percolator magazine

2006-12-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

Off the Wall

Dec 9 2006 - May 28 2007
Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
National Galleries of Scotland

As seen by Rea Cris.

Off the Wall shows how art has moved away from the confines of the picture frame and has taken up residence on the floor or ceiling. But of course, the National Galleries of Scotland are not creating a retrospective of the sculptural practices of art, but rather demonstrates the contemporary practice of moving away from the two dimensional surface of the canvas. It's a small and intimate exhibition; compromising of nine artists and works solely owned by the NGS, but due to space and fragility of the works are not always on permanent display.

Unfortunately the NGS have taken a more humorous and gimmicky approach to promoting this exhibition. Their information pamphlet emphasizes the playfulness the of the works, as the exhibit is "not just one to see, but one to experience". This promotional tactic was proven right by the amount of young couples with children, expecting arty playpens where they could snap a quirky Kodiak moment. Too bad that all but two of the art works can actually be physically interacted with and if so, at a restrained level. This mentality is ill-chosen as the works on display are not about lowering the 'do not touch' barrier and going wild with prohibited pleasure, but rather making the viewer aware of their physical surrounding and volume they take up, even without the sensation of touch.

Jim Lambie's JL-Zobop floor piece fills a whole room, while still leaving it empty. You are allowed and expected to walk around the room, but you do so with trepidation aware of other people present and despite the 'loudness' of the piece its overcome by the stillness of the gallery. Yinka Shonibare's Sun, Sand and Sea make you aware of the clumsiness and awkwardness of the human body; one false move and the whole piece could be shattered. Nathan Coley's The Lamp of Sacrifice, 286 Places of Worship Edinburgh 2004, first shown at the Fruitmarket gallery, is spilt between two rooms diminishing the effect of the work. These cardboard models no taller than a couple of meters give the viewer a sensation of being a child rather than a giant, but the models are so densely packed that we hover at the edges, left out, wanting in. Christine Borland's Hippocrates can claim the title of being the only ceiling piece as her tear shaped test tubes hang above our heads. The work posses an oppressive foreboding disguised in a pretty costume. One should not believe that humor is inappropriate as demonstrated in David Shrigley's Sculpture of a Piece of Paper (1997). But then again, you never know with Shrigley whether he is laughing along or is dead serious.

Martin Creed's Work No. 370 Balls from 2004 is being shown at the Gallery of Modern Art for the first time and can be physically interacted with at a moderated level. The work compromises of all types of balls or spheres, from beach balls, cricket, billiards, golf, football, basketball, baseball, christmas decorations, snowglobes, door handles, hackie sacks, chime balls, a bowling ball with a panda in it and huge black plastic sphere in the corner which looks like its slowly deflating. Its understandable why the NGS issue a warning for people to tread softly as most people's first (and seemingly only) instinct when walking into the space was to defiantly kick a beach ball across the room and then promptly move onto the next room satisfied with themsleves. Creed describes this piece as an anthropological investigation and when walking among the balls scavenging to be the first to find a different or bizarre ball the thought that humans could be likened to them is striking. We are scientists, playing God, selecting and discarding humans based on the whims of our personel tatse. Maybe in the end we are no better than those who kick and run away.

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/

2006-12-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

Into Me / Out of Me

KW Institute, Berlin
Nov. 26 2006 – Jan. 28 2007

As seen by Rea Cris

This massive exhibit spans across forty years of art practice and includes 137 artists. The exhibition, now showing at the KW Institute in Berlin first started at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre, MoMa affiliate in New York and has been curated by Klaus Biesenbach. The exhibit is a historical retrospective of the way in which artists have explored the different ways of passing into, through and out of the human body. Biesenbach has attempted to separate the huge amount of work into different categories; namely focusing on three primordial actions of the human body, metabolism, reproduction and violence. Within these categories you have works addressing specific issues such as eating, drinking, shitting, sex, birth, illness and mutilation.

Therefore how could we not expect an appearance from some usual suspects? Piero Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit from the 1960s, Jeff Koons’ photographs with his ex-wife porn star Cicciolina, Judy Chicago removing a tampax, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley’s Heidi, a version of Mona Hatoum’s Foreign Body, Shigeko Kubota’s performance still from Vagina Painting, the 1970s feature Lynda Benglis’ dildo advert for Artforum, Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll and Chris Burden still from Transfixed where he nailed himself to a Volkswagen. Also not forgetting Nan Goldin, Gilbert & George and the Chapman brothers, some bloody Herman Nitsch and of course Orlan.

