Tyler Beard: Avant Garde Goes Mainstream.

                                 

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.

John Erickson: Dog, Interrupted.

At first glance, the dog paintings of John Erickson appear to be light hearted and jovial, as a procession of pooches roll, beg and drool through his works. Some are cheerfully paired with fire hydrants and holiday ornaments (1), soda cans and watertowers (2). Others wear pendants and crowns, as if to emphasize their preciousness (3). One dog lies upside down (4), with his legs dangling buoyantly in the air, pleading for a belly rub. Warm and fuzzy, playful and goofy, these subjects not only speak to Erickson’s rich sense of humor, but tug at our heartstrings, signalling the unconditional love and companionship that we expect from Man’s best friend.

As we succumb to their charms and fall under their spell, something else starts to happen. The image begins to disintegrate, collapse and ultimately fail us. In Green Briar (5), a hound dog stands in three-quarter profile. Behind him, a curtain of limes and greens suggest a meadow saturated with sunlight and grasses. The dog’s musculature is mapped entirely in overlapping color values. Approaching the canvas and looking closer at the animal, the viewer discovers magazine cuttings and paint samples that explode like bombs. These reveal Erickson’s process, which layers acrylic, marker, latex, collage, oil, and polymer resin. This is also where the illusion dissolves. It takes only a few seconds for the dog to disappear and for the image to shatter into a million splinters and fragments.

Erickson compares these ‘moments of surprise’ to a child experiencing their first snowstorm, and the incredulity that happens when confronted with something that is both unexpected and spectacular. Such moments are woven throughout Erickson’s imagery and unfold on multiple levels of perception. On one hand, we find instances of extreme clarity, such as the glimmer in a dog’s eye or the chiaroscuro of an apple. These areas of hyperfocus are conveyed with the most economical of elements: usually a shard of paper and a dab of paint. They also act as a nexus of acuity, gathering our senses and focussing our vision while everything else falls away.

Simultaneously, Erickson constructs counterpoints that negate the veracity of these places and deny the illusion. Spartacus of Sharpie (6) abounds with instances of visual delight: the reflection on the paper clip and the belt buckle are profoundly rewarding. They serenade our desire for verisimilitude and trompe l’oeil. And yet, paper strips are pasted to the model’s arm and thigh, which block any depth perception. Further layers of complexity are found in the pieces of scotch tape stuck to the paper, the ripped edges left white and raw, or the crusty impastos and drippy washes which Erickson applies unapologetically. In some cases, magazine cuttings are added to the mix. With advertising logos that clash with their surroundings, texts can actually be discerned. In The King Hydranted (1) we appropriately read of ‘Modern Day Mavericks and Western Icons.’ It is in moments such as these that we are brought back to the harsh reality of the canvas, and its immutable surface. In this way, the artist flirts with the blank canvas; the holy grail of modern art where pictorial illusionism intersects with the physicality of a stretched canvas. The finality of this pursuit leads only to the thick, resin tomb that seals all of the artist’s works.

Augmenting Erickson’s ‘moments of surprise’ are references to contemporary and bygone visual languages. In Seers and Prophets (3), Erickson describes the contour of a dachsund using only a red Sharpie marker. This effectively electrifies the dog, giving it a radioactive feel. In Beach Dog (7), a small black square is placed atop a bouncy border collie, which floats above the subject like a fly in ointment. This serves no other purpose but to burst the bubble and destroy the illusion. This glitch is another of Erickson’s many curveballs, and harks back not only to the father of modernism, Kasimir Malevich, but to the early days of color television, where signal interference led to the diffraction of light streaming out of a cathode ray tube. In Spartan Training (8) a male model stands upright at what appears to be a floating panel, which we see ‘through the looking glass’ as it were. As a transparent surface, the panel brings to mind the futuristic glass computer interfaces of films like Mission Impossible. Furthermore, as vectors of architecture intersect at irregular angles, extreme foreshortening places the viewer high above the figure. We stand so close however, that we become part of the action. We could in fact be the subject of the painting. As such, the dynamic is reminiscent of Diego Velazquez’s iconic Las Meninas (1656), which surreptitiously folds the viewer into his world. Finally, Tree of Knowledge (9) evokes the black and white stop-action effects of early war footage. Throughout the composition, a string of apples orbit the tree like atoms in a nuclear model. A regular feature of Erickson’s lexicon, they are void of gravity and suspended in space, propelling us into a kind of cosmic trance.

The collision of cultural and perceptual references in Erickson’s work could be read as a crisis of styles, which speaks to the postmodern condition described by Jean Francois Lyotard. Constantly shifting between illusion and artifice, triumpf and collapse, the prospect of a final, revelatory effect is agonizingly delayed. It is for this reason that Erickson describes his work “not as an absolute fact but as a continuum of process.” As a language that is constantly undermining itself as it reconstitutes itself, this also brings to mind more ancient conundrums such as the classical Greek uroboros paradigm, of a serpent that devours its own tail as it simultaneously nourishes itself. On a personal level, Erickson’s approach is grounded in the conviction that time heals all wounds, itself informed by transcendental meditation, Mormon eschatology, the writings of Carlos Castenadas and Eckhardt Tolle. Navigating Erickson’s world makes time travellers of us all, and has the capacity to bring our own paths to a grinding halt. And yet it is only from this vantage point, Erickson believes, that new vistas can be glimpsed. Like that moment when we step outside our comfort zone, and it begins to snow.

