Roger C. Tucker III
This image was one of many that I originally took in 1973 that was included in the exhibition described in the review below:
The New York Times, By Benjamin Genocchio, June 8, 2008
"The exhibition “Sprawl” at the Jersey City Museum does not set out to prove that parts of the New Jersey landscape are ugly. But it is hard to escape that conclusion after seeing the show.
Still, the exhibition, curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, the museum’s curator of contemporary art, is both pertinent and engrossing. It gathers together artworks by 41 artists, mostly young, all living and working in the state.
For viewers, the art can be tough. The artists present a humorous, at times melancholy, but always faithful vision of industrial landscapes, housing projects, roadside motels, interstates and abandoned buildings. Each has the honesty of journalistic photography.
Most of the places depicted in these works are impossible to pinpoint, and they are not labeled. But all of them resemble certain familiar landscapes; you get a curious sense all the time in this show of having your memory jogged and yet not quite being able to remember.
Frequently, these works also reminded me of the early writings and art projects of Robert Smithson, an influential 1960s conceptual artist who was born in Passaic and was one of the first Americans to address urban sprawl and its effects. His 1967 essay “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic” argues that a disrupted, shabby New Jersey landscape embodies a certain postindustrial truth and beauty.
It is truth rather than beauty that dominates the current show. Tough to love, even to like, these artworks nevertheless have the documentary photographer’s gift of leading viewers into a deeper consideration of the world in which we live.
An immediate drawback is that the show is overstuffed, the artwork crammed into three upstairs rooms. Painting and drawing does fine in this sort of environment, but video and installation suffer. These media need room to breathe.
Predictably, photography dominates. There are two main approaches, each represented by numerous examples. First there are street scenes by Anna-Mária Vág, Roger Tucker, Jonathan Glick and Megan Maloy. Then there are urban landscapes by Bryony Romer, Roger Sayre, Gregory Maka, Owen Kanzler and Brendan Carroll."
To read the review, in total, of this exhibition, click here.