By Jim Duncan
Gleeful cynicism at surface value
During the last five years, Des Moines Art Center (DMAC) exhibitions have been
drawing the largest crowds ever to the institution. By no coincidence, these
shows have also consistently celebrated aspects of art that stimulate our
zygomaticus major, the muscle most responsible for making us smile, while
also opening our eyes to somber realties. The three young artists represented
in the museum's new exhibition, Surface Value, do those things on several
levels while mimicking classical art with both respect and irony.
Alison Elizabeth Taylor is a child of Las Vegas — the peripheral hard
luck city rather than mirage of neon, fountains and faux cities that attracts
tourists to the Nevada desert. She simulates painting in marquetry and Renaissance
intarsia, media that involve the cutting and piecing of wood and wood veneer
to form designs. Taylor's wooden narratives meditate cynically upon the culture
of the most treeless landscape in America. Two works in the DMAC show are set
in Bombay Beach, an infamous "oceanfront property" in the Colorado
Desert that is half sunk in salt or dried mud. Another work, "Roadside," studies
two "hunters" shooting deer in the suburbs with automatic rifles
from their woody station wagon. "The Breeder" is a portrait of a
character from the pages of the dark humorist T. Coraghessan Boyle. A sinewy
man stands before used furniture he has converted into kennels for chinchilla,
the breeding of which became an impractical effort at self-employment during
Las Vegas' recent employment crisis. In Boyle's story, the breeder flees his
rental when his inventory dies after the air conditioner stops working. A small
air conditioning vent appears in Taylor's work, looking quite inefficient as
her human subject gulps Corona wearing a wife beater. Two other works in the
DMAC show inhabit darker haunts. In "Tap Left On" and "Multiple
Shots with Knife Slashes," Taylor portrays houses vandalized by their
owners, after Vegas' worst-in-the-nation mortgage crisis.
James Gobel is a child of the other Las Vegas. He credits his high school and
college years amongst the kitsch icons and neon mirages for forming his aesthetic,
which found its true milieu in San Francisco's bear culture. Bears are hyper
masculine gay men, fond of dandified beards and long eyelashes, flannel shirts,
boots, leather and alcohol. In "The Problem with Leisure; What to Do for
Pleasure," three stylish bears play musical chairs with earnest intentions.
Gobel, a constituent of Nancy Pelosi, compares his sub culture to that of Weimar
Republic Berlin, fostering a "golden age of open and radical dialogue
before the rule of the Third Reich." It's hard to tell how serious he
is. He "paints" his subjects in felt, "a cuddly material for
a cuddly subject," and exhibits nothing more radical than clashing argyle
with camouflage.
Mickalene Thomas' preferred medium is rhinestones. She clashes those with textiles
and patterns in an unbearably gaudy manner that comments on the "power
and convolution of fashion and aesthetics." Her subjects, thrust into
classical poses reminiscent of Matisse and Manet, are highly stylized African-American
women, many family members. In "Sweet and Out Front," she mimics
Andy Warhol's Marilyn (Monroe) prints by featuring the women from the film "Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," the original blaxplotation movie that celebrated
militant black men but did little for black women.
Open House
James Ellwanger, sculptor of "Shattered Silence" on the state capitol grounds, is busy designing interactive sculptures for Des Moines and its sister cities. With technology from Fair-Play scoreboards, visitors to town centers here and in Kobe, Japan, or St. Etienne, France, will be able to converse with each other by passing by his sculptures. You have to see the drawings to understand the project though, so Ellwanger will begin opening his studio one Friday each month for that purpose, and also for mini-exhibitions of his other works, which include multi-dimensional paintings and, for the first time in his career, traditional abstract paintings. The first exhibition is scheduled for May 20, at 304 15th St., Studio 100, (the former Fitch Gallery). CV
Caption: Alison Elizabeth Taylor (American, born 1974). Roadside, 2006. Wood veneer and shellac. 47 x 56 inches. Image and work courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai
