I feel it ruins the aesthetics of the room, as well as the cohesiveness that the curators were trying to establish despite the challenge of having no coherent theme, but also, it is difficult to read and has a glare obstructing its view from many angles. It is a bold political statement about the issue of immigration and illegal invasion, which is not only reinforced by its size, but the way that it interrupts the entire space. However, that may not necessarily be a bad thing because it makes it stand out, but then again it can also allow for its neighboring pieces to be overlooked. Perhaps this is exactly what the artist intended--to spark discussion about his piece. Otherwise, in the first room, I feel that the pieces work fairly well together as a group, but are stronger if you view them in terms of each wall. For example the first wall on the left when you enter the gallery contains 4 paintings. One that stood out was ...on the grass, by Eileen Behnke.
The similarity on that wall is that each painting possesses some type of abstraction of space. The two outside paintings are the most abstract because they consist of a series of lines, while the inside two are abstracting life like Behnke’s abstracted composition of people lying on grass. I love the bold colors and the bright highlights in the flesh tones, as well as the perspective, which messes with your mind slightly. It appears normal when analyzing each figure individually, but when I assess the painting as a whole I find myself somewhat confused as to where I am viewing this from. It addresses the edges extremely well, allowing your eyes to move through the painting and I am very interested by the framing.
In the first room to the right from walking into the gallery, I was very attracted to the series of 4 photographs by Tyson Washburn titled Centennial Towers, Four Floors.
The space appears abandoned and eerie, especially with the dim lighting, the dark shadows, and the nighttime, which seeps in through the ‘windows’ in the background of the very industrial looking spaces. There are remnants of people’s presence there that make you wonder where the place is and what is going on there. It is a space I would love to explore myself. The four photographs work together in their divisions of space and the edges almost line up creating a cohesive view and in each photograph the darker spaces are surrounded by a sea of brightness--the lighter portions connect floors and ceilings to the photo next to it and you get the idea that there are different floors. Adjacent to this piece is a series of 2 portraits of a painted face. They are exactly the same picture, except for the addition of a neon green accent on the woman’s face--it is essentially a cropped faced surrounded, or enveloped by darkness. The stark contrast of color and darkness in these photographs makes the two pieces work well close to each other because although different in subject, they share the formal element of darkness enveloping the scene and high contrasts.
In the adjacent room there is a delicate, dream-like quality that pervades the works. There is an illustrated book of poems by Richard Tuttle and John Yau titled The Missing Portrait.
The book seems fragile and as you turn the pages, the play between the way that the text is printed and the simple illustrations of shapes, string, and cut out paper, works extremely well together. In the picture I chose, I love way that the text fades near the end of the sentence “...between light window closed,” and I feel it is a very good use of typology in helping to convey meaning through words. Also, the illustration calls to mind the Dadaist use of chance to form collages--it seems random and abstract in its use of shapes. To add to the dream-like state, the book even rests on a pillow--it is as if the thoughts are resting upon the pedestal it is displayed on. Next to this piece is a photograph that really emphasizes a nostalgic and dream-like quality called Double Vision #2 by Annie Hogan.
It is a layered image of the empty interior of a house with beautiful light cascading through its windows in a delicate matter that adds a stillness to the room, with the image of a small house, or shed that appears to be in the woods. Despite the action of splicing two different images together, you are able to distinguish the two pictures and I find that the images do not clash, or distract each other. The house, or shed that appears off center is extremely bright and appears to almost project from the windows in the room. It calls to mind the idea of memories and the home and feels as lucid as the imagery of dreams. Putting these two very different pieces together in the gallery space works extremely well together due to their relation to the state or act of dreaming and nostalgic qualities.
Overall, the show was put together very well despite the variety of works that were submitted and the limitations of not having a common theme.
In addition to the WLCM BCK show at the Mason Gross galleries, there were two separate shows divided amongst other rooms. In one, a tribute to the Mason Gross alumnus Lyda Craig. Consisted of a series of paintings, drawings, collages, and a few figures out of clay, which all seemed to pertain to the human form whether it be through the use of self portraiture, or simply studying the human body. The pieces vary in scale from bigger paintings and drawings to small works where you must get very close to fully experience the work--it creates a very intimate setting, like in Oregon, which is mixed media on panel.
It is a great example of Craig’s use of the human figure and her depiction of it using a combination of drawing and cut outs. There is a lot going on in the piece compositionally, with the overlapping of torsos and human figures creating space with such flat figures. I also enjoyed the pairings that were made, such as The Thinker, which appeared as a painting of a nude male from side profile sitting on a chair in a pensive position. It appears again as a miniature clay model and as a small scale cut out using paper. Having such variety not only made the piece more interesting, but it allowed for emphasis on the pondering figure, as well as different ways of looking at it. The painting emphasized lighting and color, which created tensions, while the clay figure lacked a similar detail, and the cut out became merely a silhouette of the man.
In the other room there was work by Jim Toia called Dissolving Gardens, which was being shown at Mason Gross in association with the Zimmerli Museum. On two opposite walls there were projections. One consisted of a frame built into the wall that displayed two overlapping videos of waves breaking on the shoreline and a mountain. The other consisted of an array of leaves and other pieces of outdoor objects on the wall with a video of leaves falling, which you must watch for a few minutes in order to actually catch because the action isn’t very consistent--it is like actually watching leaves fall off a tree. The entire room possesses an aura of tranquility, especially due to the sound of the ocean pervading the room, as well as the meditative quality of witnessing nature. It is an attempt to recreate a wholesome and peaceful experience that we can find in nature, through the manipulation of our senses of sight and sound.
No comments:
Post a Comment