Michael Zheng

“The Taoist sage Chuang Tzu once dreamed he had turned into a butterfly. When he awoke, he couldn’t help but wonder whether it was he, who had dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or the butterfly, who had dreamed of becoming Chuang Tzu.”

And so I was introduced, by way of an email announcement, to As The Butterfly Said To Chuang Tzu, Michael Zheng’s sparse exhibition at Mission 17. As you might suspect the story about Chuang Tzu is not the literal subject matter of Zheng’s artwork but a philosophical departure point (a frame of reference) for inquiry into the nature of human perception. All of this, I gathered, before ever stepping foot in the gallery.

I only mention it because with As The Butterfly Said… Zheng has articulated his interest in how our experiences (what we take as reality) are largely of our own construction. As I entered the gallery I was already imagining, as Chuang Tzu did, a less certain self. It sounds rather mystical, but Zheng's approach is surprisingly concrete—responding to the physical attributes of the gallery and using its rarefied environment to raise questions about our relationship to the material world.

For “Big I,” the show’s only titled piece, Zheng cut a long, vertical rectangle into the gallery’s wall and pulled the freed chunk of sheet rock a half inch into the space. The resulting shadow line and raw gypsum edge delineate the boundary between 2 and 3 dimensions, between wall and art or painting and sculpture, yet we are always aware that what we are looking at is essentially the wall. Or has it become something else? In this way Zheng explores the limits of the gallery as a context for art and continually asks how one’s experience of art is shaped by it’s framing. This inquiry extends both to physical frames (architecture) and mental ones (our expectations and assumptions). It is the space between these—the “gap” suggested by Duchamp—where Zheng’s work really lives and where the question of framing becomes most fertile—in the mind of the viewer.

Big I

Zheng’s spare visual sensibility and preoccupation with the phenomenological possibilities of the gallery space are well suited to creating openings for the viewer’s subjectivity. As The Butterfly Said… is almost pedagogical in this respect. Zheng uses a variety of strategies to engage and challenge his viewers, and to provide opportunities to enter the work. Take the seedling piece for instance (perhaps the show’s most accessible). At the far end of the gallery, near the windows, is a table with a watering can and three small, labeled pots, each with a seedling. A sign nearby instructs visitors to water the plants if the soil is dry. As they do they are to utter encouraging words to the plant labeled “Encourage,” discouraging words to the plant labeled “Discourage,” and nothing to the plant labeled “Neutral.” When I visited “Neutral” had grown tallest and “Encourage” was the runt. I was being asked to reconcile belief and empirical evidence. The best I could do was recall something I'd read about water molecules being altered by meditation.

The other works in the show are less immediate—their effects more gradual. As The Butterfly Said… definitely benefits from (and merits) taking one's time, as I did, to wonder about the set of old blinds hanging on the gallery’s south wall, or the incongruous plywood column, or be confused by the distorted space of the Mylar cylinders collected in a corner, or catch on the disembodied sound of a passing motorcycle. All of these in one way or another, point back to the gallery itself, and so I began to notice details native to the space—how light entered the room, blemishes in the wall, the placement of electrical outlets, repairs to the wood floor, inconsistencies in the trim work along the ceiling and so on—a heightened sense of awareness that lingered with me long after I left the building.

As The Butterfly Said To Chuang Tzu has been extended for one week to July 8th. More information can be found at the Mission 17 website http://www.mission17.org/

2006 MFA shows

Author's note: The following text is about as far as we got before we ran out of time and/or patience. There was a large amount of other works that we meant to discuss (Alika Cooper, Robert Larkin, Ryan Thayer, Carol Anne McCrystal, Nick Karvounis, Theresa Ganz, Brian Stinemetz, and countless others I am sure). In the case of such large shows (55 graduates from CCA and 86 from SFAI) it’s hard to touch on every point, discuss every work. MFA shows are heartbreaking, overwhelming, etc.—following the flow of conversation with an 'alias' felt like the most appropriate way to deal with their enormity…

