Michael Loderstedt, Busta Room 2, 2020, digital image.

These are empty hours, like times when you lay in bed, awake, uncertain of sleep.  Usually the arts celebrate direct engagement, experience that is intellectual and emotional and physical all at once.  In our current art life, mostly online, there are always things that are lost in translation, in the generations of reproduction.  Simply put, standing in front of a painting is different from seeing an image of a painting flash by in Facebook or Zoom.   And while art may be present in virtual media, I don’t think virtual experience has the capacities to build community that is so much a part of experiencing art with each other.

In the pause of these empty hours some of us are paying more attention to things that we tragically and recklessly glossed over when we were busier.  The new work of Dexter Davis, speaks to this moment with all the urgency and emotional honesty that his work has had all along.  Isaac B, illustrated here, is in part inspired by the Andrea del Sarto (Italian 1486-1530) painting The Sacrifice of Isaac, in the Cleveland Museum of Art.  And, in turn, it was inspired by the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, in which God asked Abraham to kill his son to prove his faith.  The humanity in most of us insists that life is more important than obedience, that any authority has an essential moral imperative to be just.

At some time in the fall, William Busta Projects (WBp) will open an office in the Waterloo Arts District.  The office will house the archives and resources from the William Busta Gallery, such as several cabinets of artists’ files; an extensive collection of artist monographs; runs of CAN Journal, Angle Magazine, Dialogue, May Show catalogs from 1945-1993; and brochures and yearbooks of the William Busta Gallery. WBp will sponsor art projects in the neighborhood and in the larger Cleveland community, publish artist books and editions; and occasionally present small exhibitions.  The first of these will be work by Dexter Davis.

Dexter Davis, Isaac B, 2020, mixed print/collage: found paper, pastel, watercolor, tempera, block print, 14 x 10.5 in.