And these artists are just the tip of the iceberg; the exhibition is massive. Some other ‘household’ art names are present, but get lost, such as Matthew Barney, Andy Warhol, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Richard Hamilton. There are those pieces, which stand out, fighting to steal the attention. Marcel Dzama masked girls, joyfully slicing their wrist merged well with Kara Walker Victorian style black silhouette doing dirty tricks. Henry Darger’s scrolls are a pictorial history of an imagery battle between soldiers and children, the battlefield littered with hanged children, their intestines splayed around them. They reminded me of a more sinister and disturbed version of the outsider artist in the movie Junebug. Brazilian artist’s Vik Muniz’s chocolate rendition of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper was amusing as was Alex McQuilkin’s video Fucked (2000) where a girl attempts to put her makeup on while ‘being taken from behind’. Sigalit Lanau’s video Barbed Hulla (2001) is mesmerising as you realize that the lure of torture may not be dead as you watch waiting for blood to appear. Patty Chang’s two videos run in reverse as kissing her parents recreates an egg they both shared. Ulay’s (born Uwe Laysiepen) collaboration with Marina Abramovic in the video Rest Energy (1980) shows them, holding a bow and arrow taunt, between them, the arrow dangerous pointed at Abramovic. As the tension builds, they give away no indication about the conclusion.

With an exhibition this size and a cast this large, the exhibition runs the risk that the manner of curation will steal the attention away from the exhibited art. Focusing on the merits or disadvantages of how the exhibit was curated rather than the choice and range of content within it is an easy trap to fall into. The curator himself fuels the thought when his name is sandwich into the prestigious place beneath the title and before the artists, in pink on the exhibition poster. Yet this retrospective is relevant. Disturbing and taboo subjects can easily be swept under the rug and its good that someone has dusted them off and shown us “here is what we have done”…now what have we learned and what are we going to do? The exhibition seems to thrive on the extreme of every spectrum, which in turn demonstrates how not unnatural it is. Human are still functioning on their primordial instincts. There is no right or wrong, no better than thou. And what about basic art history lessons? What disturbs you is not bad art, on the contrary its probably great art. Art (and life) is not only Van Gogh’s vase of sunflowers.

http://www.kw-berlin.de/
http://www.ps1.org/

2006-12-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Snowdomes
World in Miniature and Objects of Curiosity
25 Nov 2006 – 4 Mar. 2007

As seen by Rea Cris

It is lovely to finally see the snow dome or snow globe (depending whether you’re English or American) given the respect of an art object rather than simply a kitschy tourist trap. Albeit this exhibit cannot completely shake off the stereotype, as it also doubles as a cabinet of curiosities exhibiting collections from eight collectors including Nancy McMichael whose collection numbers at 500 snow globes.

Even more exciting (and yes I am being completely serious and not ironic) is the first ever snow globe courtesy of Bergstrom Mahler Museum. Created by a Parisian manufacture and dating from 1889, it’s the Eiffel Tower, the icon of snow globes (pictured above). It looks ancient and frail like something magical growing old. The water has completely evaporated leaving behind the snow, which has yellowed with age. The perfectly spherical globe, which encompasses the Eiffel Tower, looks like exactly like a soap bubble and one would believe it would pop if touched.

As aforementioned the snow globe is considered as a legitimate art medium. Mat Collishaw exhibits three snow globes with images of hunched over homeless people holding up handwritten signs. The work is entitled Snow Storm. Suddenly the act of shaking a snow globe becomes sinister. Acting like God we decided whether these homeless people will be left at peace or buried under the flakes of the snow for our own amusement. Simon Woolham renames the snow dome, Snow Dooms, which with the increasing environmental threat recasts the snow dome as an endangered species or a metaphor for our own giant dome, Planet Earth. Sarah Woodfine’s snow globe (pictured above) of enormous proportions has a tinge of old English magic (if anyone has read Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, you’ll understand what I mean). Two images of castles appear and as you walk around the globe, the glass plays a trick of illusion in which both images momentarily disappear. The guard was very keen and excited in pointing this out. But better still is the thick layer of glittering snow in front of the image, like a corresponding garden. The temptation to pick up this huge globe, hug it in your arms and shake it is incredible.

This endearing exhibition almost makes you want to start collecting snow globes, but almost. The charm and fascination of a snow globe collection is the sheer number and variation of snow globes and many of us lack the patience, but more importantly the courage or defiance to collect the miniature monuments to kitsch.

http://www.nationalglasscentre.com/

2006-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Katarzyna Kozyra
In Art Dreams Come True
Performances and films 2003-2006

Nov. 18 2006 – Jan. 6 2007

DAAD Gallery, Berlin

Reviewed by: Rea Cris

During her DAAD Berlin Artist Program, Polish video artist Katarzyna Kozyra, decided on becoming an opera singer, with the help of a professional Polish singer master known as The Maestro and Berlin-based drag queen Gloria Viagra. The exhibition is a documentation of the thirteen performances between 2003 and 2006 as well as a documentary with interviews from people who worked on them.

The performances are metamorphosis of Kozyra transforming into different personalities. Kozyra ranges from becoming a clone of Gloria Viagra, a cheerleader bobbing to the tune of Gwen Stephani’s What you waiting for, a fake Madonna, Snow White and a living figurine in a coucou clock appearing to sing Mozart on the hour. Originally live performances, they translate well into video format.