ALIAS: So, why don’t we start at the CCA show, because that’s the first one I went to.
ME: That’s the first one I went to as well. Do you want to initiate a point of departure?
ALIAS: (eating cake) Well, I was kinda meditating on the thought of the whole social sculpture thing you were talking about...
ME: Yeah, I have that flyer from the one guy that did the food…(Michael Wallace)
ALIAS: So what did that entail?
ME: Basically he had these canned food drive buckets with a flyer that described this act/activism as his art practice.
ALIAS: (looking at flyer) Is that it? That’s lame.
ME: It had this defensive statement in there saying how it was art because he framed it as art regardless of how someone saw it. That initiated for me the whole annoying topic of why not do activism instead of art. Especially because of how it was framed at the CCA show it was very unsuccessful as a food drive. It should be geared to gain…
ALIAS: …success. Yeah…
ME: …food and money for homeless and poor people. Instead he is framing it like his pointing to the issue, but I don’t think it really does that.
ALIAS: Terrible…how about other work?
ME: You mean like Susan O’malley? I was really frustrated by my desire to interact with her machines and my desire to buy something…it’s that consumer desire.
ALIAS: You should have bought the ‘gum’ instead of the ‘pep-talk’ (Side note: O’malley’s work consisted of vending machines, one with several options like a ‘pep-talk kit’ or gum, etc. The other was a vending machine of buttons that will be described later in the review)
ME: You’re right, I would have been more fulfilled.
ALIAS: Then again the flavor would have been gone in about 5 minutes…
ME:…that would have lasted longer than my thrill over the pep-talk packet.

ALIAS: First, I wanted to ask you, how about the vending machine as an object?
ME: I thought it was nice as an object. I think in the end I wondered about what was in it more.
ALIAS: You know the ones she had with the buttons?
ME: I did think that one was more successful. Though I was still annoyed that I wanted to buy a button, and felt dissatisfied after buying it, they were just ridiculous in a good way, a button with someone’s name on it that you may or may not know. I think that with the larger machine she tried to put too much into it with the individual packets.
ALIAS: She was probably the only artist that didn’t get a set white cube.
ME: Yes, they were dispersed all over the show. This touches on the point of works that interact with a space, or the works we had talked about before this conversation that directly address the context of the MFA show.
ALIAS: I wrote, ‘does the idea of writing down the names of everyone you know entertain you, or does it seem like a futile act of sincerity?’
ME: That’s a hard one to answer. I think it is initially entertaining, because if you think of yourself doing that practice it seems nice/funny. It’s like when people write down the names of everyone they have slept with.
ALIAS: In relation to that… like if you were to write down everyone you knew…
ME: …or slept with…
ALIAS: …what would that give you? It’s interesting to think that there are a lot of people we have met or known or whatever–but, what do they really mean to you in the end, like today…
ME: It’s a personal document in that sense. I wonder about her making the buttons thinking about the names that hold more importance, making that button carry a heavier sense of a person than the random acquaintance that she happens to remember the first and last name of.
ALIAS: It also made me think about how many people we really hold close to our hearts and care about…it’s like, are we really alone in this world? Or what? Not alone but…
ME:… It’s the whole idea of being alone even with company. We are really individualistic. We have our own sustained emotions, our own sustained history. It’s interesting to think of how the people on the buttons think of her.
ALIAS: It made me think of myspace in a way…
ME:…like a collection of friends? The Internet version of a button?
ALIAS: As far as networking, knowing the other person is out there, it’s somewhat more tangible. As opposed to someone just being out there.
ME:…their existence is solid. You have a more immediate sense of what they are doing out in the world. I think O’malley’s piece is a more simplified version of this…
ALIAS:...I think there is a lot of potential there.
ME: An interesting factor about potential would be if you chose to wear the button you would probably eventually run into the person or someone they know, causing a connection. Which is why I can see this as the more successful vending machine. It has the potential to continue on despite documentation or context.
ALIAS: I think that piece is effective–no doubt–I think it’s hilarious. Reducing the idea of 6 degrees of separation especially in a city like San Francisco where we have about 3 degrees of separation.
ME: You could even run into someone’s ex-lover.
ALIAS: (chuckle) so…you think it could be like a ‘New Edition’ or ‘New Kids on the Block’ fan club?
ME: It could be assumed to be a sort of fan club….

Moving on…
ALIAS: You know what, there was an article written 3 months ago or something…Artforum or something…it looks at social sculpture…
ME: …for comparisons sake, I think we can mention here that CCA had a lot more of this type of work than SFAI.
ALIAS:…well, they have a whole program in that. SFAI doesn’t even have that. A program called "Social Practices." I think that even having a program called that is problematic.
ME: Well, the fact is, program or not, this type of work doesn’t exist much at SFAI.
ALIAS: Is that a good or bad thing?
ME: I think it’s neither here nor there. Think of how you tell people what you do. This is an interesting thing considering the scope of contemporary art, how we have so many genres that fit in. When you come to the point of saying what you do, do you say I am an ‘Artist’? Or do you say I am a ‘Social Sculptor’, or a ‘Conceptual Artist’ or a ‘Video Installation Artist’. My dad still calls me a ‘Conceptual Artist’ even though he isn’t sure what it means and I don’t particularly associate with it–just like I don’t associate myself as a ‘Video Artist’ even though I make video. He just needed something to latch on to as a title. If I made a lot of ‘Social Sculpture’ I probably would feel uncomfortable using it as a title. I think one of the beautiful things about contemporary art practice is that you don’t have to own up to a genre. Your internalization of the world is what makes the work.
ALIAS: I think so. I enjoy being that kind of chameleon of sorts. A shape shifter as you might say it…
ME: Maybe there lies the problem with a department of specific title. The people in the program may not be internalizing things individually, but making work that fits into a certain genre.
ALIAS: I think that is what the article I read was talking about. Making everybody accountable.

