![]() Rendered in cartoon fashion, the painting Oedipus Junior a large-scale canvas from 1983 depicts the artist mutilating himself with a chain saw. In contrast, Peter Saul's work pushes uneasy subject matter to visual extremes. In the same way, Robert Mapplethorpe's pristine black and white photograph of a male nude is equally attentive to the formal qualities of the figure as well as to the erotic nature of the imagery. Nancy Grossman's beautifully crafted leather head exploits the suggestion of S culture while asserting a very formal sculptural presence. Other works subvert traditional ideas of beauty through socially taboo subjects. The painful attention to the figure's pock marked flesh and the clashing patterns of the room creates an overt psychological tension. And, in the life-size painting Frances (1974) by James Valerio, an elderly overweight woman sits nude in her boudoir. Similarly, Andrew Lenaghan's detailed still life, Whiting and Porgie (1998) presents a seemingly post-coital moment between two fish. For example, Robert Gober's untitled drawing of a bluntly abbreviated leg wearing an ordinary shoe appears intimately real, each leg hair carefully drawn. Realism plays a distinct role in the careful balance between seduction and repulsion. Making an exaggerated face, the artist's pink and fleshy tongue emerges from beneath the tightly fitting "mask." ![]() For example, the ceramic sculpture Balderdash-dash (1978) by Robert Arneson depicts a self-portrait bust of the artist as a clown. ![]() Simultaneously compelling and disturbing, the works included in the show explicitly and/or implicitly explore the seduction of the grotesque. In the Eye of the Beholder engages ideas of beauty through a paradoxical affinity with the distasteful and the abject. During February and March, George Adams Gallery will present In the Eye of the Beholder, a group exhibition featuring work by Robert Arneson, Lynda Benglis, Don Colley, Mel Chin, Robert Gober, Nancy Grossman, Andrew Lenaghan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Saul, Kiki Smith, Joyce Treiman, James Valerio, and Joel-Peter Witkin. ![]()
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