Jim Torok at Pierogi Gallery, Sept. 7-Oct. 8

This is a surprising show. Reading the press release I was very sceptical: "Jim Torok is schizophrenic, completely insane, and loves his mother. His one saving grace is his keen sense of humor. Torok is known for two bodies of work—both based on acute observation, but that is just the beginning. In one, he makes cartoon-style storyboard drawings that range from self-doubt to political correctness. These narratives are simultaneously hilarious and sobering, innocently optimistic and cynical. The other consists of his small, skillfully rendered portraits. This exhibition of new work will bring together both sides of Torok’s split personality".

I mean, I don't want to sound P.C. but I thought we had gotten over equating schizophrenia with split personality disorder a decade back or so. Also, I am suspicious of art that needs mental illness to justify it. Too often it is just a cynical attempt to either cash in on the buzz around outsider art or to pass off lousy work as interesting. Or both.


However Torok's work is both impressive and utterly charming. His cartoon strips are affecting in their simplicity. Reminiscent of Harvey Pekar in their resolute everydayness they are distinguished by the ability to bring a tighter focus to the minutae of life than Pekar. Those works that deal with the artist's uncertainty about global issues are tales familiar to many of us but I preferred the works that deal most directly with the artists life. The narrative arcs of these stories are often slight - e.g The artist goes to see a band. The end - but are all the more effective for that. To this end they often have the paradoxical result of almost producing a still-life - a small detail frozen and preserved.


This idea serves as the connection between Torok's cartoon work and his really quite superb portrait work on view in the back room. For these portraits too almost become still-life. The small dimensions and mainly black and white rendering immediately brings to mind Victorian death jewelry and lockets containing photos of the deceased. This is primarily an effect of the size of portraits and their relation to the white paper around them. They seem to freeze their subjects in a strange manner that isolates them and reduces to a memento or keepsake.


It is obvious by the careful rendering and the relaxed easy poses that most of the subjects are close to the artist (including himself, the closest of them all!). In this light it is interesting therefore that by transforming them into art, Torok's work also render them lifeless. The effect is becomes even more apparent when the miniature black and white portraits are contrasted with the larger color portraits which, though they recall both Chuck Close and Thomas Ruff's portraits, work according to a more traditional logic of portraiture.