Standards

Describing a work by what it isn't is rarely germane, but it would seem to be the best way to approach Nauman Humayun's newest painting, a subtly subversive, Op Art-derived network of banded color, torqued around a set of axes just off to the side of Cartesian coordinate space. There are feints toward the metaphysics of multiple worlds, but Humayun seems less interested in the quantum science of n-dimensional space as such than in its politics.

The signposts of Op Art are the most apparent feature of the work-- color as a marker of illusionistic space, line as a map around one's field of vision--but there would be little worth discussing if that were it. The coloration is almost flatly complementary, but not quite; they're tweaked enough to flatten out the vibrations between them, so that individual bands of color lie flatly atop, or crash into, one another. Instead of an overall patterned field, the work can be read from left to right, from a more open, conventional, symmetrical geometry on the left, coming to a knot in the middle, and spit back in widening rays off to the right. Lines cut through and intersect at oblique angles, calling conceptually to a path or map, but rendered impossible to follow; instead, one ping-pongs from area to area around the painting. There are breaks and gaps along the way, and errant splotches and pronounced brush strokes to break up the expected flat, graphic surface. It's bordered at the front by a set of dangling electrical cords, powering lights ringing the top border, so a direct approach is impossible, and one must flank the painting, or sneak up on it.

It's always seemed to your correspondent that Op Art is a pretension to universality, that by treating the eye to a pleasing, non-representative illusion, one can get past toxic, divisive ideology and connect, in some way, with a collective spirit; that it's somehow supposed to be a direct bridge to the Geist, and that this is an escape from the world we understand that's worth making. But here, it seems, is a rejoinder to that idea, that somehow this great metaphysical leap should never be so simple, or that a painting would never be enough. If there's an issue to be taken with the work, the most glaring one is that the ideology at play here is thoroughly anti-, or at the very least that whatever positive stance it might take is buried so far underneath the din on the surface that it's impenetrable; without this positive stance, what it is versus what it isn't, the ideas at play lose some of their power. In this case, though, that's a relatively minor point. The ability to twist this neat, non-argumentative utopianism back into something like a critical space is a novel, and too-rare, talent.

Nauman Humayun's work is currenty on display on the 3rd floor graduate studios, Visual Arts Building, at the Pennsylvania State University.

Sugar and Salt, the Sublime, the Gestalt.

Joe Bolstad is the kind of artist who plays on the familiar. He's hoping you chuckle or wince when you are in the presence of his work. His titles are simple, so much so that you find yourself coming up with better wittier alternatives and then you realize, he's got you.

Recipe for Disaster:

What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails. And puppy-dogs' tails? And little girls? Sugar, spice, and everything nice? That may have been the case 190 years ago, but Robert Southey's famous poetic lyricism can hardly begin to describe the twisted and fantastic reality that surrounds 20th and 21st century childhood. Today's children live on a decadent spread of animated amuse bouche made of dinosaur tails, video game appetizers spiked with violence, Sardonic salads topped with a filet of dreams followed by an entree of self doubt quenched by omnivorous consumption. On that wonderful 6th birthday, no round cake will do. No! It must be Ariel, the little mermaid, or tantrums may bloom.

Enter the Villain Artist:

But wait, what's this? Is that Ariel's head is pouring out of an aluminum roasting pan? Who dares to tarnish the serenity of underwater indulgence with this grocery store garbage? Sculptor, Joe Bolstad embraces these sick progressions of culture, so rooted in our daily lives, we barely notice them anymore. Presenting us with the seemingly banal evidence of culture be it high or low, Bolstad inserts (sometimes subtle, and sometimes abrupt) alterations to what might otherwise be commonplace objects of domestic life. A foil formed "swan"* is suspect at second glance as it reveals detailed feathers. A sausage "link"* balances over an infinite abyss of mirrors. A $2.99 roasting pan (I know because I just bought 3 for Thanksgiving) springs a leak in the shape of The Little Mermaid's "Ariel"*. And then there is the completely fabricated "Sweet Tooth"* a cake pan made from a variety of confectionary mould forms and slyly injected with a vicious set of teeth from the minds of Marvel Comics' Venom. "Sweet Tooth" is attractive both in color and in design, drawing the viewer in from across the room only to discover an insidious set of teeth grinning at them as they close in on the piece. Finally, the windows of the carriage betray us forming into a wicked sneer supported by a Snidely Whiplash like mustache borrowed from the archenemy of Dudley Do-Right (from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show).

Pop Will Eat Itself:

There is something particular about the character description of Venom that I find resonating with this collection of work. Venom is a symbiote, which in the Marvel universe is sort of like a parasite. Parasites feed on their host until there is nothing left and then they move on to the next victim or in some cases they bond to their host and carefully manage a symbiotic relationship (Vampires come to mind). The relationship between Bolstad's conjoined forms are not very different from the above description except that they are imposed by the artist. Bolstad seems to work with two distinct methods while maintaining the same interest. These highly plasticized works are either obvious mashups of two disperate forms like "Link" or "Ariel" or they are covertly constructed chameleon-like forms that attempt to infiltrate and by doing so cause you to consider the social resonance of the simulacra presented. Bolstad is one to watch. For my own taste, I prefer the less obvious chameleon-like works because they get under my skin, conjuring up images of my childhood Saturday mornings. What will his work awake in you?

" "*denotes the title of the work.

To the Limit

In Laura MacLean's latest untitled installation, the tarpaper-covered walls and concrete floor of the intimate space bear the dizzying signs of repeated bodily action, all recorded in off-white, unfired clay. Recalling Richard Long's splashed mud wall pieces, MacLean's more unruly circles and spirals, lusciously swirling in the depths of the matte black tarpaper, are the result of the artist positioning herself near the wall and moving her clay-coated hands in broad circles (think something like an upright snow angel). Additional hand prints along the top perimeter of the tarpaper seem to delineate the highest point the artist could reach, while a few trace marks indicate the use of some kind of unidentifiable tool. Sitting rather abjectly in the center of the space is a vessel-like object roughly built out of clay slabs, still bearing pockmarks where the artist had pinched off clay. The flurry of footprints circulating around the object further suggest an obsessive repetition of actions.

The use of a materials as a way of "recording" a repeated bodily action has its precedents in the 60's work of Paul McCarthy and Richard Serra, among others. Where MacLean's work begins to find its own voice is in the way it pits this sensibility against the connotations of her material, unfired clay. In past works, MacLean has revealed her consummate skill in working with porcelain, creating small, architectural abstractions filled with concise angles. In sharp contrast to her previous objects, this installation thrives on looseness and a calculated lack of control. The "preciousness" of the material is called into question, reminding us that after all, even the most refined porcelain objects essentially began as mud. Perhaps this is why MacLean chose to leave the lumpen, almost sad vessel on the floor: to link the wild ferocity of the marks on the wall back to the tradition of ceramics.

Just as she is outstretching her arms and testing the limits of her body, MacLean is testing the limits of her medium. How far can she go? MacLean is on the brink of something exciting, and one hopes that as her explorations continue, the work will further slip out from the shadow of its 60's predecessors and plunge into truly uncharted territory.

Crowd Control

On the night of November 16^th artist Bethany Seib invited viewers to contemplate the transitory and temporal nature of life with her stylized re-mapping of humanity in her latest piece, You Are Here. The giclee print is on view in the New Media lab in the Visual Arts Building at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

Initially one is struck by the sheer sprawling nature of this biomorphic, cosmic map as well as the intensity of color that literally bursts into what can be described as confetti-esque bits of blues and greens. Layered over this image, one can start to decipher random masses of people corralled by seemingly arbitrary heavy black lines or borders. These lines divide the image into a form that in some areas are geometric in nature and in others whimsical and curvilinear. Each cropped territory shows the uniform physical orientation of the respective crowds without revealing where or why this collective attention is drawn.

