Misstropolis

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Hanging with Jack Nicholson’s only Part of the Story

by Robin Hauck

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A little while ago I received a nice note from a Brighton-based artist named Anne Silber. “In addition to selling my limited edition serigraphs to ‘real’ people for homes, corporate offices, hospitals, etc.,” she wrote, “I have developed a fairly extensive clientèle in Hollywood and my artwork has appeared in scores of feature films and TV series.” Like many others in the media (The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine) I was immediately intrigued by Silber’s involvement with Hollywood.

When we met she gave me a list of all the movies and television shows in which her artwork had appeared. On and on it went, Almost Famous, August Rush, The Bucket List, Charlie Wilson’s War, Minority Report, Rushmore and The Departed, Chicago Hope, Commander-in-Chief, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, House, The O.C, The West Wing and The Young and the Restless were among the names in the long, long list.

Being recognized by Hollywood as an artist whose still lifes, landscapes and abstracts get along well with other members of the cast and other elements of the production design has given Anne Silber a bankable niche and a publicity angle. She can work full time as an artist and pay the bills, and it’s not bad being able to say her art has played alongside some of the world’s leading men and women either. But Silber is savvy to the way her story reflects the larger cultural phenomenon effecting artists in all different media and genre.

The brush with stars, movies and Hollywood has brought Silber exposure, but the focus has been on that proximity rather than on the art and the tradition out of which it comes. As with reality tv stars and “IT bags” the cultural value as assigned by the media is superficial and misplaced. The real story, the true excitement about Silber’s work - the tradition of her chosen medium - serigraphy, the intensity of the artistic process, the complexity of her limited edition prints, risks being undermined by the big names on that list.

Of course she is happy about the attention the Hollywood exposure has given her, Silber says, and she works hard to make sure she is on the minds of as many production designers and set decorators as she can contact. But she also worries that the focus on television and movie placement will diminish the appreciation of the many many years of very hard work she has poured into her art. In a Boston Magazine article in September for example, writer Andrew Restuccia states that “the best way to see Anne Silber’s paintings is to “click on your favorite show – and pay attention to the set backgrounds.” In addition to mistaking Silber’s serigraphs for paintings, Restuccia marginalizes the seriousness of her art by focusing only on the placement of the work on the big and small screen.

Silber makes serigraphs, limited edition fine art prints created using a silk-screen technique, (from the Greek seri (silk) and graph (write or draw)). Not to be confused with the rudimentary screen-printing technique used by underground cultures and big in the DIY movement or the mass-production of silkscreen t-shirts or posters, Silber’s process is painstakingly detailed and methodical.

Like the participants in the Subversive Knitting movement as profiled last issue by Susan Graage though, Silber is an artist taking a craft with high/low tension in its cultural understanding and forcing it to the high. Look closely at Silber’s prints. Her work plays with perspective, depth, rhythm, pattern, all the while maintaining a strict control and or honesty in her compositions. Heavy contrast questions issues of surface and artificial representation.

Rosemary Noon, Director of Communications and Cultural Affairs at Regis College observes that “Silber’s layered colors, her atmospheric spaces, her respect for the beautiful details of her surroundings, awaken us to these qualities and invite us to participate in the serenity she sees.” Regis held a major show of Silber’s work and Noon spent many hours with it, studying and understanding it. I can see where she experienced a serenity. But I think it’s critical to also notice the dramatic contrast in much of Silber’s work that gives it a darker more ominous side. And it is my belief, that whether consciously or unconsciously, this tension between the serenity and the ominousness is one of the things that attracts set designers as well as curators and collectors.

Some almost have a paint by number feel to them. In this sense some of Silber’s serigraphs remind me of the work of Rowena Dring, the English artist who uses textile handicrafts to make a statement about the high art of representational painting.

Because if all Anne Silber’s artwork could do was fade into the background, it wouldn’t be in the collections of some of the world’s largest corporations and museums like The Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, the Worcester Art Museum, Boston Public Library, Bank of Tokyo, Fleet Bank, Motorola, Pfizer, Inc and Hallmark, Inc in Kansas City, MO. It’s great hanging with Jack, Leonardo, Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey. Let’s just be sure they appreciate everything Silber’s artwork brings to the picture.