James Castle Was a World Unto Himself
These works feel almost metaphysically transportive — like a universe bound by a different set of rules that’s a pleasure to explore.
Pull open the heavy gold door of a beige Upper East Side townhouse, step inside the claustrophobic space of “one of the slowest elevators on the planet” (as a charming printed sign confirms), and enter the one-room, dark-wood Rodder gallery to find yourself in the strange oasis of James Castle’s art.
Castle — born deaf on a rural Idaho farm on the eve of the 20th century and isolated from the circuits of the art world his entire life — seemed to have arrived independently at some of the most radical tenets of mid-century abstraction. He combined pieces of scrap paper, sometimes hoarded for decades, with soot bound by saliva to create formally gorgeous works that revel in the way ink ripples across the page, or cardboard can bend like a body. Dimensions presents 14 of these, among them grayscale drawings, color images, assemblages, and text pieces.
Check out the medium line for “Untitled (shooting stars)” (undated): “color of unknown origin on found paper.” It’s a tiny, unevenly thick piece of paper splotched by a light wash of blue and gray ink, suggesting to me the point where sea meets earth — this, from landlocked Idaho.
Indeed, we talk often about the transportive power of art, but these feel literally, almost metaphysically, so — as if we’re entering a universe bound by a different set of rules that it’s a pleasure to explore. “Untitled (Door)” (undated), rendered on what looks like balloon-dotted wrapping paper, depicts a pair of disembodied doors, set against no edifice except for the picture plane itself. Meanwhile, “Untitled (Diptych)” (undated) uses that same paper as the backdrop of a peculiar, yin yang-like work in which robed figures stand at different distances behind a chain link fence. Who is that at the door?
One of my favorite pieces in this exhibition is “Untitled (Time Magazine Book)” (1933–40). In it, Castle creates a postcard of sorts, complete with hand-drawn stamps — a testament to how far the imagination can travel.
"Untitled (Small Blondie)" (undated), found paper, flour paste, soot
James Castle: Dimensions continues at Rodder gallery (22 East 80th Street, Fifth Floor, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through February 14. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
