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[4]"People are what we remember about them. What we call life is
in the end a patchwork of someone else's recollections. With death, it gets
unstitched, and one ends up with random disjointcd fragments."--Joseph
Brodsky
(Mount St. Mary's College, Jose Drudis-Biada
Gallery, West Los Angeles) Although this exhibition of Norman Schwab's
work from 1990 to 1995 is a memoriam, it is neither morbid, angst-ridden,
nor sentimental. With sensitivity, Schwab communicates a respect for the
dead. The quality of memory seems to say, "There was a life here then,
and there is life now." As the mother in Death of a Salesman
declared, "Attention must be paid." Each one of the assemblage
paintings here has a presence, a personality of its own. Schwab's poetic
handling of materials captures an essence rarely experienced when dealing
with such difficult subject matter. Too often we see artists go over the
edge into hand-wringing helplessness when addressing loss. Not Schwab. He
approaches his canvas with both strength and delicacy, exhibiting a confidence
as well as a vulnerability. He uses materials not to lighten the darkness
but to disclose it. Flesh turns into a worn tennis shoe, a pair of eyeglasses,
a smashed empty can of beer, faded photographs, a doctor's medicine bag,
a tattered nightgown, scribbled notes, or a few dried roses.
On entering the main gallery, you are confronted with huge photographs,
one of a young man, another of an empty landscape, and still another of
an overturned automobile, its parts strewn along a stretch of deserted highway.
At first one is taken aback by the size of the pieces, but they draw the
spectator in to investigate bits of rusted metal, smashed debris, a tennis
shoe imbedded in gravel, or some barely decipherable notes collaged and
interspersed with the photos. tho enormity of personal tragedy is reinforced
by the size of the work.
These assemblages are a specific reference to a friend, a nineteen-year-old
killed in an auto accident. The young man's mother collected some of his
belongings, detritus gathered at the accident, and notes she jotted down
and brought to Schwab, asking him to use the bits and pieces in his work.
At the far end of the gallery is a separate installation entitled Trilogy
which consists of a stack of books topped by a blackened eagle, a charred
canvas and a rumpled overstuffed, tar-blackened chair. Scribbled names of
classic authors appear on torn pieces of cloth attached to the canvas, like
pages ripped from a favorite novel. The weathered chair rests nearby, an
old scarf strewn over one arm. The chair almost becomes a favorite teacher,
an old professor who conveyed a love of literature. The detail of the scarf
adds that human presence that is always a significant element in Schwab's
esthetic.
There are no faceless crowds in Schwab's abstractions. Each piece evokes
an image of an individual, real or imaginary. Also, although some of the
pieces are freestanding, they are not sculptures in terms of investigating
volume or mass. They are paintings that have come off the wall. Like paintings,
they are illusionistic narratives, a continued story. The story could be
the end of a love affair, the loss of a parernt or friend, the loss of innocence,
an homage to a heroic figure, or the recognition of a national tragedy.
Schwab is a natural storyteller who creates an experience. He poetically
reinforces the content with process, using the very shape of the work to
add another level of meaning.
The form of the cross that he uses may symbolize sacrifice or healing. Coincidentally,
the cross is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, signifying the end.
When he uses the unobtrusive rectangle shape, as in White on White (a
Portrait of Michael), the piece requires the kind of quiet, meditative
space that doesn't interrupt the moment . The piece has an inner strength
contained in its own image.
Schwab values memory, no matter how painful, in a way that paradoxically
communicates the importance of the present and a belief in the future. If
each of us were to be remembered with the tenderness expressed in Schwab's
art, we could feel our lives were more worthwhile.
