Not Home. Photographs by David Baddley, Reviewed.

             Every now and then, the ‘Decline of the American Empire’ rears its ugly head. Whether nationally or regionally, a wide range of experts discuss and generally agree that, at the very least ‘the times, they are a-changing.’ Yet how this phenomenon impacts our daily lives here in Utah remains unclear. What are the symptoms? Where are they to be found? And is it possible to address this phenomenon artistically?

            These questions come to the fore in twenty unframed color photographs by David Baddley, on show at the downtown Salt Lake library. Measuring approximately two by three feet, the prints are pinned directly to the wall with thumbtacks. Baddley’s compositions are asymetrical and oscillate between genuine haphazardness and staged wrecklessness. The subjects too are arbitrary, banale and benign. Depicted are close-ups and vistas that scream of nothing in particular.

            Subjects such as abandonment and alienation are dear to artists’ hearts; there is a vast body of work devoted to this subject. The paintings of Edvard Munch or Edward Hopper come to mind. And while some may resent the connection of this subject with the State of Utah, on another level Not Home offers a welcome reprieve from the Land of Positive Thinking. And yet, there are flies in the ointment.

            Never, not ever do we encounter another human being. Baddley’s images are consistently void of people, though traces can be found in residual minutia, such as a peeling picture frame or an overpolished barstool. In La Casita, Springville a tobacco-stained wall intersects with a stucco ceiling. In Arshe’s Cafe, Beaver a fragment of neon tubing stares out into a nocturnal abyss. To whom do these objects beckon? To a crowd that never arrives, but opts to keep driving to the next exit? Such works ask whether there is anything quite as lonely as small town Utah? The answer of course, is yes. This kind of bewilderment is universal, and found anywhere from the cornfields of Andrew Wyeth to the beaches of Eric Fischl. If that is indeed so, what then is there to be gleaned from these particular works? That the American dream failed here too? Somehow, I suspect this is not new to American photography.

            If Baddley’s interiors are gloomy, you should see his landscapes. Though not landscapes in the traditional sense, they depict the wilds of Utah, out there where the genre no longer exists.  In these works, nature is the main subject, though always contaminated by something industrially manufactured. Storms rage and recover against a silhouette of mountains in Rest Area, I-80, Utah 2011, yet are pierced by one solitary lampost whose bulb glows faintly. Water Tank, Layton, Utah 2010 depicts a spectacular sunset at dusk, with shards of peach light forming what Friedrich might have called the Sublime. Lurking in the foreground is a water tank sporting the hopeful logo ‘Surf ‘n’ Swim.’

            While we encounter the sheer desolation of these places, Baddley’s work does not portray antagonistic relations between man and nature, but co-existence in quiet lamentation. Therein, one can’t help noticing the violation, as if a strip mall had been photoshopped into an Alfred Bierstadt painting. Apple Tree, Susanville, California 2011 shows an apple tree bursting with fruit. Its branches incongruously harbour some kind of lighting contraption, replete with rows of fluorescent bulbs. The gravel of a highway shoulder is depicted in Kiefer-like focus, yet is punctuated by three black-and-yellow warning signs alerting drivers to a sharp turn. While we are aware of these infringements, I can’t help thinking that these scenes hover on the brink of sentimentality. As if we might next discover a headless doll, or a lost shoe. Other works depict small-scale facilities of unknown origin or occupancy. Here, metal siding is king and urban planning has gone the way of the dodo. Once pregnant with purpose, these buildings now lie defunct and lifeless, like the water towers of Bernd and Hilla Becher. As signs of a declining America, they too are over-familiar, and approach the world of the cliché. Once again, I fear Baddley will turn his lens to an untended baseball diamond, or a derelict post office.

            Compositionally, Baddley’s works employ several time-honoured devices. Geometric elements are contrasted with scribly, looser ones. The shadows of a tree are projected onto a wall, mismatched tires pile up at an abandoned garage. As well, many subjects are cropped such that only fragments exist – like SNL’s ‘guy who just wandered in.’ A framed poster of a western couple is bisected at mid-waist. A corner of a billboard invades a cerulean sky. A blue column is amputated at the knee. Such devices betray a fondness for abbreviation which heightens a sense of disjunction. The viewer is left wondering what lies beyond? Or do they? Maybe they don’t wonder, but just move on. Because such fragments already constitute the currency of their lives.

            The issue of vacuity and desperation in the darker recesses of the American imagination has repercussions for us all. Yet Baddley has rendered this subject in a visual language that is already common currency. This further trivializes his subject, and leaves us wondering whether the works signify anything beyond their own banality? In this way, Baddley’s works do not offer an aesthetics of decline, they are symptomatic of it.

David Baddley’s Not Home is on view at the Downtown Library until June 15^th,  2012.

Not with a Whimper but a Bang! The 2012 Faculty Show.

           If an art exhibition is any indication of the state of things, then much can be learned from the UMFA Faculty Show. TS Elliot once predicted that decline would be signalled ‘not with a bang but a whimper.’ Certainly there are works in this show that speak to that sentiment.  Overly moralizing, programmatic or simply unresolved, some employ such a comprehensive symbology they are impossible to decipher.

            Yet most of the works on view display a higher caliber of work, and do so not with a whimper but a bang! Kristina Lenzi’s performance Expel did just that. Donning a blindfold, the artist laboriously scraped a line of museum tape from the floor, rolling it up into a wad of black rubber, which became a black balloon. Lenzi has a knack for using simple, playful props in zen-like ways, and this was no exception. The more she blew, the more distracted I became by the crowd, schmoozing loudly and noshing on their crudités. Lenzi’s action however drew them in, as they became ensnared by the battle between her lungs and the balloon’s elasticity.

