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Gerry Bergstein at Howard Yezerski April 7, 2002 Recent Self Portraits and Mountains by Gerry Bergstein Exploring the Paradigm of Boston Painting At Howard Yezerski Gallery Newbury Street, Boston For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, oozing self flagellation and edgy neurosis, Gerry Bergstein, at mid career, a die hard, unrepentant, obsessed painter, is the very best and most paradigmatic of what one thinks of as a Boston artist. So there. There are others, Boston painters, mostly friends and buddies. Some months back I showed four of them in a jaunty little show, Los Cuatro Grandes, at the New England School of Art and Design. The exhibition included Bergstein as well as Domingo Barreres, Robert Ferrandini and Miroslav Antic. Everyone loved the show. Except the critics who ignored it. There was a single review by Mary Sherman in the Boston Herald. Curators, who should know better and behave differently, who never bothered to check it out. Or, even more hurtfully, one who informed me that she didn’t have to because she, “knew the work.” And, the excuses were all the more painful because, Ferrandini had recently suffered a debilitating stroke. There will be a, “Dinner with Bob,” a benefit event at the DeCordova Museum, on April 27. And, Miroslav, after an adult life in Boston, had recently relocated to Palm Beach, Florida. Yeah, I know. Painting is dead. Marcel Duchamp was right when he said that decades ago. “Too Retinal,” is the quote. Sure. No problem. And, so much painting is bloody boring. Take a stroll on any given day down Boston’s Newbury Street, or gallery row, and nine out of ten shows are enervating versions of figurative, still life and landscape painting. Yawn. So what. It sells I guess. But also, wait a minute my friend. Bear with me. Have a little patience. Painting is dead. Long live painting. It has a way of constantly reinventing and revitalizing itself. In a bloody cat fight with a curator recently she said, “But you hate painting. You are always saying it is dead.” Yeah, right. Which is also why I love painting. Or at least good painting. Or painting that holds my interest and gets the juices flowing. Right now, for example, there are some really terrific painters doing very interesting work; Tim Gardner, Delia Brown, Cecily Brown, Alexis Rockburn, Inke Essenhigh, Damien Loeb, Lisa Yuskavage, John Currin, Jennie Seville, Will Cotton. Plus Gerry and Los Cuatro Grandes. Trouble is, our guys work here in Boston and get little or no play in the national and international spotlight. Such a pity. They deserve to be up there with the best of the best. And that comes from my guts not just some jingoistic knee jerk crap. Every two and a half years or so it is a major event when Gerry shows new work. The gallery yesterday was mobbed with friends, artists, students, current and former, the odd art critic, (Francine Koslow Miller, who often writes about his work), and the ersatz collector. Later, there was a dinner in the fabulous and comfortable loft of Howard and Katherine Yezerski. It is where you manage finally to get the glass of wine that is so elusive during Howard’s openings. Small cups generally half full. I had to get that in there because it is a running gag with me and Howard. How I critique what dealers do and do not serve during openings. One dealer, who had an opening catered by upscale Louis’s, later told me that had he known that I would have discussed it, he would have put it in the press release. It was a chance to grab Gerry to discuss highlights and insights over a stretch of many years. I first wrote about the work in 1979-80 when he showed at the Lopoukine-Nayduch Gallery on Congress Street. It was an enormous loft gallery in a building that also housed spaces for Helen Shlein and Bess Cutler/ Pat Stavaridis. All of those dealers are now out of the game although the alternative Mobius still operates in that building. Back then, when I viewed and talked with Gerry about the work he was nervous, shy and neurotic. Yesterday, when I talked with him about the work he was nervous, shy and neurotic. But less so. He says he’s working on it. There is also a wonderful witty twinkle when he discusses his social challenges. Over the years it has become his schtick. I have often described him as the Woody Allen of painting. A characterization that he tends to agree with. It has always been what is best and most amusing, riveting about the work. But he told my wife, Astrid, who later told me, that it gets harder all the time to be witty. That is, indeed, one of the most important aspects of the work. The best and strongest, most interesting phases of the work have been when he has used himself as his subject. We went through the years of Gerry’s ongoing struggles to quit smoking, cut back on junk food, butter, pie and cake, and give up a cornucopia of other self destructive issues. We would find him in the work with devil’s horns, demonizing himself, or with the occasional halo as he overcame some crisis or addiction. It was also easy to see and relate to his passions and influences. There was the wonderful