The Arizona Biennial 2013 is a very interesting show. Lots of humor, lots of irony (of course!), lots of technical skill, and lots of winks to art history. Overall, this is really a great exhibit. There's a lot to look at. so I had to focus on just a small sample. I'll tell you what I liked, and why, and also I'll let you in on my thought process. So out of over 60 pieces here, I'm just focusing on a handful.
First of all, this is a complicated show. That is, there's nothing really here that is "beautiful" or "ugly"in the ordinary sense of those words...it's complicated, with much artwork , simultaneously combining the amazing and the gross, the sacred and profane, the sublime and the ridiculous . Joining the cheap and the precious at the hip (as in "hipster") is a lot of what I see here. But that's the way art has evolved (at least the way I see it): the good stuff simultaneously attracts and repels you...and you (the viewer) are left to sort it out. You're confronted with a work of art: part of it funny, part of it amazing, part of it is ridiculous. It's complicated. Let's jump in...
The next piece I'd like to discuss is Bill Dambrova's painting "Pink Glandscape". Like Jesse Berlin's deer sculpture, Bill Dambrova's painting is also an interior view of organs and guts, but in this piece it's funny. Why? Because of the cartoonish treatment. Just imagine Walt Disney and Jesse Berlin sharing a studio: this is what you might see: the gross rendered palatable due to goofy-looking "ploid" shapes (a "ploid" is a cartoon sweat droplet, but I can't find a link to that definition on Google. Sorry!) Oozing, dribbling, spurting shapes...but not gross, because we associate this look with cartoons on TV. Once again, style IS substance. I suppose that our attitudes about many things can be guided and shaped, due to how they're presented to us. Dribbling, spurting, candy-colored ooze...and in the rarefied confines of the Tucson Museum of Art! The gross and raunchy rendered funny, colorful, and cute! Also reminds me of that Grateful Dead's "Europe '72" album cover where a guy smashed an ice cream cone onto his head. Nice work! ;)
Since we're on the topic of album covers, this presents me with a nice segue to talk about
Amanda Ivy Reed's painting "in love with oblivion". This painting is a photo-realistic portrait of a stack of seven CD cases. The albums are by Sonic Youth, Subhumans, The Sea and Cake, The Crystal Stilts's album "In Love With Oblivion", TV On The Radio, Zappa Plays Zappa, and Comet Gain's "City Fallen Leaves".
The first thing I did when I saw this painting was to read all of the titles on the CDs. I've got to thank the artist for this one, for thanks to this painting, I've discovered some great new music! When artists go to work in their studios, there's always a stack of music. Why not focus on that? The artist's choice in music is just as much a portrait of the artist as is a painted portrait...and in this case, the artist has apparently painted her favorite CDs!
In addition to providing us with a musical soundtrack for viewing this piece, Amanda Reed joins the tradition of pop art (and super realism). Also, I feel that she's consciously paying homage to Andy Warhol, due to the flat one color background, and the way that the subject matter just floats there. But Amanda Reed has carefully carefully painted this by hand, showing that you can pay homage to Warhol without becoming a cynical silk-screening hack! I wish that more artists would share with us their tastes in music. It's well painted, and I like how this piece gives a peek into the sounds of her studio, and also guides us in how to find this music (of course, I'm assuming that she loves this music; it could just be a stack of CDs!) The more I look at this piece, the more I like it.
Now I want to know what all of these artists listen to when they work! Artists! Post your playlists on your websites! I think it's a great way to round out our perceptions of our favorite artists. Also, this allows artists to incorporate music into their artistic practice, which I feel is very beneficial because music has many virtues that visual art just doesn't have. I'll follow my own advice, and (in short order) post my own music preferences on my own website. Thanks for the inspiration, Amanda!
The legacy of pop heart rears it's head once again, in the form of Hirotsune Tashima's funk sculpture, "Organic Banana in the Supermarket". Here we see a life-size ceramic sculpture of the artist himself emerging from a banana. And what's he doing....selling? It looks like it could be an infomercial ad, where the artist himself emerges from a banana peel as a spokesman for pop art (or in this case, "funk art"; same thing, different dimension...) This is an impressive piece; everything here is painted ceramic. Those bottles, boxes, and containers are all made by the artist. The artist calls this "organic banana" in a supermarket. So what's that mean, that the only real product here is a banana, whereas everything else is mass produced? I've Googled Hirotsune Tashima, and found that he has created several (I counted at least 6) different sculptures showing a person emerging from a banana peel, so my guess is that the banana motif is one of his trademarks. Hirotsune's idea of having himself straddle a banana is very funny, if not a touch racy, which allows me to segue to yet another artist in this show, Michael Marlowe.
