I have a story to tell about hitting a wall with blogging about art, which explains my 6 month absence from posting.
In early April, my best friend who lives overseas encouraged me to go to her dear friend’s art opening / birthday. I had never met this person, but in missing my best friend, I excitedly took up the adventure, hoping to feel a sense of her there through the shared relationship. Simultaneously, I was in talks with a music reviewing website about including a weekly feature of exhibition reviews in NYC. What a cool challenge!
I arrived at the opening, full of enthusiastic people. My notes:
The artist is present, asleep, she can or can’t see through the plastic cucumber goggles. Her eyes are open. She sits in a large rocking chair. Is she observing it all, or ignoring it? Is she centered? Is she contemplating life and death? Next to her is a foot rest with a turtle shell and cowboy boots- the turtle’s home is where he is inside his body. Disco lights and ambient music. Roar of the crowd. Do most people even know she is here? She is still, silent. The music pulses. She has not moved for an hour.
She has a giant, heavy looking tongue coming out of her abdomen. Is she licking/tasting her environment? Is she like her wall pieces- soft verses hard? Gentle vs solid? Why the purple wig? Is she a lawyer from Australia? Is she Dolly Parton’s daughter?
…Like an exquisite corpse, rearranging the components of the figure, chakras mixed around. Pastel palette signals spring, delicate sheets with flower embroidery- domestic, like a bed that only fits below the bust of a figure. Cowboy boots say Americana vs immigrant appropriation/assimilation. I feel at once safe and afraid of these assemblages, as the figure is sunk away like the Wicked Witch of the West melting at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Tie-dye represents a casual vivacity for an easy going playful appetite for life. Vases are a montage of myths and nature.
Do the works feel sturdy? Ceramic adhered to fabric… so no. This creates tension.
What is the message of the materiality. Why these mediums? Perhaps with a more realistic looking rendering, the montage of tongues and boots would be too grotesque. At a glance, the work is pretty. With a closer look, it is scary. I like THAT. Formally, the work is busy and ones eye does not rest. No sense of depth, everything is in front. Perhaps assembled and swept away in tornado alley.
Anytime I don’t like artwork, I ask -is it because I am an artist, that I can’t be objective about art? Do I need art history therapy?
