Teresa Petersen
"Re-Assembled"
District Arts Gallery
http://www.districtarts.com/
955 S. Eton Street, Birminghan, MI
April 1 - April 30 2005
http://home.usaa.net/~tandandy/teresa/

Detroit artist Teresa Petersen takes her assemblage and collaged works to Birmingham’s District Arts Gallery for a one-woman show. The work consists of nostalgic imagery clipped from old magazines and advertisements interwoven into objects from the past. You could think of it as “garage sale art” – an act of thrift or recycling – but even if all the materials only cost a quarter, this should by no means devalue the work. In fact, appropriation of imagery is at the heart of postmodern practice – fragments of the past being reborn into new works, bringing both some sense of their original identity to contribute to the new meaning being presented. Consider Petersen a visual “ DJ,” mixing together science text illustrations and fashion ads from past eras instead of 45s. And while collage as an art form isn’t terribly tricky to pull off, doing it well is. Petersen not only does it very well, she manifests a recognizable, identifiable identity all her own grooving on a theme of a woman’s identity and the natural world in an environment of consumerism.

Petersen’s way of working is a game of sorts – a game of identity. To reinforce that, many of these works themselves are playable games – from “Matchup” and “Operation” to amalgamations of “Sorry,” “Monopoly,” and others. That the viewer can play with the art is a delight. Viewers can mismatch pieces (to the tune of the warning buzzer) in Operation or pitch bean bags at the assembled scene in the “Combinations Game.” The sense of play balances the deeper issues on hand – the artist is clearly having fun and we are meant to as well. Rather than being hit over the head with social statements, we are enticed to play and thus come to confronting larger questions as well.

The merger of objects and imagery is by no means haphazard as collage can be, but makes for some quite inspired and novel objects. (A note about the construction in general – these come together quite seamlessly. The artist as craftsman has gone to great lengths to integrate the disparate elements into a unified whole which is an essential element of their success.) Petersen has taken a pre-digital alarm clock radio (where the numbers are on rolodex-like cards that flip odometer-esque) and meticulously attached her cutout images to each card’s face. The viewer is allowed to turn the clock dial flipping through countless combinations of images and create one’s own meaning in their juxtaposition. A bra ad next to picture of a mixing bowl, two pert, smartly dressed lasses next to cuddly kittens – meaning is not implied but inferred from what the viewer brings to it.

Throughout the work, Petersen explores women’s roles as they’ve shifted from the past eras from which much of her imagery has been borrowed to today, though by putting the images in wooded, natural environment, she connects the modern woman to some past notion of women as being more in tune to nature. From the Asian practice of binding one’s feet to modern narrow-toed, high heels, the state of women’s feet might stand in (pun unintended) for the shaping of women’s roles more generally speaking as brought about by the consumer-fashion industry. Petersen speaks directly to this fact by showing women’s shoes littering the landscape. The male role is represented here perhaps in the prevalence of mushrooms in the landscape and similarly shaped gaming pieces on the game boards. Petersen extends this game of identity to the personal as well by inserting herself into some of these scenes – often nude and communing with nature ala Snow White. It’s a bold move in an artwork that appears to come from someone who lets old magazines and toys do her talking. But it works. That bit of vulnerability is not over the top or a shock to make the viewer uncomfortable at the intimateness. Rather it adds to the exploration of issues and overall quirky personality infused into the work.

This is a cohesive body of work, yet one that allows for seemingly endless exploration – a truly fertile field for artist and viewer to play with together. Through images of the past, Petersen comments on the future and offers a joyful experience in doing so. – Nick Sousanis

ws@thedetroiter.com

And there’s a lot of unique glass works on display too – including Jennifer Blazina’s glass “envelopes” with black and white photographic images hazily visible through the thick molded glass. These tie in nicely to the nostalgic imagery in Petersen’s work and all of the more object oriented (though at times exotic) glassworks inside are worth a look.

Alex Katz Lecture At CCS
April 14, 2005 7:30pm

Kevin Ewing – special to thedetroiter.com

A native New Yorker, Alex Katz has been a successful figurative and landscape painter for over forty years. He is known for breaking from the mid-century commitment to abstraction by returning to traditional figurative-based and landscape work inflected with a distinctly contemporary emotional coolness melded with an unabashed classical love for beauty. Katz spoke at CCS recently and focused on his personal history and development as an artist from childhood to the present day. Included with the talk was a slide show that functioned less as a structural reference for the monologue and more as a silent, cyclical visual diary of his work through the years.

Katz began the lecture by admitting to being “intimidated” by the concept of the “painter as genius”. This distrust of his perception of what a painter should be led him to concentrate initially on the commercial arts, absorbing a certain compositional clarity and graphic sensibility that has informed his work from the outset.

