Looking East : Brice Marden, Michael Mazur, Pat Steir /

This physically and intellectually slim catalog of a 2002 exhibition carries the premise that the three artists presented "looked East" in order to reorient the language and nature of their own artistic visions. The 21 paintings exhibited, all produced in the last 15 years or so, are discussed in relation--not always direct--to a process of reorientation through confrontation with actual works of Asian painting and calligraphy and various kinds of intellectual curiosity about the motivating art theories of Asian scholar-painters. The principal essay rehearses the development of each painter against the formative experience of each and the "tradition" of "Looking East" evidenced in the work and practice of modernist predecessors in the New York school of abstract expressionists. The second essay establishes the earlier interest of abstract expressionist painters in Asian thought as a source of inspiration for the artists exhibited. The weakness in the discourse stems--in part--from the fact that "East" is never defined with any precision, as though Japanese art traditions and Chinese painting theory are not distinctly different cultural, historical, and aesthetic entities. Apart from references to Jonathan Hay's thoughtful commentary on Marden's engagement with Chinese calligraphy, the treatment of the Asian model is not very strong. Exhibition checklist; artists' chronologies and bibliographies; 16 color plates. Professionals. D. K. Dohanian emeritus, University of Rochester