Kozyra is serious about her art; she is literally ready to kill for it. Her degree piece presented in 1993 at the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw consisted of a life size sculpture of four stuffed animals (horse, dog, cat and rooster) with an accompanying video documenting the horse being killed and skinned. Despite this gruesome and questionably moral act, I feel that Kozyra’s work is a genuine attempt to uncover and discover. Her work is well thought out and worked over. Viewing these videos is like looking through her sketchbook, where she works out different solutions to the questions she has set herself. But the superficiality and deceiving nature of appearances is only scratching the surface of Kozyra’s work. You go away not completely grasping it all and find yourself thinking about it still, days afterwards. For all its spectacle and artifice, the content behind her work is paramount-ly serious.

http://www.katarynakozyra.com.pl/
http://www.themidgetgallery.com/
www.daad-berlin.de/english

2006-12-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

Rebecca Horn
Oct. 5 2006 – Jan. 15 2007
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Berliner Festspiele

As seen by Rea Cris

This is an exhibition of a revered artist. Though not a retrospective, the Martin-Gropius-Bau hosts the first comprehensive exhibition of German artist, Rebecca Horn’s work since 1994. The exhibit encompasses installations, drawings, sculptures and films from 1964 to 2006 curated by the artist herself. Previously staged in London and Lisbon, the Berlin show is the largest. A contributor to the documenta 5, 6, 7, 9 in Kassel, Germany, Horn has exhibited her work at the Pompidou Centre, Paris; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and Guggenheim Museum, New York. She currently divides her time between Berlin, Paris and New York City.

The exhibit ‘starts’ with documentation of her numerous performances, most notably being Pencil Mask (1972). Like a cabinet of curiosities, these performances are documented with both pictures and the actual artefacts used. The artefacts are displayed in their Victorianesque travelling cases, all behind the guard of a display case. The exhibit is sprinkled throughout with her drawing consisting of finger painting, colour pencil drawing and ink splattering. But the most impressive pieces of work are her installation and sculpture which take the form of kinetic mechanisms. These included such materials as cellos, mirrors, shoes, books, charcoal, paint, skulls, javelins, feather fans, metronomes, small metal hammers, black water basins, spiral drawing machines and possibly mercury.

She is known for working with feathers, a lot. The juxtaposition of something as fragile and unpredictable in its movements as feathers married to a tiny precise solid mechanism is incredibly accomplished. The mechanisms do not imprison the feathers, but rather there is a symbiotic relationship where both benefit from the other’s characteristic traits. The mechanism inherits the delicate and soft nature of the feathers while the feathers inherits the indestructible nature of the copper mechanism. In the circle of the eagle (2001) the brown eagle feathers fan out like a peacock’s tail. Whether intentional or not the shadows case by the sculpture creates a whole dance of its own, reminding one of the intricacy of lace. Floating Souls (1990) incorporates sheet music and black feathers. The mechanism seems to be straining to lift and display these music sheets; it’s a desperate attempt of withering pride and we take pity on the little determined and stubborn machine. We wish to help but don’t know how or even if we should. The twin of the crow (1997) (pictured above) is another feather sculpture. The black feather fan face each other and proceed to slowly bow over each other in a respectful ritual.

Another of Horn’s favourite ‘symbols’ in her work is a long and large sharp poll, resembling either a javelin stick or a blown up needle. This is the most threatening aspect of Horn’s work, especially like in Circle for a Broken Landscape (1997) where it circles and searches the room as if looking for a culprit to a crime committed in it’s surrealist landscape with butterfly wings (also mechanised) and binoculars. Her series Kafka Cycle has animated books that flap their cover jackets like butterflies. Books have never been inanimate objects for me, primarily because of the stories contained within them, but in this instance Horn has given them personalities. One thinks of books as creative or adventurous, but who would have thought of them as lazy or pensive or nervous and all conveyed in the flapping of their ‘wings’.

In some instances you wonder whether the sculpture or installations have ‘performed’ their act long before. Ying and Yang Drawing the Landscape (2002) is an installation of black and white sand forming a ying-yang. Above two Japanese painting brushes graze the sand, minutely moving it. You wonder whether this piece takes hours to complete or whether it is already finished. Or more notably Les Amants (1991) where funnels of paint are attached to hose which a regular intervals spray across the wall. Though there is paint on the wall, the hoses do no sprays anymore paint but seem to go through the movements for the benefit of demonstration.

Mechanisms have usually belonged to the realm of men, yet here is a woman using the medium for her artwork. But these sculpture and installations could not have been done by anyone else other than a woman. There is a trust placed in Horn’s sculpture. They perform their dance with such dedicated and punctual precision that you gladly anticipate it to start, rather than with cynical boredom. This fact about Horn’s work is comforting. The rhythmic movement and exact precision is dependable and reassuring like the trust placed in the movements of the sun. Horn’s mechanism are deadly quiet, the only noise is the one we are meant to hear, such as the small metal hammer hitting a bundle of charcoal or a cello being played.