He stated his belief that the way the viewer perceives a painting visually is quicker than we perceive it intellectually, that our eyes are, in effect, faster than our brains. Comparing his personal art history to contemporary culture he made the analogy that artistic sensibility has moved from what he called morality, or fixed values, as in the critical approach of Clement Greenburg, to law, or a more variable approach to art, making up new structures for art as we proceed forward through time.

Katz referenced an interest in the 1950’s practice of breaking down linear thought as in Jackson Pollock and be-bop jazz, admitting that music and dance were the underlying aesthetics of his work from the outset. He stated that Pollock’s work pushed him to a new, larger world, and inspired him to attempt a more abstract approach to realism. Katz developed a visual shorthand by practicing drawing very quickly from life and has always been aware of an explosive energy within him when he paints. He suggested we must paint from our own temperament, that as a painter he followed his instincts, “having a blast” painting outdoors, finishing paintings in an afternoon. In describing his process, Katz stressed that he has a very predetermined way of working. In order to paint as quickly as he does he had to learn systems, each brush stroke being mapped out in order to attain a sort of immediate, instantaneous perception. He stressed his belief that painting is an application of energy through work.

Regarding content, Katz was adamant that we should paint what we see culturally, through the culture we live in. This corresponded with a belief that the ways things appear are not fixed. For example, he stated that realistic paintings are “only realistic for maybe twenty years, then the work becomes just a painting”, in effect, simply another work of art. Though he readily admitted to being a “sucker for a pretty face”, he has worked to strip out the content of his work, stating that content gets in the way of a certain coolness he is trying to achieve.

Through hearing Alex Katz talk about his life and his work, we get the sense that by limiting his process to a predetermined, planned way of working, he feels free to allow his intuitive vitality and explosive physicality to re-capture, in a more detached, or intellectual way, the sense of immediate energy and urgency he perceives in his subject matter. It is through this dichotomy of a forced structural integrity reigning in an otherwise explosive, expressionistic approach to painting that gives his work its particular detached yet sensual sensibility, as well as its distinctively cool contemporary character.

Kevin Ewing studied art at CCS from 1983 to 1987 and then headed out into the professional world. He has since returned to the world of fine arts and is currently working on his MFA in Painting at WSU where he investigates the human nature of attraction and our aesthetic selectivity.

Pewabic Pottery
http://www.pewabic.com/
March 25 thru May 13
Thomas Hoadley
Harvey Sadow
John Albert Murphy

Founded over a hundred years ago, and in its current location for almost that entire time, Pewabic Pottery's significance in Detroit and beyond is well established. Around town, Pewabic tiles can be found gracing many historic homes in surrounding Indian Village, as well as such public places as the Guardian Building, the Detroit Public Library, and more recently Comerica Park (just to name a few).

In addition to continually creating ceramic tiles and pottery, the pottery offers classes and workshops for adults and children. Visitors can take in a self-guided tour of the facility or visit their Museum Store to purchase Pewabic made ceramics or the works of nationally recognized ceramic artists.

While Pewabic has long featured a gallery devoted to fine art ceramics, they've recently made some changes in where different things are located within the building to bring a greater focus on this aspect of the various things the pottery offers. Once downstairs, the gallery has migrated up the stairs into three distinct rooms, the East, West, and Stratton Galleries, and all the ceramic wares have all been moved downstairs. The current exhibition sees the work of Thomas Hoadley, Harvey Sadow, and John Albert Murphy.

Hoadley works in the Nerikomi tradition (a Japanese technique involving the marbling of colored clays) to make his thin-walled organic shaped pots. The forms are bowls, but bowls with the undulating structure to their walls that looks as if it might have evolved in response to soft undersea currents. The surfaces are split into multiple regions adorned with distinct patterns and color. Think of a multi-colored country map, curled up into a bowl shape. The regions shift from the grey white marbling to deep reds - wood grain like to black and white fingerprint whorls (or perhaps topographic mappings) to solid gold leaf. Perhaps the intentional incongruity of the sections speaks to our current age of instant media. Hoadley captures in one of our oldest art forms, the ability to change channels. Don't love gold leaf? Turn the piece and there's something else to enjoy. By weaving these together in a continuous form, he perhaps tries to make some sense of it, while creating an attractive object at the same time.

John Albert Murphy's work, like Hoadley's, offers even thinner forms to take on the organic vessel forms in slipcast porcelain. The thinness gives the feeling of flower petals or eggshells, and in fact some pieces are petal-like with vessels within vessels, and at their heart a single egg. Their surfaces are marked with pure black and white patterns, either stripes or grids, meticulously applied. Some contain gold-luster insides or the eggs similarly coated in gold. The gold serves as a mirror and the promise of a jewel within the outer form. The sharpness of black and white, especially in clay, along with the richness of gold make for a delightful blend.