Moving on…
ME: To what extent is what we make part of culture? I think of it most often as a cultural document, but not as something that institutes real, fast change. Maybe it has the potential to do so, but it isn’t trying to accomplish this automatically. Like historical paintings that were of political events and things didn’t necessarily institute change, they existed in a certain realm and not another. Eventually looking at it may cause a change. That is a gray zone in contemporary art to me…
ALIAS: I don’t think there is anything wrong with politically motivated work…take for example ‘Bush’ art….
ME: I think ‘Bush’ art is problematic…
ALIAS: No one in an MFA program in both these institutions–both CCA and SFAI–would do ‘Bush’ art.
ME: Wrong! There was the artist from SFAI who did the really nicely displayed wood cases, with what looked like pages from a book displayed inside of them. They looked almost like ‘Canterbury Tales’ or something, ornate calligraphy with illustrations. (Rebecca Whipple)
ALIAS: Ok, yeah yeah yeah…I saw those…
ME: At first I thought ‘wow those are very nicely presented, nice illustrations’, but upon closer look they are all drawings of Political figures Etc.
ALIAS: Oh, and then there was that video piece…with the score composed from the Bush speech. (Mariana Negron-Quinones)
ME: That’s right. See, those two are both walking the line to me.
ALIAS: See, I don’t necessarily have a problem with work in that vein…
ME:…well, the illustrations were beautiful…but I wonder: did it have to be political? Would they still be interesting as a piece without the direct reference? That is the thing. Political work is only good if it is a good piece of Art as well–and not just a political statement…maybe that is where the gray area stops…
ALIAS: Yeah, it has to examine something else…
ME: A piece I saw that I felt was successful was a piece by Omer Fast in Switzerland where he edited together all these newscasters (talking heads) to say this really intense dialogue, I think it said something like ‘the world will end tomorrow because of our lack of love…’ though I know that isn’t exact, it was intense in that way. Each edit was a different newscaster saying a word or short phrase…
ALIAS:…there was this really strong painting I saw by a German artist (at a show in New York of German/Austrian artists)…I want to get the name right but sometimes I get confused when it comes to those German names. I want to say it’s Otto Dix, but I am not a hundred percent sure. It shows these heads of state, he is making fun of them in a blatant way…he shows one politician with his head open with shit inside, flies coming out…
ME: Did you see Roger Ngim’s work at SFAI? He used appropriated footage. I think this is hard to do successfully but he pulled it off. This could also be seen as political–reusing cultural documents already existing to make a point, but it isn’t so heavy-handed in that sense where it tells you how to think…

Moving on…
ALIAS: Let’s talk about other directions; art could be coming from many angles. Let’s go to SFAI…just cause we can…take the Hoerchers…I think you were talking earlier about walking the walk or sincerity or what not–how you can’t just talk about love or art, how it is about the execution of it. I don’t think so. I think the strongest work by the Hoercher’s (Ryan and Seth Hoercher) are their proposals.
ME: Well that still is an execution…
ALIAS: Well, yes and no. It’s about the potential. Looking at their book of proposals, that is a strong work. Step away from their installations, their residues.
ME: I thought the installations and residues weren’t that well executed.
ALIAS:…so that essentially is just talking about art, or love. And I think it has the potential to carry it through…
Now take a piece like Flint’s work (Aaron Flint Jamison). You know Flint’s work? He had a video of himself doing basically nothing. He had a few stills of what not, of kind of this nothingness. Powered by this really bright fluorescent lighting…Do you know what I am talking about?
ME: No…
ALIAS: Well I think his work goes for this intellectual approach. Personally I don’t think the work grabbed me in any kind of capacity. It almost suffers from this over-intellectualizing work thing.
ME: You mean when artists don’t let themselves go enough to just…
ALIAS: …no…when artists think they have the freaking answer and approach work through this kind of…
ME: …are you trying to relate this to love too?…
ALIAS: …no, I am just talking about art now…I think the easiest way to talk about this stuff is to now just start flipping through all the pictures in the catalog (SFAI)…
ME: Ok, let me say something about the Hoerchers, because I saw them as this almost gag sensibility in art. Which can be cute and funny, and I think comic art can be beautiful if it’s done a certain way. But, in a sense the Hoercher’s made me feel like one of those 20-something movies from the early nineties, ‘Reality Bites’ maybe. I see them as that of the art world …
ALIAS: Are you saying its passé?
ME: No…not in that sense…it's just that cute sarcasm and funny sensibility…Like a jaded early nineties romantic comedy…
ALIAS: It doesn’t live up to your expectations?
ME: I guess not.