It is rare to enter an exhibition that gets you excited and inspired. The sheer size of the exhibit and the number or works on display was anything but daunting and I left feeling the need to do something creative urgently before this energy, which had transpired, between the works and me evaporated.

http://www.rebeccahorn.org/
http://www.rebecce-horn.de/
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/

2006-12-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

Simon Starling
Wilhelm Noack oHG

Neuger Riemschneider, Berlin
Nov. 14 2006 – Jan. 13 2007

Reviewed by Rea Cris

Tucked away in an alley off a quiet road in Berlin is a room with Simon Starling’s new work ‘Wihelm Noack oHG’. The four-minute projection whirls in the dark on a spiral staircase, that upon closer inspection carries the film up and around its steel frame. The image and sound are so beautifully synchronized that the viewer feels ever bump, slam, grind, rattle and vibration as the camera travels through the workings of a factory.

The work’s title owes its name to the current owner of one of Berlin’s most influential and famous metal fabricators. The company’s history is impressive with connections to the Bauhaus, International Modernism, the Third Reich and post war boom in architecture in West Berlin. The company is still in existence and production.

Starling’s projection is a mixture of the company’s archives spanning a hundred years as well as a documentation of the fabrication of the spiral staircase, which supports the projection. It was of course built in the workshops of Wihelm Noack oHG and yet I can’t imagine it to be shown anywhere else than in Berlin. This is not because the work directly refers to a company based in Berlin, but because no other city could supply the atmosphere required for the piece. Berlin is heavy with history; it’s physically evident around the city. There is a sense of suspension in Berlin, as if it hasn’t started or finished yet. These sentiments follow a person and they are present in one’s mind when watching Starling’s projection. Berlin is a still and quiet city and the assertive noise of the factory fabrication startles one. While most projections cause the viewer to become so absorbed that they forget their surroundings, ‘Wihelm Noack oHG’ does the exact opposite. It only reinforces the surroundings and allows a platform to voice the suspicions you’ve had of Berlin all along.

www.neugerriemschneider.com

2006-11-30T08:39:00.000-08:00

Jade Stout and Naoko Shibuya at Amber Roome, Edinburgh
23 November - 22 December

Reviewed by Rea Cris

The artists are dislayed in separate rooms in the 'white cube' that is the Amber Roome gallery (its maybe too white). Both artists are graduates from Edinburgh College of Arts.

Jade Stout's paintings are small and compact. Her palette incorporates colours of mauve, beige, dark green and brown and represent seascape memories from her childhood in Orkney to recent trips to Mull. The paint is thick and textured creating lines, waves and splashes. The canvases are divided into rows of colour sometimes leaving a large portion of the canvas white. The strict composition and clinically clean lines reminds one of a modern-day Mondrain. Stout has managed to transcend personal experience and, literally, create a canvas for the viewer to recall all the landscapes held in our memories. As I look at her paintings I travel through exotic carpets, bamboo forests, industrial estates, sand and rust. There is a beauty, simplicity and sincerity in the work that one rarely sees anymore.

Naoko Shibuya's paintings are disappointing. She too uses the same colour scheme with a splash and sparkle of gold and sliver paint, but this where the similarities end. Her paintings are graphic representations of trees, plants, flowers, spirals and birds. Though well executed, they are too decorative and leave the viewer numb. The paintings remind me of a similar bird-plant-spiral pattern found at IKEA on anything and everything from fabric,pillows, rugs, lampshades, duvets and any other surface they can find. And with Shibuya's cheapest painting coming in at Â£550, best get yourself to IKEA.

www.amberroome.co.uk

2006-11-29T03:49:00.000-08:00

Spank the Monkey BALTIC 27 September – 7 January 2007

Reviewed by: Rea Cris

There is always a risk when exhibiting street or urban art to fall into the commercial trap. Do you display the work as ‘arty merchandise’ or as commercial artists’ artwork? Most curators would defend their intentions as being of the latter, but most exhibits turn into the former.

Spank the Monkey is an international exhibit of contemporary urban and street art. As well as works shown in the Baltic itself, the exhibit spills out into the streets around Newcastle and Gateshead. It consists of twenty-two artists, some of the more famous names being Bansky, Takashi Murakami, David Shrigley and Shepard Fairey. One would have hoped that Spank the Monkey would have been a platform for the involved artists to focus on their art practice rather than their merchandise. Rather the exhibit is saturated with commercialization, from the wide range of merchandise available in the Baltic store to the display of Murakami’s Louis Vuitton bags. Alongside his bags, Murakami shows a video, Superflat Monogram (2003), which represents an Alice-in-Wonderland scenario where a Japanese girl falls through a tunnel into a world of cute cuddly toys and mobile texting. It resembles a commercial rather than an installation and its bubblegum pop music assaults the rest of the exhibit. The programme tells you to look out for a ‘unique project’ from illustrators Kozyndan in conjunction with PlayStation, but who knows what it might be as its not exhibited. Instead there is a PlayStation station similar to those found in shops where you can try out the various games (when you put down the consol the game cries ‘Oh you got bored!’ as if its your fault). I’m surprised that such commercial successes such as Emily Strange haven’t also been included.

