How many times do we need to "Develop the View"?

When I look at the photography of Sigmar Berg takes I am taken back to early High School, when everyone seemed to picked-up a camera in an attempt to create an identity for themselves. The trend was either photography or poetry and lets all be honest, we all dabbled with one or the other.

Now I recognize that Berg is making a giant leap from designing high-end eye wear for his company Beryll, to taking on the difficult art of photography; but its fair to say that beginner's luck is no excuse for continued mediocrity. How many times do we really need to "develop the view"? And isn’t that just a fancy way of crediting Photoshop?

The show consists of a good twenty pieces all digitally printed on 45” x 60” canvas. Berg’s subjects of choice are images of urban cities and coastal scenes otherwise known as "safety subjects". These are generally the topics of beginners and/or photographers who have nothing to say. What is unfortunate for Berg is that he can no longer claim the former since this is Developed Views Part Deux, and so one is forced to assume the later, that indeed Mr. Sigmar Berg, like so many people who fashion themselves photographers simply has nothing new to share.

Credit should be given for the use of shadow and light, however there is some skepticism as to the authenticity of this "development". It is clear that these nuances in color variation were not achieved in a darkroom since each piece is digitally printed, so it must be assumed that Berg “developed” them elsewhere. What is evident is that this work is forged in the studio of a beginner and if Berg wants to stay in the game, he is going to need to step up the plate and “develop” something new.

"Four Months in Heaven"

For all of you art fiends in the Los Angeles area this weekend is the opening of Armenian artist Vahe Berberian's new show "Four Months in Heaven." The opening reception is Saturday May 3rd, 2008 at the Ambrogi Castanier Gallery from 6-10pm.

Vahe Berberian is one of those rare contemporary artists that can truly be defined as a renaissance man. Not only is the Armenian born artist a gifted painter, but he is also a celebrated playwright, director, and performer. His most recent play Baron Garbis, which enjoyed a successful run in North Hollywood and Pasadena, was true to form, and deeply connected to Vahe’s heritage as an Armenian and the history of that culture. Vahe’s ancestry is one of many resources for his art to feed upon. In truth Vahe is the kind of artist that allows his life experience to be fodder for his hungry and fertile imagination. He behaves like a sponge, soaking in the world, bathing in its chaos and its glory. All his hopes and fears are processed and then haphazardly poured out into his art. "I am a blender…or maybe a grinder - processing everything I consume," says Vahe, "Everything goes into this processor- the books I read, the music I listen to, the friends I have, my fears, my politics, my loves…"

One might compare Vahe’s paintings to a child’s notebook, filled with incoherent words and images, but all together a unique and intrinsic form of expression. His minimalist abstract paintings are reminiscent of cave drawings, quite raw and honest, whose progeny comes from a rather simple and innocent place.

The title of the show, “Four Months in Heaven” employs this idea of revisiting simplicity; that an artist spends time in isolation, in an almost monk-like state of solitude, and the desire to express is manifested through the paint. An artist must take themselves away from the various distractions of the world and allow themselves to exist through the medium. To Vahe this experience is simultaneously liberating and centering, taking him to an almost ethereal place.

His painting process is rather primal and in many ways remarkably chaotic. Like a master chef making a stew with many ambiguous and often mysterious ingredients, Vahe blends his components until they begin to fester and bubble, juices and aromas melding together, redefining color and substance. Equal to a madman, he takes this primeval stew in his hands and begins to massage it into the canvas. His wrists and elbows begin to trace out words and figures from a forgotten memory, spelling out his secret code. He covers them with layers, scratches them out, rewrites them over and over, in a repetitive ritual of the possessed. Conjuring only the very primitive and organic substances to pour out onto the canvas.
When the ceremony is finished and all the paintbrushes put away, we see scribbles of flowers and little fish swimming in faraway ocean. The illegible boats on the sea are the same boats found in Antilias, a quaint port town in Lebanon where Vahe spent his childhood. The scene is innocent and honest, and if we look closely enough the code starts to crack and we begin to see our fondest memories immerge before our eyes. Our childhood secrets and fears scratched out on the canvas. Vahe unlike any other contemporary is living, breathing, eating art. For Vahe life and art are mutually exclusive. The world is the blank canvas and his memory the paint.

The show runs from May 3rd - May31st 2008 and is highly recommended.