Harvey Sadow presents the most traditional vessels on display, smoothly rounded forms with but small openings at their tops. Loose, Eastern brush marks decorate their outer surfaces. While at first glance they appear somewhat earthy, moving around them reveals a surprising amount of color. Sadow describes the work as looking for calm and balance, and these are that - stoic yet playful, quiet yet quite active. Through the combination of the marking and color, the solid forms almost take flight.

These three artists display that even this ancient art form still has a lot of surprises to offer visually, just as this hundred year old Detroit landmark keeps offering new reasons to be involved in the world of ceramics. Whether you're in the mood for the artistic potential of clay forms, unique housewares, the knowledge and support to craft your own works, or just a bit of Detroit history, stop in to Pewabic Pottery. You'll be glad you did. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Poor Man and Pryncess
Poor Man’s Art Collective/Pryncess wsg Zada
227 Iron Street/Nikki Lofts

Of late I’ve been to a number of one night (or weekend) art exhibitions. The people behind these events realize that the majority of visitors to a gallery come to the opening, with a trickle of attendees in the following weeks. They thus maximize their time in the space (never having to maintain it during non-peak times) thereby making use of non-traditional spaces as art galleries. Empty out a loft, a house (see last month’s feature on Commonwealth gallery)and you’ve created a warm environment for people to gather around art.

The “Poor Man’s Art Collective” held its second show (a salon style affair) this past tax day and subsequent weekend, and featured works at prices that even those hit hard by the tax man could weather. The ubiquitous Jack Johnson occupied the space’s second floor, offering up yet another permutation of his constantly evolving art-self. This time out he’s splashing color on canvas in surprisingly clean fashion – think egg whites drizzled onto a pan, quickly forming neat, curved lines. Even in the abstract, Johnson found a way to interject his humor and personality. Like Johnson, co-founder Mychal Noir worked with spattered paint, building layer upon layer of different palettes, creating atmospheric compositions. Kenya Vinson abandoned paint altogether, using decorative sequins to create a multitude of attractive, personal and symbolic imagery.

Poor Man founder Geno, offered up vibrant, unique abstract compositions, also not of paint, but of wood coated in torn and cut colored paper all under a layer of polyurethane. (Rendering them virtually unphotographable!) The paper and plastic coating combine to provide surprisingly warm, rich color. The color, combined with the balanced composition, of primitive, organic forms make these truly striking pieces. These not only come as wall pieces, but are turned into nicely crafted and attractive coffee table tops as well. Geno’s entire body of work was eye catching and quite pleasing.

The next night, over in Greektown’s Nikki lofts, Pryncess Red Warrior StyleZ got her solo act going. This show demonstrated both the advantages and the troubles of staging an exhibition at a non-gallery space: to say the least, the lighting was not intended for displaying things on the walls after dark. This is on hand kind of a downer, but on the other hand, it meant every visitor got a personalized candlelit (!) tour of the art work. (One could argue that in fact the candlelight brings out a greater richness to the artworks warm tones – a warm incandescent light might mask.) Pryncess’ primary body of work is wood relief done with chainsaw. The abstract organic, interlocking forms she creates interact with both the grain of the wood (at times enhanced by intentional burning) and the vivid hues she has applied. A second body of work, paper on wood under varnish of sorts, is reminiscent of Geno’s. The buttery texture created by her process complements the reliefs nicely. Pryncess then uses the new surface to draw and write upon. At times the drawing tends towards the realistic, and here that attention to accuracy bogs the viewer down a bit. When her marks go towards the primitive, iconic, and stylized, they are strong, and the viewer can enjoy them for what they are as with the relief forms.

Occupying the windowsill spaces of this gallery, artist Zada showed off her surreal drawings. Obsessively rendered, these fanciful, playful creations allowed her hand to have as much imagination as her mind. It’s a plentiful area for her to explore, and one looks forward to her continuing down that path.

(A past review of Pryncess, click here )

Both shows, for one night at least, offered a true feeling of community, and the power for art to bring people together. Look for the next place these artists will show off their works. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

MONA
Going Dutch: new photography from the Netherlands
April 16 through May 21
12-6pm Thursday through Saturday
http://www.detroitmona.com/

First off, let’s dispense with the whole issue of identity surrounding Jef Bourgeau’s Museum of New Art. Who’s exactly responsible for what, I really can’t say. What we can say with some degree of certainty is that Bourgeau has created an unsettling, unique installation of sorts, perhaps with the help of other artists (some of which may even be from Holland) but perhaps not. That said, it’s difficult to not think about what is going on here, but you’ll be happier if you can leave it at that and just enjoy the work for what it is. It’s also worth noting that MONA has taken up a new space formerly inhabited by Habatat Galleries, which is offering a layout much more conducive to showing work, as was done in Bourgeau’s previous Book Building space.

