Terrain Gallery / Aesthetic Realism Foundation logo. Aesthetic Realism was founded by the great poet and critic Eli Siegel.
"In reality opposites are one; art shows this." - Eli Siegel
EXHIBITIONS
TERRAIN / AESTHETIC REALISM FOUNDATION
Opposites in the Art of the Print

We are proud to present the work of 12 innovative contemporary printmakers. Whether abstract or representational, they hope all the marks, shapes, dots, colors, textures they make on stone, scratch on metal, cut in wood, fashion for silkscreen, and print on sheets of paper have a lasting meaning.That meaning is in how the opposites of reality work together. Brightness and depth, force and delicacy, playfulness and solid structure are one in every good print. And every person has these very opposites—and wants to put them together! Explained Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” 


• Click on the name of an artist to view a print •
D'ARCANGELO
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POZZI
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BERTANI
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NODA
BLACKBURN
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CONOVER
• KRISEL •
FREDERICKS
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KOPPELMAN
• •

Gallery Hours: Wed-Sat 2-5 pm
We are honored to have as a basis for this exhibition, a poem by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism, which brings new meaning to every instance of the printmaker's art. "The Print and the Siegel Theory of Opposites," in the music of its lines, has the economy and richness of printmaking, and explains why the print has been loved in all its various forms. 
 
   The Print and the Siegel Theory of Opposites
 
The print is a matter of RECESSION and GOING FORWARD.
Life is. Life is a making one of FROM and TO.
So is the print. There is BULK in the print and DELICACY.
Do recession and going forward, from and to, bulk and 
     delicacy, serve one purpose in the print, or two?
If they serve one purpose, and in the same place, that 
     much they are one.
Do EDGES and MASS serve one purpose in the print?
Is there a point where edge and mass are 
     indistinguishable, one thing?
Then edge and mass are opposites which are one.
Do WHAT YOU SEE and WHAT YOU DON'T SEE serve 
     something together in the print?
If they do, that much they are one.
Do STRAIGHT and CURVED make one in a line?
Do NOTHING and SOMETHING make one in a dot?
Is there FORCE-and-MUTING as one thing in the print?
Are MEANING and the VISUAL indistinguishable?
Did Rembrandt make LIGHT and DARK one in his prints 
     as he did in his paintings?
Are SURFACE and DEPTH one in today's print?
Are TECHNIQUE and IDEA one in today's print?
Are Dürer and the present day aquatint akin in that 
     they both blend WHAT THE EYE SEES and MEANING 
     THE  WHOLE PERSON FINDS?
Are FREEDOM and ORDER one in the print?
Are DETAIL and ONENESS,INSEPARABLE and SEPARABLE?
Are SAMENESS and DIFFERENCE one thing in the print?
Are FUSION and DISTINCTION about one thing, in one thing,
     in the print?
Do CONTINUITY and DISCONTINUITY serve both GOOD and EVIL?
Can the GROTESQUE and the SYMMETRICAL be one in the print?
Do CRUIKSHANK and KATHE KOLLWITZ meet in a certain 
     purpose, a certain objective, a certain procedure? 
If the answer to these questions can be honestly and essentially, 
     Yes, the power, fineness, success, beauty, effect of the 
     print has much to do with,  arises from, how OPPOSITES 
     are seen as one, made one, in the print of man, EARLIER 
     and LATER.
                        -ELI SIEGEL 
 
NOTE: About 1956, the founding director of the Terrain Gallery, Dorothy Koppelman, suggested that the theory of the oneness of opposites come to by Eli Siegel should be given the formal description "The Siegel Theory of Opposites." Hence, the title of his poem.
    For instance, FREEDOM and ORDER surprisingly assert themselves in the jaunty bi-planes and measured geometries of Joyce Arons' color lithographs. In the flat bright colors of Harold Krisel's silkscreens there's a FREEDOM, a wild, even satirical imagination, and the surprise of irregularity is delightful within the ORDER of the rectangle.

     WHAT YOU SEE and WHAT YOU DON'TSEE interplay provocatively in Steven Stankiewicz' books of etchings-each page of Trains has us travel to new, unexpected places. CONTINUITY and DISCONTINUITY move us in the simultaneously majestic and crumbling structures etched by Robert Conover.  There is such love of MEANING and the VISUAL in the prints of Chaim Koppelman.  Stephen Fredericks, in his delicate Feathers has NOTHING be at one with SOMETHING on a lovely pale and mysterious surface.  And Robert Blackburn's vigorous black and white shapes make us think of landscapes, even as we respect the possibilities of ink, stone, and deep thought about WHAT THE EYE SEES and MEANING THE WHOLE PERSON FINDS.
     Etching, aquatint, embossment, woodblock, lino­cut, lithograph, silkscreen, monotype-each of these is a means of the world and our own lives taking on honest, pleasing form-in keeping with, as we say above, the central idea of Aesthetic Realism, stated by Mr. Siegel: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." 
TERRAIN GALLERY   AESTHETIC REALISM FOUNDATION  ONLINE LIBRARY
141 GREENE ST., New York City   In SoHo, off West Houston
(212) 777- 4490

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