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ART PICK OF THE WEEK LA Weekly 9/23 - 9/30 1999 Art Review of Alex Grey exhibition Rico Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (Aug 14- Oct 10) ALEX GREY Alex Grey
commands a stunningly exacting technique, painting with the precision
and detail of a cartographer or anatomical draughtsman. Indeed, he maps
the human body in nearly every rendering, turning the skin transparent
and depicting vessels and viscera in place, whether the body in question
is standing up or lying down, giving birth or dying, copulating or discoporating.
(To add to the visible-man/woman spectacle, just put on the special specs,
and everything pops into 3-D.) Grey is a fervid psychedelophile, and his
vision conflates religious, non-religious and post-religious belief into
an extended hyperspiritual trip. Panels from two multiptychs, "Nature
of Mind" and "Sacred Mirrors," anchor the show (which also includes several
individual paintings, a drawing series, and an MPEG video concerning a
chapel project to house one or both the multiple works). All this mind-blowing
imagery can seem naggingly factual one minute, transporting and otherworldly
the next. Is Grey a transcendent genius? Or is he a metaphysical Norman
Rockwell, literalizing experiences and states of being whose essential
ineffability resists depiction? Something in between, and he's damned
--Peter Frank
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