Perhaps the most engaging work currently on display (which is apparently not the first time it’s been on display here, though many of the other works are brand new to the gallery) is attributed to one Stig Elklund. Through photography, video, and installation this artist, while certainly presenting a particular aesthetic, more so evokes a distinct mood - primarily one of nostalgia and dread rolled into one. In an end room, a collection of Elklund’s photographs line the walls, with a large doll’s house seated in one corner. A sign (or Bourgeau’s audible reminder) instructs the visitor to shut the door and turn off the lights. Doing so reveals that the already ethereal and haunting photography has been printed so as to have the whites glow in the dark. This may seem a bit gimmicky, but it works in the context of the room (and really I wish I hadn’t gone in alone.) Peering into the doll’s house reveals a scene of a antique looking bedroom, complete with poster bed, flowing drapery, and frail woman beneath the bed’s thin sheets. The soft focus of the photos, the operatic music playing, all wind together to seal the mood (and making me open the door.)

Directly outside the enclosed room, Elklund displays an inspiringly creative video of the repetitious emptying of a bucket of water. The motion of the bucket is in synch with the sounds of waves crashing on the beach. It’s quite clever in its simplicity, and as disconcerting as the haunted room, but in a lighthearted way.

There’s a lot more photography to see as well. As the title of the show states, we’re in for a look at Dutch life from Dutch photographers. The digitally enhanced prints of one Lottie Dodd, although covered in frustratingly cracked shell, standout. In the group portion of the show, the Dutch offer snapshots of everyday life - old and young, sexy and mundane. They are grouped in such a way as to allow the viewer to draw connections between the disparate images, where perhaps there was none at all.

At MoNA, no doubt little is as it seems, as Bourgeau plays the game of art and identity, and keeps the viewer just a little bit unsettled in the process. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetoiter.com

Center Galleries: “Threefold,”
Matthew Hanna, Megan Parry, Christian Tedeschi
March 19 – April 30, 2005

(By Christina Hill special to thedetroiter.com. Updated with pictures.)

Spring pastels are arriving late to decorate Detroit’s dreary landscape -- such an endless winter -- but for a blast of strong color there is plenty at Center Galleries’ current show, “Threefold.” The exhibition presents the work of three artists, disparate in media and message, which nevertheless combines here marvelously: Matthew Hanna (ceramic and mixed-media collages), Megan Parry (painting), and Christian Tedeschi (sculpture from found objects with applied plastics). Gallery director Michelle Perron has performed magic in her inspired installation by first choosing and then beautifully combining the work of artists she has long admired. She has transformed the gallery into a wonderland of sorts: a fabulous yin/yang assault on the senses by means of the smack of contrasting colors – walls of orange, raspberry and purplish-blue – and the violent conflict of different shapes, textures, materials, and artistic attitudes that nevertheless are mysteriously compatible and pleasing in their odd harmony.

The gallery’s floor space is filled with several pieces by Tedeschi, who has a background in ceramics but has traveled light-years beyond the norm with his latest conceptual body of work based on the forces of nature. He covers common objects, “Chair” for example, with a sticky orange silicon material that has produced long, icky tendrils on the floor suggestive of insect feelers or the encroachment of man-eating plants. Tedeschi’s process transforms these quotidian pieces into – to appropriate the title of a David Bowie album from 1980 -- “Scary Monsters.” The artist’s “mad scientist” persona is further reinforced by “Organ on Palette,” the hideous shape of which suggests a very large seabird disfigured distressingly by an oil-spill, a creature pathetically trapped in dripping, gooey black muck unable to open his wings and certainly about to die. Is Tedeschi the twenty-first century reincarnation of George Ohr, “the mad potter of Biloxi,” whose ceramic vessels from one hundred years ago suggested organic deformation and Frankenstein-like genetic experiments gone awry?

Yet, by contrast (which is what this exhibit exhibits so well), Tedeschi also spins plastic onto discarded washing machine parts creating luscious pink and white cotton candy-like objects that pose seductively on tabletops. These look quite delicate and have a confectionary texture, like taffy pulled to its most brittle limit. Of this group, his “Agitator” pieces (literally made from that part) suggest to me, and not in a bad way, attempts by children in crafts class to make pink Christmas trees, once in vogue. They fall far short of perfection being too spiky, flattened, disfigured, and odd; most important, the tips of the trees failed to materialize. In the “Agitator Spray” works, Tedeschi has transformed the machines’ tubs into objects that suggest elegantly gift-wrapped pieces (although the centers are hollow), with tops of dainty floral-like sprays standing in for bows. The bodies of the pieces have sinuous folds and ripples, dents and bulges, that simulate (for our unmitigated pleasure) the beauty of human skin or luxurious textiles. Another interpretation might consider the pieces as fairytale crowns for giants such as the elephant Babar and his queen, Celeste. Or, because they seem so edible, somewhat misshapened but delectable, cakes.