Self-Satisfied with Utah Ties @ CUAC.

Anybody who finds Salt Lake City’s art scene soporific will find a welcome reprieve at Central Utah Art Center (abbreviated as CUAC, pronounced quack), where a small but feisty group of artists exhibit some much-needed pluck in the show Utah Ties. While the front gallery displays more conventional works grounded in graphic languages, works in the back gallery come alive with enough chutzpah to ruffle more than a few mission suits.

Self-Sati

Maddison Colvin’s video ‘183^rd Semiannual General Conference 01 (Apostles, Prophets) layers video footage of speakers from the Mormon ‘conference’, which brings thousands of faithful to congregate in downtown Salt Lake City twice a year. Sound and visual footage from the conference sermons are made near-transluscent, and superimposed onto one another, creating a highly layered effect. While one face dissolves into another, a visual consensus emerges. Absent of any racial, gender or generational diversity, they signify a patriarchal monoculture, as they dissolve into the same puppet-like mold. The result not only displays a cumulative side to tradition, but the monolithic and inflexible aspects of LDS church leadership. 

Emily Fox’s King Panties pins twenty-three pairs of women’s underwear directly onto the gallery wall. (Used but clean, we can only assume they come from Utah’s great emporium of objets trouvé, the Deseret Industries Thrift Store.) The display brings to mind Pipilotti Rists’ Massachusetts Chandalier yet the garments demonstrate a greater range in size, from the implausibly minute (think Barbie) - to fully-figured. As the display charts the arc of a woman’s expanding girth, the journey bridges juvenile fantasies of doll’s play to the vicissitudes of real anatomy in physical space.

More art world references are encountered in Tatiana Svrckova Larsen’s Ambit, which vertically stacks four television sets to depict the head, chest, hands and feet of an upright female subject. As such, memories of Nam June Paik are unavoidable. In the top screen, a head (in profile) dribbles an ambiguous white substance from her mouth, bringing to mind Bruce Nauman’s iconic Fountain. Curving around her chin, the fluid continues its vertical path into the screen below. Glowing and white, the liquid glows against a darkened background, flowing down into the next screen, where it passes the subject’s chest. Arriving in the next monitor, it collects in cupped hands, where it overflows into the final screen (bottom level) where it splashes onto the floor and pools in the sandy ground. Here the fate of the glistening fluid, be it cowsmilk, semen or paint, evokes the biblical parable of spilling one’s seed, or seed falling on stony ground. Moreover, all four videos are looped, giving the impression of a continuous flow from top to bottom. As such, the effect oscillates between a commonplace garden feature and the circuity of Duchamp’s Fountain.

Bodily fluids also intersect with technology in Alexandra Reintjes performative installation ‘Sex Video’ which is experienced on a hand-held iPod and earphones. Here, the subject is located at the center of a small, cube-shaped room and (we assume) positioned on a fixed but spinning dolly. Equipped with both a film projector and video recorder, the viewer’s position becomes synonymous with that of the subject’s. As the dizzy rotation spins out of control, images of modernist building facades (ubiquitous in Salt Lake City) are projected onto the walls. The technological intensity of the arrangement is mediated by the gentle panting of a female onanist, whose murmurs both activate and disarm the architectural spectacle. A myriad of associations abound, from early structuralist film (think Michael Snow), to Rebecca Horn’s sadomasochistic performances and Vito Acconci’s Seedbed. We are also reminded of Ballardian aesthetics, as the erotic machine whirls into oblivion.

In a similar vein, Alex Stevens’ Everytime You Wish You Were Never Born Part 2 features an industrial garbage bin, once full with bread dough derived from the artist’s family bakery. Teeming with yeast, the dough has expanded and exploded over the edge of the bin into an excess of chthon, only to harden into a leathery, solid crust. Underneath the bin, recordings of music hits dating from 1986 repeat on a loop, referencing the year of the artist’s birth. This biographical signpost posits the doughy explosion not as a gastronomic catastrophe but as a giant, male ejaculation.

While the maturity of these works merits its own commendation, the significance of their existence in the Beehive State cannot be underestimated. Contemporary Art faces a plethora of challenges in Salt Lake City, not least of which is a hegemonic propoganda machine which discourages artistic and intellectual tenacity while advancing values of conformity and submission. The works in Utah Ties exist not because of local culture, but in spite of it. As such, they meet these challenges head-on, demonstrating a willingness to experiment, an openness to new media, an engagement with art world tropes and above all, a much needed sense of humor.

                        

Curated by Adam Gildar. 

