The New Regionalists

By Jim Duncan CVFDude@aol.com

Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen's new exhibition at Karolyn Sherwood Gallery is historic. The Macksburg pair are Iowa's most popular artists, also celebrated through their international television series "The Perennial Gardener with Karen Strohbeen." True to their guru/earth mother personas, they pioneered art for the people, in forms as accessible as kitchen tiles. Because of that, their art is appreciated on many levels. People who have never set foot in a museum gleefully decorate their houses with it and the most dead-serious collectors buy it as well.

Aware of this versatile following, the artists have traditionally hidden pregnant stories in loose clothing. Ironies and unique styles have been barely noticed under the popular guises of Luchsinger's minimalist still lifes and Strohbeen's archetypal single line drawings. In that tradition, the new show is fittingly named "Layers." The title works most obviously in Luchsinger's metaphoric and emotional series on Key West, where the couple winters. These superimposed images belong to the classically tragic South of Tennessee Williams and Bill Faulkner, where noble spirits are ravaged by ancient swamp gods.

"Key West has been hit by hurricane after hurricane over the years, but the last cycle did particular damage to the spirit of the place. It's impossible not to see that this time," he said.

Less obvious - invisible actually - is the layering in Strohbeen's series of floral still lifes. A little background: Luchsinger and Strohbeen were digital pioneers, among the originators of the art form, years before David Hockney and the national media discovered it. They have pushed the limits of the genre ever since. This time, she painstakingly photographed the same flower from eight points of view (flowers she grew from seed) to concentrate the focus. These multiple photographs were laid together seamlessly, creating an intensity so detailed it effects Buddhist-like (universe-in-the-lotus) surrealism. In fact, it redefines surreal experience - you must be dreaming because such sharp vision is not possible to wakeful sensibilities.

A related redefinition makes this exhibition historic, that of "regionalism" in the third millennium. Ever since Grant Wood's "Revolt Against the City" was published in Iowa in 1935, "regionalism" in art has been defined statically, with Great Depression rural clichŽs, including the one that "back to the earth" means forsaking modern technology. These Iowa artists are doing to that what Ferran Adria has done to haute cuisine -- using the latest technology not to simulate, but to extract the purity of basic root stocks. Through context, they have produced a new appreciation of the humble essences of the earth. Through July 22.

King of Swizzle

Benny Goodman is being redefined by jazz historians. Biographer Bill Crow details how badly the "King of Swing" treated his own band. To recruit reluctant Jimmy Maxwell for a tour of the Soviet Union, Goodman promised to take the trumpeter's son along as band boy. Halfway through the trip, Goodman reneged and billed Maxwell $35 per day for his son's expenses. Maxwell demanded to be directly billed by the Soviets. Their bill was only $10. The young man on the tour grew up to become a Russian scholar - Drake President David Maxwell. We asked if that trip influenced his career choices.

"I spent much of my time with the cultural affairs officer, Terry Catherman, who traveled with us. When I got home, I decided that I wanted to be Terry when I grew up, so I majored in Russian Area Studies at Grinnell. By the time I was a senior, the diplomatic corps was trying to explain Vietnam to the world (and I didn't like the explanation), and - more importantly - I found out that I really loved the literature. I basically went to graduate school so that I could keep reading."

Touts

"Cecily Brown," an artist frequently cited for redefining contemporary painting, opens Aug. 4 at the Des Moines Art Center... Bev Gegen will debut at Moberg Gallery (July 18-Aug. 26) with an artist reception August 11... Sabine Friesicke will pair with Pete Goche at Karolyn Sherwood Gallery (July 27 - Sept. 2), with a an opening reception July 27. CV

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