Whitney Museum
at Altria
Jane South
Untitled (Tracing Parameters) 2006,
hand-cut and folded paper, ink, acrylic and balsa
12 x 9 x 1 1/2 ft.
The recent institutionalization of the DIY makes obvious the disparities in quality of ideas and execution among practitioners of this aesthetic. Originally exhibited in the makeshift galleries or vast warehouse art spaces characteristic of urban transformations, the DIY bespoke the temporary, suburban ennui, and the art school anxieties of too many MFAs. A decade ago, tacked--up shows and Rube Goldbergian wonders were a fresh contrast to much installation and technology-oriented art's high production values and spectacle. However, the edgy attitudes appropriate to Williamsburg have not necessarily grown up to fit museum or public spaces. "Burgeoning Geometries" betrays an unevenness among the emerging artists from this generation; though all use non-traditional, even amateur materials, some are able to maintain formal or conceptual integrity while others do not rise above an increasingly conventional anti-aesthetic.
Among efforts that fail to transcend are Charles Goldman's four Scrapwood Sculptures (2006). These are straightforward unitary pillars of plastic buckets, cement and accreted detritus cast from these containers. Phoebe Washburn's Minor In-House Brain Storm (2006) is similarly comprised of cobbled found wood. The interior of this large, manic, kidney-shaped amphitheater is viewed through plexiglass windows. The work holds two similarly shaped black plastic ponds, potted plants, artificially colored fish tank rocks, and duckweed swirling to the synthetic trickle of pumped water. Her rewriting of recycling and home-store DIY comes off as a big-box curiosity that merely marks conventions of mass-produced "natural" spaces.
Diana Cooper contrasts signifiers of neural and computer networks through Emerger 's (2004-6) juxtaposed biomorphic forms and rational grids. However, her pink felt, vinyl and foamcore pinned to the wall read as grade-school primitivism. Here, banal suburban craft is thrown into a high relief "drawing" that coyly punctures the gallery wall and continues outward to a mostly hidden exterior display window. Unfortunately, these works by Goldman, Washburn and Cooper can't transgress, especially as they demand consideration as "art" primarily through the scaling up of common or throw-away materials into monumental forms.
In marked contrast, the rest of the exhibition's pieces abide to carry this exhibition through imaginative interpretations of the home-grown. For instance, Jane South's Untitled (Tracing Parameters) (2006) remains exceptional in the tensions of its material and illustrational illusionism. This cool-colored DeathStarscape is a tondo of cut and painted paper transubstantiated into domes, rib vaults, clerestories and lattices that pierce the object and transfix the viewer. Deft at developing sculptural space through complex layers, South constantly redefines volume, as she complicates perceptions of interior and exterior. The intricacy of so many cuts can even bring about kinetic phenomena that are key to the enjoyment of this relief.
Jason Rogenes' large-scale installation Locus (2006) is successful as its junk materials are uncannily transformed into sci-fi evocations. A thirty-eight foot stalactite of fluorescent lights and found foam packing has glowing presence in spite of itself. The geometries in the foam are Rachel Whitread-esque with indented ghosts of the electronics and foodstuffs they once protected. Contrasting with the adjoining lobby's slick, corporate Altria logo, Locus emphasizes the ad hoc and ephemeral as its orange extension cords dangle in expressionist knots and corrugated cardboard prisms define immersive, eye-level brutalist spaces.
Comprised of countless straight pins, Tara Donovan's Untitled (Pins) (2004) has a paradoxically gross facture and dematerialization through dazzle, and pins "shed" to the surrounding floor. This forty-inch metal cube evokes Tony Smith's famous Die (1971) but Donovan's sculpture is neither imposing nor immanent. Rather, it suggests the uncomfortable absurdity of being pricked to death. Still, this piece's pernicious seduction has the seriousness of purpose, formal beauty, wit and quality of execution that are lacking in the exhibition's lesser endeavors.
William V. Ganis
Burgeoning Geometries: Constructed Abstractions is on view at Whitney Altria from
December 7, 2006 - March 11, 2007.