March 21, 2014 to April 11^th, 2014 at Central Utah Art Center (CUAC) in Salt Lake City, UT.

'Draw Out' Performance by Kristina Lenzi and Gretchen Reynolds.

Several features can characterize works of Performance Art. One is duration. Performance artists often (not always) push the boundaries of their audience’s patience, creating a corner in time that proceeds according to the work’s inner tempo. The artist’s stamina can also be pushed – to exhaustion. Another feature that can so easily accompany works of performance art is a binary dynamic created between two participants. Here I think of the works of Gilbert and George, Abramavic and Ulay, Valie Export and Peter Weibel, Chris Burden and his anonymous assistant.

Such was the case on Friday evening (March 21^st) at Artspace, where Kristina Lenzi and Gretchen Reynolds sat at opposing easles, drawing each other for over six hours during Gallery Stroll. Facing each other at 180 degree angles, one could have assumed that the easels were attached to each other. In fact, the artists studied each other’s faces through a small gap between the boards and, with charcoal, graphite, colored and highlighter chalk undertook facial studies of each other – drawing eachother.

The resulting drawings were displayed on adjacent walls behind each artist, serving as a backdrop to the central action. The results varied from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some achieved such life-like naturalism, that the subjects almost started breathing. Others were rendered with simple contour drawings, or the grand gestures of Willem deKooning. Some placed a realistic eye squarely in the middle of a nest of scribbles, barely decipherable as the structure of a face. And towards the end of the marathon, meditative concentration dissolved into childsplay and portraits descended into charicatures, revealing disfigured proportions and Picasso-like monsters.

Forays into these drawing styles demonstrated the range of each artist, both of whom have taught drawing for several years at institutions throughout the valley.

The results also invited comparison. Who was more skilled? Who posessed a steadier hand? Who was the master of naturalism, who was quicker to abandon the torch and embrace the lighter side of the discipline?

While some observers are trained “not to judge” the dynamic of one artist pitted against another invariably emerged for this critic. Did the coupling mirror a scenario of rivalry, which can so easily emerge between partners of any kind? Was this a competition? Or, was this a paean to cooperation, of working in tandem and symbiosis, in the true spirit of partnership? As much as the arrangment was a ‘closed system’, it was also entirely complementary, as the personal styles of each artist quietly unfolded, while spectators meandered through the event. Perhaps in this sense, the performance more closely approximated M.C.Escher’s iconic work from 1948 Drawing Hands.

'I Was Not Concerned.' Gay Marriage in Utah.

Michelle Mumford's comments on the rhetoric surrounding the legalization of gay marriage in Utah (Op-ed, 2/15) are well taken. Words such as ‘apartheid’ and ‘bigotry’ are indeed strong and her experience in California is deplorable. The question of their accuracy is a different matter. I would think that these labels derive from a legal and legislative landscape that has still not decriminalized sodomy and has dragged its feet to protect a group that “gives them pause” from housing and employment discrimination, or include them in hate crime legislation. I would argue that these deeds go beyond semantics and verbal abuse. They impact the safety of ordinary Americans and their families. They do very much criminalize their actions (76-5-403), and limit their ability to partake in ordinary civic life, such as health and inheritance benefits. If this is not the essence of “apart-hood” or apartheid, it is certainly the beginning.

Another historical parallel can be found in the early days of Nazism. One of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power was to wade into the bedrooms of ordinary Germans, and outlaw marriages and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. (Utah leaders who argue that they are representing the vox populi will be interested to learn that the Nurenberg Laws of 1935 had a petition of over a million signatures supporting the measures).

It is because of such laws, that we today think of the Jews and the Nazis as separate entities in apart-hood, like antagonists in a moral play: the winners and the losers, the bullies and the victims. But in reality, they were once one. They spoke the same language and shared the same beds – and children. They were integrated members of society, yet became a separate class through the laws that were passed. As we now know, these laws had a domino effect in Germany, and led to some of the most egregious crimes in history.

But it is worth considering that the same can be said for many other conflicts, which began with marital and sexual restrictions, to the point where one might argue that they could serve as signals or predictors in the rise of Fascism. History has shown that no society – however righteous – is immune to this cancer. We have only to remember the tragedies in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur.

Moreover, lest we forget that we live in a state where Americans have already been targeted and incarcerated into labor camps, at the Topaz Internment Camp near Delta. Given the tendency for these ideas to run amok, why open the door?

One of the few blessings to emerge from the Holocaust was the voice of evangelical Pastor Martin Niemöller, who famously wrote:

When Hitler attacked the Jews, I was not a Jew, and therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions, and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant Church – and there was nobody left to be concerned.

The Pastor’s message makes clear the capacity in ALL of us to turn a blind eye, because “I was not concerned.” Our nation is already on shakey ground. Americans are divided between the insured and the uninsured, the documented and the undocumented, and still the black and the white. Do we really need more division and strife? I ask readers of The Tribune, along with the legislators of our State: who among us is so righteous so as not heed Pastor Niemöller’s warning? Our laws and our leaders are the only stopgaps we have against the tyrany of evil – and the capacity in all of us to say “I was not concerned.” Why not learn from the mistakes of others? If we don’t, we may be haunted by that other ominous warning from George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Connie Borup : A Natural Idiom.