Buttressing Tedeschi’s pieces on one of the gallery’s walls is a series of paintings by Megan Parry -- trapazoid-shaped canvases comprised of violently uncompromising hard-edged geometric wedge shapes. These, such as “Arlequino,” provide a fascinating contrast, and also a serendipitously complementary color scheme, to the organic and (seemingly) haphazard nature of Tedeschi’s work. Parry’s sophisicated, deliberative color combinations are mostly unexpected: red, pink, and black, or yellow, brown, green, and blue. In one work she softens the sharpness of the wedges of color by the addition on the surface of the sweet shapes of young moons, applied as if decals. Interest is added to other paintings by means of infinite varieties of patterns and shapes.

Many of her pieces, such as “Il Sole Mio,” are done with spray paint on heavily textured canvas and the fuzziness of the application conjures up planetary imagery: exploding stars, glowing orbs, and intricate galaxies in the night sky. In “Bobetta,” a lavender double-sided noose vies with intricate, “feminine” gem-like shapes for our attention. Her decision to employ both hard-edges and blurry imagery in a single piece demonstrates her inclination to be both whimsical and strong: more contrasts. Yet, her dark side reconciles with Tedeschi’s monstrous pieces, and her out-of-focus dot shapes connect well to Tedeschi’s organic plastic dribbles, giving the installation an overall congruency of contrasts and similarities that is quite intriguing.

The ceramic slabs shown by Matthew Hanna against the purplish-blue gallery wall are idiosyncratic constructions (or collages) loaded up with odd bits of kitsch, touristy memorabilia collected from his travels: plastic peanuts and chicken feet, ceramic cows, cheap Madonna statues, lumberjacks, and replicas of antebellum Southern gentleman like Colonel Sanders. He also adds pieces of saw blades and steering wheels of ships -- all very manly stuff. While these pieces take some getting used to -- Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! -- they certainly come from the Jeff Koons’ school which fetishized and immortalized objects long associated with bad taste and popular culture. (I once purchased a painted plaster rabbit from a rural display of such creatures for my son, a Koon’s fan, thinking that since I couldn’t afford the real things – those having been transformed by the mystery of the art market into expensive high art -- it replicated the sensibility of the concept while costing hundreds of thousands of dollars less!)

Perron hasn’t, however, simply tossed in these somewhat “crude” works by Hanna if compared to the intellectual-based work by the other two artists, hoping against hope that they might somehow “work.” It demonstrates her brilliant eye that Perron recognized the conflicting components in Hanna’s art which connects him to the other work and completes the narrative of contrast and similarity she tells in this exhibition. Hanna’s work looks rough and craft-like, rather than gorgeous and precious, but if one looks closely at the background of his slabs there are lovely incised elements from nature: plant forms, leaves, nuts, acorns, the texture of wood. Alongside a circus of kitsch, he provides us the cleansing, spiritual atmosphere of a forest environment. And thus one can safely revel in the beauty of the carefully-considered design of this special exhibition. – Chris Hill

HOLY SIT!
Cranbrook Chair Show
@ Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit
www.caidonline.org
2211 Rosa Parks,
Detroit
313-899-CAID
Thurs-Sat, 12-6
April 9 through May 5

Are you sitting down to read this? Well of course you are! Our society spends an inordinate amount of time seated in chairs. Whether we’re working, eating, driving, watching TV, or now, surfing the Internet (caught ya!), there we are, plopped back in our chairs, slowly but surely becoming one with the furniture.

It’s not altogether clear how much we think about our chairs, beyond immediate issues of comfort. However, the students at Cranbrook Academy of Arts (since its inception, its graduates have made a prominent contribution to the sphere of furniture design) have once again put a lot of thought and creativity in expanding the look and concept of what it means to be a chair. This is the fourth permutation of the organically perpetuating annual chair show from the Cranbrook crew, and it just might make you think about what you’re sitting in right now – and why it’s not a whole lot more interesting.

FULL DISCLOSURE ALERT: I am on the board of CAID where this exhibition is being held. What that means, is that when another board member stated that this show needed a home and proposed that we could be it, I (having seen all of the previous incarnations) said “cool” and voted for it on the spot. I also swept the gallery before the opening night. And most importantly, I didn’t feel one iota of hesitation before testing out each and every chair! And whether you’re on the board or not, neither should you.

As the show’s primary thrust is on playing with the idea of the chair, an analysis of what it means to sit or an examination of chair culture as a whole, is for the most part absent. (This might be a worthwhile thread to incorporate into future exhibitions.) “Holy Sit,” like its predecessors, is a wonderful display of creativity and a whole lot of fun no doubt for the artists and certainly for the visitors. One of the most obvious pleasures, besides viewing these as artworks, is, well, SITTING in them – actually interacting with the artwork. In a scene that normally maintains a certain distance and decorum, the opening saw the velvet rope discarded, as people sat, lay on, (smelled!) fell backwards on(!) and had fun with all of the artwork. And for that reason alone it was a delightful sight that galleries might embrace more often.

