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				Of all the shows I’ve seen so far this year, Guy Chase's exhibition, Still Painting, now at the Forum, is clearly one of the finest. Curated by Mel Watkin, the show is a retrospective of work Chase has produced in the past 15 years. Installed in the Forum’s second-floor galleries, the show opens with a group of paintings that depict slide screens. These paintings encompass a remarkable range of allusions. In them, Chase introduces several ideas: first, he points out the irony that most of what we know about art is learned secondhand, through the use of slides—slides that are often reproductions of reproductions lifted from art-history texts. Second, the screens allude to Chase's own years spent teaching art and art history in this way, of his familiarity with darkened classrooms where images of Medieval, Romanesque or 19th century French art have been projected onto screens illuminated by a projector’s soft light. It is in these classrooms where a curious intersection is established: where the image and screen blend to create a new hybrid work that exists somewhere outside the artist’s original intent and that is brought forward to the present day. “Untitled White Painting (Art Historian’s Battlefield II)” is composed of pages cut from Fred Hartt’s A History of Art, one of the most popular texts used in Art History 101. The pages are taken from Hartt’s chapters on early Medieval, Romanesque and Byzantine art. Five vertical rows of paragraphs are pasted onto the back of a large sheet of white paper on which Chase paints bands of black paint to simulate the top and bottom edges of a slide screen. Some of the text and chapter headings are visible through the paper, while others have been blanked out with white paint. A rectangular section in the center of the painting has been painted black. On top of it, Chase has applied additional sheets of text that he cut and arranged to recall the cross-shaped naves and aisles of early Christian churches— the kinds of floor plans that some art historians love to study. An essential impulse that drives most of Guy Chase’s work is spirituality. In the essay that accompanies his show, Chase states: “While irony usually signals cynicism, even amidst feelings of doubt I maintain a disciplined reverence for my religion. Humor is also an often overlooked aspect of spirituality.” A group of four small gouache paintings, over pages cut from Norman Vincent Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking reflect not only his characteristically meticulous technique but also introduce more humor. Almost like a medieval scribe, Chase has blocked out the tiny text with white watercolor, leaving only the smallest bit of black at the top of the lettered lines to show through. His tiny white squares outlined in black read like grids. Each painting has two pages of text set side by side. Chase leaves visible chapter headings and, in some paintings, a
								line or two of text at the bottom of the pages. These untitled paintings, done in 1982, have both poignant and spirited headings such as: “How to Draw on a Higher Power,” “Prescriptions for Heartache” or “How to Create Your Own Happiness.” The obvious puns in the headings lighten the tone of the works. In the essay, Chase describes the works, saying: “I both assimilate and annihilate the text. My investment in the chapter titles is similarly ambiguous, I leave them visible because they are both silly cliches and calls to a positive, living faith.” “Grail” is made of 12 thin pieces of aluminum unrolled from Grape Crush soda cans and laid out on a pedestal in three rows. Tiny reddish-purple droplets form an unadorned goblet on the surface of the aluminum sheets. The Grail, or Cup of Christ, the Arthurian legends that spoke to its existence, the nature of communion between God and men and women, swirl around Chase’s depiction. Though it is made from commonplace materials—grape juice and recycled cans—you can admire “Grail” for both its audacity and for Chase’s sincerity. Chase’s retrospective fills three large galleries at the Forum. Make a very serious effort to see his show—you will be amazed. Constance Lowe’s installation of tableaux, based on blankets, furniture and objects, are on display in the first-floor gallery. Each tableau is, most often, a combination of one of her blankets (that have either been draped on the wall or pulled closed and folded into a thick roll) and a piece of furniture—sometimes a dainty skirted dressing-table chair or a chaise lounge with leather belt restraints. As you walk through her arrangement, the experience is a lot like walking through a surrealist painting—your not exactly sure what it all means. Steel chains and metal grommets are attached to a group of pillows titled “Moral Management.” “Heterotaxia No. 1” and “Blind Shoot” transport the viewer to some odd but powerful dystopia. The contrast between Lowe’s show and Chase’s is disconcerting and disturbing. Maybe this emotional contrast is what Mel Watkin had in mind. Both shows remain on view a the Forum, 3540 Washington, through July 27. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
						June 19 - 25, 1996 THE RIVERFRONT TIMES 73 <<return