Moving on…
ME: Ok, Let’s go back to CCA.
ALIAS: The work that was strong?
ME: Well how about talking about the work that didn’t initially ‘blow me away’, but I think is strong because it stuck with me later…I even had a dream about it. Zachary Scholz did this piece that was a folding chair that had paper that folded into the wall…
ALIAS: Yeah, that was a good work…
ME: In the show it was a little different than the image we have here because the paper was folded into a mirror. There is something about it…it’s not really overt…it is heartbreaking, a nice thought in a way.
ALIAS: It’s not heartbreaking at all to me.
ME: I think it is as an object, in a good way…like the weak chair holding up the paper the way it is…
ALIAS: It’s holding it up and it can barely hold it…
ME: Yeah…
ALIAS: …like at any point it could just collapse or…
ME: …yeah, it has that element of weakness…but it’s pretty sturdy at the same time.
ALIAS: I like the image and how he displayed it at the show with the mirror. It had that kind of…
ME: …infinity of possibility…
ALIAS: …yeah, the cheap illusion…
ME: I like cheap illusions. I think it’s successful because it’s simple in the execution. Even a cheap illusion can come off well if it’s beautiful. For example, Christine Ancalmo’s cave with paper at SFAI…I wasn’t so fond of what was inside the cave, but I liked the space she constucted with rolled paper. She didn’t seem to try to hide the fact that it was paper and a cave. She still had the roll propped against the wall that the paper was coming from propped in the corner. I think work like that is beautiful–that doesen’t try to hide anything, but uses your visual mechanics and assosciations…
ALIAS: I overheard two comments about that work before I even walked into it…one was ‘I am tired of unicorns and shit…and glitter…’ and this that and the other…
ME: (chuckle)
ALIAS: I respect this gentelman as an artist, so I considered this…so I thought ‘hmmm I wonder why he would say that?’…the other friend of mine was saying ‘you know Christina’s work? I don’t know so much about the drawings at the end of the cave, but, the enclosure really took me into getting away from where I was. And that is something that not a lot of other work does in this conventional setting…take you away from location.'
ME: I think that is what I liked about that piece, not only the mechanics of the structure…It was just the way that she manipulated the space that was nice. When I got to the end of the cave I didn’t necessarily like all the glitter, unicorns and stuff in there, but I liked being enclosed.
ALIAS: A third friend of mine and I were talking about going to see work in general at that place, Fort Mason. This friend was saying how he was so heartbroken last year at the MFA show that he never wanted to go again. Meaning that he thought that maybe that institution was just shortchanging individuals and handing them out a degree. He was saying it was such an awful setting to see the work, and some of the work itself was so depressing that it just made him feel bad…
ME: I understand that…I did feel bad for the artists in both shows…
ALIAS: …he said he felt less bad at CCA than SFAI…about the work being executed in a better fashion.
ME: I think the context of those spaces…there is so much weight on the idea of an MFA show because it is a closing of what is supposed to be this formative education. As if you are supposed to have everything figured out. That is what feels so heartbreaking–walking into a space where you know everyone has spent all this money in school to come out with some grandeous statement. And not even grandeous, it could even be a subtle work. What is so heartbreaking is when it falls short, especially when everyone is lumped together, better work with worse work–which should make the good work look even better, but the overwhelming nature of that building just makes everything seem so small in size and importance...