work and title, “Honk if you love deKooning.” And vignettes of Gorky, Leonardo, Magritte and other art heroes. It was always there on the canvas. Life as an open book or painting. For sale. And, one may imagine, to own such work, to commit to seeing it there on your wall, day in and day out for the rest of your life, was also a daunting prospect. Like these wonderful, fascinating, skillful, hilarious and poignant new works. The very peak and essence of a long and productive career. There he is. Gerry is back. Full blow. Grimacing at us, a body made up of “collage” elements, assembled with “masking tape.” Bits and scraps of messages on torn fragments of paper. Little clues to a life. Cries and whispers. Pleas for love and understanding. So revealing and vulnerable. Holding nothing back. Mi casa e su casa. Mi neurosis e su neurosis. Yah gaddah love this guy. And, oi vey. Such a face. Todd McKie says that he looks just like Cezanne. When visiting Provence he saw Gerry everywhere on Cezanne posters. Gerry seemed to like that. But the face he presents to us in grisaille, all the more to look like a black and white photograph, has that mugging grimace. That look of anguish, ersatz pain and anxiety. On close examination, the image is riddled with small holes as though ravaged by book worms or some other rot. He agreed with me that it represents mortality and the passage of time eating away at us. They are terrific painting. And, a new element in his visual vocabulary. Mountains. At least that’s what I think they are. Large black menacing forms with swirls of lines around them suggesting wind or some other natural phenomenon. I asked him about them and he suggested Breugel, The Tower of Babel, as a source. So much of his work and obsessions come from a dialogue with the Masters. They are a constant element as though he were taking a measure of himself relative to the immortals. One has to have a dialogue. We have to talk to someone, other than our friends and spouse, even if the discussants are long dead and silent. Their work still talks to us. I asked him about theory. If he reads anything. Some years back I was impressed when he talked to me about Baudrillard and how that had made sense to him. I reminded him of that. But he laughed and replied that he had read only one chapter. That if anything his theory is anti theory. Although he is currently, for the first time, teaching a theory course, as anti theory, or skeptical theory, at the Museum School. He said it is going well and he is enjoying it. Teaching is an important and enjoyable part of his life. Even though painting is not what hip students now want to study in art school. But I dare say he is a great and wonderful teacher. And was, when he first came to the museum school, a terrible student. That first year he recalls spending all his time seeing Rita Tushingham in the movie, over and over, A taste of Honey, and, The Knack, (a quality he has never had but that clearly fascinates him). After that, he cleaned up his act and devoted himself to study and being mentored by Henry Schwartz, a wonderful, no longer active, narrative painter with roots in Boston Expressionism. It is the movement to which Gerry is most often and incorrectly linked. By his own definition he was a relocated New Yorker. As a kid at the Art Student League he first loved Jack Levine and studied with one of his disciples. He was fascinated by the work of the Boston Expressionists, (Levine, Hyman Bloom, Karl Zerbe), but does not see a direct link. Although he is a Boston painter whose work may be viewed as embodying expressionist interests and tendencies. Also the surrealism and trompe l’oeil elements that proceed from Gorky and Magritte as well as other sources. Right now, Gerry describes himself as being in a good place. He enjoys a solid marriage and together they have a wonderful summer retreat and studio in Vermont. He discusses good years when the work sells, and not so good years, when, for reasons he never seems to comprehend, it doesn’t. It is fair, however, to say that up and down he has always been a player. There have been periods and flirtations with New York. Early on, he showed with Allen Stone and, sporadically, with Stux when the gallery relocated from Boston to New York. Because of the slow, labor intensive nature of the work, there is never much more work than to supply one gallery every couple of years. He has done a couple of prints. They are fabulous. But this has not been a prolific activity. So, based on the laws of supply and demand, he may always be a cult artist. There is always the danger that he may get too healthy and happy. Try to imagine a Woody Allen movie in which he is fully cured as the result of epic years of therapy. What a terrible thought. Though I do feel their pain. I do laugh with Gerry and Woody. But it is with some sense of vicarious guilt. Let me explain that by ending with a joke. So, how many sons does it take to turn on the lights for a Jewish mother? None. She says, “So don’t bother. I’ll just sit in the dark.” ----- Print-friendly View Copy the link below and paste it into an email, web page or blog to share this article.