At the Alexander Iolas Gallery Cply (William Copley) has a biggish show of paintings under the heading “Projects for Monuments to the Unknown Whore.” The pictures are all fantastic projections of erotic imaginings flavored agreeably with mild fetishistic elements. With one or two exceptions the compositions are scenes in which the artist’s personages (a blank-faced Kurvy Kutie with Bardot hair and an equally faceless gent in a herringbone tweed suit and a bowler) enact some tender drama. These gentle encounters, so nostalgically amorous, allow the observer to savor voyeuristically bordello idylls purged of all lust.
In this series Cply’s technique may best be characterized as broken-contour drawing in black paint, occasionally colored in with applications of clear pastel tints or just touched in with white. Several works are only drawing in black on unprimed duck or linen canvases but make the most sophisticated use of textures and patterns, squiggles and meanders, dottings and hatchings, to demonstrate an authentic compositional skill of a high decorative order. The enormous (nearly 8′ × 10′) My Father Plays Piano in a House of Ill Repute is an impressive virtuoso display of these rich ornamental features, jumping and flickering on the retina.
Near-abstract variations on Cply’s female critter, done in black and white on linen, billow and reverberate very much as do Leger’s early compositions of cylindrical volumes. This compositional strength is the factor that elevates the sweetness of the artist’s reveries above any sentimentalizing prurience. Furthermore, Cply’s skill in disposing his personages avoids visually literal specificity in order to let his formal ingenuity develop visions free of referential exposition. So, his fantasy exists only within the context of an a priori artistic identity. This essential point alone is the touchstone of Cply’s Surrealist accomplishment. The roiling decorative esprit, effervescent moods, and decisive execution are all gratuitous extras.
—Dennis Adrian
