Fabulandia: Terra

According to Lauren Davies, Fabulandia's curator, this first of a two-part exhibition (Fauna opens in January 2006) presents six artists' speculations on "the world of the future…an overloaded world that meshes the natural with the artificial in a landscape filled with sleek urban-scapes, extraordinary gardens and terrains of the impossible…where low-tech and high-tech collide in a hybridized vision of the future."

It sounds a bit like a description of the 1982 sci-fi thriller Blade Runner, which actually managed to be prophetic in its way. In contrast Fabulandia: Terra, the show—the work that comprises the exhibition—falls wide of its lofty curatorial premise. With the exception of Philip Ross' drawings (though even his work seems somewhat nostalgic in this context) the work in the show seems to me to be far more about the past and the present than the future.

What the disparity between the curatorial premise and the work in Fabulandia: Terra reveals is this group of artists' attitudes about the future. It is definitely not utopic, but neither is it dystopic. Instead it is steadfastly ambivalent about the future, and in some cases, nostalgic for the past. As in Tonya Thornton's "Easter Pageant". The installation (quite similar to her MFA show at Mills) consists of two cone-shaped shrubs made of plastic foliage. One is adult-sized and the other child-sized. Each has a protrusion ending in an eyeball-like bulb. The tall one cranes toward the short one that looks up eagerly. I've witnessed the same drama between parent and child in line at the grocery store. Only in Thornton's installation the scene is rendered as Seussian shrubbery and has the feel of a meticulous window display complete with a music box lullaby and chirping bird sounds. The work basks in nostalgia for childhood and not just any childhood, but Thornton's own.

The same could be said of Genevieve Quick's work. At the back of the gallery is her sculpture "TerraVision", which features a stage prop-quality remake of a 1960's television set. On the screen a glowing, black and white wilderness whirs slowly by. It begins to get at some of the contradictions inherent in looking at images of the "natural" landscape—being at once closer and further removed—but I found it too diagrammatic. Her other sculpture in the show is better at linking childhood imagination with contemporary ways of depicting landscape. "Wunderland" is a model-scale land mass, roughly four feet across, that projects from the wall at (my) chest level. It appears as though it may be the fragment of a much larger model which gives "Wunderland" a meteor-like quality. Its topography is made of sand and interspersed with lime green pools, spiky grasses, and colorful patches that look like cartoon fungus. I was reminded of my visit to Mono Lake—its Tufa towers and saline waters—and the strange (and beautiful) landscapes that can emerge due to human interventions in natural processes.

Nearby, in the opposite corner, is Carrie Lederer's "Offering". This aptly named work (the inventory of which would easily fill a page or two of its own) features hundreds of carefully arranged objects, most of which are one form or another of artificial approximations of natural elements. Some are found, others manipulated by the artist (most notably the painted gourds and one of the artist's verdant, baroque paintings on canvas). The accumulation covers the walls and floor with a number of objects suspended from the ceiling. It is visually dense and green and reminds me of my grandmother's crafty centerpieces from the 1970's: orange wax mushroom candles sprouting from shellacked driftwood. The installation is successful in that it is both mesmerizing and a convincing approximation of the visual complexity and unity of "wild" spaces. And it does feel like an offering—like an outsized road side memorial to a recently deceased family member or a shrine to some unseen woodland spirit—but like these Carrie Lederer's "Offering" feels like it is intended for someone other than me.

In the middle of the space are James Sansing's architectural interventions: "Melting Column", "Invisible Column", and "Support System". The first two are a sort of minimalism rendered in a funk aesthetic which I found to be quite satirical and funny, but the later, "Support System", confused me. Constructed of cast cement, tiny bricks, bits of plumbing, and string, "Support System" looks like the remains of a long ago abandoned village built by very small people (think of Charles Simonds dwellings for "Little People", only less detailed). "Support System" would seem to constitute a departure from the thinking that informed the other two column pieces, but it uses similar materials and is attached to one of the gallery's columns. So Sansing's three pieces read as a trilogy. I'm sure the artist is aware of this, but his intention is lost on me.

Less nostalgic, perhaps not nostalgic at all, are Philip Ross' series of water color, color pencil, and pen "Drawings for Plant Life Support Systems". These drawings, which are variously conceptual sketches and proposals for things Ross has actually built or intends to build, were the only catalyst for thinking about the future I found in the show. The drawings are whimsical, loose and not very detailed, but evocative enough to engage my imagination as to how these "support systems" would be realized and what they might do. There are some unfortunate digital prints of some of the working support systems and text describing the project pinned to the wall next to the drawings. Unfortunate because they detracted from my musings and only made me want to see the real things.

