Winfred Rembert at HAUSER & WIRTH Dial Hammons Rauschenberg at DAVID LEWIS

James Kalm has been aware of the leather works of Winfred Rembert for several years now. Since his first viewing, your correspondent has been fascinated with Rembert’s ability to evoke images and narratives from such an unexpected medium as tooled leather. “All of Me” is a career spanning retrospective of this unique artist, in which viewers can see the artistic development from a masterly depictions of characters (both good and evil) to later works that cast his pictorial stories into abstract designs of color, contrast and form.
“Dial Hammons Rauschenberg” at David Richards draws out comparisons of technique, materials and aesthetics from three masters of the abject. Robert Rauschenberg is one of the icons of American art of the late twentieth century. His pioneering work with assemblage and found objects set a course for what eventually emerged as “Neo-Dada” and Pop Art. In harmony with Thornton Dial and David Hammons it becomes apparent that Rauschenberg, the Southerner, was influenced by, and recast works of the “Southern Vernacular” by rural African American artists. He thereby puts a home-grown spin on the “readymade” object, the cornerstone idea of conceptual art espoused by Marcel Duchamp.
This program was recorded March 21, and April 1 2023. A musical introduction is provided by Flat Iron Charlie Guitar. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk