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If It Ain’t Broke
Gallery 138
By Ola
Manana
In a television interview, presidential candidate Barack
Obama discussed the role that race plays in his life by noting
that it is sometimes hard for him, as a black man, to catch
a cab. Is this just a way for the candidate to gain sympathy,
or is the stereotype of a black person unable to catch a taxi
a fact of life in the United States in 2007? If it Ain’t
Broke, a thought provoking group exhibition, looks at race
in our society today by drawing on such contemporary examples.
In the work, Counting (11and 12 of 12), Kianga Ford asks
whether or not race is quantifiable. In one corner of the
room are two blackboards with what appear to be mathematical
equations written all over them. A headset plays a generational
history of the Nat King Cole family, in a soft female voice.
Here, Ms Ford is appears to address race by making the idea
of race itself seem ridiculous. The voice is methodical, sweet,
non-threatening; like a student reading a paper about family
history. Its quiet reasoning underscores the absurdity of
the equations. scene of a crime. It is an oversized snapshot
of a section of road from the town where Emmett Till, young
teenager visiting his uncle in Money, Missisipi in 1955 was
beaten and shot to death for whistling at a white woman. The
darkly humorous companion piece, Prayer Helps, near Meadville,
MS offers another dreary small town scene showing a gas station
in the middle of nowhere. A sign outside reads “Prayer
Helps” with a phone number to call. Several non-descript
cars are seen in the parking lot. In the distance behind the
gas station, there are some trees. Apparently, the murder
of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, by Klansmen,
occurred within some proximity to this in the nearby Homochitto
National Forest.
Shiela Pree Bright’s Suburbia Series explores suburban
life in the context of African-American culture. In one piece,
a pink house with white trim peeks out from well-groomed shrubbery;
in another, a pair of candy-red heels rests on pristine cream
colored carpeting conversing with an equally rosy handbag
that dangles from the stairwell. And in another, a vase of
peach roses seems to be the subject, if it’s not the
health-drink or the slice of cake. The background holds a
blurry image of a slender female, in running shorts, typifying
the kind of leisure life associated with the American dream.
Which brings us back to the original question; how is it
that in 2007, while a black man can finally “ride in
the front of the bus” he nevertheless can’t be
sure to catch a cab? Brookie Maxwell’s drawings dwell
on this point. She set some folks up to see if they would
do what they would do normally. Using several actors, a good
looking black investment banker with a baby, a younger looking
black teenager in a sweat-suit, and a father and son, dressed
for church, Ms Maxwell brought her camera for an experiment.
The result, a series of beautiful portraits in pencil that
are made to look roughly like film stills. The subjects, who
are depicted hailing a cab, are shown watching the driver
pass them by. Their expressions reflect disappointment and
uncertainty — then anger. The arm of the man holding
a baby seems strong, the child is unaware, secured effortlessly
by one gesture. His coat is smooth; his face is kind. He seems
stranded. The teenager grimaces. The father-son team seems
ready to give it another go.
Rare as it is to see depictions of people who are not white
portrayed, at all, in a fine art setting; these portraits
have a double purpose. Not only does their very existence
challenge the unmentionable “white wall” of the
art world, but they also capture the present day indignities
faced every day by people of color.
If It Ain’t Broke looks at many angles of racism in
America today, from trying to catch a cab to trying to survive
Hurricane Katrina. In doing so, these artists remind us that
art can still have meaning beyond the white wall.
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The Building Show
Exit Art
By Ola Manana
Buildings take up a kind of space in the psyche of every
New Yorker, whether we are presented with the neo-gothic beauty
of St. Patrick's Cathedral, or the dated modernity of the
glass boxes that seem destined to replace all of the maisonary
masterpieces that once defined the New York skyline. Spaces
have a psychological quality that affects us on many levels.
They have individual histories; they show their age.
The Building Show combines the work of thirty different artists
in a group exhibition that focuses on the various concepts
surrounding "The Building." In Emily Katrencik's
Project for Edward Durell Stone's Gallery of Modern Art at
2 Columbus Circle, a circular tent made from a web of amber
colored lollipops is strung together with fishing line and
dangles in a vertical web from the ceiling. Light glows through
the hardened syrup only to be deflected by little bits of
white marble that are stuck in the candy. The marble, salvaged
from a construction site, is being replaced by glass now.
The viewer is invited to take a lollipop. This piece focuses
on the line between consumption and deconstruction, offering
a light and airy space to contemplate a "tongue in cheek"
commentary on the impermanence of our structures, however
solid their brick and granite foundations and soaring steel
girders make appear.
In the video, The Prora Complex, Nuna Cera tours the Prora
Complex, a holiday getaway complex that was founded by the
Nazi's to accommodate 20,000 people. With the defeat of Hitler’s
Germany, the building has lost its purpose; now its oversized
accommodations only serve as shelter for passing birds. The
hallways seem endless, as the slow zoom passes through one
doorway and is swallowed by the next. Wallpaper flutters on
the wall. Edging past shiny black tile and a luxury bathtub
the artist comes upon a matching sink that appears to have
been yanked out of its plumbing and shattered in the middle
of the floor. Sunlight illuminates the dust rising through
the air, cumulating in a cloud that eventually whites out
the screen. This action mirrors the slow process of obliteration,
beyond that of the building itself.
