The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 96

8E. SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 1986 -THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR- Indiana-born artist thriving in New York City Art World spy CJp tj tr I if J' I'K, VT ifff 1 1 if 1 1 By BETSY HARRIS STAR STAFF WRITER New York Mary Beth Edelson never brushes things off lightly. She expresses her views with strong flourishes in work that the artist says is autobiographical. In the '60s, she was an Indianapolis gallery owner and artist whose canvases, when she was Mary Beth Strauss, were largely Matisse-influenced domestic scenes of mothers and children. She had two children by two marriages during this time and owned a dog named Matisse.

In the '70s. the Indiana native became a leader in the feminist art movement while living in Washington, D.C. She put away her paints to glorify womanhood In ritualistic performances both public and private ones before time-release cameras. In a 1975 performance art photograph, her painted nude torso is shown with a large seashell enveloping her head. It became a symbol of feminist art.

She returned to a more traditional art medium here in the '80s. Her canvases speak of self revelations. A major piece 10 feet by 18 feet with a woman and man embracing Is titled The Negotiation. Figures surface from whirlpools of color, baring their bones to the painful experience of fish out of water. Her work cannot be categorized, she says.

There always is a reference, though, to going In or coming out. Momentum transcends off canvas as well. No starving artist is she. "I'm a gourmet cook." she quips. Then she explains that she can feed herself well as a result of the momentum she has built.

Requests pour in for exhibitions of her work in one-person and group shows. She can pick and choose commissions. She especially likes doing them, she says. She Is represented in the permanent collections of major museums including New York City's Guggenheim Museum of Art. the Museum of Contemporary Art In Chicago and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.

D.C. "There is never enough time," she says, and she paints seven days a week and each day until she drops. There is not even enough time with a full-time assistant who does the pedestrian: stretching canvas, running errands, writing letters for her. "This is one of the few businesses in which you are manufacturer, distributor and promoter." she says. Her base of operation is a loft in SoHo.

"I love it. There's no place else 1 want to live and work." However, she turns up her nose at the influx of boutiques in SoHo which outsiders storm on weekends in numbers that would make an October Sunday in Nashville. Ind look paltry. The art galleries close during the heavy traffic, and they're really what SoHo's about, she says. She moved to New York 10 years ago with Robert Stackhouse.

a sculptor and her lover for 1 5 years. He sculpts large-scale outdoor pieces. A cast bronze sculpture by Stackhouse recently was installed in a pond at the National Gallery of Australia. The boatlike piece is 30 feet In length. She also works in monumental scale, and the air in the two artists' adjoining studios gets rather testy at times, she says.

"Bob and I are In therapy together. You think getting along is easy?" She also says her penchant for large paintings dates back to her initial foray into the art world. She painted stage flats while a kid at Washington High School In East Chicago. Ind. "Projecting out." even then, appealed to her.

she says. wanting to get her hands on the Indianapolis Judge who took her child away from her. She spills forth her views of the situation in a profile of her in the newly released Mothers pn Trial: the Battle for Children and Custody (McGraw-Hill, 822.95) by Phyllis Chesler. Young people about the age of her own are depicted in a mural which Indiana State University commissioned her to paint last year for its new sports arena. She photographed students In order to come up with a synthesis of an all American head which is everybody, she says, "not male, not female or a particular ethnic origin." The head is 8 feet high in the mural measuring 10 feet by 20 feet.

"The head is strong, full of well being and, I thought, appropriate for a sports arena. No tennis shoes." One of the perks of success is being able to use facilities of Institutions, she says. During one artlst-in-resldency In New Harmony. she created wax models which were cast in bronze at nearby Indiana State University in Evansville. Other special projects in her home state Include a portfolio series which she is hand coloring and which Patrick King Contemporary Gallery in Indianapolis is publishing.

Her To Dance: Paintings and Drawings by Mary Beth Edelson with Performance In Mind traveling exhibit premiered at Patrick King In 1984. "I am impressed with the way Indianapolis is growing in relationship to the arts." Gallery owners are willing to take chances with provocative work, she notes, adding that the work is being actively collected. At the time she ran the Talbott Street Art Gallery in Indianapolis in the early '60s, "people tended to think it was a wonderful community service, an enrichment. The artists needed people to buy the work instead. It's not easy ever for an artist, whatever the field.

It is a committed life." When she stepped Into the art scene In New York, she was instrumental in A.l.R. Gallery, which became the most nationally recognized coop gallery. The Initials referred to its three artists in residence who banded together to control their careers and how their work was viewed. Currently she is "between galleries." A lot of. negotiating is transpiring because It Is a big financial commitment for a gallery, she says.