From a distance, the underlying, pixilated, explosion of color could be an attempt to recreate the continual and expanding nature of the universe as well as the humanity that thrives within it. However, confusion begins to mount as the viewer considers the variety of formal and conceptual devices used by Seib. The artist has carefully edited out any information that might concretize the meaning behind her aesthetic decisions.

Seib’s editing proves to be a conceptual roadblock as the viewer contemplates the (possibly) fortuitous grouping of these crowds-crowds in the throes of protest, mourning, and celebration. Is the artist trying to communicate how and why humanity groups and defines itself as a whole? If so, Seib’s audience is lost in the lack of formal and conceptual considerations, which might be utilized to communicate her message. That being said, this recent work has proven to be more ambitious than her previous giclee prints and begins to create levels of complexity for the viewer to consider.

Bethany Seib is a graduate student in the School of Visual Arts at The Pennsylvania State University.

If You Close Your Eyes… by Li GE

Amy Reinecke , Blind, Nov. 9^th, 2009, at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

On the first floor of Visual Arts Building in Pennsylvania State University, an entirely, white room filled with stagnant air was presented to the viewers. In the center of the room, a ruffled, white sheet made of salt was placed on the floor with a foot-long, honey brown-colored resin cube sitting on top of it. There was a piece of pork sealed inside the resin cube from half a year ago, but now, left only a hollowed cube and a hole in each side, which were secretly-created by the “big bang” and life cycle of nature. On one side of the cube, a light bulb hang on the edge of one of its holes with its electrical wire extending outwards from it to a wall outlet, irradiating light and evaporating the residue from the rotten meat and filled the space with a rotten odor. This is the most recent installation work by Amy Reinecke , named Blind.

Viewers entered the space with questions in their head, sniffing around, bending over, and crouching to approach the work, or maybe, chose to escape right away. If there was a boundary to the work, it must not be the walls of the room. The light, the scale, and the smell all created a surface with tension, which will either attract or expel the viewers, and put them right in an inevitable active position. Consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, viewers were already engaged in the work.

It has been days since I “escaped” from the room, the glare of the whiteness, the smell in the air and numerous questions still hover in my mind. An artwork can never be completed without viewers’ narratives. So is the Blind. The organic and inorganic materials, the visible and invisible elements, the familiar and unfamiliar sensations, all are compiled together with viewers’ memories. If you close your eyes, they will bring you back to the Blind space.

如果你闭上双眼……

宾夕法尼亚州立大学视觉艺术系一层， 一间充斥着奇怪气味的白色房间呈现在人们眼前。在房间的正中央，在纯白色的地板上，铺着一张褶皱的白色盐毯，盐毯上面，放置着一个一英尺见方的棕色松脂块。难以置信的是，六个月以前，一块鲜猪肉曾被密封在这个松脂块里。然而现在，只剩下这个不知不觉间，由自然界的“宇宙大爆炸”和生物生命圈所创造的中空的松脂块。松脂块的四个侧面各有一个在爆炸时形成的洞，一个白色灯泡悬置在其中一个洞口，灯泡的白色电线延伸着接通着墙壁上的电源。灯泡发出耀眼的光芒照亮，也使整个屋子充斥这着蜡块中残留的腐肉气味。这就是Amy Reinecke 近期的装置艺术作品，名为“盲”。

当人们进入这个空间，启动嗅觉神经，弯下腰，趴在地上向蜡块里窥探，或者，转身逃离房间。如果说这个作品有它的界限的话，那一定不是四面竖立起的白色墙壁。空间中的光线，尺寸和气味，都用一种紧迫感形成了一道道无形的壁垒，其中的人们有意无意间，就会被卷入其中。

