What if a friend told you that you couldn’t see? Naturally you’d want to set that person straight. The easiest way to do that would be to simply describe something in the immediate vicinity and then verify with your friend that it’s the same thing he or she sees -all of which would neatly prove your clever inquisitor’s point. Rarely do we perceive anything with our own eyes that does not implicate, involve, or call upon the vision of others. In fact, most of the time we don’t see , but we re-see what has already been communally identified and named. A large part of vision isn’t so much about what our eyes perceive as it is about verifying those perceptions against what is already known.

We don’t define the world as private individuals. We collaborate in a collective definition of what things are and what they look like, or should look like. The most simple proof of this is the way we cry "What is that?" when confronted by something we’ve never seen before. Part of what causes our befuddlement is that the new object (or phenomenon or behavior) fulfills no expectations. It calls up no pre-existing files, fits no profile of what we know. Seeing is meaningless (in the most literal sense of the word) if we do not recognize what is being seen. That quirky space between cognition and re-cognition is precisely the playground where the works in this show cavort.

The enigmatic abstraction of these three artists creates a basic indeterminacy for its audience not because the object are hard to perceive, but because the subject are hard to identify. Many of the shapes and formal arrangements being presented may look entirely familiar, and yet impossible to locate or pin down. In the work of Arturo Herrera, this visual recall is measured against the styles and signatures of popular imagery. Serge Armando gives the same activity an unexpectedly parodic twist with hard-edge abstractions that mimic military ribbons mimicking hard-edge abstractions. The sense of evasive and mutable identities that results lays the groundwork for Marko Milovanovic’s experiments with fragmentation, combination, order and coherence.

Insofar as it withholds as much as it reveals, this work willfully precipitates a mild and not unpleasant crisis of recognition. Actually, it is a kind of blindness that is being toyed with. The lapses and overlaps in cultural consciousness that these artists pry open point out the ultimate vulnerability of anything we may think we "know" with our eyes.

Carmine Iannaccone, April 1995.

Some Late 20th Century Abstraction is one of the first exhibitions since LACE moved to it's new building to fully make use of the space. The front gallery houses the hilarious work of Sean Duffy, who makes teddy bears out of beer cans and yarn. His objects are both endearing and pointed commentaries about consumer culture. In the front window is an installation by Barry Morse and Sue Kornfeld about the actress Gloria Graham, whose star is outside of LACE's window. Serge Armando, Arturo Herrera and Marko Milovanovic each explore the notion of minimal abstraction making compelling works that not only function well on their own, but also draw strength from the juxtaposition. In the back gallery are beautiful black and white photographs by Wendy Moore (LACE, Hollywood).

Artscenecal May 1995

...the ‘ space notcher ‘ series is so like the shape of the star-producing nebula photographed last month by Hubble telescope--fractal across a trillion light-years and from the beginning of time! ( of course, the face of Christ already has been sited in the nebula.)

Libby Lumpkin. November 18, 1995.

Les " Groupes aléatoires " procèdent d’une conception qui remet totalement en question la forme tableau. Celle-ci est éclatée et si l’on peut encore recomposer son support dans sa forme initiale, la peinture qui apparait est, elle, strict produit de l’aléatoire, révélant son sens, pur non-sens, et peut-être la dernière expression de l’horreur, en cette fin de siècle, après tant de barbaries.

Cela dit, l’artiste n’abandonne pas son sourire, et maintient l’oeuvre ouverte, laissant à chacun la possibilité de recomposer ses tableaux, de leur donner voix multiples, vies nouvelles, en superposant ou dissociant les éléments les constituant.

Pierre Le Calvez, avril 1994.

C’est en 1991 que le peintre Marko Milovanovic a commencé ce cycle de peintures aux pourtours inhabituels. Celles-ci l’ayant déjà mené fort loin, lui ouvrent désormais de vastes champs d’exploration; sur la forme du tableau, la relation entre support et peinture, mais aussi la confrontation au sein de l’oeuvre de différents espaces et temps. Il y bouleverse nos critères habituels de jugement quant à l’unité, la linéarité, ou la composition, cette dernière n’étant plus issue de la forme du tableau, mais au contraire, la générant. Les repères usuels sont bousculés et c’est par l’émotion qu’il nous pousse à pénétrer ce monde, nous proposant de redécouvrir le nôtre.

Comme il aime à le dire, il dévoile le visible, résolvant le dilemme abstraction-figuration en procédant à des représentations du monde, issues de la pensée. Ainsi s’éloigne-t-on définitivement de tout principe d’imitation. N’a-t-il pas, au reste, intitulé ses derniers grands tableaux: " Regards sur le monde, yeux clos", réaffirmant que tout est pensée, que c’est elle qui voit, bien avant que cela ne soit traduit en images ou en langage. Il s’agit pour le peintre de transcrire ses états d’esprit.

Ces peintures nous poussent à la contemplation, à la méditation, plus encore à la reflexion. Elles ne sont pas de celles qui laissent indifférent. Elles appellent d’authentiques amateurs, de ceux qui sont en appétit de nouveauté.

Pierre Le Calvez, décembre 1993.