Featured Review: Recession Rejuvenations

Aug 25, 2010 at 4:00 am

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Recession Rejuvenations This quintessential summer show, displaying salable selections from the gallery's holdings while frankly forgoing non-mercantile ambitions, nonetheless manages to present an interesting inventory of small works. A wet tangle of a Brice Marden-esque abstract painting by Kelley Johnson appears unaffected and fresh. Sandra Marchewa's watery resin piece is like an illustration for a macabre, not-for-children children's book, in which a girl in a floral print dress and blond braids smiles manically as she gathers chickens' severed legs. A Tatlin's Tower-like piece by Gary Passanise, made from cut-up chopsticks and sawed-down rulers, is a convincing throwback to Modernist constructions and oddly compelling in itself. Two miniature carnivalesque structures by Christina Shmigel suggest a larger world of similar relics or a kind of mini-museum in which such pieces would be collected. Through August 28 at Bruno David Gallery, 3721 Washington Boulevard; 314-531-3030 or www.brunodavidgallery.com. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Fri.

Click here for a complete list of St. Louis art capsules.