"It used to be a gallery had a stable of artists. Now artists have stables of galleries." The University of Tennessee is putting together a major traveling exhibit of her oils, watercol-ors and woodblocks with accompanying catalog. Last month she had shows opening at the Morgan Gallery In Kansas City and the Lawndale Alternative Space in Houston. In February, she will be Included in the Contemporary Prlmitlvlsm exhibit In the Contemporary Museum Gallery In Colorado Springs. There are numerous exhibits scheduled for fall '86 with the highlight being the opening in the Walter Philips Gallery in Alberta, Canada of an exhibit which will travel to four other Canadian museums.

With such a schedule, she must feel like Fish in the Sky. a commissioned mural completed and installed this month in the Danforth Museum at Framlngham, Mass. It. too. has a huge head with a whirling background.

No wonder she says she's on a roll. Steve Mannhclmer Is on vacation. Ills column will resume next Sunday. STAR STAFF PHOTO FRANK ESPICH Mary Beth Edelson in her New York studio Growing up in East Chicago was a good preparation, she says. "It was very cosmopolitan with an enormous mix of people.

I learned tolerance for variation early in life." She majored in art at DcPauw University, spent summers In the Art Institute of Chicago and later earned her master's degree from New York University. It amazes her that her son Nick Edelson "a New York City kid" chose to go to Earlham College in Richmond. "and a guaker school at that." But then her ties have remained close to Indiana. Her daughter from her first marriage grew up In Indianapolis. Ms.

Edelson speaks with anger of Culture comes to Fort Lauderdale Leader of Pop Art movement maintains his celebrity status "It Is private philanthropy that does the building of museums," Barnett said. "We're following a tradition of American culture." The museum serves the golden strip of south Florida running from Miami to Palm Beach. But why did It go up in Fort Lauderdale? "Why New York? Why London? Why Paris? It's an emerging metropolitan area," Barnett said. He said Fort Lauderdale's shift from retiree and tourist center to metropolis, from "pro longed adolescence to adulthood." reflects the life of the United States. "After people got here, they began to sink roots.

That's the history of this country." Barnett said Americans are more conscious than ever about education and art's uplifting of culture. In the last several years, new museums have opened In Dallas. Atlanta, Miami. San Antonio. Portland and Anchorage.

"People are thinking more of the future and their children's future," he said. "That's why you're seeing museums built In this country." Master drawings collection to visit 1 Area Art Notes pressed suffering, morality and other social themes in the last half century and influenced modern day artists. The cigar-smoking Bolge said that In shuffling from the tiny gallery to the new museum building, intimacy is lost, but there Is room for diversity. "You can deal with monumental outdoor structures, major monumental paintings." he said. "You have a much broader pre- sentation palette." As an Inauguration, the museum Is exhibiting An American Renaissance: Painting and Sculpture Since 1940.

made possible by a grant from American Express and ranging from the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock to the pop art of Andy Warhol. "The exhibition attempts a coherent Intellectual history of the past 50 years by linking Its visual Impact to chronological development of Ideas." said guest curator Sam Hunter, who teaches at Princeton University. "The show Is thus an exploration of the relationship of American art to the historically specific conditions of American life, thought and artistic traditions since World War II." Edward Larrabee Barnes, the architect responsible for the Dallas Museum of Art. designed Fort Lauderdale's new facility, which Bolge calls a distinctive piece of work that does not rob its contents of attention. "The building has a neutral background to allow the art to speak eloquently, rather than compete with the architectural background," Bolge said.

"You don't want artwork smothered with architectural grandeur." Some of the building's off-white walls can be moved to accommodate temporary exhibitions. Wood and stone sculpture sits on the terrazzo and gray-carpeted floors. In the auditorium, the film series will feature works by foreign masters such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fclllni. and artists and critics will give lectures. A cafe opens onto a terrace dotted with oaks and Iron sculpture.

Many of the museum's patrons donated money for the new facility, funded by about 500 corporations and private citizens. Memberships will keep dollars flowing In. By JEFF BATER UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Fort Lauderdale. Fla. The unveiling of multi-million dollar quarters for an art museum that spent 27 years in storefront galleries reveals a city shedding its image of a mecca for beer-swilling college students and evolving into a community sinking roots.

The Museum of Art. Fort Lauderdale, will open its doors Jan. 18. The $7.5 million facility, sprawled over a downtown block near the New River, boasts a 262-seat auditorium, sculpture deck and library. The white stucco building gives the museum a sense of permanence absent at Its old homes, which Included a former hardware store.

Elliott Barnett. museum president, said the area is no longer just a resort swarming with transients, but a community swelling with people who stay year round. The Broward County population has grown from about 333,000 year-round residents In 1960 to Just over one million in 1985. "I think it the first confirmation that civilization has taken shape In the community." Barnett said of the new facility. "That's the message we want to get across: Spring Break does not identify Fort Lauderdale or Broward County anymore." "We want to redefine, to refine the area's image, which is basically a bunch of beer-drink-Ing guys and half-nude girls lying on the beach at Easter." said museum director George Bolge.

