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A good example of Lapthisophon’s “play” with language and
design can be seen, perhaps most clearly, in two works that
say “Too strong for too long.” In one piece, the letters are
distinctly written and do not touch. This presentation
graphically gives the statement a feeling of tension. In the
companion panel, the letters ooze together and overlap
and the same phrase now reads with a kind of urgency and
anger.
All of Lapthisophon’s work requires decoding and a certain
intellectual engagement from the viewer, if one is to get
beyond their immediate graphic impact. They hint of Dada
word games, intended to confound the viewer, and often
Lapthisophon’s quotes and references seem too obscure
and personal to get behind. The big drippy letters stop us on
the surface and whatever reference or meaning they might
address becomes lost or just not quite intriguing enough to
muse over.
I asked the gallery dealer to explain the reference in one work
that says: “Dead corpse in their mouth.” He responded that
the phrase was part of a larger quote from a “Situationist”
cartoon published in a small journal from the 1960s. The
Situationists were a rather obscure group of political and
artistic “agitators” with a Marxist bent. This all seems just a tad
solipsistic to me. But in some funny way, maybe that’s the
point. Lapthisophon takes obscure snippets, phrases or
disjointed words and scrawls them onto cardboard in an
almost desperate attempt to communicate. All communication
is based on the simplification of dense ideas and the struggle
to convey and define and remember and most of our attempts
to communicate fail to some degree. Lapthisophon’s drippy
painted missives may just be a Marxist’s version of “Red
Rum,” ala Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” reflecting the terror
and urgency of a lost cause.
Of course, none of the work sold.
- Debra Brehmer
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
design can be seen, perhaps most clearly, in two works that
say “Too strong for too long.” In one piece, the letters are
distinctly written and do not touch. This presentation
graphically gives the statement a feeling of tension. In the
companion panel, the letters ooze together and overlap
and the same phrase now reads with a kind of urgency and
anger.
All of Lapthisophon’s work requires decoding and a certain
intellectual engagement from the viewer, if one is to get
beyond their immediate graphic impact. They hint of Dada
word games, intended to confound the viewer, and often
Lapthisophon’s quotes and references seem too obscure
and personal to get behind. The big drippy letters stop us on
the surface and whatever reference or meaning they might
address becomes lost or just not quite intriguing enough to
muse over.
I asked the gallery dealer to explain the reference in one work
that says: “Dead corpse in their mouth.” He responded that
the phrase was part of a larger quote from a “Situationist”
cartoon published in a small journal from the 1960s. The
Situationists were a rather obscure group of political and
artistic “agitators” with a Marxist bent. This all seems just a tad
solipsistic to me. But in some funny way, maybe that’s the
point. Lapthisophon takes obscure snippets, phrases or
disjointed words and scrawls them onto cardboard in an
almost desperate attempt to communicate. All communication
is based on the simplification of dense ideas and the struggle
to convey and define and remember and most of our attempts
to communicate fail to some degree. Lapthisophon’s drippy
painted missives may just be a Marxist’s version of “Red
Rum,” ala Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” reflecting the terror
and urgency of a lost cause.
Of course, none of the work sold.
- Debra Brehmer
Debra Brehmer is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email dbrehmer@susceptibletoimages.com
Stephen Lapthisophon
Barrow & Juarez
207 E. Buffalo St.
Through November 10
Barrow & Juarez is one of Milwaukee’s newest galleries. It took occupancy in the basement level of
the Buffalo Building in the Third Ward several months ago. The gallery is a pristine white rectangle.
Lacking even a desk to mar the space, gallery workers sit tucked into a crevice behind a partial wall.
This provides a romantically clean experience for the artwork to be appreciated fully unfettered.
The gallery’s design seems custom-suited for the current exhibition of mid-career Chicago artist
Stephen Lapthisophon’s work. Lapthisophon paints with words. Each of his large cardboard panels
features loosely rendered words or phrases, in a restricted palette of black and white. One enters the
gallery, surrounded by hand-wrought signage, all of it visually consistent.
On a purely visual level, Lapthisophon’s “paintings” are surprisingly alluring. Dismiss the fact that
they are trying to “say” something and you have beautiful surfaces on found-cardboard -- a rich
exchange between the textures, drippy words and skilled compositions. Although Lapthisophon’s
works might suggest hand-painted signs or hastily written notations, there is really nothing
immediate or spontaneous about the way this artist develops these images. One senses that each
piece is as carefully thought out and as calculated as a graphic designer’s product. Even though they
look and speak of intensity, pathos and anger, the artist leaves nothing to chance. He is overtly aware
of how gesture, letter, style, and collaged textures express tone and meaning and how the viewer’s
mind bounces between the intellectual processing or “reading” of words and the sensual encounter
of the formal elements of the painting. On the most universal and general level, Lapthisophon plays
with notions of chaos and order, emotion and logic: Sometimes the words read clearly and other
times they overlap and dissolve into illegibility.
Barrow & Juarez
207 E. Buffalo St.
Through November 10
Barrow & Juarez is one of Milwaukee’s newest galleries. It took occupancy in the basement level of
the Buffalo Building in the Third Ward several months ago. The gallery is a pristine white rectangle.
Lacking even a desk to mar the space, gallery workers sit tucked into a crevice behind a partial wall.
This provides a romantically clean experience for the artwork to be appreciated fully unfettered.
The gallery’s design seems custom-suited for the current exhibition of mid-career Chicago artist
Stephen Lapthisophon’s work. Lapthisophon paints with words. Each of his large cardboard panels
features loosely rendered words or phrases, in a restricted palette of black and white. One enters the
gallery, surrounded by hand-wrought signage, all of it visually consistent.
On a purely visual level, Lapthisophon’s “paintings” are surprisingly alluring. Dismiss the fact that
they are trying to “say” something and you have beautiful surfaces on found-cardboard -- a rich
exchange between the textures, drippy words and skilled compositions. Although Lapthisophon’s
works might suggest hand-painted signs or hastily written notations, there is really nothing
immediate or spontaneous about the way this artist develops these images. One senses that each
piece is as carefully thought out and as calculated as a graphic designer’s product. Even though they
look and speak of intensity, pathos and anger, the artist leaves nothing to chance. He is overtly aware
of how gesture, letter, style, and collaged textures express tone and meaning and how the viewer’s
mind bounces between the intellectual processing or “reading” of words and the sensual encounter
of the formal elements of the painting. On the most universal and general level, Lapthisophon plays
with notions of chaos and order, emotion and logic: Sometimes the words read clearly and other
times they overlap and dissolve into illegibility.
| Work by Stephen Lapthisophon at Barrow and Juarez. |