Still Further South

In Still Further South, Carl Ostendarp has layered a sculptural mound of foam urethane onto a traditional stretched, flat canvas. The resulting effect is startling, suggesting oozing heaviness; the smooth, candy-colored surface is disrupted by the lumpy brown foam relief that threatens to overtake the painting below it. Adding to the work’s disconcerting qualities is Ostendarp’s choice of unusually sweet colors. These expansive color areas make reference to works by the color-field painters of the 1960s, as can be seen here in close juxtaposition (to your right, across the gallery). Like Jules Olitski, Ostendarp uses the medium itself as the form, the image and the content of the work of art. But Ostendarp complicates the matter by reflecting the three-dimensional investigations of sculptor Lynda Benglis’s 1969-70 poured polyurethane foam sculptures as well. This synthesis of two- and three-dimensional formats creates a hybrid object, more painting than sculpture, but painting still. Its precarious fight with gravity from its wall-bound site of presentation raises questions about painting’s ‘behavior.’ In Still Further South and related works, Ostendarp has attempted to combine major elements of formalist abstraction with self-conscious, almost comical references to art history. The resulting parodic reading of formalist painting is very typical of works made in New York in the early 1990s by artists of Ostendarp’s generation.