By: Gallery Crawler
I must begin this review with a confession…I am a sci-fi/fantasy nerd. There! My poorly-kept secret is out. When I saw the advertisement for “Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art,” now on view at the Museum of American Illustrators through October 17th, in the Village Voice I was immediately hooked. Nevertheless, I also harbored some skepticism; the artwork on the covers of many sci-fi/fantasty novels is awful. The covers of the paperbacks of even best-selling authors are frequently adorned with generic, poorly-rendered dragons and elves, sometimes bearing only a passing resemblance to the characters within. I was hoping to be drawn into exquisite new worlds, but I was also prepared to be underwhelmed.
I shouldn’t have been worried. Spectrum, is, in fact, a juried annual that features the best work in American fantastic art. The artists included in Spectrum—and hence the 120 in this exhibition—are at the top of their field. When I entered the first gallery I was immediately enchanted. Each work on display offered a window into a unique universe. When was the last time you went to a gallery show and honestly wished you could step into a work? Gazing around the gallery, I was reminded of all the time I spent imagining the worlds I read about in fairy tales as a child. The exhibition gave me a faintly nostalgic sense of déjà vu.
Illustrators, like graphic designers, are frequently shut out of the artistic cannon. They are not worthy of being Artists with an “A” because they create their work in order to promote products. Furthermore, sci-fi/fantasy illustrators are dismissed because they create art for a genre that is stereotypically associated with stringy-haired, greasy-faced adolescent males and emotionally-stunted men. The wild, main-stream success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and the 2008 reboot of the Star Trek franchise has done little to change this prejudice.
The art world’s ignorance of fantastic art is truly a shame because the illustrators featured in this exhibition, are easily some of the most technically-gifted figurative and landscape artists working today. Beyond the technique, what makes these paintings, drawings, digital renderings and sculptures so fascinating for an art world denizen are the unexpected stylistic mash-ups. Fantastic illustrators are omnivores, incorporating techniques and motifs from movements like and Symbolism and Surrealism and from artists such as Cot, Van Dyke, Waterhouse, Schile, Constable, Weber, Disney, Friedrich, Rockwell, Mucha, Goya and Hiroshige.
Take a walk on the truly wild side and go see this exhibition. It will not only remind you of your own daydreams and imaginary worlds, it will also introduce you to an artistic realm unlike any you have ever seen.
Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators runs through October 17th
Society of Illustrators
Between
Take the F train to 63d Street and Lexington Avenue or the M98, M101, M102 or M103 bus to 63rd Street
Gallery hours: 10am-8pm,Tues; 10am-5pm W-F; 12pm-4pm Sat and Sun
Gallery website: www.societyillustrators.org
Spectrum website: www.spectrumfantasticart.com
