMU’s Pollock Gallery, 3140 Dyer St., 214-768-4439. (Charissa N. Terranova)

Dan Rizzie He’s back and just like he was before. This is an old dog who likes repeating old tricks–tricks that were never that interesting to begin with. In keeping with canine metaphors, there is something peculiarly Pavlovian about the continued reception of Dan Rizzie and his work. Instead of the artist being the dog, though, in this instance it is the public, with their unquestioning and herd-like support of Rizzie’s work seeming ever so similar to a dog’s conditioned response to a buzzer. An old Dallas artist and SMU graduate, Rizzie is more of a decorator than an artist. Rizzie combines doilies, do-rags and bits and pieces of castoff text with large painted tulips to make monstrosities of boredom. If we agree to call this work “art,” then everything on the walls of chain restaurants and chain hotels is “art,” too, as that’s where (if anywhere) his work belongs. While his work may be garbage, he nevertheless is laughing gleefully all the way to the bank. The moral to this story is that, given the right demographic circumstances, namely an intellectually supine public, garbage sells, and it sells well. Through October 2 at Gerald Peters Gallery, 2913 Fairmount St., 214-969-9410. (C.T.)