             New works by Connie Borup opening January 17th at Phillips Gallery once again demonstrate the power of resurrection. Not just the renewal of nature, but the regenerating endurance of Borup’s idiom. Working in oils on medium-sized canvasses, Borup’s subject continues to be nature, and how little we really know about it. Not only are we treated to numerous paeans in the finest of details, but are constantly reminded of how many visual surprises are hidden in the most unsuspecting of places.

             At the heart of Borup’s work lies a fascination with natural process and the cycles of nature: the ying and yang of life. Rich with pathetic fallacy, we are privy to a world of tumult and repose, brutality and recovery. Exemplary is ‘Water Journey’, which shows a gently sloping beach, half bathed in water. The fluid is completely transparent, giving us a direct view to the riverbed and its mottled lodgers. These consist of an assortment of smooth and rounded pebbles that are strewn across the waterbed, landing in chance positions like dice on a gameboard. The ovoid forms are contrasted by several sharp twigs, which jut into the scene at odd angles, adding agitation where once there was none.

             ‘Watery Resting Place’ presents a similar scenario as the tangled branches of an overflowing shrub pour out over a waterway and drop its leaves onto the water’s surface. As they drift along, some float away while others stay and idle, perhaps as a parable to the unpredictably of life. Not only does this foliage guard darker recesses of the underbrush, but serves as a harbinger of color, in creamy beiges and greens. In addition, leaf shapes lose their depth, becoming elliptical and lacrymal to evoke Japanese screens. Whereas some of Borup’s works use water as a window onto subterranean worlds, it here serves to reflect a gloomy, overcast sky. 

                Borup’s images are often situated at transitional locations, where water meets land and adaptation is required. In particular, the artist’s iconography feeds off expired plant life and the resulting decay: the retreat of leaf color and the draining of pigment. Here, stems and branches become splintered and prickly, yet are swiftly remedied by the healing properties of water as the source of all life. In these instances, the harsher effects of nature are mitigated by the interplay of light and water and its dual role as window and mirror. Such is the case in ‘Dancing Reeds’, where a hillside of reeds has been ravaged by a long, dry summer. All of the plants have expired, their leaves bent in cruel contortions, forming peach and cream arches. In the foreground, a still blue pool reflects the plants, translating their curved leaves into jagged, lyrical patterns. The pool’s pale blue and grey hues contrast the warm brick colors of the red rock background. A cluster of plants emerge from the middle of this puddle, showing a Nietzschean perseverence in the fine green sprigs sprouting from their base.

               A similar resoluteness is seen in ‘Glassy Echoes’, where a dried bush defies gravity by growing horizontally above a body of water. Hovering just inches above the surface, we marvel at the architectural tenacity of this achievement Most of the curved branches grow skyward, while a few are downturned, stroking the water like fingers. Bleached by the weather and drained of all pigment, most are chalky white, while a warmer orange hue clings to a few remaining sticks. These weave their way in and out of the lighter twigs, forming a lattice through which the blue-grey water can be seen. While the actual branches posess a gently curving shape, they adopt a more irregular motif in their reflection. Here I can’t help thinking that the interplay of water, wind and wood not only mirrors our own existential predicaments, but at times, the folly of human endeavour in general.    

           Perhaps the most dramatic of this series is ‘Tree Reflection’, where the view is limited exclusively to a reflection. Pictured is a tree of uncertain origin, with branches twisted into the paths of Rorschach inks, inviting prophetic interpretations. Forming an intricate lace not unlike a splatter painting, this is set against the ripples of a small periwinkle pool. Saturating our vision, Borup has chosen a firey palette of crimson reds and oranges for the tree’s reflection. This conjures up sun flares, and the violent alchemy that set the landscapes of Southern Utah in motion. As we experience the tree in reflection form only, we are left to speculate on the original object that inspired this doppelgänger. As such, the work invites parallels with other reflecting pools, and their capacity to misrepresent and deceive. Cautionary tales which expound on the illusory nature of life, such as Plato’s Cave, also come to mind. More reassuring is the use of the mirror by Perseus, which functioned as an aid to overcome demons. 

             Just as we think we have Borup pegged, ‘Pond Disguised by Leaves’ sends our thoughts into new directions. In this work, water plays a dual role of mirror and window, while incorporating new elements of the environment. Here we see a shallow pond, bordered by two masses of tiny, lanceolate leaves. These flank the water, like golden curtains on either side of a stage. The water inside is still and reflective - like a sheet of glass. In its mirror, a bright grey sky is captured. This is contrasted with the dark silhouette of a nearby tree. Where the shadow falls, a view to the pond bottom is seen, carpeted with pebbles and sludge. Still and cold, this is the birthplace of northern mythology, where Ophelia was laid to rest, and where the Lady of the Lake retreats.

