Estate of Stan Dann

Stan Dann, who was born in British Columbia and currently lives in California, is another kind of artist entirely. Dann’s solo debut, “Shoes and Things” featured sculpted wood reliefs, painted in lacquers as bright and shiny as a new car, that captured the comical and sometimes surprisingly poignant qualities of common objects. 

The piece called “Lynda’s Shoes” is an excellent example of Dann’s ability to imbue his reliefs with a lived-in, human quality. These gaudy women’s shoes, with their square toes, chunky heels, and clunky buckles, suggest a stylishness as faded as the dreams of a former flower child. The wrinkles across their instep, however, bespeak a sadness far deeper than the fickleness pf fashion.  

“Two Hats,” another large relief by Dann wittily juxtaposes an old fashioned man’s fedora and a baseball cap. Its effect is to produce nostalgia for an era when one could separate the men from the boys by the type of hat they wore. Now everyone, male and female, from eight to eighty, sports the same casual cap. We’ve all become team players in the effort to conform to an absurdly youthful ideal, and Dann seems to be telling us that it’s a damn shame.  Although shoes, ranging from wingtips to Keds, from Wicked Witch of the West Shoes to Tassel Loafers, each vibrantly colorful and possessed of its own distinctive personality, dominated this exhibition, Dann also brought his lively post-Pop with to bear on other objects such as a chair, a baseball glove, a whisk broom, and a three string viola. 

The latter musical instrument, with its brilliant red, purple, and blue colorations and its sensual, almost Picasso-Esque distortions, emphasized the formal qualities that make the painted and carved wood reliefs of Stan Dann aesthetically appealing as well as witty. 

“Stan Dann, Shoes and Things” at Allan Stone Gallery, New York.  

Reviewed by Ed McCormack, Gallery and Studio, September/October 2000