With so much to see and sit on, (there are 32 artists involved all in all) obviously not every artist and chair will get a mention, but here’s a sampling:

This is Detroit, so that ensures there will always be pieces made from the discarded remains of the city’s industrial past. A strong example of this came in the form of an upright rectangular cube chair by Rowland Ricketts covered in industrial belts that once kept the assembly line moving. The belts made for a comfortable and appropriately industrial look. Shan Sutherland’s “Ice Curule” resembles the curve-legged chair of ancient Rome (a “curule” ), and is made from a block of ice (its seat) with legs made from the old-time large tongs once used to carry similar ice blocks. Kind of rough for sitting, what with large metal teeth reaching upwards and being made of ice and all, but an extremely unique form and innovative blend of the materials’ function and appearance.

This form of recycling can become a kind of nostalgia as well, like Mark Moskovitz’ “Real Task Chair,” which combined a tractor seat with an old office chair – quite comfortable actually. Co-curator Jeff Sturges’ “ Down but not out” is a chunk of a tree, a forking branch that we might have clambered up to and sat in as children, and now, chopped up and resting on the floor, becomes a perfect chair for adults who’ve stopped climbing trees. (But perhaps this will re-awaken that impulse.) Aaron Blendowski’s piece, “First Chair/Large Chair,” really spoke to viewers’ inner child. This chair, more of a bed really, consists of a platform high off the ground complete with an innovative step (a stump of a flag pole extruding from it’s middle) to leap up into it, and then delightfully soft and decked out with pillows to kick back in. If this playfulness didn’t make it a children’s bed for adults, then the fort concealed underneath the bed’s enclosed walls, complete with peephole to gaze out and cubby hole entrance to climb in, cemented the deal.

And then there are things functioning as other things. With two bends in corrugated metal sheeting, co-curator Robert Brooks and collaborator Ed Liang made a surprisingly comfortable and exceedingly simple low to the ground chair. Steve Bowden and Peter Evonuk made a similar bent form out of an entire wooden door! This made for a surreal, humorous, as well as functional form.

A few chairs on display are just art that happens to be centered around the chair. Jessica Frelinghuysen’s “The impending disaster at the meeting of Annie Oakley and President William McKinley” is a small, plain wooden chair filled with about as many holes (obviously intended to be bullet holes) as the number of letters in her title (in reference to one who lived by the gun and another who died by it.) While the aforementioned may have been less than functional (not much structural integrity left after all those holes went through it!) Jada Schumacher’s “Sushi” chairs were both an artistic treat and quite functional. These are made from an outer wrap of colorful fabric, “stuffed” with stacks of magazines (not included.) They make for a nice, low seat, and really look like sushi.

“Sonar Terrain” by Warit Tulyathorn does, as its name suggests, resemble an exotic undulating terrain, perhaps a mapping of the range of radio or sonar signals. It’s a two-seater (at least) and allows for a number of interesting ways to converse with another person, outside of the norms that we’re accustomed to while sitting. Mike Rossi’s green metal rocker with matching green ottoman offers elegant design, and is perhaps the most functional and practical of the pieces in the show.

Matt Miller’s “Free Public Heat” made of heating duct works, is a functional bench/chair and when placed over a Detroit steam cover, served as a source of heat for those sitting or sleeping on it. In this, Miller has created a powerful project reaching far beyond chair design, which we will delve into in these pages in more detail in the near future.

Kate Ludwig’s “Wall Stool Paper” is just that, a folding stool, decorated the same as the wallpaper it sits in front of. However, on closer inspection it turns out that when folded, a notch on the chair’s underside allows it to hang on a hardly visible nub on the wall, effectively camouflaging the stool. Functional and extremely efficient, but for its design this might fit right in at a Shaker home. (Known for their simple and practical furniture design, Shakers got their name from a description of their ritual dancing and shaking and speaking in tongues – my second chance in two weeks to use the word glossolalia!)

The final mention is not really a chair at all, but a video of a chair, or rather a video of the life span of a chair. Built entirely out of ice (the second ice chair in the show – this must be happening in Michigan!) in the Berkley backyard of Christian Cutler. After the chair is constructed and Cutler exits the scene, the yard is left completely alone, by humans at least, leaving only the time lapse camera to capture what unfolds. Over about a two week period, the chair slowly melts and falls apart, and the video concludes when the last remnants of the chair’s ice disappear. But the time lapse captures something far more than the chair’s dissolution – as the sun arcs across the sky, shadows race across the ground, radically transforming the look of the landscape over the course of each day. Icicles extruded from the chair (while it was still standing); footprints in the snow turn into big patches of bare ground before new snow comes and melts all over again; occasional blips on the screen, which might at first appear to glitches in the film, are in fact birds frozen in flight by the camera’s shutter. This tiny backyard scene becomes dynamic, almost chaotic landscape.

