A very different crowd of artists (48 of them in all!) showed up for Dragnet, Sage Project’s open invitation exhibit, from those who showed up for 2007’s Here and Now open invitation exhibit at Copy Gallery. In Dragnet, I got the sense of people struggling to find their inner artists and anxiously daring to reveal them. Quite the opposite at Copy, which featured mostly art-school grads–and peeps connected to them–eager exhibitionists I guess you could say.
Gerard Cerini, Sky, aluminum foil, 36x36 inches, 2003
Gerard Cerini’s Sky would seem like a traditional, academic sculpture–except for the materials. Paul Wadlinger, show participant (an elaborate fantasy painting) and gallery sitter at the moment I was there–said Cerini’s Sky is solid aluminum foil held together with glue and it weighs a ton. Just the effort to make this life-size figure from that material is pretty startling. The gap between the lowly kitchen material and realistic modeling puts Sky outside of the contemporary mainstream, but the earnestness and quality of the job well done deserves some kudos, as does the title of the piece, which points attention to where the subject is looking and what his shiny material could be reflecting.
The distance between this work and the classical sculpture crapification of Matthew Monaghan is miles apart on the surface, but not really all that many miles if you think about it.
Bob Scheib, Island, sculpture painting, 21.75x20 inches, 2007
The show had a number of literal pieces about neighborhood that tried to bridge the gap between 2- and 3-D. Lilliana Didovic used little shiny bits of tile to add a decorative and craft touch to her exuberant and otherwise traditional painting Neighborhood, and Suzanne Francis hung a little toy parachutist from the frame atop her neighborhood painting East Parkside Commando. But the most successful and daring effort to unflatten the second dimension belongs to Bob Scheib, whose “sculpture painting” Island is a back-lit diorama, made of layers of wood cutouts in a frame. Scheib is one of the artists Sarah Roche has included in her upcoming show we told you about at Raritan Valley Community College.
Mark Dilks, Take Out My Eyes, oil on wood, 12x12.5 inches, 2006
Mark Dilks gave the 2-/3-D conundrum a run for its money in his heavily impastoed Take Out My Eyes. The eyes are literally dug out of the layers of paint, and I honestly fear for Mr. Dilks’ mental health.
Ben Howard, Foul Swoop, oil and acrylic on canvas, 3x4 feet, 2009
Embracing 2-D for 2-D, Ben Howard has a deft painting that channels Lari Pittman, with its gestural drawing, conflicting spatiality and print-like layering.
Jonathan Pappas, The Nuclear Family, sculpture of clay, wire and tape, 17x13x5 inches
And speaking of channeling other artists, the charming Nuclear Family sculpture by Jonathan Pappas has a touch of Miro in his mutiple creature feature. I especially loved the space kid hiding in the coffin underfoot.
But much of the show was marked by the earnestness of the work. Whether sophisticated or not, that earnestness gave this show its value, the sense that people in many cases were crawling out of their cellars underfoot to reveal the secret art into which they had been pouring their souls.
Dragnet runs through Aug. 30.
6 Comments
It might be a different crowd but I cant say its a crowd whos art I like.
No it didn’t have the pep, and some of it was so earnest and ahhhty and out of touch with the 21st century, but some of it was good.
It is interesting Libby that you bring up 21st century, Mr. Lawrence’s work hardly qualifies as 18th century but everyone can see that from his link.
The show is up until 8pm tonight so go see it for yourself. I should state for the record that I was involved in organizing Dragnet.
I think the word “crowd” is a really bad one in the context of an all inclusive, open call exhibition. Crowd hints at clique or an organized group of some sort and that is the opposite of what was our intention or what we got.
I think the more interesting point is Libby’s about 21 century art. I would have to say that Philadelphia on the whole lacks in presenting cutting edge work. There are too few venues to show “new” work and just because work is made by young artists or shown at collectives doesn’t mean it is 21st century. Just because it is a cartoon or a video doesn’t make it 21st century. Is graffiti art still cutting edge or pop based work 21st century? Or is it that work that is trendy or popular is 21st century? How about outsider art?
I think that a broad topic like where Philadelphia stands when it comes to cutting edge work would make an interesting piece to publish on artblog, especially in light of the new season starting up in September.
All questions worth asking! And your point about “Crowd” is well taken, too. But what interested me was how two open calls can evince quite different affects!!!! And this result was surprising to me.
Dragnet had an outsider tone, as if many of these artists weren’t looking at the work being made today by full-time artists or in more popular forms of our visual culture. What I myself am looking for is work that reflects both those threads, without losing sight of the art historical past. In other words, it can be graffiti, or cartoon or illustration or video or whatever. Any genre will do, so long as it reflects the world in which we live today, so long as it doesn’t feel hermetic and passe but rather aware of the visual culture in which we are all immersed.
But I’m interested here in hearing other points of view, your own included.
I don’t see that much difference between the two shows except the one at Copy had more 3D which we had hoped to get and theirs was installed in a modern salon style which makes sense given their space, here is a link http://copygallery.org/documents/14/
I liked their show.
I got the idea of doing an open call from a show I was in while living in NY in 1992 called The 1.5 Show, at the Tribeca 148 Gallery. They handed you a hammer and you actually hung your own work where ever there was room. It had a lot more work than either Copy or Sage and was even more diverse.
Of the 48 artists in Dragnet I would guess that at least 12 were recent graduates of Temple or Tyler, I spoke with one tonight about it. I think a minority do fit into what you are saying about not embracing the mainstream, but some do so consciously and some not. The point is that it is very hard to generalize with the people that came in, there were a multitude of individuals, all very different from one another in age, ethnic background, education etc. That was the point and that made the show a success in our eyes. There we threads as you wrote and we of course looked for that when we designed the installation.
People like Cornell lived hermetic lives and it came through in their art and it is very well respected today. Rousseau was ridiculed by Picasso and friends and both were very well aware of what was going on around them. I think good art can come from anyplace, that it is the rare individual for very complex reason that makes work that is a cut above the rest.
But I do question the legitimacy of those who are aware of art historical trends and hold onto them long after they ran their course or just jump on the bandwagon. It is too easy and doesn’t add to the conversation. This includes graffiti, pop, low brow, decorative, hard edge abstraction, surrealism, cubism? etc. etc. Everything comes from someplace and new work will likely have elements of work that has come before us. But let’s see something different, and new, and great, whether it comes from expected or unexpected places.
I could hardly argue with this Vince except in silly, picky ways, so I just want to thank you for your comment!