All hope is not lost! There were sincere and serious aspects of the exhibit. Ed Templeton’s It’s too late Now 1995-2006 is a photomontage of images such as a boy at the beach with a swastika drawn on his chest, a girl crying on a public telephone, an old man asleep on a bench. Another is the work of magazine editor and photographer Yasumasa Yonehara’s Get naked and bend over. I’m serious 2003-2006. Polaroids, displayed in miniature cases, shows pictures of young Japanese women in various low-key pornographic pose without ever showing the photographer. The work is not voyeuristic or appealing to shock tactics. Rather it addresses the Lolita complex from women’s point of view. The ‘schoolgirl’ obsession in Japan is represented in its most popular form of manga and anime and at it’s most shocking was discovered when real schoolgirls would sleep with businessmen in exchange for designer goods. These are the extremes and Yonehara’s work places us back in reality. Japanese women are sexually stereotyped as either the schoolgirl or geisha. These photographs show that Japanese women are the same as western women, with the same natural sexual desires, the proof being that all the individual photographs are entitled Yes, she wants to. In their unremarkable bedrooms, they act like any other woman.

In exhibits such as Spank the Monkey the question always arises whether the commercial aspect can be separated from the artwork? I guess the answer would depend upon where you draw the fine lines between art for art sake and commercial art.

www.balticmill.com

2006-11-29T03:31:00.000-08:00

Collective review for:

Chiho Aoshima BALTIC 21 October – 28 January 2007

Chiho Aoshima Platform Art, Gloucester Road Underground Station, London 25 July – 25 January 2007

Reviewed by: Rea Cris

The Baltic hosts Chiho Aoshima’s first solo UK exhibit, which runs independently along side Aoshima’s first UK commission for London’s Underground art program, Platform Art. Aoshima is part of Takashi Murakami’s ‘art factory’ Kaikai Kiki LLC. A hub of contemporary Japanese artists, in which their work consisted of a mixture of traditional Japanese scroll techniques, digital technology and a wide range of cultural influences, such as manga, anime and kawaii (literally meaning cuteness but also describes a whole style. Think Hello Kitty). The art tackles serious issues such as the atomic bomb and sexual awkwardness as a result of a country plunge in perpetual childhood, but it comes with its consequences; a whole arsenal of cute and cuddly merchandise. Aoshima’s trademark is girls or fairies ‘dressed’ as worm-like skyscrapers.

Yet for her first UK show, there are only six pieces mainly focusing on the more manga aspect of her work, showing zombies, urban landscapes or destruction. There is no example of her more traditional scroll-like work, which would have balanced out the scope of her artistic practice. The exhibition focuses on the more cartoon aspect of her work, which demeans it as easy and frivolous. The most effective piece in the exhibit is City Glow (2005), which is a seven-minute digital animation spanned across five screens. The viewer travels through different vegetation to a distant city of Aoshima’s swaying girl-come-worm-like-skyscrapers. City Glow is mesmerizing because you recede from the city without ever leaving it as well as advance without ever reaching it. Like the rest of the exhibition it leaves you hungry for more.

City Glow, Mountain Whisper is another adaptation of the City Glow animation. Located at Gloucester Road underground station in London it consists of seventeen panels expanded along the arches of the platform representing a landscape that morphs from night cityscape to daytime countryside, complete with girls costumed as both skyscrapers and hills. It’s meant to mirror the journey of the passengers as the tube rides pass it. Both versions of City GlowCity Glow, Mountain Whisper feels like a psychedelic manga utopian version of travelling through society, which provides a perfect escape for the Londoners as they cramp up against each other during rush hour. It is easy to forget that Aoshima’s art (as well as others in the Kaikai Kiki factory, Murakami included) hasn’t varied much. address the notion of an escape to fantasy through travel. Aoshima’s work, in what ever form it takes is entrancing, but one wishes she would take the next step forward.

www.blaticmill.com
www.kaikaikiki.co.jp
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/arts/platform-for-art/

2006-11-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

Sensacional! Mexican Street Graphics
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA
18 November 2006 – 4 March 2007

Review by Tonya Warner

Upon walking into the Yerba Buena galleries, you are greeted by a statue of a giant luchador admiring a cup of coffee, a testament to the intersection of commerce and pop culture celebrated in Sensacional!: Mexican Street Graphics. This is an exhibition not of graffiti, but of the usually untrained and underappreciated folk art found on mundane streets of Mexico. Included in the show are advertisements painted on independent shops, printed ad posters and covers of raunchy pulp magazines, alongside various packaging and informational posters. This is a traveling show organized by the independent Mexican publishers Trilce Ediciones, beginning in 2001 with an exhibition at the Museo de la Cuidad de Mexico, the show has since been to Los Angeles, Spain, and New York. In addition to a catalogue for the exhibition (which seems to be the best format for viewing this work), they have designed a website specifically for the show (as of now only available in Spanish) where people around Mexico are encouraged to contribute their own photographs of this home-brewed art form.