Cutler has created a metaphor for our lives: we may sit in our chairs day in and day out trapped in a repetitious routine, yet all around us, if we but look, the casually miraculous is happening every moment.

Bring a friend or three, and have an exceptionally good time just sittin’ around. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

(NOTE: Revised with pictures.)

Communicable Consumption: The Phaedra Robinson Experience
Meadowbrook Art Gallery
March 18 through April 17, 2005

“The mystery of words: simple expulsions of air with the power to completely recast reality.” from “Usher” by John Sousanis

Our very language shapes how we view and interact with the world, and art is one important communication tool at our disposal. The methods of art are used to this end quite transparently in the form of advertisements, though art in its more pure form is also a means of transforming reality. Throughout the tremendous body of work in her one-person exhibition, Phaedra Robinson shares her personal manifesto on art and life, focusing specifically on the means of communication themselves – that is the mouth and the written word.

Coupling “communicable” with “consumption” for her artfully alliterative show title is spot on - it’s cleverly considered to convey multiple meanings: we communicate and consume with our mouths. Robinson even acknowledges that in the midst of producing something (this art) there is a consumption of something (her materials.) “Communicable” also refers to the transmission of something, typically disease, again often done through our mouths. Yet communicable need not be limited to disease, consider the field of “memetics” (think “genetics” ) which looks at the spread of ideas from the idea’s perspective. Once voiced (or written) an idea disseminates virus-like and, independent of its creator, attempts to infect other human hosts. Where once ideas could only be transmitted orally and hence slowly – person to person, the pace has accelerated since the creation of the printing press up until today where ideas cross the globe instantaneously.

Words thus have great power. Although we no longer use our mouths to fight in the traditional sense (tooth and claw) we use them to spread ideas – to greater and more lasting effect. Think of how a phrase like “Axis of Evil” determines how we view an entire group of people. The devastating power of words is taken up in Robinson’s video wherein she and artist Christian Tedeschi play “Rock, paper, scissors” – essentially a “war of words” continuously for 24 minutes. Interspersed throughout the video are scenes of (dramatized) violence between the two – indicating that words do indeed hurt. The video is timed beautifully – appropriate sounds denote each exchange and as the speed of the video accelerates – these become beats, a soundtrack. The rhythm of play and violence, along with the manipulation of time, turn something as repetitive as this game (for which she also provided charts detailing each turn) into something engaging to watch for the entire duration (in my view, a rarity in video art.)

And therein lies the strength of Robinson’s work – for all its conceptual underpinnings, this is very much a viscerally visual show – a feast not just for the mind but the eyes as well. While in many ways this work is art as activism – Robinson’s veganism and environmental stance are expressed – the viewer is not hit over the head with it through sloganism or shock value, rather through her gentle aesthetic. She turns to literal foodstuffs – chocolate soymilk, beet juice, coffee – to stand in for paint, in some cases directly applying them with her mouth. She complements this with kisses to paper (lip marks) applied with lipstick by way of lips. Rather than the art being about a way of eating and an image of a kiss, her marks are those very things. Knowing that the artist kissed this paper, makes the already delicate and sensual imagery all the more intimate.

Robinson continues the mouth motif in unique fashion through a collaborative postcard project. She created an initial image involving the mouth and then sent it to her collaborator, who then added to the imagery and sent it back, and so on. In an age of instant messaging, there is something more considered, more deliberate, and as in the works of food discussed above, something more intimate. Each artist touched the paper and made physical marks upon it, creating a true dialogue despite the distance of space and time separating the two.

The tongue plays a prominent role in Robinson’s oeuvre. As instrument of speech, eating, and intimate acts, the tongue resides in two worlds – as part of that realm of unseen, internal organs of our bodies, yet at the same time it’s on the outside, easily presentable, and an essential vehicle for expression. By presenting tongue as object, Robinson captures its dual nature effectively – it is beautiful and kind of gross in the same moment. (Think of the mating snails, oozing out of their shells in the film “Microcosmos.” ) An example, “Pack of Lies” resembles a pierced tongue, composed of a curved stack of playing card sized paper, on the underside of which she has written lies (although this remains invisible to the viewer), with Braille writing on the outer surface. (The Braille makes an appearance on many of the works, transforming Robinson’s words from the purely visual to something physical.) The hidden writing speaks to the tongue as conveyor of the intimate – yet we can equally easily manipulate that intimacy to deceive (“speak with forked tongue.” )

Although today we have more and more ways to transmit information, it seems at times that we are actually able to communicate less. We are adrift in a cacophony of channel overload of the information age. This is akin to the so-called “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia) – the ritual chant of nonsensical words. Robinson makes this into something visible through the overlapping of text seen on her billboard (“Wool Over Our Eyes” ) and other smaller works on paper. From a certain vantage point the seemingly meaningless babble of the billboard coalesces into a coherent image – a horizontal whirling dervish of dancing words or a leaning tower of Babel. The artist is interpreter, divining meaning in the chaos of multiple voices.