Moving on…
ME: This next Image is from Laura Plageman…she did the photographs of folded and crumpled photographs of trees…
ALIAS: I liked that…
ME: I did and I didn’t. It’s like what we talked about before with serial works. The one image in this series I thought was best isn’t the one we have here. What I don’t like about repetetive serial work is trying to relive the magic of one image over and over again…
ALIAS: I don’t necessarily have a problem with serial work. In the fact that it could be trying to examine a phenomenon…
ME: Well, that is the difference I guess…when a serial is about examining a phenomena it can work, but when it’s just a repetition of something because it worked the first time is when they seem unsuccesful.
ALIAS: Can’t you just see it as one work?
ME: I can see it as multiple examinations, but none of them seem to take the idea farther than the first one did. It’s about editing.
ALIAS: Why should it have to be about one upmanship from the last work?
ME: I think if you do a serial right, it means you are trying to examine something deeply. So at the end of the examination you should edit down to the best. Or if it’s going to be a serial, have enough differentiation between the parts so that they can stand alone or together.
ALIAS: And what about the other guy from CCA with the serial you were talking about? (Alex Claussen)
ME: Same thing…I found it problematic as well….the first image I saw was a photograph of this amorphous lumped together furniture like object in the middle of a room. I liked it, but then I was dissapointed that he filled a whole room with the same style of photo, different amorphous blobs in different rooms, but very similar.
ALIAS: Maybe he was trying to point out the commonality of people and places.
ME: Then why not use one or two of the most successful ones and then try something else that expands on the same notion?
ALIAS: I think yes and no. I think sometimes you need repetition, like in poetry…the need to repeat to find the common thread. To drive in the point.
ME: We could argue this for years.
ALIAS: I see you saying two things here. One is that MFA shows have the pressure of being this culmination or growth of your work while in this institution…and so it kind of suffers from your one beautiful mixed tape, or your one beautiful writing piece, or your one beautiful photograph, or your one beautiful painting. It suffers from the culmination. Where as this guy chooses to show one work. If he were to show the next progressive thing then the next, it becomses too much of a masterpiece.
ME: Well, I think if I would have seen a body of his work expanding on the idea more, I would have found it more exciting.
ALIAS: What I can accuse you of is wanting more.
ME: Well, maybe that is my problem with serials, and maybe you don’t have that same problem…I like subtle work, but I don’t know how I feel about seeing six images so very similar. The first one draws me in, but by the time I get to the last one I’m not so interested anymore. Like when something is drawn out too long in general and then you get to the end of it and it just sort of pitters out…
ALIAS:…it isn’t as exciting anymore, it’s like beating a dead horse….right? I can agree with that, but I also see the validity of meditating on a work. To find truth in a work….

Frank Prattle Interviews

April 14th, 2007
Renny Pritikin & Joseph del Pesco (SR co-founder)
Listen

June 17th, 2006
Scott Oliver (SR co-founder) & David Lawrence
Listen

This Place Reminds Me of Home, only I do not know anyone

I finally made it out to Oakland's Art Murmur and was not disappointed. What dislodged my inertia was the fire sale at 21 Grand. All works were under $100 and supported this noteworthy non-profit space. I got there early to hunt for some likely bargains and left loaded down with a fetish trophy or two. I love buying cheap art. It puts lots of things in perspective. Like that all the critical baggage in the world cannot compete with an exposed penis. Like who needs fancy clothes and dinner dates when you can stay home and gaze at frozen surrogation? This, this will always be mine. Thank you Darren Jenkins. And by the way all you emerging artists, editions matter! Lets be straight about how slutty my unique love object is. Please?

Moving on past invisible cafe art and affirmative virtuosity...

You discover like so many before you Ego Park. What a great name, or as the old saying goes; what a great name for a band. Skeptical of another goofy interactive playspace replete with clichéd lab coats, clipboards, and chalkboard paint; you are nonetheless engaged. Mostly by the friendly confrontation at the door. "Where are you from?". Clearly these people recognize Euro-trash when they see it. But you pass their passport check and are made to feel free to do as you like in Kevin Slagle’s community park. So you scribble on the wall and join in a Bushism Mad Lib with other glib punters. Yes, it feels good to "spread mustard and wisdom" on the war mongering word mangling doublespeakers of this fair land. Ha!, take that! But also effectively scary that each line comes off so plausibly spot-on.

By the time we hit Rock Paper Scissors we are tired and confused from the wine that keeps getting pressed into our hands. RPS is a rollicking messy zine and t-shirt outlet totally unconcerned with the etiquette of art slumming. Welcome to the anti-garde! We did not see too many cutesy birds here, but maybe we were distracted by the action. In the front space was an installation of stills from the upcoming Under Ten [minutes] film festival (June 21 & 22, 9-11). Viewed in abstract they offer the voyeuristic joy of You Tube surfing with the hope of thoughtful intentionality. Especially delightful is the double framing created by shooting stills off of idiosyncratic TVs and the clunky wooden mounts. Here is a tip: each is only $6, so snap them up while they are hot.

http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com
http://www.21grand.org
http://www.egopark.org
http://www.rpscollective.com

Eishi Takaoka

Being in a room filled with smaller-than-fist sized Eishi faces looking at you is like having a hundred little mirrors reflecting your soul. Eishi Takaoka, based out of Kagoshima, Japan, has his first solo San Francisco exhibition at Giant Robot in the Haight. One hundred and one hand-carved wooden heads are presented – most with their short necks plugged into the tops of small medicine bottles. This gives the wooden heads an appearance of sitting atop fragile stands rather than crowning limbless bodies.