           Works such as these not only remind us of the nuances and complexities that can be found in the most unassuming of nooks and crannies. More importantly, they expand the parameters of Utah landscape painting which, subject to market forces, often descends into cliché. Replete with mirages and shadows, mirrors and windows, screens and symbols, Borups works reveal secret worlds – both real and imagined – that inspire a renewed return to nature – and art.

 'Waterscapes' will be on display from January 17 to February 14, 2014 at Phillips Gallery, 

444 East, 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111.

Is Modesty Culture only Skin Deep? Photographs by Katrina Barker Anderson.

               Not since Arnold Friberg painted the Queen of England has a Mormon artist made so many inroads onto the international stage. On Nov 28, an article in HuffPost Canada featured Salt Lake City photographer and artist, Katrina Barker Anderson. Barker Anderson is the brainchild behind ‘Mormon Women Bare’ – a photography project and website showcasing Mormon women in their birthday suits. The works not only feature nude Mormon women, but champion the notion of their imperfect and unidealized natural bodies. Ravaged by pregnancy, genes, time and gravity, we encounter the female form in all its shapes and sizes: twisted, torn and beautiful. The works are about as honest and forthright as one can get.

              The artist, along with her sitters, seek to ‘reclaim the body’ against the shackles of the beauty, fashion and sports industries, which impose unattainable ideals onto girls and women. This places Barker Anderson’s work squarely among other feminist artists throughout the world, (from Paula Modersohn-Becker to Jenny Saville and Jen Davis) who have addressed similar deamons, such that by now, the genre is quite saturated.

              Truly groundbreaking is how Barker Anderson’s work diverges from her contemporaries and predecessors, by specifically targeting LDS ‘modesty culture.’ According to her website and well-crafted artist’s statement, modesty culture instills a sense of shame and self-doubt onto Mormon girls and women, and permeates college campusses as much as self-narratives. By voluntarily participating in the photographer’s project, declaring their bodies to be ‘beautiful, strong and resilient,’ the sitters upend the above equation, and adhere to a litany of women who have made similar statements of empowerment. In the context of Mormonism, the risk of censure - and ex-communication – is tangible, and makes their courage all the more moving.

              In Utah, modesty culture has many ugly heads. Among them is the tendency to lump ALL nudes together, and dismiss them all as pornographic. After all, it was not so long ago that the BYU Museum of Art allowed for August Rodin’s internationally beloved sculture The Kiss to be censored with a bed sheet during a travelling show. I encountered similar attitudes at the University of Utah, when I lectured on the subject of ‘Nudes in Art’, and tried to explore what viewers could learn from other naked bodies, besides pornography.

            Modesty culture is also promulgated by our secular institutions; it would be unfortunate if we did not see Barker Anderson’s work supported by the UMFA, BYU or LDS Museum, nor reviewed in the ever-shrinking Tribune, or 15 Bytes. Institutional chasteness only promotes a vicious cycle, and keeps Utahns ignorant of a whole world of cultural production that is profoundly edifying, yet neither sexual nor pornographic, and that international audiences have benefitted from for centuries. HuffPost Canada has shown Utahns that we have a bold and talented contemporary artist in our midst: something we should all celebrate. Her work is good news for Mormon women – and all our mothers, sisters, daughters. Fist bump to them all! But unless our cultural institutions open up and step up to the educational challenge of embracing Body Art, our experience of other people, other cultures and other generations will be limited, and the reception of such trailblazing work, lukewarm. 

Katrina Barker Anderson's work can be viewed at http://www.mormonwomenbare.com/

Brad Slaugh's 'Feast.'

            At thirty three feet long, Brad Slaugh’s Feast just barely fits into his studio. It may be the most monumental mural drawing created in Utah in recent years (1998). Pieced together from 48 pastel drawings, it is difficult to achieve optimal viewing distance - even in the artist’s sizable studio. But size isn’t everything. Other aspects of this work speak to its ambition – and genuine grandeur. 

            Displayed last month at Poor Yorick’s biannual open house, Feast is not just the artist’s masterpiece. It is a paean to epicurism, and also to Utah. Assembling twelve supersized dinner guests along a makeshift table, the lateral composition and its proximity to the picture plane begs comparison with that other dinner party we all know so well. In contrast to Leonardo’s illusionistic room, Slaugh’s guests are cramped up against a wall, the knots in the veneer screaming of basement rec rooms. Along the left edge, a partial figure in the form of a hand surrepticiously holds out a ham and cheese sandwich. Reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel’s famous ‘Hand of God’ – or perhaps Monty Python’s, it tantalizingly suggests a thirteenth sitter, and flirts with Leonardo’s numerology.

             Beyond this, Feast diverges from The Last Supper in important ways. Slaugh’s dinner guests, for instance, are Everyman. They lack the decorum of the apostles and could be anybody’s uncles and aunts, half-brothers and stepmoms. Clearly, time has not been kind to them. Their flesh hangs from their bones, perhaps in a nod to Lucien Freud or Eric Fishl. Suggesting the sloth that comes from a lifetime of television viewing, they are signifiers of the downtrodden, the aged and the infirm, and every bit as proletariat as Courbet’s peasants.

