Group Sh/ Deep Down
Todd Knopke
Todd Knopke’s style
is eclectic; it combines painting, photography, quilting and sculpture with elements
of homespun craft. Many of the pieces are playful – or perhaps dorky is
a more appropriate term. Some pieces give the impression that punk rock ceased
to be merely a past time occupation for the artist when it became a stylistic
modus operandi. There are a few photographs of stage-diving at a hard-core show,
a sculpture of a microphone stand connected to an amplifier, and a sketchy painting
of a children’s room that includes a looming science experiment.
Experimentation
runs throughout, giving way to several quirky and fun, albeit not so conceptually
weighty works: I Wanna Hear Whale Songs. Dunk My Head Under The Ocean And See
For Miles is a small wall-piece. It consists of a backlit image of an ocean scene
with colorful fishes, mounted in a wooden frame that functions as a holder for
two wine glasses. Painstakingly crafted to look like a flatscreen-maintenance-free-but-ambient-fishtank
and glass-holder in one, the gadget looks like something to be found in an interior-decorating
store, where every purchasable object is made for the yuppie who has everything
but wants more.
This is not your typical streamlined exhibition of an established artist’s
work, where the featured pieces appear as 20 variations of the same thing. Knopke’s
florid carnival of our marketable and consumer-oriented reality is a welcome
gesture. The meta-mockery is infused throughout the show. While the title of
the show on the one hand seems to whisper, “sssh, this is not a group show”,
Group Sh also addresses the hush that settles over a large audience in a gallery,
as they quietly observe what is collectively accepted as Art.
Despite all the confusion, the show does pick up the scatter and pull itself
together under the theme DEEP DOWN – referencing all that is subliminal
and hidden from view. A favorite under this heading is the piece “The Wolfman”,
which is Knopke’s interpretation of Freud’s famous case study. An enormous
tree fills the gallery space. Atop its branches sit five oversized, furry white
wolves. The scene was a recurring dream of one of Freud’s patients who,
through his bedroom window on a winter night, saw a group of white wolves staring
at him from a tree. These beasts, which were originally interpreted as a representation
of infantile sexual neurosis, manifest themselves as a pack of benevolent pups
in Knopke’s language of dreams. As they stare blankly into space with small
beaded eyes, all the original eeriness seems to evaporate.
Also in tune with
the subconscious theme, is a sculpture of a well mid-gallery. A look inside reveals
a small ladder, descending indefinitely into the dark hole. Knopke consistently
throws all the manifest signifiers of the unconscious into play, while bereaving
them of their unsettling mysteries.
Combining his signature “dorm room sensibility” with the thematic subliminal
message, Knopke has hollowed out a shoebox-sized closet near the gallery floor.
Decorated as a solitary disco, complete with hangers, wooden flooring, and a
rotating miniature disco ball, the closet takes on the incognito appearance of
a bookcase from the outside. Again, what is seen on the surface is not always
an indicator of what takes place within. But Knopke’s message on the matter
is always comforting. Behind the surface there are no skeletons, no monsters
– all you will find DEEP DOWN is a Lilliputian dance party.
