Notes From the Underground: 1982-2007, A 25-Year Survey

On the left was Nixon. On the right was Elvis. The middle figure rang several bells. “Is that Jesus or Charles Manson?” I asked Nathan Censullo, director of the Pierre Menard Gallery in Harvard Square. “That’s the artist, Nick Lawrence.”

Nick’s Notes From the Underground: 1982-2007, A 25-Year Survey is comprised of over 100 pieces, packed millimeters apart into the beautiful wood paneled space, making up “really just a sample” of the work Lawrence has produced in the past 25 years.

Thankfully, due to the amount of pieces, his work is organized into succinct series, each with a distinct concept and material makeup. “He really spent a lot of time investigating it crossing different media platforms,” Censullo said of his technical development. This Friday, the Pierre Menard Gallery is opening their doors and uncorking their bottles to facilitate the public’s experience of this crazy gorgeous show with it’s closing celebration.

The Pierre Menard has a classy bohemian vibe. They just opened in 2006 under owner John Wronowski, and Director Nathan Censullo. Often, the gallery has poetry readings and intimate musical events. The closing celebration will be a visually explosive, mentally stimulating and belly satisfying engagement.

Stylistically each series is very different. For the Dali Fetishists out there, The Deep Time: Underground Series is a tantalizing combo of collage, varnish and golem-esque Greek Tragedy references. Conceptually, we are underground – both culturally and literally. The material is impressively successful, considering he used collage to achieve the biomorphic smooth landscapes of the surrealists – known for appearing to be liquid. In Subterraneous (1991), we are brought underground (hence the name). Two disembodied heads look at each other, divided by what look like rock formations. Below them, in what appears to be lower geographical level, is another prehistoric bird painted over a circular map.

For the pulp fetishists, The House Series uses the recognizable five-slab symbol for a house as a border to all sorts of dark intriguing things. It begins with houses exuding very separate personalities through abstract and representational tribal language. Bright Africana colors exude light and often optimism. Triple Decker #2 (1997) is crazy with life. Contrasting abstract forms creates a separate personality for each room. A rounded bioform fills up the bottom room completely while a spiky stacked shape is stuck in the doorway. Spider webs fill the middle ground but become the arms of an ovular scarab thing standing there. A spindly top-heavy bubblehead creature crawls onto the roof. There is unmistakable glee here.
Who knows what happened in the middle of this series to Nick, but the series takes a turn for the naughty. The houses become brothels, indicated by the title addition (Bordello). InHouse Torso (Bordello)the house symbol rounds slightly, becoming vaginal and within the vagina house is a pasted together woman’s body. The lower half is in the style of a negative. This torso – contained within her own holding space –which both female genitalia and homes are, has had her visible genitalia reversed in color – namely made negative. The house (which is a brothel) has made her vagina negative. The housing series closes with Mountain House (1997) when everything is both duotone and abstract with slight clues in the title and the formations as to what the photo originally was (a.k.a mountains).

An extremely visually pleasing but conceptually blurry series is the Nuclear Fission Series. According to the Gallery director, this series is very special to Nick. They are extraordinarily beautiful (providing you’re into gritty stuff like Rauschenberg and Dubuffet). The collage in these takes a step further, including driftwood, straw, thick paint, sometimes carved out of again, and pen and ink drawings on paper with lacquer over them. The drawings look like woodprints, which adds to the almost sculptural works artifact aesthetic.

The Scroll Series is an Africana themed collection. It is done with oil-stick and acrylic on paper. They strike on several levels. First, the setting is always a landscape with native people of different types in the foreground. On the horizon, there is generally an apocalyptic scenario, but all of the coloring is so bright and cheerful that the apocalypse seems fine. Birth of Nile (1987) is one of the most striking pieces in the show. The first thing the eye is drawn to is the male’s hat, a fez with a plant growing out of it. The plant has shower/watering can nozzles instead of flowers. The plant reigns into the dry riverbed where a woman and man are kneeling, the woman waiting and ready to sail a western toy sail boat. The man is holding a drop of water up to his nose to smell it, as if it were a diamond. The apocalyptic background has planes crashing, turtles that look too much like tanks to be ignored patrolling against the horizon. A cannon is pointed at the man. Both of their legs are wrapped in what could be chains or bracelets. Restrained, and in the face of the western imagery enclosing on the horizon, not to mention the chains around their bodies, the woman patiently waits for the river to fill so her boat will float, while the man looks hopeful that the Nile will refill.

A playful art history theme throughout the show helps to remind us that Nick has been a gallery owner for almost 30 years. He is the owner of Freight and Volume Gallery in New York. Bird in Space (1990), a rough abstract bondage-flamenco-type-shape teases the famed Modern Artist Broncos, who made many abstract Birds with that same title. In his Division in Time series Nick pays tribute to the modern master Le Courbet. Courbet’s Burial at Ornans (1862) was the first painting to question linear perspective in painting and the value of the clergy in one blow. The scene is a funeral that the pope and his followers as well as the peasants attend. The peasants look completely disinterested by the Pope, which was taken harshly. The final straw was a dog that belonged to the peasants depicted staring away from the pope – as if he was inconsequential even to the dog. InBurial at Ornans (After Courbet) Lawrence took three images from the original, which are progressive zooms of the dog looking away. His background for the pieces is yellow and red with red blood drops and what could easily be perceived as fecal matter floating in the bio soup behind the detail of Le Courbet’s genius.
His influences pour in through each piece – Paul Klee, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Dubuffet are palpable, along with many more. His medium and his concept make it obvious that Nick has been living and breathing art for most of his life.

The Pierre Menard Gallery, September 25th – November 7th
Closing Reception Friday, November 7th 6-9pm. Artists talk 6-7.