Pots & Paeans

Robin Rice on Visual Art

by Robin Rice

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Sep 21, 2010

Shows in two adjacent galleries at the PMA's Perelman Building please the eye and refresh the psyche in utterly opposing styles. What do they have in common? You don't need to know or study or ponder anything to enjoy them. The unorthodox double feature is perfect.

Images of Bohnchang Koo's oversize photographs of white Korean pots in "Plain Beauty" may elicit bland comments, but seeing them in person is a much more satisfying experience. This is the last weekend to see the monochromatic pictures that transcend nearby examples of real Joseon dynasty porcelain. The clarity of Koo's work will surely remind some of Giorgio Morandi's still lifes. Their luminosity suggests Johannes Vermeer's interiors or Claude Monet's late water lilies. But no doubt central to the photographer's vision are centuries of ink paintings on rice paper. One wall contains six photos of full-bodied moon jars, experienced as a single work. It's a celebration of surfaces and light that caresses all it touches.

As Koo's show is, indeed, plain beauty, the North African jewelry next door, "Desert Jewels," is profoundly, magnificently fancy. Overflowing abundance is the message of large, lavish necklaces, amulets and diadems that juxtapose semiprecious stones of every shade from bright coral and amber to piercing blue and soft green. Tassel-like wool fibers and polished beads contrast with intricate metal techniques from casting, incising and piercing to wrapped wire to cloisonné enameling. These virtuoso displays leave diamonds in the unimaginative dust. (Admirers of the huge, flamboyant earrings may be relieved to learn that many were designed to be suspended not from earlobes but from the hair.)

More than symbols of wealth, these objects are wealth — both solid and intangible.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

Plain Beauty/Desert Jewels | Through Sept. 26/Dec. 5, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Perelman Building, 2525 Pennsylvania Ave., 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org

Mauck 'Em Dead
Banned Books Week
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Supernatural Selection
The Good Ol' Days
Days With My Father
Reality Check
Kaleidoscope