(For past words on “Wool Over Our Eyes, click here.)

It is a bit of an understatement that Robinson’s work invites multiple interpretations and touches upon many themes (of which I’ve only mentioned a few). This is true, each theme or body of work on display here could constitute its own exhibition. But we might say that rather than being disparate bodies of work, this is quite focused on the single theme of being Phaedra Robinson. By exploring that theme in such depth, we are offered an important educational experience on the process of being an artist and artmaking, but perhaps more importantly on the richness and complexity of being a human being.

From the visual arresting to the conceptual, Robinson makes us think about what we consume and what we create. She has shared something with you, whispered it in your ear, exchanged with a delicate kiss. And now it’s yours to carry forth on your own process of discovery. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

One other thing: As usual gallery director Dick Goody has created an amazing catalogue offering his own insightful interpretations of Robinson’s work, a comprehensive interview with the artist, and an extensive series of photographs providing a great overview of the exhibition. This is a vital document and a great service not just to Robinson but also to the art community as a whole.

Also note, Robinson will be hosting a forum at the gallery on Tuesday April 12 at 7pm. Be there!

“Spirit of Detroit”
Gordon Newton, James Duffy, Benjamin Hoy
Susanne Hilberry Gallery
http://www.susannehilberrygallery.com
March 18 through April 16
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm.

Susanne Hilberry Gallery offers up a very Detroit show – bleak vistas and seemingly burnt objects. And yet in this broken down landscape, like Detroit itself, there is a sense of strength and vitality that shines through.

Legendary Cass Corridor artist Gordon Newton displays a series of objects made from a meticulous layering of paper, at times with holes punched through them or bisected by segments of dowel rods, all covered in tar-like black paint. While these aren’t found on the streets of Detroit, they look as if they could have been – the viscous paint gives the appearance of something charred or perhaps dipped in tar and oil – the substances of a place that calls itself the Motor City. Yet not all is bleak, as within their inky black depths we find surprising color, like the night sky itself, the darkness holds much more than we can see at first.

Newton has then displayed many of them within purposefully weathered wooden boxes, often behind glass as well, transforming them into almost sacred objects. Comparisons between art gallery and temple are often made, but in this instance that connection is drawn tighter. These are religious relics of a different sort.

Through his ritual process and the mad energy necessary to create these, Newton has transmogrified the ugly into something beautiful. To be sure, these are by no means attractive in the way we might typically think of an art object – yet people have long held as sacred, objects or images related to torture and death. Is worshipping artifacts of blight and decay any stranger? In Detroit, these are holy objects perched on a new altar, containers for the spirit of the city.

Benjamin Hoy’s camera captures a similar aspect of the city in a wholly different manner. His wide screen photos are panoramic views akin to the lazy summer drive by. The composition and the format pull us along the ride with him. These are guided by an eye for what’s missing – pictures of decay yes – but they strongly point out the absence of something that was once there. He points out a beauty in what’s been lost – its ghostly imprint – from the outline of greenhouses once attached to a building to an imprint of a staircase that once ran up a wall. Hoy offers one tremendous shot of Detroit’s abandoned train depot. While this relic has been photographed by everyone who has ever picked up a camera in this city, Hoy manages to find a perspective that’s both novel and enlightening. Taken from below and the backside, the station appears as the Acropolis (having just returned from Athens the similarity between the two was startling.) That this relic knew activity not all that long ago, makes it current state and the comparison between a two thousand year old structure all the more poignant.

The gallery also offers a look at the photos of James Duffy, famed Cass Corridor collector. Never having considered himself an artist, this installation of hundreds of his black and white Detroit snapshots from the 1970s, fit perfectly into this show. He captures a liveliness, almost a sweetness, that balances the tragic nature of these scenes of an uncared for city. The photos serve as a testament to what Duffy saw in what Cass artists like Newton were doing, and the type of care for Detroit he maintains.

At the end of a visit, Newton’s works, which are initially hard to enter (and even more difficult to photograph!), end up captivating a lot of thought long after leaving the gallery. The photos of Hoy and Duffy offer an immediate appeal – a vantage point from which to gaze deeper into the city’s heart captured by Newton’s objects. Newton reaches deeper into the core of what people find fascinating about this town. Detroit evokes a conflicting response – on one hand we are ready to write it off and flee to somewhere else. Yet simultaneously we are compelled to document its decay in search of something beautiful emerging from the wreckage. And here in all its, bleak, post-apocalyptic glory as captured by these three artists, something has. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com