Another very funny piece is Michael Marlowe's very large oil painting called "Falling to Pieces". It's nine feet high, and at first glance it looks like it could be an ornate design found on Victorian wallpaper. But after only a few seconds you realize that somethings not right: that Victorian wallpaper pattern actually looks like a cluster of bones and testicles floating around in a cloud of heavy metal clip art. It's kinda like the assembly diagram for some kind of Nordic typography sex machine. Once again, things are not what they seem: it's as if Hieronymus Bosch suddenly started designing fonts. Perhaps I should stop with these descriptions! At least, that 's what comes to mind... I've looked at his website, and I think I'm right about this. The museum should hang this piece next to the "Glandscape" painting (mentioned earlier in this post): to me, that would make sense... I enjoyed this piece!
There was one other piece that I wanted to write about, but I didn't get a photo from the museum for it, but you can see it on artist's website here. It's Teri Pursch's "Speedway and Sixth". This painting is amazing because when you look at it, you think that your eyes have suddenly gone out of focus. It actually hurt my eyes, and I had to take off my glasses to see if something was wrong with them, but no... this painting actually fools your eyes into thinking that somethings wrong with your eyes. I think that the artist does this with many streaky layers of translucent paint. The image on Pursch's website don't have this effect; so in order to understand what I'm saying, you have to see this painting in person. The only other time I recall a painting messing with my eyes like this was when I was at the Rothko Chapel (in Texas, several years ago), where I witnessed the paintings actually moving. It's a trick done with low light and and many lays of paint with a similar value (I'm convinced).
Okay! I've written enough. I hope you've enjoyed this review.
Note: thanks to Lisa Wilkinson at the Tucson Museum of Art for the images
First of all, this is a complicated show. That is, there's nothing really here that is "beautiful" or "ugly"in the ordinary sense of those words...it's complicated, with much artwork , simultaneously combining the amazing and the gross, the sacred and profane, the sublime and the ridiculous . Joining the cheap and the precious at the hip (as in "hipster") is a lot of what I see here. But that's the way art has evolved (at least the way I see it): the good stuff simultaneously attracts and repels you...and you (the viewer) are left to sort it out. You're confronted with a work of art: part of it funny, part of it amazing, part of it is ridiculous. It's complicated. Let's jump in...
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Jesse Berlin, b. 1981, Tucson, AZ;
lives Tucson
Untitled Deer Study, 2013, cold cast bronze, polyurethane
84 x 24 x 36 in.
Supported by a
Windgate Charitable Foundation Scholarship
awarded by the School of
Art and Design,
Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Additional
funding provided by a 2013 Research Award Grant
awarded by the
Graduate and Professional Student Council,
Southern Illinois
University Carbondale.
|
Jesse Berlin's "Untitled Deer Study", which is a bronze cast of a deer cut in half, could be the signature piece of the show, because in one easy to read image, it summarizes so many issues addressed in art and society today. I reminds me of what would happen if Frederick Remington (or other bronze wildlife artists) was "remixed" with Damien Hirst: it simultaneously respects and disrespects different art traditions. Both the exterior of the deer, and the interior of the deer, are rendered with attention to accurate anatomical detail...but we're faced with an interruption: that wonderful beautiful deer has been sliced in half. That's where the confrontation lies: in the interruption. There is no blood here, and the animal does not appear to be in pain. It's put on a pedestal (a sign of respect)... but there is a gross-out factor here. Stuff like this makes me want to cry. It simultaneously respects tradition and disrespects it. It simultaneously respects wildlife art and disrespects it. It respects wildlife/Western sculpture on the front end, but trashed it on the tail end. It shows skill and an attention to detail, but used in the service of making us cringe. Plus, it also serves as an "answer" piece to Damien Hirst's cut up shark piece: they're comparable (but personally, I feel that Berlin's piece is stronger because shows some actual art skill. Hey, I can be a rebel too, can't I?? ;) )
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Bill Dambrova, b. 1971,
Scottsdale, AZ;
lives Flagstaff, AZ
Pink Glandscape, 2012
oil on canvas
47 x 35 in.