            Wearing stylistically obsolete clothes, a sense of nostalgia for seventies fashion and furniture emerges. As such, Slaugh pays homage to a generation of folks just ‘making do’ on the fringes of society, trapped in that time machine called Utah. He also toys with their proportions, dwarfing some and enlarging others; creating giants only a Trollhunter could love.

            Appropriately, they are faced with the greatest of consolations: a large meal, and the gastronomic catastrophe laid out in front of them adds an element of jouissance to the composition. The table, propped up like the one in the Merode Altarpiece, displays a cornucopia of processed foods, along with an unconscionable amount of mustard. The gooey and acrid splendor of American condiments flows to but one thing: indigestion. An anathema to Mormon retraint and sensibility, we are but a small step away from Francis Bacon’s open carcasses. And then there’s the ham and cheese sandwich, hardly the stuff of Passover meals.

             Surprisingly, Slaugh informs me that the sitters would self-identify as Mormon. And yet, they challenge the more conventional model, of mission suits and bleached out smiles. This begs the question: are they heirs to the apostles, or perhaps usurpers? As Latter Day Saints, the gospel has fallen to this motley crew to disseminate. Should we be comforted? Concerned? There may be no greater question facing Utahns today.

            While situating this dilemma in modern day Utah, and infusing it with a more universal, tragicomic humanism, Feast becomes Leonardo’s legacy. Unlike the Last Supper, which has been a stable fixture in Milan for half a millenia, Feast is still in search of a home, itself a drifter in the land of Zion. 

Feast can be viewed at a fraction of its real size, at www.bradslaugh.com

Sugarhouse Saint. Marion Rockwood-Johnson and the Rockwood Artist Studios.

              Peering through the chain link fence on 21^St South at 11^th East, one is confronted with raging bulldozers shifting colossal volumes of earth, sloshing concrete and disconnected plumbing pipes. The scene is disorienting. Yet amidst all the filth and chaos of what is known as Salt Lake’s ‘Sugarhole,’ one building has remained unscathed. Rockwood Art Studios is predominantly occupied by twenty-two painters and visual artists, and stands relatively untouched: tenants in tact. The area will soon transform, as condominiums will abut the property on both sides. To the south, a light rail project promises to revitalize business in the area. Yet with all this activity, one can’t help wonder: why is Rockwood still standing ?

            Certainly there was no shortage of speculators vying for the prized property. Flanked on either side by multi-million dollar projects, developers were eager to gut the entire block, and install their own pipe dreams. Yet that was unthinkable to Marian Rockwood- Johnson. At ninety-one, she’s seen buildings come and go along 21^st South.  As scion of a prominent Sugarhouse property family, her father owned nine acres in the ‘Furniture Capital of the West.’ And, with a business degree from the U (Class of ’42) it was business as usual for Marion and her renters. Though several artists panicked when bulldozers broke ground; some even left preemptively, in fear of eviction, Marion kept her ground, reassuring her occupants she had no reason to sell. “Where would we go? Why should we leave? Adding : “These artists are wonderful. They’re happy there. They have a good thing going. Why disturb that?”

              Rockwood-Johnson’s commitment to her tenants is rivaled only by her loyalty to her family legacy. When she was eleven, she remembers how her father, Jullius Apollos (‘JA’) Rockwood, acquired the land in severance from Granite Furniture, his employer of 21 years. With a penchant for property, Marion recalls her mother bemoaning “I can’t trust Daddy when he goes out. He’s always looking for corners to buy.” JA passed away in 1944, entrusting Marion’s mother with the family estate. “Mother wanted the Rockwood name to stay in Sugarhouse” she explains, “out of loyalty to our father.” Complete in 1955 when Marion was 33, decades of property management were thus channeled into ‘Rockwood Furniture Corporation.’ The elimination of parking along 21^st South soon ended the venture, as walk-ins completely dried up. Rockwood struggled to fill its space, and for many years, it remained near-abandoned.

             Connie Borup first saw its potential in the early nineties. Having recently received her MFA from the U, she needed a place to work. “But it was otherwise pretty bare bones.” Borup recalls. “With the Blue Boutique at street level, along with a fortune telling business where gypsy proprietors were squatting, the area was a little shady.” But soon enough, the Rockwood-Johnson family decided to renovate, and in 1999 created purpose-built studios for their tenants. The spaces were rented before the work was complete and in no time, Marion became the building manager and was responsible for everything from plumbing to rent collection.