Overall, the appeal is to the viewer’s appreciation of kitsch and the sense that “bad” design is sometimes more interesting than “good.” There is also an element of (somewhat condescending) humor when an untrained artist tries to copy well-known cartoon characters – you end up with a sickly green Bart Simpson or Gizmo looking like he’s just ingested too much peyote – figures that, in their very wrongness, seem that much more endearing. However, what one comes away with is a sense that the technical accuracy or realism of the image does not matter so much as its visual potency. As a form of communication, these images are able to transcend barriers of language or culture while remaining indicative of the community in which they are created.

In the literature for Sensacional!, there is much talk of the merits of man-made, imperfect and unique design work in the face of both corporate monopolies and an ever-encroaching technology-driven society. This postulating about computers taking over our lives is nothing new – hell, Baudrillard suggested that we are symbiotically connected to our technologies back in the 90s. David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne), in the book accompanying the exhibition, even goes so far as to paint a hellish picture of perfectly mechanized beings as the endpoint of a mechanized world. He even adds to the “no duh!” annuals by stating that our imperfections are what make us human. All this to justify the importance of the work in this exhibition, work by anonymous and underappreciated artists who serve to remind us that we are not robots. Yes, how come we are not robots yet? It seems to be the logical conclusion of Byrne’s argument. Somehow we, as a creative species, prevail as individuals despite our self-induced demise. The problem with the anti-tech argument is that most people, unlike Byrne, do not necessarily need reminding of what is “human” or “real” – I would believe that the famous musician turned hopeful artist does not live in the “real” world, therefore, does he really need to be our spokesperson?

The issue of design versus anti-design – especially in terms of hand-painted graphics – is of particular note in the techsploited Bay Area, where rich programmers live alongside poor immigrant families, with young crafty artists somewhere in between. A lot of the novelty of some of these graphics is taken away by the fact that their equivalents exist here in as very real a form. If I were to mention to a friend “that taqueria with the dancing tacos,” there would be no question of where I meant. This sort of hand-designed advertising is so ingrained in Mexican culture it too has been imported to California.

Although they can be argued as countering mass-produced corporate branding, these images exist in a visual and cultural realm of their own. The beauty of these images, from an advertising stand-point, is that they are not competing for your attention against other posters and billboards – their uniqueness and quirky imperfections catch one’s eye and hold in the memory; the insidious corporate advertising technique of saturation and repetition has backfired.

An interesting point those heralds of the cult of “realness” have glossed over is the use of copyrighted figures – characters pillaged from various Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons and other pop culture references, appropriated to sell ice cream or auto parts. For instance, one image that appears in Sensacional! Is a rather disturbing picture of a dissected rabbit with the head of Bugs Bunny, designed to sell meat. That is the point – yes they are taking matters into their own hands, but these artists and storeowners employ such already recognizable characters to sell their wares. There is some thought put into these designs, they are not just painted out of personal expression, they are geared to grab the attention of their target audience – that of the local community. It is the definition of a grassroots art form. What to me seems the most notable is the attention paid to the audience, mixed with personal quirks and humor rather than to rules of design, market research, or generally any manner of formulae.

Which brings us to the exhibition at Yerba Buena; whereas in the exhibition in Mexico artists were invited to paint huge signs directly on the walls, for the displays elsewhere sign painters were commissioned to recreate paintings from photographs on large hanging fabric or wooden boards. The original images, as 4x6 snapshots, line up across the floor in overwhelming procession. It is a bit of a shame to compare the photos to their copies as the originals are undoubtedly better. There are also three-dimensional light boxes covered by pulp magazine covers copied onto transparencies. With a mixing of these reproductions, real “artefacts” and photos of the originals, all in a variety of scale and material, the display method is definitely gutsy. It effectively undermines the preciousness of the art object while attempting to capture their original spectacle. Sensacional!, as an exhibition, makes an effort to transcend mere documentation but at the same time seems to further distance the visitor from the “anonymous” artists and context. Perhaps this is why the book format seems more suited to this material. Nevertheless, these images, when presented within an art gallery setting – and therefore denied their original function – still stand up as beautiful cultural barometers.

http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=2116
http://www.sensacional.com.mx/
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=407&Itemid=90

2006-11-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

Douglas Gordon: Superhumanatural
Royal Scottish Academy and Royal Botanic Gardens (various venues)
Edinburgh, UK
2 Nov-14 Jan 2007

Review by Rea Cris

Superhumanatural is Glasgow-born Douglas Gordon’s first Scottish retrospective, and the latest in a line of Gordon events, including the recent release of his movie Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (made with Philippe Parreno) and another retrospective at the MoMA in New York. Once finished in Scotland, Superhumanatural will travel to Kunstmusuem, Wolfsburg and venues to be confirmed in Amsterdam and Prague.

