Live Large and Cast a Big Shadow
The gallery features high ceilings and a simple interior, with all of its available space commandeered by the work. The show emphasizes the relationship of individual excess to available resources, and sets the tone for the idea of a declining culture unable to regain perspective in its rush to Empire.
New York artist Gae Savannah’s Oblivion, an opulent over the top sculpture installation, attracts the eye like a glowing ornament, exuding the New Rococo pastiche of the Disneyland/Hollywood set. Yards of tropical fabric drape over a miniature bed, topped by a fourteen foot high lime green decanter that makes the whole resemble a giant perfume bottle. The interior is filled with bridal accessories, Christmas ornaments, and a profusion of shimmering materials all meant to boggle the senses. As it projects itself upward, vanity and personal fantasy engulf the tiny throne, leaving it overcome, like a Queen Bee of the capitalist consumer hive.
Going from overwhelming to understated, Latvian artist Arbuzo Virtmanis’ cardboard and packing tape interior of Air Force One steps up the dialogue with a drolly humorous model of the ultimate ride for the ultimate leader in Remote #1 (Emperor’s Bedroom). The low tech material is more commonly the stuff of backyard boyhood fantasy spaces, and underscores its symbolic role of American political might and power associated with the office of the President.
The politics of power and the leverage of superior weapons are the subjects of Chinese artist Shen Cheng Xu’s "The Super Power Animal No. 1." a quirky sculpture installation that features a scary kiddy toy-like spider with a grenade for a stomach and bristling rocket legs atop a web of chrome razor wire. Xu’s considerable technical abilities, formerly in the service of the Chinese government for its official monuments, have turned towards simpler pieces featuring ceramic heads of smiling babies since moving to the US. In this piece the childlike grin on the face of the blind spider brings Xu full circle into the realm of political satire that could be a 3-D version of an old political cartoon from the daily newspapers.
Politics and courage in the face of racism is exposed in the hauntingly beautiful"It wasn’t Little Rock," by veteran book artist Clarissa Sligh. This stunning piece quietly reveals a tale of personal experience in the monumental moments of American history during the years of change that led to the Civil Rights amendment and integration. The dehumanizing of others by those who were then considered upstanding citizens, is a warning to our current society, and the tactile experience of turning its stiffened pages with hands shrouded in white gloves multiplies the associations of meaning.
Personal reference of a different kind informs Linda Dennis’ Sweet Life – Meadow, a large figure painting surrounded by a huge baroque garland of Ivy. The haunting image depicts a nighttime scene of carnage with a romantic self portrait of the artist standing amidst a field of just killed comrades. The violence of the scene is juxtaposed against the beauty of new spring flowers and grass, and the woman’s very alive and vulnerable presence looming up from the bloodstrewn ground with hands raised to the viewers. The picture raises questions, but there are no answers. The figures on the ground wear no uniforms or other signs of identity that would explain the massacre. It is a scene without cause and only effect, leaving us to question ourselves.
Chinese/Brooklyn artist Pan Xing Lei’s monumental Da Mei Guo, (a Pinyin version of "Big America"), follows his recent direction of transforming traditional two dimensional characters into giant three dimensional sculptures that defy their bulk and weight with the lithe lyrical lines of the original ink models. The piece is painted in Red oil – his favorite color – and the color that represents good luck and happiness in Chinese culture. The traditional gold edging shows up in this case as borders of English words with loaded double meanings: Empire, Prepare to Fight Back, Global War, Nine Eleven, and so forth. The piece hangs from the ceiling hovering over the whole, like a divine cloud come over the land.
A mix of words and images is also present in Pennsylvania artist Matt Garrison’s series of computer graphic images that take his previous Swords in the Stone sculptures in a two dimensional direction. The tiny plastic condiment spears are blown up to become tall elegant crosses standing against a color saturated field with floating camouflage shapes behind them. On the bottom of each piece there are running bylines from news bureaus, with snippets of sentences related to the recent conflicts cleaved in two by the blade and the borders of each print. The solemnity of the work comes from its simple graphics and cool gradated colors. When seen in multiple they bear an unmistakable resemblance to military graveyards. Titles like Allegations, Journalists, Protected Web, US Response, etc, complete the image of war-time reference.
Fiction – Nonfiction, by German artist Isolde Kille continues the four panel scheme to make a larger piece, in this case climbing vertically. Here the panels are covered by glass and mirrors that engage the viewer directly. Kille positions recent advertising images from big American corporations alongside hand painted black and white abstractions that could be scenes of space. The marketing slogans become cryptic questions that include the viewer’s reflection of themselves coming back at them within the image. The switch over creates a metaphysical effect, a Zen like puzzle, with inferences about the part of imagination and choice in relationship to our future reality and environment.
The state of the environment and the evidence of excess are also very much apparent in Polish artist Pawel Wojtasik’s Dark Sun Squeeze, a video depiction of a sewage treatment plant.
Science is at work within the crisply designed concrete components looking not so different than large scale minimalist abstractions of a few decades ago. Sunlight sparkles on flowing rivers of brown liquid as they pool and divide into ceaseless waves of oncoming material. The dark humor is unmistakable, though it is presented in a cool documentary manner, with aesthetically pleasing editing where colors sparkle and textures collide.
Formal ingenuity and dark humor are also sharply presented in Charles Tisa’s low tech animated loops: The Rabbit Hole, and The Office Jerk. The figures tremble with life as Tisa’s computer aided lines carry his diabolical wit through narratives about encounters and their aftermath. Lonely characters in naked environments meet and dissolve, or explode in rage and violent death into a jumble of legs, arms and lines. The representation struggles to stabilize just as it deconstructs in emotion, bringing the passions and passivity of our times into form.
Finally, Wolfgang Stiller’s: Once Upon a Time There Was America revisits the example of Marsayas, with a full scale hide of an American SUV. The mammoth latex skin droops and sags, losing all strength and stability as it hangs like a giant used condom from the ceiling of the gallery. Hubris and its aftermath are lessons for us all, as we fight to fuel our personal transportation carriages of late twentieth century technology.