David Hamill's drawings also do not appear nostalgic though they are not obviously about the future either. The two (virtually indistinguishable) series: "Sequence 15" and "Ideological Reconstruction" seem to be the product of a focused artist's attention bound by self-imposed parameters, or rules for making the drawings. To put it another way, the drawings look to be the result of a predetermined process. This sounds like a general statement that could be applied to many artists' work, but Hamill's drawings are extremely methodical and precise. In the two series on display typographic forms provide a starting point for complex and convoluted structures of perspectival lines. From a distance these structures look a bit like crystalline forms gone awry—up-close they have a more digital appearance, like a CAD drawing (according to Hamill's statement this is how the drawings are derived.) which, despite the warm graphite and soft water color, makes them rather cold. To me Hamill's drawings are the most thorough and subtle example of the "low-tech and high-tech collide". And they work to illuminate how humans are changing along with technology.

Though the individual works in Fabulandia: Terra are interesting and merit discussion, I left The Lab wondering why a show organized around envisioning the future failed to do so. It most certainly seems like a failure of the imagination (either on the part of the curator or the artists themselves). But I wondered too if I would feel comfortable (or capable of) making any such predictions in a world moving so quickly that comprehending the present seems a far more daunting task than contemplating the year 3012. This is perhaps the core problem with Fabulandia: Terra: any worthy vision of the future needs to be mindful of the past with a foot squarely planted in the present otherwise it is just fantasy. So to envision the future one must reckon with the present and the past then take a step toward what is unkown. This is certainly no simple task, but in the context of a show about the future one would certainly expect the artists to make an attempt and present their visions.

Fabulandia: Terra is on view at The Lab ( http://www.thelab.org/ ) through October 29th, 2005.

Norwydeo

An evening of Norwegian video in San Francisco
October 21st, 2005.

Artist team Synne Bull / Dragan Miletic presented two video programs of Norwegian video art curated by Linn Ulvin/Hjordis Kuras (program 1) and Mona Bentzen (program 2). This work is part of an exchange planned by Bull/Miletic between Norway and the Bay Area.

The program was a general selection of various types of video work including animation, performative video, or what may be called "conceptual art" video, etc. This is a difficult task to accomplish; as what Synne Bull called a "Democratic" selection of current Norwegian artists showed, there is seemingly a mish-mash of more interesting works, with many less interesting ones.

One particular video I found worthy of review was Sverre Strandberg's "Energy Europa". The video begins with us following a hunter in a picturesque Norwegian icy landscape, with green foliage and rocky hills amidst the remnants of gun-smoke. He shoots, and where we assume he has shot appears a green spot in the snow. He goes over to inspect this amorphous blob and we hear him and the cameraman engaging in dialogue over the specimen: "nothing special?" "No nothing special" "ordinary?" "Yes ordinary", during which the hunter tastes the goo. As the journey continues the hunter shoots, inspects, tastes; all the while engaging in brief conversation with the cameraman. "It's fake? Don't you want to taste it?"

Intermittent between the finds, there is the appropriated soundtrack of Batman lending a comic climactic sense, the music generally coming in during shots of the hunter approaching the camera, and fading out as he goes out of view. In one of the final shots, the cameraman asks after a catch "is that something special? Is it perfect? Nothing to talk about?" We end with the success of the hunter, at finding the perfect specimen and holding his game in his hand (a glop of fantastically fluorescent green).

With elements of Werner-Herzog-ish faux documentary, sci-fi uncertainty, and ambiguous commentary by the participants regarding this futile seeming hunt for who-knows what, as well as beautifully shot footage—I end with saying it was a YES video (meaning good as opposed to bad).

Too see a complete list of artists and descriptions of their works from NORWYDEO
Go to http://www.bull.miletic.info/VEE

Past Lives and Personal Excorcisms

Accompanied by my friend Steve, I followed the gallery director and curator Rebecca Miller down a long thin hallway and winding stair into a small backyard garden leading to the gallery. As it shows on the website, the Blackbird gallery is a basement level apartment turned exhibition space. The gallery is physically unusual with cinder block walls and long white drapery covering most of the back. It's something like a reprieve from the more typical white-wash, but the grid of windows at the entrance and the high ceiling just barely save the gallery from the melancholy architecture of a suburban basement.

After a walk through the show I asked Miller about the exhibition's title and she pointed me to a three-ring binder. After scanning the press release, I asked again about the Past Lives and Personal Excorcisms. In response she encouraged me to free associate, which was actually included in the press release, "The work in this show humorously reveals free associations in conjunction to the theme..." The murky logic of humorously revealing free associations seemed impossible and left me confused.

After a couple minutes of meandering conversation, Miller launched into a widly tangential narrative about each work in the show, and I can't avoid saying, it was kind of humorous. It seems the only coherent thread running through the work in Past Lives... is Miller's sincere respect for the artists. Ultimately the personal sentiments of the artists that serve as rationale for the exhibition remained opaque. While there are some defiantly interesting works by artists Bob Linder, Stephanie Syjuco and Xylor Jane, talking about them in this context is, for this reviewer, frustrating and problematic.