Internationally acclaimed and the winner of major awards, including the Turner Prize, Gordon is an art celebrity and even more so in the Scottish art scene. Everything about this blockbuster exhibition, which is being shared between the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Botanic Gardens, oozes money and fame. For the press view, Gordon requested that a group of school children and their teachers, all dressed in paper devil costumes complete with pitchforks (it was Halloween), roam around the gallery for no apparent reason other than to be quirky. The exhibition catalogue boasts a contribution from another Scottish celebrity, Ian Rankin (best known for his detective novels featuring Inspector Rebus). Inspired by a chat with the artist himself, Rankin wrote a short story. The after-party featured Chicks on Speed (which Gordon collaborated with on a music single). The whole ensemble shouts sensational, but does the content?

The RSA accommodates the main (and more famous) works. These include 24-Hour Psycho (first shown at the Tramway in 1993) in which the Hitchcock movie has been slowed to be viewed over twenty-four hours, 30 Second Text (1996) a room installation of a bulb illuminating a text describing an experiment timing a man’s consciousness after having his head guillotined and 100 Blind Stars (2005) where the eyes of Hollywood actor and actresses have been cut out from their photographic portraits (the Rita Hayworth version is the face of the exhibit). Also displayed is a space-saving mini survey of Gordon’s film and video work shown on fifty monitors and entitled Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work from About 1992. The RSA itself has been transformed for the occasion; the walls have been painted black and some rooms boast a lush carpet, also black. Huge screens fill these otherwise empty rooms. The admission fee is six pounds. As a whole the exhibit is impressive, but when one wants to concentrate on individual works the layout is disadvantageous. The works compete against each other as their soundtracks echo around the gallery. 24 Hour Psycho has no seating and therefore little chance of attracting anyone’s endured attention.

There is no admission fee for the works shown over the three venues at the RBG, the reason probably being because there people are less likely to travel out to see them, and because the gardens have a reputation of offering free arts exhibitions. Also with hardly any supervision, the venues have fixed viewing times making it harder.

The Caledonian Hall shows Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) where one screen simultaneously projects The Exorcist and The Song of Bernadette. This has ample, but empty seating. Inverleith House shows one of the new works entitled Pretty Much every word written, spoken heard and overheard from 1989 until now… The walls of Inverleith House are filled with phrases of varying size and colour proclaiming deep thought such as: ‘I have not forgotten because I cannot forget’ or ‘I know what you want’. If these phrases are all that Gordon has heard since 1989 than he must live in trashy airport novel. The second floor is slightly more promising. We find a list of fears, the most bizarre being fear of swollen membrane, teeth and urination and a telephone placed overlooking the gardens which when picked up has a man confessing he’s sorry that its not going to work but not to blame yourself because its about him and not you. Listening to the cliché break-up monologue by the window on a melancholy autumn day makes you feel like the heroine of a movie. The information sheet explains that Inverleith is Gordon’s ‘long-held wish to turn a house into a book’. It feels rather than Gordon couldn’t think of anything else better to fill the space with and knew he could get away with murder.

Plato’s Cave is the other new work. Housed at the Wash House it’s more sincere. It’s based on Plato’s ideas about reality where we live in a cave and perfect forms are transmitted to us distorted as shadows, our backs to the fire. I had to ask someone to open the venue for me. I was told to wait outside while she ‘turned it on’. I assumed all she was going to do was flick-a-switch but it turned out that ‘turning on’ Plato’s Cave consisted of lighting creosol in a little hole in the ground. Alone with live fire in an empty house felt more real an experience than any other of Gordon’s work. Plato’s Cave felt so raw and undisturbed. I felt for the first time I was really seeing Gordon’s work rather than his glamorous reputation. While the rest of the exhibition seems saturated in news-creating gimmicks and celebrity checklists, there was nothing in this venue telling me how great Gordon was. Plato’s Cave is the perfect form while the rest are mere shadows.

www.nationalgalleries.org/douglasgordon
http://www.rbge.org.uk/rbge/web/news/FriNov03134331GMT00002006.jsp

2006-11-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

Life Aquatic @ Varnish Fine Art
77 Natoma St, San Francisco, CA 94105
7 November – 9 December 2006
works by: Aron Ives, Beth Bojarski, Dylan Sisson, Jason D’Aquino, Michael Page, Reuben Rude, Skot Olsen

Review by Klaus Menziel

I let you call me Stevesy. It sounds better.

Life Aquatic, the show currently up at Varnish in San Francisco, brings together a collection of dark, ambiguous figures living in or around the sea. Rather than a cheery and curious exploration of the deep, the artists included here choose to show a vision of the sea and its creatures in a somewhat malicious light – albeit one tinged with whimsy. They remind us that things that spend too much time in the water become distorted, bloated, discoloured. However, all of this is presented not as scientific reality but played out in a fantasy realm where even fish skeletons have the most endearing character.

It is of note that the palettes and styles are quite similar amidst the seven artists on display. In an interesting curatorial move, the people at Varnish decided to mix the artists up – rather than designated sections, the works are dispersed throughout the gallery. Although this is not the worst idea, or all that uncommon, it does not seem entirely justified, either. The effect that this jumbling has is to further point out the almost mimicking similarities between some of the artists. The impression I got – and this is just my opinion – was that there was a lot of borrowing from the Michael Page school of art.

