NY Arts February 2002

Ida Applebroog

JonBenét Ramsey, perhaps, is painted as a baby boy: her father pinches her penis and warns with extended finger, even as a pudgy hand reaches out for dad. In the central panel of this seven panel work an older JonBenét wears a broad rimmed hat, in a pose made famous by countless reproductions in tabloids, and she here in Ida Applebroog’s painting Modern Olympia (after Giotto), again with penis, is nude except for hat and high heels.

Applebroog’s recent exhibition Modern Olympia is of paintings dated 1997-2001 which are mostly lush, pale, limited palette works of pencil and paint on prepared paper framed or mounted on canvas.

All the works present nude figures, mostly women, and range from depicting abused and abusive individuals as in After Giotto, the family dramas described above, which is complete with depictions of violent husbands and fighting males and women as victims; to depicting slight, youthful, posing women, all these entitled Modern Olympia (after Versace); to presenting five rather normal looking women, not young, who face the viewer with their pubic area interrupted by ingenious overlapping lip of this two canvas work Modern Olympia (after Anonymous); to some fifty women drawn on paper from Hustler and Playboy photos and displayed in twelve frames of different sizes butted together.

The one work which is not on paper is the sprawling, free standing, five panel painting of oil directly on canvas called Modern Olympia (after Manet) which, with its horror vacui presentation of figure, incorporates much of the imagery from the simpler compositions of the works on paper. The painting’s large, central figure reclines, looking out at the viewer; it is the figure in the show must directly like the nude in Manet’s Olympia. Unlike the subdued browns and muted tones of the other works’ figures this woman is an unnatural, bright pink and her oddness is magnified by the squiggly form her lower body becomes, suggesting labia. In this work Applebroog uses a tough style (scumbled paint, rough line work, pinks, whites, greens and browns on the edge of clashing), bringing to mind Robert Colescott’s direct painting style, which leaves the subject matter, by comparison to the approachable paper works, seemingly unmediated.

While after Manet challenges the viewer, the other works of Modern Olympia on paper, with their delicate washes and iridescent shadow lines, read as seductive come-ons aimed at getting the viewer to fall for a sting. And with what is the viewer being ambushed? -- from a 1999 interview with Patricia Spears Jones, Applebroog says, “There’s regular rape, there’s gang rape, there’s regular murder, serial murder, mass murder…I mean, there’s such a long list: war, child abuse, AIDS, racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia…the list goes on.” And finally, these recent paintings, as in Manet’s Olympia, are about looking us in the eye and, then, asking us to put down our American flags for a minute and look back.

ERIK BAKKE