By
now, we’ve all heard about the avant-garde. We’ve heard about the burden of
each generation of artist, and their obligation to upend the cultural
establishment to reinvent Art anew. The predicaments of this process, in all
its excruciating agony, can be found at CUAC’s present show of Denver artist
Tyler Beard.
Striving
to create the ‘qualities found in a Haiku’ the artist seeks to achieve a ‘subtle
and quiet sophistication.’ At a fundamental level, this goal is achieved. On
the wall, clusters of collages feature stock images of flowers cut into leafy
forms. Set against a taut, white background, they burst into form, like petals
in a floral arrangement. Here, comparison with Ellsworth Kelly’s shaped
canvases is unavoidable. Similar sensibilities unfold spatially, where
disparate forms and surfaces appear to scatter about the room, yet in fact are
meticulously arranged… like a Haiku. Faux spontaneity has been a leitmotif of
modernism throughout the twentieth century and this is no exception.
From
here, landscapes have been printed onto board, folded into irregular angles and
propped up against the gallery wall. Therein, unexpected geometries contrast
the ‘natural’ forms of the images. Witness the expansive shore of Folded Beach, which is rotated 90
degrees and folded into a series of small steps to create one disorienting
object of clashing perspectives. Here as elsewhere, stock images of nature are
filtered and overprinted, becoming flat and empty, and reduced to mere
decoration. Sanitized and vapid, they blend seamlessly into the bland
architectural scaffolding of Beard’s sculptures. While such vacuity is the
artist’s stated intention, viewers are already familiar with such devices, which
have their roots in Warhol’s silk screens and or Richard Prince prints.
Similarly,
six miniature models recline on custom-made platforms extending from a larger
frame in Maquette 1-6. Consisting of
wooden cubes, folded card, stones and wire, the works rely heavily on modernist
sensibilities (Miro, Moore) for their aesthetics. Using precision knife work,
the geometric intersects with the biomorphic, resulting in sleek and elegant
forms fit for a Playmobil castle. Economical and quirky, they could very well
spring to life, like mechanical wind-up toys. Indeed, all of Beard’s works have
a potential for great buoyancy.
But
this doesn’t happen. The works stand frozen in their own Zen, paralyzed by an
aesthetic we’ve already seen. Even the highlighted edges, with their evocation
of hard edge painting, feel contrived. Not only has Beard’s bag of tricks been
thoroughly mined from the last half century, but it has already entered the
mainstream, in the form of haute cuisine, Kate Middleton fascinators and above
all, Scandinavian design. While assembling his own personal Haiku, Beard has
unconsciously appropriated too many conventions of post-war art, rather than
challenging them. As such, the show at CUAC is a cautionary tale, reminding
artists (and galleries) of the importance of renewing the covenant of the
avant-guard, rather than simply paying homage to it.
Tyler
Beard’s work is on view at CUAC in Salt Lake City from 9/19 to 10/11.