It seems much of the artwork exhibited at Blackbird, or at least the work in this exhibition, might fall under the umbrella of "psychological abstraction." While some of the works suggest a moodiness or dark pathos, ultimately we're left with something similar to a rorschach test. Like staring at rorschach cards, you're supposed to tell us what you see in the amorphous shapes. This kind of projection of personal fears and desires onto the world of objects is key to establishing or maintaining a commodity fetish, something not missed by commercial galleries, but somewhat surprising from an artist run outfit like BlackBird. If a free-form guessing game sounds like fun then head down to blackbird, of course you can just as easily free-associate with any random object in the comfort of your own home.

Untitled, Cliff Hengst

More images at: http://www.blackbirdspace.com/past.html

E Pluribus Unam

Jonathon Tellier and I worked together in the past when he did his own brand of hilarious "market research" for the Anti-Advertising Agency. Knowing his dry sense of humor and appreciation of the absurd, I couldn't help but look forward to seeing him stretch out in a solo show at Mission 17.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention this, but "Jonathon Tellier" is a pseudonym taken on by artist Patrick Piazza. Most may know his past work with the San Francisco Print Collective, but the beginnings of this project were seen at last year's Paper Bullets: A War on Words show at Intersection for the Arts. In Paper Bullets Piazza began experimenting with distributing provocative surveys via helium balloons. With E Pluribus Unam Piazza takes this idea further, adopting the character of a warped but committed researcher, "Jonathan Tellier."

Walking into the show at Mission 17 Gallery there's a overall feeling of a tongue-in-cheek celebration of Americana: red and blue everything against white walls. Red and blue balloons with surveys spot the floor and cluster on the ceiling. Tellier used a large window to backlight giant translucent printouts of former President's peering eyes - all appropriated from portraits that appear on US currency.

A large projected video immediately caught my attention upon walking in. In the video soft classical music plays as Tellier, decked out head-to-toe as Uncle Sam, pulls a toy trailer carrying a helium tank along the vista point on Twin Peaks. Using a helium tank, he carefully fills red and blue balloons with attached surveys, pokes pinholes in the base of the balloons, and immediately releases them into the sky. All while engaging in friendly banter with curious passers by. The piano plays lightly as the camera follows a balloon across the horizon, the gas escaping through pinholes, and gracefully decending into a nearby neighborhood. I couldn't help but chuckle thinking about the unsuspecting citizens finding these surveys falling out of the sky.

Back in the gallery, there was a small desk where visitors could fill out a survey and deposit it in a ballot/lottery box attached to the wall. Hung on the opposing walls were the survey responses, displayed in a grid, and organized by where they were returned from; San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, and the gallery itself.

The surveys contain seemingly simple questions that are difficult to answer. (samples can be seen on the E Pluribas Unam website) One survey asks:
- Is it possible for something to be both sad and beauiful at the same time?
- What is it that makes you happy to be an American?
- What would be worth defending with your life?
- At what point would you be willing to take the life of another?

The responses are just as deceptively simple. For example, what makes these random responders happy to be Americans? Overwhelmingly the answer seems to be "Freedom." What does that mean? I don't really know. And I'm not sure the responders do either. Which brings up a whole other set of disturbing issues.

The un-mediated responses are what bring the most meaning to the work and, in all honesty, at times they can be disappointing and shallow. However even these responses are capable of inspiring reflection and thought. Tellier presents the raw data on the walls for the viewer to proccess. What should we think when the people have been given a voice only to hear them echo back the same ignorance, fear, and carelessness that the newsmedia dish out. If any of this is going to change, the current state needs to be accurately assessed. Tellier's piece shows the tip of the iceberg and I'm left wanting to know more.

The balloons now remind me of the bubble of liberalism we enjoy in the Bay Area. For example, the question, "Just how far would you go to defend your faith" is answered by a middle aged, white male, from Stockton with "At any lengths" (sic). Whatever that's supposed to mean. It kinda worries me. Any length? Really? Another's greatest fear was "losing my beliefs". One of the things I love about art is that it can show us a different perspective of the world. In this example, Tellier is presenting a perspective we might not want to see, but it's undeniably real, and only 82 miles east.

http://www.mission17.com/EPluribusUnam.htm
http://www.epluribusunam.com/

Also see Paper Bullets: A War of Words

Greetings from Oakland: The Immortalization Project

When I first heard about the work Lexa Walsh was doing I was very excited. I was told that she was documenting the objects that we hold on to for purely sentimental reasons. This was exciting to me because I have always had a fascination with objects and their connection to nostalgia.