            In addition to housing established artists such as Borup, Rockwood also fosters newer practitioners. Many are still finding their way by ‘just dabbling’ or have taken up the brush following first and second careers. Such variety often characterizes artist communities, and is heralded by city planners as a catalyst for the revitalization of neglected neighborhoods. Stephen Goldsmith, an Associate Professor in the College of Architecture + Planning at the University of Utah, advocates for the inclusion of artists in urban development. “Artists and art communities play an important role in the health of a city.” he says. “They bring creative energy and vitality to an area, which is unique to that of the developer or property owner.” The brainchild behind Salt Lake’s Artspace, Goldsmith describes a scenario in which everyone benefits. Not only do artist communities fuel collaboration and innovation among themselves, but the effect multiplies. Goldsmith explains how “Artist communities often contain micro-economies. A painter might engage the services of a framer in the same building, or purchase materials from an art supply store, which may result in a gallery exhibition, which generates sales. Participation in a gallery stroll might then lead to restaurant and cinema patronage in the area.” The benefits are manifold.“When creative people come into contact, innovation occurs, which leads to economic development.” Goldsmith says.

            Meri DeCaria, Director of Phillips Gallery, concurs. As one of the oldest galleries in the Intermountain West, Phillips has had a long-standing relationship with Rockwood. “We’ve exhibited several Rockwood artists over the years” she says. But the advantages are not just economic. There is a ripple effect that feeds into the intellectual life of the city. Not only do the works go out into private and corporate collections, but exhibition openings energize the cultural community at large, by attracting practitioners in related disciplines. As well, Phillips plays an educational role, it is visited by groups such as high school students, art appreciation classes and even the UMFA’s ‘Young Benefactor’s Club.’ DeCaria also alludes to a spiritual dimension of the gallery. “People come here to be recharged. To feed their soul. For a breath of fresh air, and for new ideas.”

            As the extended life of Rockwood Art Studios percolates down into the further recesses of the city, it generates unexpected momentum and activity. With this in mind, it would not be inappropriate to heap praise and accolades upon Marion Rockwood Johnson. Yet she prefers a more retiring life behind the scenes and, with an eye on her family legacy, is content to pass the torch onto her sons. As for her tenants, she says simply  “They’re good tenants. They‘re clean and responsible. And we’re just happy to provide a good environment for them.”

Tatsuya Nakatani & Vanessa Skantze at DUNCE.

              It’s been a while since I had the urge to vomit. To turn my insides out, and start messing around with my own entrails. Yet such was the case last Monday at DUNCE, during Tatsuya Nakatani and Vanessa Skantze’s jarring performance.

            Donning a coat of rags consisting of torn scraps of fabric, Skantze teetered through the audience in a seizure-induced stride, until reaching the stage. Proceeding to twitch and convulse, she eventually collapsed, just barely clinging to her paralysis. Abandoned, slivers of percussion eventually stirred her, as Nakatani unfurled his artillery of noisemakers. Emerging slowly, twine-like dreadlocks cast cobweb shadows onto the wall.

            Meanwhile Nakatani unleashed a cacophony of noises evoking nails-on-a-chalkboard, and the opening of the heavens. Laboring on other instruments, he sawed cymbals with violin bows, dragged fingernails along drums, pounded gongs, and delicately tapped temple bells and chimes with chopsticks.

           Skantze’s personae, dredged up from the depths of a primordial soup, thrashed and seized, while teetering on the brink of a cataclysmic abyss. Her pale skin encrusted with paste, was lizard-like and brought to mind the Marat de Sade’s excruciating suffering. Here was a woman who’d lost it all, survived the apocalypse and was clinging to the faintest glimmers of existence, while writhing about in her own chthon.  And when her life-force surged, she sputtered and slashed, gasping for air, as sinews of flesh peeled from her acrid body and shards of mantle swung wildly about.

           Skantze equaled any number of femmes fatales – from the Classical medusa to the medieval witch. Above all Kiki Smith’s iconic ‘Tale” came to mind. Just thirty minutes of this harrowing spectacle left the audience utterly depleted and traumatized to their core.

The Tip of the Iceberg. Video Art at UMOCA.

        Not since the construction of City Creek Center has there been such a racket on West Temple. Eight videos in UMOCA’s summer exhibition Cantastoria are creating quite a ruckus in the usually hushed galleries, as a cacophony of chanting, giggling and clicking converges in the subterranean galleries. For those accustomed to more traditional media, video can be bewildering, if not outright alienating. This, I suspect, has something to do with the old adage “familiarity breeds contempt.” As the preeminent mode of communication for most folks, the video stream looms so large in the American psyche, that anything other than the status quo is often unwelcome. Luckily, the works in Cantastoria tread gently. They don’t project agitprop onto building facades (see Krzysztof Wodiczko), or onto tormented little effigies (Tony Oursler). We are not required to deconstruct the baroque gesticulations of Bill Viola, or the primal chants of Bruce Nauman. No, the works on view at UMOCA are enough to get our feet wet, but not crack our brains. In fact, most works employ a static, documentary-style shot that projects an ‘invisible window’ onto the world, much like TV. Unlike TV, there is no staging, and editing is kept to a minimum.