More than half of the museum's collection will be on hand for the thousands of schoolchildren and patrons expected to visit it each year. Less than 1 percent was displayed In the old gallery. The rest was stashed in warehouses. The museum was founded In 1958. Since then.

It has amassed 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings and sculpture, and a collection of Oceanic. West African. Pre-Columbian, and American Indian art. Also on view Is the largest CoHrA collection in the country. CoBrA stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, three European cities that launched a post-World War II movement of painters and sculptors who ex By JOY HAKANSON COLBY THE DETROIT NEWS Andy Warhol, who turned the Campbell soup can into an international Icon more than 20 years ago, says people still "think soup" when they look at him.

"Sometimes I'm sorry I didn't limit myself to painting soup," the New York artist and platinum eminence of the Pop Art movement deadpanned. He's promoting his new book. America (Harper Row. 815.95). "But," he went on, "1 am designing a new box for Campbell's dried chicken noodle soup." Before beginning a round of autographing sessions, America's No.

1 celebrity artist sat In the hotel dining room and ate a bowl of oatmeal. "Hot cereal," he allowed, "may not be glamorous. But It's healthy." Warhol, who once advocated 15 minutes of fame for everybody, has managed to stay famous himself since the early 1960s as a painter, graphic designer, film maker, originator of Interview magazine and creator of photographic essays like his new book. Ills shock of platinum hair, dark glasses and black-leather costumes are Immediately recognizable at home in New York and on his Jaunts across the country. Warhol took most photos in the book himself.

The subjects range from Howdy Doody to bag ladles, from Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa to Boy George, from artists Keith Haring. Louise Ne-vclson, David Hockney and Georgia O'Kecffe to performer Grace Jones. Why does he make photographs? "To remember," he said. "Also he's deadpannlng again "because the camera Is something to carry around In my pocket." Asked to update his two most famous quotes, he's happy to oblige. "Everyone should be famous for 15 minutes." That, he said, has resulted In a new show on the MTV rablc channel.

Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes, which began several weeks ago, A private collection of master drawings will be shown In the Indianapolis Museum of Art Jan. 14 to March 2. The 100 drawings will come to Indianapolis from a debut exhibit at the National Gallery of Art In Washington. D.C. Master Drawings From Titian to Picasso: The Curtis O.

Daer Collection is one of the finest still in private hands. The late Mr. Baer was a German-trained art historian before establishing a successful business career In the United States. The Indianapolis showing will be highlighted by a program on the collector at 7:30 p.m. Feb.

21 In the museum's DeBoest Lecture Hall. Museum members and students will be charged 83. non-members 84. Speakers will Include Dr. Anthony F.

Janson, chief curator of the Rlngllng Museum of Art. Sarasota. and Dr. Eric M. Zafran of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Md.

Hcrron students The Italian Finale, a week-long exhibit of eight students' reactions to a trip through Italy, will open Friday in Hcrron Galley of the Hcrron SChool of Art, IUPUI. 1701 North Pennsylvania Street. Events of the exhibit will Include a multimedia review of the trip at 7:30 p.m. Friday with a gallery preview from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

and an Italian Festival of Andy Warhol "I think It would be terrific tf everyone looked alike." Warhol says he still believes In that one. too, adding that everyone should wear the same clothes. "People look better In uniforms," he explains. Asked to design a uniform for the world, he suggests a black Jump suit with a plastic bubble for headgear. His book contains some prime Warhol quotes: "I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to." "I think the more Information you get.

the less fantasy you have." "It used to be that when you were famous, you were famous for one thing But now it seems like you have to do lots of things really well, and you don't get to stay famous for long unless you're always switching." Among his new projects, he says, is mounting an exhibition called The Worst of Warhol. "I'm getting together all my bad paintings of wigs and chocolates, invisible sculptures and tin pictures. We'll hang them In a New York gallery Why am I doing the show? As a favor to a friend." With Warhol's luck, even his bad paintings should be worth another 15 years of fame. the Arts dance from 9 p.m. to midnight.

3-artist show Mixed media paintings by three artists will form an exhibit to open Monday in the lobby gallery of the Jefferson National Life Insurance Co. building at 1 Virginia Avenue. The artists are Virginia Bowles. Connie Rcld and Vicky Shaffer. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.

to 4:45 p.m. and the exhibit will remain through Jan. 24. At Evansville A retrospective exhibition of photographs by Victor Skrcb-neskl will continue through Jan. 19 at the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science.

The photographs Include the portraitist's figure prints and portraits of famous persons Including Bette Davis, David Bowie. Vanessa Redgrave, Orson We lls and Andy Warhol. A 20-mlnute video. An Evening With Victor. Is being shown at regular Intervals in the gallery.

The exhibit Is sponsored by the Museum Guild, the Indiana Arts Commission and the Endowment for the Arts..