3-D crazy

Red Grooms's colorful pop-ups

by Leon Nigrosh

RED GROOMS: GAUGUIN, PICASSO, AND OTHERS IN 3-D At the Fletcher/ Priest Gallery, 5 Pratt Street, through May 13.

Charles Roger "Red" Grooms made a name for himself in the New York art scene in 1959 when he and his cohorts, writer Allan Kaprow and artists Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg, began creating and performing a series of imaginative and successful "Happenings." In 1975, Grooms, his wife, Mimi Gross (also an artist), and about 30 members of his Ruckus Construction Company startled and amused thousands of visitors with Ruckus Manhattan, a papier-mâché-and-plaster walk-in installation that depicted the crazy quilt that is New York City.

Even though his famous shock of hair is now a glistening silver, Grooms hasn't lost a beat. He still has the capacity to entertain us with his vibrant color lithographs and his latest 3-D lithographs -- a baker's dozen of which are now on display at the Fletcher/Priest Gallery. Grooms often draws his material from the icons of pop culture, managing to create larger-than-life caricatures that encompass the mythology of our heroes and legends without being demeaning. His 44x30" Elvis displays the King and all his flash -- standing in his classic, hip-shakin' pose in front of his Cadillac. In the background we see Priscilla, replete with her overpowering beehive 'do, just as she is about to enter a garishly rendered Graceland. The bright colors, the composition, and the overload of information create a loving and exuberant portrait of an entertainment idol who still lives in our hearts.

In Bull Rider, Grooms affectionately memorializes the vanishing breed of rodeo cowboys. A bright-shirted and chaps-bedecked figure clings crazily to a large bucking purple bull while, in the background, his appropriately bowlegged partners cheer on.

As stimulating and eye-catching as these flat prints are, they pale in comparison with his ingenious and masterful three-dimensional sculptures, produced in limited editions. Take the time to enjoy the wit and witticism of each object, and the craftsmanship as well.

Several of the works in the current exhibition depict famous artists in action, and in the case of his latest piece, the wall-mounted Jackson in Action, Grooms takes this quite literally. In order to properly convey the energy of his subject, Grooms has supplied his likeness of Jackson Pollock with two heads and six arms, which can be seen flailing above a paint-splattered canvas. Pollock's ubiquitous cigarettes appear everywhere among the piles of detritus, while his wife, Lee Krasner, watches approvingly through a rear doorway. In another wall piece, Pablo Picasso is represented in his usual stripped-down attire, robust, muscular, and bare-chested.

Picasso, too, holds his eternal cigarette as he works away at one of his many owl sketches. Nearby is one of his ceramic owls and behind him is his famous bicycle handlebars and seat Head of a Bull -- all of which are painstakingly rendered in cut and folded paper. In Groom's wall piece South Sea Sonata, we peek into a thatched hut to find a dissipated Gauguin, with a flower in his hair, working on an ink sketch while his young Tahitian wife looks on.

Reminiscent of Ruckus Manhattan, Grooms offers several 3-D wall views of his favorite city, including Times Square and Little Italy. Both are so crammed with multiple layers of impish images of people, vehicles, and buildings that you might just as easily get lost in the tumult if you were in the midst of the real city.

Grooms has imbued each of his works with a whimsical tongue-in-cheek attitude that is full of light, fun, and a lot of laughs. But be careful -- it's contagious.

The gallery is open Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. and by appointment. Call 791-5929.