Indeed, most of the videos in Cantastoria are married to the performance they document, rather than the specificities of the medium. “Exercise” by Lucia Nimcova (2007) showcases senior citizens in Slovakia who re-enact daily exercise routines that were introduced as a national health program by the State. As such, the works present a concept of the body that is inscribed by political ideology, while offering a window into communist life. No attempt is made to idealize the protagonists’ bodies, their shapes contrast those of American sport icons. Nor do they exercise in high-tech studios or gyms, but in modest homes, offices and churches. A train conductor does arm lifts from a baggage rail, a woman does sit-ups on her couch, housewives in headscarves and smocks touch their toes. Clearly the act of revisiting these movements triggers happy memories. As they giggle and chuckle, their pleasure is contagious (to the viewer) and forms an instant connection which transcends our demonized view of communism. This stands in sharp contrast to the highly regimented nature of our own form of exercise, and presents new connections between the body and freedom, health and happiness.

“The History of the Typewriter Recited by Michael Winslow, 2009” documents a series of vignettes performed by the “man of 10000 sound effects,” Michael Winslow. Armed with only a microphone, headphones and his superhuman mouth, we watch as Winslow stretches and contorts his mandible to mimic the sounds of typewriter machines built between 1895 and 1983. The result is comparable to the a capella acrobatics of Bobby McFerrin. Yet Winslow essentially automates himself, transforming himself into a robot of sorts. This reading is tempered by the artist’s own foibles, as he spits, sputters and gasps through the performance.

While Winslow works his way through the typewriter models, the sentence he ‘types’ remains unchanged : “The History of the Typewriter Recited by Michael Winslow, 2009.” Because the sentence doesn’t change, the audience is able to decipher unique sounds that distinguish each model. The results range from the choppy slam of keys on a rubber roller, to the sleeker muffles of ‘noiseless’ electronic machines. As such, the work is not only a paean to the more mechanistic side of twentieth century business life (predating the sleek screens of today), but pays tribute to a buried dimension of the office that must have characterized modern working life. The work’s circuitousness presents a conundrum; the object under consideration is conspicuously absent, yet is beautifully resurrected in the intersection of text and sound.

A solo-exhibition of Christian Jankowski’s “Casting Jesus” (2011) documents a real-life casting call hosted by papal officiates in the Roman Vatican. Not since the Second Council of Nicaea (AD 787) have a group of men gathered to discuss the image of Christ with such ... devotion.  Critiquing various actors who’ve answered ‘the call’ to portray Him, we witness the reenactment of iconic New Testament moments in the story of Christ. Barefoot and bearded, the contenders feign piety and pathos not from any inherent religiosity, but to appease the selection committee and land a job. Such a transparent window into the machinations of the Vatican leaves even this Jew wondering : is nothing sacred?  The results are definitely camp. (Or, in Utah parlance, ‘inappropriate.’) Unfortunately, we all know the outcome. For, despite the candidates’ efforts, Christianity is like a game show : there can be only one that rises to the top.

As the reaction of committee members shifts from applause to disapproval, the subjective nature of their comments becomes evident; they are no more experts in the life of Christ than we are. In this way, another reality starts to dawn. Jesus is no more the embodiment of the Truth than a cultural construction carefully gerrymandered by religious leaders. For devotees of the moral majority, to say nothing of the Holy See and Pontificate, this conclusion is nothing short of scandalous. As such, UMOCA should be congratulated for bringing us such potentially contentious work. And yes, cracking our brains just a little.

Unlike the above works, which document performances by artists or the public, Omer Fast’s CNN Concatenated (2002) intervenes with the video stream to form a collage of sorts. Specifically, second-long frames from a CNN broadcast, each the length of a single word, are isolated and then reassembled to form whole, lengthy sentences. Initially appearing incoherent, the words stutter along while the journalist, background and NYSE ticker leap from frame to frame. While these elements remain in flux, various phrases in the dialogue start to surface and repeat themselves until we eventually see the forest through the trees, and whole sentences emerge. Harking back to conspiracy theories claiming a hidden, subliminal message, this secret dialogue is at times confessional and soul-searching. Like the Truisms of Jenny Holzer, it asks pejorative questions, yet is infused with Freudian psychobabble, as if the speaker and viewer might be in couple’s counseling. “How did we get to this point? Where did we go wrong?” and “You’re so cynical. Is it your anxiety making you do this? That’s so typical of your generation.” However self-critical the statements are, the speaker’s search for answers is undermined by the segmented editing. And is incongruous for a national broadcast. Such tactics undermine the authority of the CNN broadcast that, as an arbiter of world events, has become a kind of Big Brother. No surprise that the artist is from Israel, a place heavily inscribed by media narratives.

The works on view until Sept.22 at UMOCA offer an excellent introduction to the wonderful world of video art. But it is just the tip of the iceberg. Looking further afield, half a century of production has yielded a voluminous body of work that plays a vital role in the life of art, worldwide. Since Salt Lake City offers no independent, artist-run production studio, and the subject is sidelined as ‘new media’ in most Utah art departments, UMOCA has an educational imperative to raise the bar : Cantastoria is a step in the right direction.