ATOA Archive
Summer 2010

   

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  Summer 2010  


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Portrait of Flash Light
Barnaby Ruhe
"fetish paintings work on the psyche"



Regular ATOA panels will resume in the Fall at SOHO 20 Chelsea.

Check our website in September for further information about our Fall calendar of panel discussions. Meanwhile visit our Archives to view transcripts and media clips of past panels, or browse our Video Catalog to order tapes of past panels, visit our online Store to buy books by authors who have spoken at ATOA, or participate in our Online Forums.


 

Barnaby Ruhe

Dr. Barnaby Ruhe graduated from Annapolis, with a BS in Science, History, and French. He began sketching at the Naval Academy at the end of Plebe Year. He says, "I seized the petite sketch pad as an escape from my military Gulag, twelve drawings a day anywhere anytime, 3000 racked up by 1968 when I graduated." He became a Lieutenant Historian in Vietnam, receiving a Naval Commendation Medal for discovering cached documents from the French Indochinese War. His first exhibition was in Saigon in 1972 showing 300 portrait sketches of wary war weary Viets.

After two tours in Nam, he went on to earn an MFA in Painting at Babe Shapiro's program at the Maryland Institute, and pursued a successful career as an artist, art teacher, and art critic.

In 1977 he became core to helping Bill Rabinovitch organize the Whitney Counterweight. It began at Rabinovitch's 74 Grand Street Gallery after Rabinovitch's written exchanges with Clement Greenberg, and became an artist-run extravaganza with 100 artists in five Soho galleries, which was favorably reviewed in the press as an alternative to the Biennial.

In 1981 Ruhe joined the staff of Art/World writing four reviews per month and rising to Senior Editor under Bruce Hooton. He wrote the first New York City reviews for Francesco Clemente and the Starn Twins, as well as essays on Francisco de Goya, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Joseph Beuys. In 1988 he joined the board of directors of Artists Talk on Art. In 1993 Ruhe was honored with a Pollock-Krasner grant to paint mural-size abstracts.

He ultimately earned his interdisciplinary doctorate in "Shamanism and Contemporary Painting Process." He challenged Clement Greenberg's Formalist Reductionism in his PhD thesis, "Painter as Shaman," wherein Ruhe asserted process is more crucial than product, proving Chaos to be integral to the expressionist painting process. "Letting go in Dionysiac frenzy uncovers the greater order of the unconscious," thus Ruhe saw the spiritual journey Pollock was painting from, and saw Pollock as a trance dancer.

Along the way Ruhe studied Martha Graham and African dance techniques, was a Cellist in the UMBC Chamber Orchestra, and was several times Captain and Coach of World Champion US Boomerang teams. He was also a six-time world boomerang champion.

Ruhe has organized and served on many ATOA panels. A popular theme was the portrait-thon wherein he and other artists painted portraits of those attending the panel. Ruhe, in a matter of minutes, could render a portrait in a few deft brush strokes. The Portrait of Flash Light at the top of this page is an example of such work. As Ruhe explained, "I go for their ka, their life spirit, by hurling paint in order to echo the energy fields passing across their faces."

Ruhe had a starring role in the legendary indie video Pollock Squared. He reprised his role as Jackson Pollock for an ATOA float in the 2004 Village Halloween Parade. He organized panels such as Uncle Barnaby's Art History Shoutout, Some Unfortunate Discoveries in Art History, and Cro-Magnon Art Then and Now. Ruhe also did one-on-one dialog panels with Ruth Kligman and Pat Olesko, and was involved in many other panels.

Below are his recent paintings and installations described in his own words.



"the abstract with text is from Branly Musee in Paris of fetish objects the text from contemplation for several days with them, flew there just for that purpose last April 09. did many drawings and dialogues with the fetish objects. as are the birds, my spirit committee, sending me into their revery."



"kwannon graces the room, she is plastic and it works anyway. behind her my abstraction done ...oh wow i just realized... under her gaze. so they are a fit. a couple other statues tweak her meanings. on the shelf"

"the assemblies reflect my art working with the sculptures, and my art found off of duchamps and dekooning and all again reflecting associations they may not have suspected. woman 1.... connects to the sculpture in wood my dad did in a submarine under the pacific rocked by japanese depth charges and the naked woman he was going home to. what dream. woman 1..is like that, primordial, certain. necessary."



"fetish paintings work on the psyche regardless of meditational focusing. especially when in my kitchen dining room etcetera always on me."

"drawing of katrin under her Venice gondola lamps and 'fire' extinguisher sign... adds piquancy... this in my kitchen."



"and on. so yes. these are contemplations. but ongoing, never not. one must live it. the point."




End of our
Summer 2010 Season



ATOA wishes to thank:
SOHO 20 Chelsea Gallery
RBA Insurance Strategies
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
The Bachman Foundation
The New York State Council on the Humanities
The City of New York Dept. of Cultural Affairs
Weinick, Sanders and Leventhal, CPAs
and the ATOA volunteers
for their generous support.

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ATOA Archive
Summer 2010

   

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