Victor Macarol - heightening our sensesby Bernice Paglia The pièce de résistance is Victor Macarol's series of six New York street scenes. Macarol, named a Distinguished Artist of the Year by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, shows us why in this compelling series. The technical skill of the artist strikes us with positive impact even as he shocks us with the degradation of his subjects. In the first [portrait], we see a gaping hole where the leg of a large baby doll has been ripped from its torso, Violated, with tights pulled down, the doll lies nonetheless with hands raised sweetly and a beatific smile among a jumble of baskets and boxes in the bed of a truck. A second portrait shows a derelict absorbed in his bottle. His head and hands stand out hellishly at the base of a shadowy scrawled wall. One hand guides the bottle while the other encircles the screw-on top, punctuating with its simple whiteness the chthonic tableau. In the third, a doorway frames a sleeping form, shopping cart to one side, a flowered guitar case before. The slumbering streetpersons's gloved hands rest lightly on the case and his own body in a dreamy parody of possession and repose. Number four, the only one where an allusion may be too obvious, has four huddled figures lying on the street in alcoholic stupor below a huge arrow indicating where to park. The beggar in number five sits under a shop window that mirrors busy people - a longhaired youth and a rugby-shirted man - with somewhere to go. Verticals of the window frame are echoed in the derelict's sweater, tied around his neck with arms dangling over his filthy chest. He extends his own arm horizontally, coins gleaming in his palm, a cigarette between his fingers. I am homeless, his bold stare says: Do you care?
The last, and most shocking, again has the human form slumped at the bottom. Here, below twin sets of posters in Chinese and Spanish, a barely pubescent female child sprawls in drugged-out incomprehension. Her tossing head is blurred: all too distinct are her forming breasts beneath a tight cut-off jeans shorts. At the end of her gangly legs are dirty sneakers and kids' athletic socks.
These vignettes heighten our sense both of connection and alienation as humans. At other times Macarol has given us less harsh explorations of these themes. This series, more extreme, is important to see, both as part of Macarol's oeuvre and as a gauge of our * Review of the exhibition "From the Imageworks Collection" at Imageworks Gallery, The Plainfield Today, New Jersey _____________________________________________________________ "...Victor Macarol's credits include many international shows, currently at one of the most prestigious gallery [Galerie Zur Stockeregg in Zurich] in Switzerland where he was chosen to represent "American Photographers of the 20th Century." He received fellowship awards from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and serves now on a panel selecting artists for such awards. Following the one-man exhibition, Macarol will be heading abroad for four international shows this year."
* From the earlier article on the one-man exhibition: "Victor Macarol at Imageworks Gallery" by Bernice Paglia, ____________________________________________________________
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