The hundred and one faces at first appear to wear the same expression, but this impression dissolves upon closer inspection. Eishi Takaoka has accomplished something brilliant. The characters are almost expressionless with their simple eyes, mouths and noses carved into almost stark white heads. Subtle additions – odd headpieces or growths, unnatural ears, disfigurations painted with natural pigment -- don each piece. One by one they draw you in and become alive with an abundance of emotional resonance that is almost as restrained as the heads choked by the bottles. Other heads sit on carved pillow bases, which provide comfort for the character and, as a consequence, make them more whimsical and harlequin.

It’s hard to say whether the 101 pieces are all the same character in Takaoka’s imagination wearing different emotions or each one is an emotion that Takaoka magically yanked out of the viewer’s gut and carved into wood. It’s as if Takaoka has filled a room with orphaned heads that beckon you to take them home with you. The choice is a simple connection between the adoptive parent and the face that seems to be struggling with helplessness, hope and yearning. Though Takaoka’s works are only heads they do not weigh on you with darkness. Still, they are haunting, as each seems to tell its own story, which combines into a discordant choir of imagined whispers.

Giant Robot says, “Takaoka's unique work is rooted in a personal fantasy world that is fueled by the emotional ups and downs of daily life in lower-middle class Japan. Heavily influenced by the expressive songs of the Japanese punk rock group Eastern Youth, Takaoka releases his frustration with life in Kagoshima and feelings into each of his sculptures.” For me however, Takaoka's faces also bring out the isolation within our own compartmentalized feelings. Haruki Murakami used an Eishi Takaoka image for the cover of his 2005 novel Kafka on the Shore.

The work, some still available, is priced between $200 and $1000, with most of the pieces being $250. I anticipate these hundred and one heads will scatter to a variety of homes – some in clusters, others solo – but like a Diaspora community, and they will not lose their connection.

Go see the Eishi Takaoka show at Giant Robot, 618 Shrader Street (around the corner from Amoeba), SF. Spend some time with the characters; see what their body language – facial cues – say to you. Figure out which ones would be friends, would couple, would be enemies and those who may offend. Maybe find some friends? Or just take it all in and ask yourself what 101 little mirrors feel like.

Eishi Takaoka at Giant Robot SF, May 27 – June 21 http://www.gr-sf.com

Peer Pleasure I at YBCA

Note from author: This was originally going to be a collective review, but it didn't work out that way. The failed attempt at collective art criticism has given me greater respect for collective art making.

My gut reaction was salient dislike for this show, with a few pieces that were part of the Space 1026 effort as exceptions. The sheer abundance of current Bay area art cliches alone, prompted a serious bout of eye-rolling, though as none of the arts collectives represented were local, these art cliches must be national in scope.

For the record (in case this is being read at a sufficiently future date when the cliches of the mid 2000s have faded from memory), a short list of cliches in evidence: hipster color schemes (yellow, brown, pink, green), precious faux-naive drawing, 31 flavorism participatory art, lots of candid snapshots in a large grid, graphic references to abject pop culture icons from unfashionable eras, and images of the almighty deer head.

I counted 3 deer heads in the Royal Art Lodge's portion of the show and Space 1026's extensive display sported 2 deer heads, though perhaps there were deer heads amongst the multi-layered ephemera on the walls.

Count the deer heads could be the art show equivalent of the old childhood car trip game of slug bug (in which the first kid to spot a VW bug gets to punch the other kids sitting next to him/her on the arm). Deer head spotting - the game- would be much more rewarding a social art activity than Instant Coffee's attempt - the Bass Bench.

The bygone buzzword of "interactivity" has been replaced by "social practice" and "participatory" art. But while the high-tech hype of computer-based interfaces for audience engagement has been replaced by low tech everyday life-mimicking gambits -- the problems are similar. Both suffer from what I call 31 flavorism: audience participation through the choice of one of a bevy of similar items proffered by the artist. Does picking Low Fat Vanilla Almond Crunch or the blue one ... or a Little Eva 45 offer meaningful interaction? The enjoinder to choose one of a pre-selected set is limiting and its connotations of consumerism and shopping are especially problematic for an art movement which often values its work against consumerism and the Capitalist marketplace, and further, sees its cultural production as more authentic and personally rewarding.

It is ironic, that the logic of Instant Coffee follows that of big bad consumer culture -- you can't choose not to choose. Instant Coffee's unfinished plywood benches offer the stenciled admonishment, "Get social or get lost!" Though playing a record in an art center isn't an inherently social activity. ... But perhaps that's just me, who in college would treat the morning patrons at the library where I worked to Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music," in an attempt to avoid social interaction. Though certainly in this age of the ipod and itunes, listening to recorded music is often an asocial activity, and if listening to music is the goal, socializing impedes it. Perhaps if they put a boom-box in a tent, they could have called it the wepod ....

