[Update 12/03: See our non-review here.]
by Jerome du Bois
I should know bettter by now than to trust anything on Artlink's website, but the announcement said November 28, so we were there on November 28, in Phoenix City Hall, around 1 PM, to be the judge and jury ourselves, and the damned thing wasn't completely set up yet.
Worse, all the work was unattended. That's right. We strolled around the accordion dividers where a few things were mounted already or just leaning there. We saw nobody working. There was a typewritten sheet on a box. We read it. It said that the artists needed to get everything into the Hall by noon.
We looked around. We did some counting. This couldn't be the whole show, could it? No, the artists are probably just late, even though they had couple of extra weeks to figure out how to get downtown with their contribution in time.
Nothing we saw would stand out at the Arizona State Fair, or one of those big white tent sales in Scottsdale. There was a smoothly carved and curvy two-toned wooden triskelion that would have made a nice tie rack --from Haus, maybe; my crucifix is getting crowded. Hmmm. Nobody paying attention. Nobody guarding the work. What, are they noshing at Sticklers? Had I been a different, criminally-inclined person, we could have slipped out the side door with it. Security is at the far end of the hall. When we first entered that impressive building, and strolled up to that big steel counter and asked where the exhibition was, none of the four guys knew. They had to look it up.
We saw a few other things, but I have no attributions since there were no labels, yet. So . . .
A white cloth piece in a metal frame with the fabric squinched around an old b/w photo of an old Chinese person. A snake of pearls. Something about the Boxer Rebellion printed on a plastic strip and quite obviously and clumsily glued to the fabric, which is probably silk --you know, for the Chinese connection. Well? So? Listen up, artist --listen up, judges Carolyn Robbins, John Spiak, Terry Ward-- do you know what is going on in China today? Progress! A million Chinese a year die in industrial accidents; they invented SARS and Avian (and soon Avian/Swine) flu. They're cheating the world by devaluing their currency. This piece, just to hammer it home, has no currency, no relevance, no resonance. It has no handle on the world and, despite its heavy frame, will fly away like a handkerchief when the next real-world-wind comes.
Then we examined a big white horizontal painting covered and cluttered with painted circular typewriter-keys, with letters printed in the middle. It was a palimpsest, with keys overlaying other keys. It was nicely done, and I love letters, which is why this stupid thing made me angry.
I wrote about this back in September, in "The Idiotic Dots of The Whatnots," which began:
I love the very letterforms you read now, reader. The Greco-Roman-derived alphabet, from Avant-Garde to Vedana. When I make art, I often use words, cutting out letters or stamping them or printing them or writing them out or carving them. You may take these enduring forms, these 26 uniquely-grouped inhabitants of the Western World, and, as any teacher knows, you can distort them almost beyond recognition, and yet we recognize them --partly by context, yes, but often just because they're so strong in themselves. I respect them because they have remained fairly stable amid so much instability, and indeed have played their crucial parts in explaining that instability, and so much else besides. They are faithful stewards of meaning, even when the meanings of words change. I love the letters of my native alphabet.
Perhaps I judge too harshly, but . . . if you've got the letters before you, act like a grown-up and make something meaningful of them, instead of behaving like an ignorant child arranging and rearranging the pretty, sturdy forms. I know a lot of art people embrace the meaningless like a reassuring pillow. That's not for me.
And that's about all we saw that was up or that made us pause, and stop. As for the rest . . .
We'll be back.
Posted by Jerome at November 29, 2005 08:55 AM | TrackBack