This week’s Weekly has my a-list review of Vox Populi’s new member’s show. Below is the copy with a few pictures. More photos at flickr.
MY VOX IN A BOX
Brent Wahl, Tear, at Vox Populi’s new members’ show. Tear is nicely ambiguous–it’s a tear drop shape but the dance it does is like a tear on a tear. And the red color makes it a blood drop which connotes a tear in the skin…or other bodily organ.
Vox Populi’s new members show romps in a playground where the scary, the existential and the humorous are separated by a heartbeat, and emotion swings with the wind. Brent Wahl’s Tear animation—in which a solitary red teardrop dances crazily in a white void, then swan dives out of sight—is funny, sad, seductive and lovable. Andrew Suggs’ shiny black tabletop with music speakers and a chain interweaves thoughts of teen fan worship. Like Julianna Foster’s back-lit flower pictures, James Johnson’s digital photos and Jonathan Prull’s sci-fi warrior sculpture, these pristine works are Death Star-perfect. Their self-confidence is a little terrifying.
Kara Crombie, video, Yo Yo’s Spinner, DVD 4 min. 2007
On the other hand, Kara Crombie’s video and Anna Neighbor’s photos are earthy and earnest, while both Jamie Dillon’s striped plaster cones and Nick Paparone’s painted trompe d’oeil bulletin board evoke the magic circus that is art.
Josh Rickards’ paintings of Simpsons-style hippies and Andrew David James’ poured and splattered abstract paintings thumb their nose at convention, creating perfect pictures in their own way. This show’s combination of angst and sunshine is downright captivating.
Nick Paparone, Discovering Myth, wood, canvas, paint, hinges. 2007. Trompe l’oeil painting, propped open at the back by a row of duracell batteries. I thought the work was a bulletin board even in spite of the fact that the propped open back clearly gives the magic away showing it to be canvas stretched over stretchers. Paparone commissioned the painting which was done by a trompe l’oeil painter. I’m sorry i didn’t get the name.
“It Was Easy. It Was All New.”
Through Aug. 29. Vox Populi, 319A N. 11th St., third fl. 215.238.1236.