One could argue, "It's called the Bass Bench. It refers to DJ culture, which engages people and music in public space." With that, one could question how participatory that model is. Certainly people socialize at clubs or bars with DJs, but aren't people going in groups to galleries also socializing?

How artful is Instant Coffee's Bass Bench? What distinguishes it from the create your own mix CD booths at chain cafes and stores, or the mini jukeboxes at 50s themed diners? The collective is definitely based in the ethos of Kaprow's blurring art and everyday life, and thus the similar scenarios of their project to sites of commerce wouldn't be de facto objectionable. What purpose does putting a record player and some records in an art gallery serve? Is some significant statement being made? Why should we care? What do we, the audience, get out of it?

I get the feeling that Instant Coffee relies on a novelty factor for their work, which in the Bay Area with its highly-inventive avant-garde and extensive underground culture comes off as either hackneyed or ho-hum (like the group's make out parties that were part of SoEx's 30th Anniversary show in 2004).

In fact, YBCA's exhibition series of artist collectives is also operating on the novelty factor, and perhaps, in the visual art realm the collective's challenge to the myth of the individual genius artist is new (or newly new, as the art making collective had bouts of popularity and influence in the 60s and 80s). Perhaps this is testament to the issue of genre boundaries, so frequently blurred by artists here, but relatively intact at the institutional level. While in the visual art arena collective art making may be fresh and contemporary, compared to music, which also historically contained the same individual genius myth, collective composition is by all means nothing new.

Looking outside the boundaries of the visual art medium, Instant Coffee's work appears especially hackneyed. The Bay Area has a long and impressive history of public sound art from Phil Kline's annual Unsilent Night, a winter solstice event at which the general public is invited to bring boom-boxes and play as they walk, to a piece from the 1980s, orchestrated by Barb Golden in Oakland -- Public Hearing -- where all comers played their selected recordings over a loud speaker mounted on a building, to the recent "60 Second Symphonies" at Yerba Buena, performed by attendees and conducted by Jon Brumit and Marc Horowitz (in conjunction with last year's Erwin Wurm show). Tenderloin art bar, RX Gallery, has a weekly open DJ night, where attendees can bring in their ipods or audio recordings and play them for the public, not to mention things more in the pop culture vein, like the Sing-a-long Sound of Music, Rocky Horror, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Chicken John's Porn-e-oke.

I suppose it is in response to critical viewers like me that Instant Coffee stenciled on one of their benches, the self-effacing defense mechanism, "Instant Coffee does not have a monopoly on bad art." Am I supposed to feel more sympathetic to their work because of this statement? Am I supposed to think they are clever for saying they suck, a clich\'8ed punk rock gambit at least as old as I am? This of course begs the question, if the art is bad, and/or you acknowledge it's bad, why not do better? And why is it at Yerba Buena, an institution that has the curatorial and budgetary resources to exhibit good art?

Certainly, one imagines the ideal exhibition features works that take risks and succeed, but is failure worth showing? Personally, I'd rather see risky failures than well-crafted pabulum, but I don't even see much risk in what Instant Coffee did here (apart from equipment failure -- the record player had an "out of order" sign on my first visit). It has the fatuous toss-off quality that marks some of the less successful local efforts at conceptual or social practice art that rationalize their wan wankery through equating craft and intellectual rigor with elitism and authoritarianism, and masking the facile product of their work with fun and games, gimmicky props, or in Instant Coffee's case, a large flat screen monitor with a close up of the tacky knit bench covers and a series of public events in which other artists use their work as a platform. As an artist and curator, I did appreciate the gesture of the performances by local artists at "The Bass Bench," though these performances were their own thing, and didn't really cast Instant Coffee's piece in a more favorable light, and could be seen as an attempt at turd gilding.

The pink spray-painted interactive video keyboard from the Space 1026 crew was more participatory, in that it provided multiple openings for engagement. One could play with the sounds, try to elicit patterns of image and sound, experiment to figure out how it was constructed, or noodle for visual stimulus. While the thick pink coat of paint and the Nagelesque graphics didn't appeal to my personal aesthetic, I enjoyed the piece, as well as the "Please play purple copper poppies" electronic wall works, which seemed partly dysfunctional by the time I saw the show. The element of randomness and multiplicity of "ways to play" made these more rewarding than the Instant Coffee Bass Bench.

But let's step back from a critique of the art products, themselves. The curatorial statement emphasizes the collective nature of the work, the "communal open-ended creative process." This exhibition does well in presenting different forms of collective art practice. Royal Art Lodge's members take turns adding to the paintings in exquisite corpse-like fashion; Instant Coffee collaborates on a somewhat performative installation, and Space 1026 involves multiple artists in crafting an elaborate representation of their non-profit print studio and arts space.

