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Lively, playful geometric works of art for fun

By JENNIFER STEWART
Published July 16, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS - Art receptions aren't always lively and playful.

But with the bright primary colors and busyness of MADI art as inspiration, how could this one not be?

The term "MADI," coined in 1946, doesn't seem to stand for anything. And the movement began when a repressive regime ruled Argentina, but MADI wasn't necessarily a response to that.

Founder Carmelo Arden Quin aimed for geometric work without meaning or symbolism.

"This is fun. It's all kinetics," Mary Sue Taylor of New Port Richey said recently while looking at artist Volf Roitman's rotating pieces at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art.

The opening reception for "A Celebration of Geometric Art" drew about 150 guests the night of July 8. In addition to reception staples like artwork, wine and hors d'oeuvres, the event featured a contest for best geometric attire, with many contenders, and a play.

More than a dozen artists, including Arden Quin, whom Roitman studied with, are featured in the exhibition.

Most of the pieces came from the collection internationally acclaimed artist Roitman shares with his wife, writer Shelley Goodman. The couple have homes in Ireland and west Pasco.

"I can't imagine any house in Holiday holding all this stuff," Taylor's friend Jeanne Reese of New Port Richey commented at the reception.

Guests meandered through the North and South galleries, which hold the MADI pieces, and the Leepa Gallery, where the museum provided snacks and desserts.

Visitors also passed through long hanging banners that are "Walk Through a Painting" to enter the Interactive Gallery, an energetic, intimate space. At the reception, wine was served within walls lined with phrases made with giant magnetic poetry words and quotes by artists like Jackson Pollock.

The interactive gallery also features the only full-scale reproduction of Pablo Picasso's 1937 cubist masterpiece Guernica.

Below the painting is a wooden stage where actors from the museum's Avenue Players Theatre performed Roitman's Thaswachuthinck! during part of the reception. The play, which Roitman wrote in 1956, is in a genre called "theater of the absurd."

Diane Forgione of New Port Richey, director of Avenue Players Theatre, said they had planned for guests to wander in and out of the theater space after getting a glass of wine or before heading to another gallery.

"Instead," Forgione said, "they all came in and sat down and stayed."

One of Roitman's most notable accomplishments is the zany MADI Museum and Gallery, which is also the Kilgore Law Center, in Dallas, Texas.

Roitman and Goodman want to make a local building similarly funky, and Goodman hopes it can serve young people in Pasco. "There's not even a cafe there," she said. "If I had a teenager in Pasco County, I would have no idea what they could do."

Goodman's goal is to "have a youth center, and have it really MADI and crazy-looking outside, but inside, safe and fun."

Jennifer Stewart writes about social events and personalities in Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6231. Her e-mail address is jstewart@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 22:10:22]