Jean Pagliuso

Last night, I went to the opening of Jean Pagliuso at Marlborough Galleries on 57th street. She named this body of work Fragile Remains. It is a work of photos on rice paper from Cambodia, India, New Mexico, Peru and Turkey. I know Jean and she has been traveling to these areas over the past few years. The work is so representative of her. The photos are beautiful, intense, layered and seem to have an old soul. You can see how she has really worked to capture the effects of each photo. She shot old places, ritual baths, decaying rock, and tombs just to name a few. The shadows and movement in each photo really stay with you. Each are printed on 1 – 2 pieces of rice paper that give the quality of a discovered photo from long ago. In some respects the photos actually look like old black and white drawings discovered in historical books.

Jean is an incredible person. I highly recommend a trip to see her work.

There was another artist being shown at Marlborough last night, Vincent Desiderio. His paintings also have an old quality to them. He has painted his observations of people. My favorite piece was called In Sleep. It was literally 24 feet long and 8 feet high. 12 nude figures, men and women, sleeping side by side. They are all separate yet intertwined. The soft colors, the movement of the bodies and how they played off each other has an effect. Worth taking a walk in back if you are there.
Also, there is a terrace in the back with some fantastic scultptures. It was soo cold out last night that I couldn’t bear to walk outside but I have always been partial to sculpture and was taken with the dozen or so statues of bodies standing upright.

The next week is when all the galleries begin new shows. If you are looking at the uptown galleries, definitely stop into Marlborough and take a look.