The efforts of Space 1026 interested me most, as their project seemed only partly about art-making, but also about representing a cultural venue through an exhibition at another space 3000 miles away.

Their project was less meaningful to me as art works, but as documentation of a site of cultural production. I found it quite imaginative in its archival efforts with the all-over paste-up of posters and ephemera from past events, video documentation, a mini-library, and several works by individual artists. It definitely presented an image of overwhelming industry, some of it "mindless directionless energy," that corroborated with the image of the "innocent fresh out of art school skateboard kid" the space resembled to its founders.

The similarities in these Philadelphian posters to local efforts were quite striking: color schemes, subject matter, composition, and lettering. There is definitely a lot of local work that shares aesthetic sensibilities, and the skater art clubhouse galleries come and go and attract their loyal followings here in the Bay Area. The Space 1026 presentation reminded me most of the graphically-dense and exuberant local art website, fecalface.com.

In conclusion, when viewing this exhibition, I kept coming back to the critical question, "Can bad art be good programming?" As the curator of a venue for experimental work in many genres, I would be dishonest not to admit that some of our experiments were failures, though I wouldn't call Peer Pleasure I a failure, per se. The exhibition does succeed in answering the question, "What does collective art look like?" -- presenting 3 distinct approaches to collective art practice. It also succeeded in keeping to its agenda of following contemporary art trends, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, San Francisco being geographically distant from the locations where most of the contemporary art discussed in national and international publications is exhibited. Institutionally, as a regional art center, Yerba Buena challenges the stereotype of regional art centers as provincial backwaters and historical throwbacks, and for that I applaud this show.}

The Lake Writing, Textual Works

Manuscript pages on the wall detail written observations of a natural site. The writing looks conventional; handwriting flows left to right, page by page in an elegant but un-theatrical cursive. The handwriting is black and appears more rushed at times, but not by much. 24 manuscript pages in 4 groups represent walks on 4 different days around Llyn Idwal, a body of water in North Wales. Each page is a black and white xerox of an original. (The original is not exhibited.) The white pages match the white gallery walls. Hung at eye-level in one long row, the pages are standard office size.

Bethan Huws’ language echoes descriptive passages in Walden. Huws: “the grass is very very dark green and reflecting a kind of rich brown colour inbetween. And there is some kind of brown colour in the grasses as well. And all the edges are reflecting a kind of greenbrown colour of the little mounds, these mountain mounds of the lake.” Thoreau: “Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view... it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond.” (chapter 2)

Huws avoids privileging her observations, instead she walks around her subject. With each step, and as time passes, Huws reevaluates the lake. Every observation is fleeting. After describing variations of movement in the water, Huws writes: “Looking back, the lake looks totally uniform again.”

Huws also avoids any kind of autobiography in The Lake Writing. No confessions, just grass, water, earth. This is Monet territory. The lake in Huws' native Wales becomes her haystack. Huws’ writing allows the visual imagination to enact the same resonance of subtle changes Monet explored through the play of light.

Further, Huws strategy is anti-materialist. Perhaps this politics is best explained by Hamish Fulton, an artist who has made a lifetime of walking. Fulton writes: “Only art resulting from the experience of individual walks. A walk has a life of its own and does not need to be materialized into an artwork. An artwork can be purchased but a walk cannot be sold.” http://www.hamish-fulton.com

The artwork shadows the experience of walking. The artwork as object is inevitably tied to issues of the market. Huws does not exhibit an original manuscript. Huws removes herself from her experience and even the secondary practice of writing about the experience. Instead, Huws exhibits a xerox of the manuscript— a cheap, work day item.

By limiting the factors of landscape painting, by writing a landscape instead of painting it, Huws reduces landscape painting to description, acknowledging the impossibility of any attempt to definitively capture the natural world. The Lake Writing is refreshingly simple. Reading it is a kind of meditation, a peaceful walk with a generous, confident and inspired friend. Its economy of production serves as a reminder that art doesn’t need to consume a lot of resources or take a lot of space.

Huws’ films have been exhibited widely in Europe. New Langton shows another aspect of this challenging and exciting artist. A second piece by Huws, Origin and Source, is extraneous here. Less accessible and direct than The Lake Writing, this massive journal in 6 volumes is clearly an important exercise for the artist. Individual entries are intriguing: a definition of “metaphor of absence”, references to Louise Bourgeois, grammar puzzles. Ultimately, though, it is unclear how this whole functions as an artwork.

The Lake Writing (1991) by Bethan Huws is featured in the exhibition Textual Works: Bethan Huws and Frances Stark on view at New Langton Arts May 19-June 24, 2006. http://www.newlangtonarts.org