Art review: Roger Herman at Jancar Gallery

Roger Herman’s paintings of the 1980s, at Jancar, hold up well a generation after being swiped, streaked and scumbled into existence, better than many produced during that decade’s Neo-Expressionist surge. The German-born Herman lived in Northern California for five years before settling in 1981 in L.A., where he has taught (at UCLA), exhibited frequently and made paintings, woodcuts and ceramics prolifically.

The show’s two rooms divide Herman’s output neatly into figurative subjects (his parents, himself, a skull) and architectural (an apartment facade, bungalow, parking structure and auditorium). All of the canvases are painted with vigor, the forms distilled and generalized, the brushwork swift and strong. Most compelling is the friction between the physical, passionate, performative aspect of his work and his imagery of a cerebral, cool, even banal nature.

“Building,” for instance, presents an oblique view of the facade of a generic multistory apartment building, the windows and balconies defined in blocks of monochrome light and shadow. The institutional anonymity of the subject runs head-on into Herman’s brusque layering (emeralds, blues and violet beneath the black, white and gray), heaving textures and overall sense of visceral urgency. His empty “Auditorium,” a sober scene in black, white and shrill yellow, generates a similar shocking charge.

In these paintings of interior and exterior spaces, even more so than in the more emotionally -laden imagery, Herman seems to be addressing fundamental questions about where painting derives its power — from mind, body or soul? From the interpretation of immediate experience or the filtering of memory?

The questions remain relevant, and Herman’s manifestations of them potent.

Jancar Gallery, 961 Chung King Road, Rd., (213) 625-2522, through Saturday. www.jancargallery.com

--Leah Ollman

Above: Building. Photo credit: Courtesy of Jancar Gallery

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

Creative Art, vs the over refined placating of the rich in Fine Art, is, always has been, and always will e about all three. Why or? It is about humanity, nature and god. Philosophy, science, and theology. Mind body and soul. All three combine their multilayered meanings, elements of musicality in being, melody of line, harmony of color, rhythms of structures, into a work that triggers feelings of more. Of purpose. This show is excellent, in probably the only true Modern Art gallery in LA of living artists. The boy can tpaint, but more importantly has something to say, through the visual medium alone, not perverse prosaic illustrations of limited art school nonsense. But life. It cannot be taught. It must be achieved. By doing.

art colegia delenda est

[William Wray]

“Painting derives its power — from mind, body or soul? From the interpretation of immediate experience or the filtering of memory?”

All of the above, but you left out the ability to draw well. Then you could have added “Great” to the beginning of the statement.

I like the apartment example quite a bit, but not enough to repeat it as many times as the artist has. So much promise to Herman’s work hampered by an ever distancing himself from good drawing he most likely was afraid to master or he’s (hiding the ability) to get acceptance in the art world. He work hints at something more than most of the nothings out there, but is that something?

[Donald Frazell]

Look at the jancar website, he can draw a little. But like all neo ex, thats not his thing. They prefer slashing lines, not as much as hte original expressionsits who were often at their best in woodcuts, which are nothing but line. But can fil the space well with line, enough to activate it, something lacking today.

Like i said he isnt great, but very,very good. And size does matter. when working this large, one simplifies more than in illustration and your work, which is great but scaled and drawn in style for its size, as all art is. his color is severly limited, but rich. It is rhytm in a European way, not like a multilayerd Elvin Jones drum solo kinda thing, or sophisticatd hihat of Max Roach. It is in teh handling of paint, the structure, the simplifying to its essence, and losing any storytelling details.

It is light years better than whats out there, if no where near the early modenr age where folks could draw and integrate color into it, like Gauguin, Matisse, and yes, Klee. The contemporary world is so distracted and myopic it can only handle one thing at a time. It is very lucky to get two, and thre practically unheard of. Balance is everythng, when exhalted into pwoer. Melody-line, harmony-color, structure-rhythm. All must be equal, integrated, and passionate to create A Love Supreme. Coltrane and Miles were America's greatest artists, but unheard of by these folks, certainly unfelt, and thats all that matters. The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

art collegia delenda est

[William Wray]

Agreed. So much more here than most current nothings... I can see he's got it, or had it or is hiding it, I was mostly discouraged by his more recent work of flowers, choppy landscapes et al that get a bit easy and mulch like.

[Donald Frazell]

Yeah, you are right, just looked up his website. And once again proves the evils of academia. He was at his best in these early 1980s paitings, and never matured. much like the Burchfield guy above. He cant draw, and has a typical American weak sense of color/harmony. Lost his Germanic harsh, agressive, emotional, slashing, black foundationed color sense. Nothing to say, or feelings triggered of depth.

Acadmeia is sterile, you cant learn anything there, except in the sciences. One must renew oneself in the real world, and his seems very false and stable, trapped in time and mind actually. but these works are good, and worth buying. Rare to say in out decadent times.

art collegia delenda est