| At the glass façade of one of the more exposed, storefront-like white spaces in Chelsea, springtime gallery goers found themselves window shopping a colorful collage of rare and eclectic examples of early 90s cassette tapes, and right alongside a decent number of felt warrior characters reminiscent of Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth or of the Nickelodeon TV series “Eureka’s Castle.” While the combination of elements here may seem arbitrary to the casual passerby, apparently sound art (or, anti-music), plush sound machines, felt puppets and an accompanying simulcast back to the artist’s hometown of Houston make for ideal pairings to the mind of 20-something Texan artist Donna Huanca. |  |
Plush Heroics – Whitney May
At the glass façade of one of the more exposed, storefront-like white spaces in Chelsea, springtime gallery goers found themselves window shopping a colorful collage of rare and eclectic examples of early 90s cassette tapes, and right alongside a decent number of felt warrior characters reminiscent of Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth or of the Nickelodeon TV series “Eureka’s Castle.” While the combination of elements here may seem arbitrary to the casual passerby, apparently sound art (or, anti-music), plush sound machines, felt puppets and an accompanying simulcast back to the artist’s hometown of Houston make for ideal pairings to the mind of 20-something Texan artist Donna Huanca.
Taking as its premise “the future of music as played by puppets,” Huanca’s exhibition and accompanying performance, “The Philosophy of the World,” became an experiment in sound art based on the everyday sonic experience that was, literally, fleshed out by the likes of anti-musician “Dot” Wiggins of the Shaggs, electronic musician Leon Theremin as well as Huanca, the resident sound installation artist, herself. When the avant-garde sound performance played out by the puppets and their handmade instruments ended on opening night and the simulcast to Houston’s Lawndale Art Center was switched off, what remained after was a peculiar display of neon felt-attired, and Bolivian culture-inspired, figures representing Wiggins, Theremin and various warrior soldiers, all of which remained posed as if the not-so-musical audio still played on.
Even without the music and live puppetry, the exhibition of Huanca’s creations still delivered for its bizarreness, superb combination of materials and sound art-heavy, culturally driven and felt-realized, message. In her installation work, Huanca creates diverse plush environments meant to depict potential, although decidedly long gone, scenes from her genetic memory—her paternal Bolivian ancestry—as she alone could imagine it. Hard-edged, cold armor is completely resurfaced in plush since Huanca has discovered that the insides of old cushions, strips of clothing and plenty of shedding felt so successfully recast such hardened warriors in a softer and more neon-infused light.
Her Bolivian ancestors are made hip again, but they are also left unshielded, defenseless and comically immobilized. The strings attached may help them shift a limb or two enough to hit a drum, but this is done awkwardly, futilely. Their elaborate armor may be rendered anew here, but a heroic warrior in America today is all dressed up with nowhere to go. In this case, Huanca dubs the tambourine as worthy a pastime as any. After all, why not create anti-music, Huanca’s conception of music of the future, if the present is so clearly labeled as unfulfilling for such nobly attired characters as these?
Weaponry is traded in for drumsticks here, and the aftermath is pathetic. Who or whatever controls the strings from above maintains that music and/or the arts must function as the new Cause. No one should need armor these days. Instead, everything in America is comfy, soft and not worth fighting for. Pretty colors are nice, too.
Nearby, the likes of Che Guevara and his family grace the stage in a two-dimensional felt portrait. Huanca here asserts that, had the famous rebel stopped short or survived, this would be his future, along with the rest of us. Che may hold a baby in his arms and sit next to his three older children, his second wife and, apparently, the Guevera family’s resident pink pet triceratops in this depiction, but the former warrior couldn’t look more out of place or more restless in this plush domestic setting. While his wife’s 60s beehive and inviting smile demonstrate her well-adjusted modernity and appreciation of the domestic, Guevara and his out-of-place uniform refuse to settle into the background of the felt scene. He’s ready to bolt on to Bolivia, to his death if necessary, rather than to remain at home without a Cause for which to fight. Here is a warrior whose refusal to sit back and bide his time is written all over his face, and across the length of this otherwise happy family portrait.
Like Guevara, there have been and always will be some for whom strings, a tambourine and puppetry from above will never suit, yet Huanca laments the demise of such heroism for the rest of us. Perhaps the music of the future, though, will prove worth our wait.
