KAREN WILKIN
At the Galleries
Helen Frankenthaler tells a wonderful story about her grandmother, a prag–
matic, no-nonsense type. Hearing that Helen and her sisters were requesting
new bathing suits, their grandmother was skeptical. "What do they need
them for?" she asked. ',]une,July, August, and the summer's over." A lot of
summer exhibitions seem put together on that principle, but happily, this
past season, there were some conspicuous exceptions---shows that would
have held their own at any time. They covered the spectrum from modernist
masters to young contemporaries, from an establishment extravaganza to an
ambitious transformation of an "alternative site." And more.
Joaquin Torres-Garcia
1899-1949 at Jan Krugier Gallery was not, strict–
ly speaking, a summer show since it began in the spring, but it was reason
enough to brave 57th Street even during the worst of the July heat wave.
Of course, almost any substantial number of Torres-Garda's pictures would
be worth seeking out, since his work is seldom seen in this country, but
the Krugier show was altogether first rate. Drawn from the artist's estate,
it spanned most of his career, from a couple of surprising Art Nouveau–
influenced drawings from his early years to a splendid group of the
gridded cityscapes and constructions on which his reputation rests; the
show even included some of his painted wooden toys, like playful Cubist
sculptures or fragments of his urban constructions.
Although not installed chronologically, the exhibition provided a kind
of crash course in Torres-Garda's formation and in the guiding principles
of his mature works. If you knew something of his history, you could even
follow his travels. It's a complicated story. Born in Uruguay in 1874,
Torres-Garda moved back to Spain with his family as an adolescent and
spent most of his adult life in Europe, mostly in France and Italy-except
for two years in New York in the 1920s-before returning to Uruguay,
aged 60, in 1934; he died there in 1949. In Paris he was part of Ozenfant's
circle and a founder of the influential magazine,
Cercle et Carre,
connections
with European modernism that he retained even after returning to
Uruguay. In Montevideo, he established the Taller Torres-Garda, a sort of
fusion of the Bauhaus and the Arts and Crafts Movement, with archaic
underpinnings. (The Taller and its influence were examined in an interest–
ing traveling exhibition, seen here at the Bronx Museum of the Arts about
three years ago.) Torres-Garda also had provocative connections with North