The word "nostalgia" was first coined in a medical treatise in 1688 by Johannes Hoffer a Swiss physician and was at first exclusively used to describe the physical symptoms of homesickness. As a seventeenth-century medical term, nostalgia was a disease. Its victims were predominantly soldiers stationed abroad or servants from rural areas that had left their homes. Cases resulting in death were known and soldiers were sometimes successfully treated by being discharged and sent home. Receiving such a diagnosis was, however, generally regarded as an insult. But I digress (I like the word "digress" and I don't think it's used enough these days. But I'm still digressing, sorry.).

So I thought this is going to be swell! This is going to be LIKE THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW! Only better because the appraiser will be evaluating the items in terms of sentimental value. Well no, actually I'm sorry to say it's not that good. Lexa Walsh has a folding card table, a 35mm and a hand held video camera. She seems affable and generally interested that you have come to share your objects and stories. Ok so you show her your grandmother's salt and pepper shakers or in my case my wisdom teeth. She wants you to tell her about the items but she isn't a great interviewer. She needs to work on drawing out her subjects.

The photographs on view at the 21 Grand Gallery are not strong enough to stand on their own. But fortunately they don't have to as each photo is paired up with a bit of text (actually an extremely condensed summary of some aspect of the interview that Walsh found interesting). Unfortunately the photos and commentary Walsh provides just seem to trivialize these objects and experiences. I'm quite disappointed in this show because the idea for it is so simple and good and the reality is only the former and nowhere near the latter.

The Immortalization project is a work in progress so lets hope it will grow into something worthy of its name.

Greetings from Oakland: The Immortalization Project is up at the 21 Grand Gallery
now through October 27, 2005 with a closing reception on Thursday, the 27th.

21 Grand Gallery http://www.21grand.org/ 416 25th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612
The Immortilization Project http://www.lexawalsh.com/immortalization.htm

Mundane Journeys

The transformation happens almost immediately. As soon as I sit my ass in the bus seat I realize it: I'm a tourist in the city I've lived in for the past 12 or so years. Oddly enough, it feels fun and strangely liberating. As we pull away from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts I find myself looking out the window at the same buildings I've passed a thrillion times as if I've never seen them before. The tourist gaze. All it takes is a seat on an air-conditioned custom coach. Of course, the effect is completed when Kate Pocrass's relaxed, yet carefully-modulated voice comes through the coach speakers: "Welcome to Mundane Journeys."

She continues speaking in that strange language we're all familiar with. Y'know, Park Rangerese inflected with a flight attendant dialect. But it's the mischievious glint in her eye and the ocassional smirk that really let's me know that it's going to be an afternoon well-spent. Kate has organized this particular city tour as part her ongoing "Mundane Journeys" project, which was curated into this year's Bay Area Now exhibition.

For those familiar with the increasingly popular artistic embraces of psychogeography, MJ fits into that realm. These artist-facilitated explorations draw attention to commonly ignored aspects of our everyday surroundings, and consequently, ask us to pay attention to the unseen forces that determine how we interact (through seeing, moving, thinking, feeling, exchanging, etc) with the city. Although the French Situationists first coined the term "psychogeography" about fifty years ago, the new breed of psychogeography-influenced art projects have recently been drawing attention internationally as more people become interested in non-static art expressions such as interventions, relational aesthetics, and so on. The audience for the work gladly turns in their stand-and-stare viewing credentials for passports as willing participants.

In these respects, Kate and the Mundane Journeys bus tour succeeded easily. When I saw that the first stop was in the 24th St/Folsom area, I admit that I cringed a little. A tour bus pulls into the Mission with a bunch of artsy gawkers? Is this the part where contemporary art exoticizes local ethnic culture? Fortunately not. Kate's cool tone comes over the loudspeaker as we make our way out of downtown, and draws our attention to the bus's overhead video monitors. A quirky but well-done video piece comes on-screen and begins to explain the history of the Wall Street Journals' stippled portraits instead of using photographs. Out of place? Not once we arrive, get out of the bus, and begin tracking down the suggested points-of-interest on our tour map handouts... Soon enough a small group of us are gathered around a store-front window covered with small (about 2"x3") stipple drawings cut from the pages of the Wall Street Journal. They look they've been there forever. The initial clouds of confusion and delight clear up only to be replaced by new ones. Who? Why? How come I never noticed this before when I went to get a burrito or a slice of pizza?

The other points-of-interest bear their own surprises. And the Journey-ers and I have no problem finding numerous other previously ignored gems of the everyday before getting back on the bus to go to our next two SF locations. To detail the rest would be to give away a little too much of the magic. Suffice it to say that Kate's ability to see the city as more than a place of economic exchange and her willingness to share this perspective opens up numerous other possiblities for play and exploration. If there's one failing of Mundane Journey's, it is perhaps, a little too interesting to be considered mundane.

http://www.mundanejourneys.com