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Amanda Ivy Reed, b. 1980, Boca Raton,
FL; lives Tucson, AZ
in love with oblivion, 2013
acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 in.
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Amanda Ivy Reed's painting "in love with oblivion". This painting is a photo-realistic portrait of a stack of seven CD cases. The albums are by Sonic Youth, Subhumans, The Sea and Cake, The Crystal Stilts's album "In Love With Oblivion", TV On The Radio, Zappa Plays Zappa, and Comet Gain's "City Fallen Leaves".
The first thing I did when I saw this painting was to read all of the titles on the CDs. I've got to thank the artist for this one, for thanks to this painting, I've discovered some great new music! When artists go to work in their studios, there's always a stack of music. Why not focus on that? The artist's choice in music is just as much a portrait of the artist as is a painted portrait...and in this case, the artist has apparently painted her favorite CDs!
In addition to providing us with a musical soundtrack for viewing this piece, Amanda Reed joins the tradition of pop art (and super realism). Also, I feel that she's consciously paying homage to Andy Warhol, due to the flat one color background, and the way that the subject matter just floats there. But Amanda Reed has carefully carefully painted this by hand, showing that you can pay homage to Warhol without becoming a cynical silk-screening hack! I wish that more artists would share with us their tastes in music. It's well painted, and I like how this piece gives a peek into the sounds of her studio, and also guides us in how to find this music (of course, I'm assuming that she loves this music; it could just be a stack of CDs!) The more I look at this piece, the more I like it.
Now I want to know what all of these artists listen to when they work! Artists! Post your playlists on your websites! I think it's a great way to round out our perceptions of our favorite artists. Also, this allows artists to incorporate music into their artistic practice, which I feel is very beneficial because music has many virtues that visual art just doesn't have. I'll follow my own advice, and (in short order) post my own music preferences on my own website. Thanks for the inspiration, Amanda!
 |
Hirotsune Tashima, b. 1969,
Hiroshima,
Japan; lives Tucson, AZ
Organic Banana in the Supermarket,
2011
multiple fired stoneware
69 x 26 x 26 in.
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 |
Michael Marlowe, b. 1960,
Cincinnati,
OH; lives in Phoenix, AZ
Falling to Pieces, 2012
oil on canvas
108 x 88 in.
|
Another very funny piece is Michael Marlowe's very large oil painting called "Falling to Pieces". It's nine feet high, and at first glance it looks like it could be an ornate design found on Victorian wallpaper. But after only a few seconds you realize that somethings not right: that Victorian wallpaper pattern actually looks like a cluster of bones and testicles floating around in a cloud of heavy metal clip art. It's kinda like the assembly diagram for some kind of Nordic typography sex machine. Once again, things are not what they seem: it's as if Hieronymus Bosch suddenly started designing fonts. Perhaps I should stop with these descriptions! At least, that 's what comes to mind... I've looked at his website, and I think I'm right about this. The museum should hang this piece next to the "Glandscape" painting (mentioned earlier in this post): to me, that would make sense... I enjoyed this piece!
There was one other piece that I wanted to write about, but I didn't get a photo from the museum for it, but you can see it on artist's website here. It's Teri Pursch's "Speedway and Sixth". This painting is amazing because when you look at it, you think that your eyes have suddenly gone out of focus. It actually hurt my eyes, and I had to take off my glasses to see if something was wrong with them, but no... this painting actually fools your eyes into thinking that somethings wrong with your eyes. I think that the artist does this with many streaky layers of translucent paint. The image on Pursch's website don't have this effect; so in order to understand what I'm saying, you have to see this painting in person. The only other time I recall a painting messing with my eyes like this was when I was at the Rothko Chapel (in Texas, several years ago), where I witnessed the paintings actually moving. It's a trick done with low light and and many lays of paint with a similar value (I'm convinced).
Okay! I've written enough. I hope you've enjoyed this review.
Note: thanks to Lisa Wilkinson at the Tucson Museum of Art for the images