            I have often wondered how to overcome the grandiose space of the UMFA’s Great Hall. Hang one of Claes Oldenburg’s Shuttlecocks over the balcony? Fill the room with Alexander Calder mobiles? Lenzi met this challenge head on, and not spatially but audibly. Swollen beyond capacity, the balloon blast released and shot through the Great Hall like no other. The Faculty Show had opened : not with a whimper, but a !Bang! 

            Today works in sculpture, photography and paint continue to inspire conversation and reflection. Tom Hoffman’s Autobiography features twelve life-sized portraits hung horizontally and framed tightly to the face. Of varying ages and races, the faces smile faintly or remain neutral. Some are recognizable as members of the faculty, others are unknown. Nestled among them is the back of the artist’s head. This posture suggests his refusal to participate or to play by the rules. It also gives a nod to Gerhard Richter’s iconic 1988 painting ‘Betty.’ We are left to define the painter not by his face, but by the people in his circle. Most remarkable is his verisimilitude, I suspect even van Eyck would approve.

            Hoffman’s realism is contrasted with a number of artists employing more apocalyptic vocabularies. Paintings by Lenka Konopasek explore the moment of impact when industrial equipment is obliterated by disaster, as was the case in the Gulf oil spill. Details of the event are enveloped by dusty debris, mushrooming smoke and violent firestorms, resulting in a confluence of obfuscations. In this way, the work is not unlike works by William Turner, where the horizon is swallowed up by the effects of light. Indeed, glimmers of any natural light are rendered in a sulfuric palette, which in turn is refracted into shards of luminosity.

            The panels of Maureen O’Hare Ure contain a similar ochre sky. Below, surface sludge is depicted with drippy watermarks and washes, fine graphite traces, sanded planes and perhaps even encaustic. The subject matter is an antediluvial world, infused with medieval references. Deluge features ancient sea creatures similar to Jan Brueghel’s Jonah Leaving the Whale. Beast references the medieval manticore. The largest of the works Smoke shows an uninhabited landscape dotted with tiny volcanoes. Fires flare up, rocks sizzle and mud gurgles forming geological layers. So hostile is this environment, we could very well be looking at Tolkien’s Mordor. Yet an abundance of curlicues and arabesques wind their way through the chthon, creating further layers of reality. 

            The work could easily be paired with Van Chu’s photographic landscapes, which are more abstract in their ornamentality. Suggesting drops of ink dissolving into water, or curls of smoke rising into the air, Chu’s works achieve light and shadow effects of an unprecedented nature. In the upper register, atmospheric effects are tempestuous while below, winding clusters of pigment form blots reminiscent of Rorshach tests. The results are lyrical and otherworldly. Certainly landscapes of an infinitesimal scale are evoked, like those of the Bonsai tradition and other miniature worlds.  Yet the ink’s flow is not entirely fluid. Occasionally, tiny dots of an inkjet printer betray the work’s medium, introducing a surprisingly technological (and 2D) element, where irreconcilable worlds collide.

            Five small works by Sylvia Ramachandran Skeen explore a biological frailty associated with the marine world. Dripping with a watery, transluscent blue glaze, the porcelain material mirrors the substance of a shell. Here, we encounter whale mandibles and upturned crab shells encrusted with reptilian skins and bony ridges. Adorned with graduating teeth, detached fins and scales these creations become serving dishes, cages or indeed miniature water vessels for sea-faring folk.  Some evoke the work of HR Geiger, the Swiss artist of Alien fame. Yet with the delicacy of lace, are far more fragile - and whimsical.

            In contrast to these ethereal works, Beth Krensky’s scultpure is heavy and earthbound. Its poignancy leads the viewer to lament the loss of many things : childhood, alchemy, nature, home. A collection of ‘Keys for Houses that are no More’ displays three rows of keys, all with symbolic emblems in goldleaf. Separated from their domiciles, they lead us to wonder what worlds have been lost, and are now beyond our reach. A dead meadowlark lays atop a ‘Portable Altar.’ Doubling as a gurney, the bird rests inside a gilded tray. While the gurney’s legs have been replaced with branches, they retain their wheels, a poor subsitute for the loss of flight.

            This is the subject of Requiem for Flight, a vitrine containing nine bronze birds. Each is rendered lovingly, adopting unique positions that literally freeze the animal in flight. As such, the birds twist and turn in uncanny contortions, they are caught in a mercurial plasticity, yet weighed down by their burdensome (bronze) substance. Birds are often symbols of our (soaring) souls - think of representations of the Holy Ghost, yet here are wounded and grounded. Nearby, four more lay in ‘Metaphysical Handcart’ and are accompanied by a collection of little bells, which allert us to an irrevocable loss. Begging to be held, nurtured and redeemed, these birds have also been denied the delicacy of their feathers, and are roughly hewn as if molded in playdough.  They lie like relics, helpless in their vitrines, yet I can’t help wondering if they might better reside outside the brick-and-glass museum, on a concrete sidewalk, or a window’s ledge? 

            Jolting us back to the present, Holly K Johnson’s multi-media installation Single Serve Nation : Drive Thru confronts us with the automated world which we all occupy. Two videos are juxtaposed, one projected on the wall, the other on a laptop surrounded by cast disposable containers. The routine repetition of the processing of the masses – in subways and streets – is juxtaposed with the automated handling of chickens, from poultry farm to conveyor belt. Both scenes are busy, and synchronized such that their tempo, however exaggerated, has an almost hypnotic effect.  A soundtrack provides a monotone ticking which both soothes and irritates.

            With few exceptions, the works on view at the UMFA reassure us of an active and vibrant Department of Art at University of Utah. The Faculty Show is on view until May 6^th.