{"id":1090,"date":"2009-09-20T14:11:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T21:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/09\/r_allen_jensen_-_the_long_star\/"},"modified":"2009-09-20T14:11:58","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T21:11:58","slug":"r_allen_jensen_-_the_long_star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/09\/r_allen_jensen_-_the_long_star.html","title":{"rendered":"R. Allen Jensen &#8211; the long stare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>R. Allen Jensen allows a rare (to me) sighting of his work on Oct. 2, when he opens at the <strike>Smith &amp; Valley<\/strike> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithandvallee.com\/gallery\/exhibitions\/r-allen-jensen-rework\">Smith &amp; Vallee Gallery<\/a> in Edison, with a reception for the artist Oct. 3, 5-8.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rallenjensenstdo.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/rallenjensenstdo.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"341\" width=\"401\" \/><\/span>Jensen has been making his deformed scarecrows, ruined collages, deft drawings and ornately framed assemblages for more than 40 years. His paintings are scores for a disaster, giving mourning a shape and sealing it into art. Writing about Jensen&#8217;s work in 1969, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tom_Robbins\">Tom Robbins<\/a> (then an art critic), put his finger on the strengths of it, that it has &#8220;lyric subtlety&#8221; and &#8220;pictorial breath&#8221; while also being &#8220;brutalized, ugly and blatantly erotic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(Photo, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/haroldhollingsworth\/sets\/72157604518980928\/\">Harold Hollingsworth<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rallenjensenyng.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/rallenjensenyng.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"492\" width=\"369\" \/><\/span>Brutalized, ugly and erotic are good words to describe Jensen&#8217;s nuclear scarecrows. His spindly grotesques have some of the power that gargoyles perched on the entryway ledges of cathedrals must have had for the medieval faithful. They are genuinely frightening.<br \/>\nHis assemblage drawings bring unimagined levels of delicacy to the horror of Jensen&#8217;s position. <\/p>\n<p>(Photo, Harold Hollingsworth)<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rallenjensenplug.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/rallenjensenplug.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"577\" width=\"450\" \/><\/span>Death delicately done becomes a minuet, and the clatter of teacups reminds us of the razor&#8217;s edge. Hollingsworth, a former student, wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/haroldhollingsworth.blogspot.com\/2006\/07\/r-allen-jensen.html\">this appreciation<\/a> in 2006.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>R. Allen Jensen allows a rare (to me) sighting of his work on Oct. 2, when he opens at the Smith &amp; Valley Smith &amp; Vallee Gallery in Edison, with a reception for the artist Oct. 3, 5-8.&nbsp; Jensen has been making his deformed scarecrows, ruined collages, deft drawings and ornately framed assemblages for more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}