In a work by Marion E. Wilson, a similarly creepy history
connects a suburban residence to a horrific crime. Entering
John Jamelske's House is an artwork about the residence of
a man convicted in 1996 of keeping young girls in a dungeon
for extended periods of time for reasons that can easily be
deduced. The artist addresses her feelings about this crime,
and the close proximity of the criminal's residence to her
own (just a mile away). On the floor, a six inch stack of
newspaper clippings tells the story of the man described as
“non-descript”. A collection of cubes painted
to roughly resemble the bluish exterior is arranged in an
abstract cluster suggesting a section of the house. The video,
embedded into one of these rectangles, is placed much lower
than eye-level, forcing the viewer to watch the screen in
a crouched position. The video shows blurry drive-by footage
of the house, and shots of the interior combined with ominous
sounding piano music and a man who appears in shadows; the
faceless horror that drives nightmares. The mini-mock-up of
the house makes tangible the confusion of a bizarre crime.
Further along the same theme, Seth Weiner's full-scale replica
of the Unabomber's cabin seems particularly strange in a gallery
setting. Very authentic looking, the smooth wooden floor of
the cabin reverberates as a synthesized recording of a Thoreau
reading is played through weird machines. The reverberations
in the small space cause a disorienting effect, evocative
of a dark forest suddenly materializing in the heart of a
bustling city.
This show doesn’t only address the psychological aspects
of buildings, there are formal pieces such as Heidi Nelson's
drawings that show the movement of the shadow of a tall building
throughout the day, mapping its route through the neighborhood.
Noah Loesberg's Cardboard Cornices is installed in a cluster
in startling enormity near the ceiling. It's boxy florets
go along for about twenty feet and introduce a surreal aspect
to architectural ornimentation. Cardboard, as a building material
generally associated with the make-shift shelters of homeless
people, makes the gaudy cornices seem even more strange.
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Duncan Wylie
Virgil de Voldere Gallery
By Mary Hrbacek
A painter from Zimbabwe, Duncan Wylie catalogues
the helter-skelter debris that has resulted from a building
demolition project in Zimbabwe. Over one million people were
made homeless as a result of “Operation Drive Out Trash,”
a cataclysmic activity pursued by a government that has apparently
turned upon its own population. This series of paintings adds
to Wylie’s previous group of works which focused on
demolitions taking place in Gaza when he was visiting the
Middle East in 2005.
Under such circumstances, government officials
typically restrict the work of photographers, leaving the
task of bearing witness to the most innovative souls. This
artist has painted images that hinge on recollections and
narratives of events witnessed. The works capture the frenzy
of crumbling structures and flying fragments, succeeding largely
by creating a “frozen moment” that suspends time
as a photograph would. Perhaps the bright daylight that saturates
the broken forms uniformly in an opaque white light, with
white paint, accounts for this effect. The phenomenon suggests
the spontaneity of a snapshot. Many of these compositions
have a spinning, rotating pictorial superstructure that remains
curiously fixed in time. The effect is mesmerizing; it gives
the viewer freedom to be visually involved in the experience
while keeping an emotional distance.
Wylie’s uncanny technical prowess with
the depiction of seamlessly flowing matter metaphorically
strikes a comparison with the “Big Bang,” linking
his images to visions of destruction on a cosmic scale. The
viewer is simultaneously reminded of Renaissance art. The
artist’s painterly vision alters these scenes from an
emotionally wrenching human catastrophe, triggered by humans
against humans, to a visually stunning spectacle of destruction
that resembles elaborately eroded rock formation in a national
park. Here the view is a close-up, which provides an odd stillness,
the aftermath of devastation. The composite images, grafted
together, transcend reality to make a larger statement about
the issue of destruction and regeneration that governs life
on a universal format. Wylie’s skillful rendering gives
convincing verisimilitudes to details, highlighting the workings
of a visual mind with unusual powers of recall. While some
photographs captures a “still” moment, relegating
that moment to the past, these paintings have the capacity
to sustain that moment as an experience that resonates in
the present.
Several compositions capture the abstract visual
beauty that results from the impact of a giant coral colored
crane scooping shards off a dazzling concrete surface. The
green trees that peep forward from behind the pale warm wood,
glowing in the light of day, contradict the sense of destruction
that is catalogued in the image. The decimated skeletal superstructure
of a multistory building reveals blue sky and white clouds,
flooding its gaps in a gorgeous portrait of damage. A close-up
of a gaping hole and sliding glass door surrounded by fragments
of the brick vicera of a lovely white house makes an elegant,
quasi-ironic statement.
As Wylie zooms in on compositions entirely comprised
of nondescript debris, he applies more pure color, picking
up orange-red tones with blue and green touches. He manages
to focus on at least one recognizable bit of rubble, thereby
retaining a representational signature to works that veer
toward pure abstraction without achieving that stage of reduction.
The presence of a sliver of visual background information
keeps the piles of matter recognizable for what they are.
Although there is sometimes a blur where a machine takes action,
a hint of centripetal force holds each picture in a unified
artistic structure. The poetry of destruction and rebirth,
which permeates artificial forms, mimicking nature’s
reruns of death and rebirth, is played up here, astonishingly,
without sentiment or sadness. The knowledge of these cycles
provides hope that even this grinding damage will be replaced
by some future development. Wylie seems convinced of this
optimistic premise, or he could hardly be creating such masterful
paintings.
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