Page, the standout artist of this show (seconded by a very similar Beth Bojarski) characteristically creates figures with discoloured faces (if they are not skeletons) and flat, distorted features that appear almost collage-like. To counteract, or perhaps undermine, the two-dimensionality of these figures, Page provides an ultrafine attention to detail – showing miniscule leaves falling from backdrop trees, slight irregularities of surface, or almost imperceptible spikes coming off a skull. His works invite a very close and long examination – like an intricately woven tapestry, they reveal some new detail with every viewing.

It is a pity, then, that because many of the other artists on display in Life Aquatic look superficially similar to Page’s paintings, they are inevitably judged in comparison – something that is compounded by how they are hung. The show has an overall feel of being nicely tied together, however, it is hard to separate each artist out – you get the sense of the lumpen group, but without the necessary individual peculiarities.

http://www.varnishfineart.com/

2006-11-10T17:15:00.000-08:00

Utopia @ 111 Minna Gallery
San Francisco, CA
2 Nov – 2 Dec 2006
work by Helen Garber, Suzanne Husky, Eric Joyner, Josh Keyes, Alexis Mackenzie, Chris Pew, Stephen Powers, John Sheridan, Casey Jex Smith, & Winston Smith

Review by Tonya Warner

Utopia. Because of its unfortunate futuristic leanings, it is destined to remain the recurrent zombie of art show themes. You think it has been done and dusted, discussed, done to death and long buried. But lo, there it is again. It has gotten to the point where the exhibition is evaluated more for how it relates to previous utopian displays than the artworks at hand. For the show at 111 Minna, the bar-cum-club-cum-gallery, the theme of utopia can be culled out from the mixed bag of works, however, this could just as easily be called anything else. And probably to the artists’ benefit.

The unfortunate effect of having such a strongly worded title (especially one which draws upon a concept so loaded down with a history of interpretations) is that it creates a singular reading of the various works that was possibly not intentioned by the artists.

(insert zombies eating brains joke here).

That said, I must also note that this show was much hyped due to a roster of familiar names on the local scene – including Eric Joyner, Chris Pew, Stephen Powers, and Casey Jex Smith (whose single work included in the show was quite good). The overall effect, however, was a bit lacklustre.

A shining gem of the show, however, was Alexis Mackenzie, whose collages are comprised of Victorian ladies, houses, and aquatic life. Her grand pseudo-mermaids float demurely in front of monstrously complex manses that have come free of their earthly moorings. These images are undeniably otherworldly, set, as they are, amidst the stars or upon an alien landscape. The interplay between these “mermaids” and their floating palaces evokes a sense of simultaneous distance and connexion between women, and the home and all the discourse that this brings forth, within a very stylized medium. Collage is a hard thing to get right and Mackenzie manages to strike a balance between craft and a beautiful combination of images and colours in uncluttered and varied compositions.

Another notable addition to the exhibition was Josh Keyes, who makes extremely detailed and provocatively intense vignette paintings. Each scene, which appears to be a violent intersection of the urban environment and nature, is acted out on a small patch of ground, cut out of any context and floating on a white plane. I found it was hard to say whether I liked this work initially because of its sheer stark intensity. Office workers in violent fits, a sickly wolf growling at Mickey Mouse gloves while looking as if he has been run through with a traffic sign – its hard to know how to process these images on more than a visceral level. And I find that I appreciate them for that.

Do these images have anything to do with (a critique of) utopia? They could, but why limit it to that?

http://www.111minnagallery.com/
http://www.alexisanne.com/
http://www.joshkeyes.net/

2006-11-10T17:07:00.000-08:00

Introduction:

Percolator Magazine was founded by a slightly frustrated former art theory student as a partial reaction to the bleak realization that the completion of a masters degree did not markedly improve her job prospects. This magazine was almost called “Mustache Comb Quarterly” in a moment of absurdity. You see, its as if all this education and knowledge were tickets in an arcade and the best you can trade them in for is a mustache comb.

But, on a more positive note, Percolator is also a passionate response to the San Francisco art scene and its lack of dialogue. There are more small galleries and weekly art openings here than anywhere else I’ve lived and yet the level of critical inquiry and discussion is basically nil. It seems to me almost pointless to have an art scene without thinking or talking about the art itself. So I have committed myself to writing reviews of the various art shows I attend. I do not offer many photos, because fecalface and artbusiness seem to already do such a good job of that. This is not a place for looking for pictures of yourself or your friends at the openings.

This is also not meant to be a one-sided publication either. In addition to my reviews and reviews from friends around the world, I welcome your comments and reviews – if you disagree with something I have written or want to comment on something that hasn’t been discussed, please email me at percolatormag@gmail.com. I also welcome competing reviews in order to provide a plurality of perspectives.

Percolator will eventually have a proper web site, once I finish building it. In the mean time, please check back at this blog spot for periodic updates and new reviews.

Thanks,
tonya