虽然“逃离”这个房间已经有几天了，但房间中那耀眼的光芒，刺鼻的气味带着一连串的问号使用萦绕在我脑海里。没有观众们的叙事艺术，一件艺术作品永远不能成为完整的艺术作品。Amy Reinecke 的“盲”也是如此。所有有机的和无机的媒介，有形的和无形的元素，熟悉和不熟悉的感知，都随同观众的记忆离散或汇合。如果你闭上眼睛，它们就会带你进入“盲”的空间。

*The Bizarre, the Inexplicable, and the Horrifying: New Installation by Quintin Owens Provokes Imaginations

With its significant investments in agricultural technology, pervasive military presence, and rumors of a nuclear reactor on campus, I often find myself wondering just what kinds of covert research are really going on behind closed doors at the Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

Ignorance can be bliss, but my concerns were immediately resurrected upon encountering a new installation by artist Quintin Owens on the University’s main campus. Originally put-off by its seemingly “trendy” rawness that is currently popular in contemporary installation-based work, within moments the piece began to grow on me, inviting endless narrative ruminations and tantalizing my imagination.

Tucked away in a small, closet-like room in Penn State’s Visual Arts Building, Owens’s installation evokes speculation about the covert research experiments that may be going on right under our very noses.  Scattered in clusters on a seed-strewn floor rest countless curious seed-covered balls, the largest approximately the size of a grapefruit. Sheltered by a protective ceiling-like barrier of blue string and a warm glow of overhead light, these balls ominously lay-in-wait like monstrous eggs in an incubator. Throughout the space runs a matrix of white pipes, appearing to operate between useless random points on the floor, walls and ceiling, suggesting a strange and quirky irrigation system that is directly linked to the internal plumbing of the building itself.  Yet upon closer inspection, we see that there are no holes in these pipes to serve as a sprinkler system: so how is it that some of the seed balls have begun to sprout? The distinction between reality and illusion becomes nearly indecipherable, challenging the viewer to try to solve the mystery.

 Perhaps even more unsettling than the “how” is the “why.” I felt an unshakable sense of foreboding, waiting for these weird seed balls to sprout.  In my own experience of this work, I felt the suggestion of sinister R&D conspiracy theories hanging uncomfortably in the warm, humid room; but the open-ended eeriness of the installation encourages infinite imaginative possibilities. It feels elusive in a way that invites the viewer to invent their own narrative as they ponder its concealed mechanics. Even after deciphering some of the secrets behind this work- the “man behind the curtain,” so to speak- my experience of Owens’s illusionistic installation haunts me, continuing to conjure fantasies of the bizarre, the inexplicable, and the horrifying.

 *Owens’s untitled installation will be on view throughout the second week of November 2009 in the Sculpture Department on the first floor of the Visual Arts Building, on the Pennsylvania State University/University Park campus. Admission is free and open to the public.

The Physical Impossibility of Suicide in the Material of a Magical Garden Gnome

At the edge of the gallery space a bi-colored pirouetting garden gnome perches precariously on the corner of an eight foot wall. On the floor below very near the same corner and close and to the edge of the painted exhibiting space, sitting maybe around six inches high is a small patch of moss crowned by a large mushroom which is entirely composed of the same two colored materials as its gallery-diving companion above. This new work by 27-year old international exhibiting artist Mayuko Kono is briefly on display at the Visual Arts Building of The Pennsylvania State University. Kono's sleepy suicidal creation, currently labeled Untitled, is propelling itself into all kinds of fantastical narratives. Arousing dialogs about materiality, gallery context, objectivity and the magical powers of gnomes this new sculpture is relentless in offering many imaginative inquiries.

Approaching for analysis, after the initial "OMG!" reaction, it would appear that the objects are made of two different colored plastics, a horrid dark forest green and a banal off-white material have been combined and sculpted together to represent the complete forms of a high-diving gnome and a oversized mushroom. The gestures of the two objects begin to magically activate the stark gallery environment. The activation comes out of several juxtapositions present in Kono's piece; between the painted and unpainted floor, the gallery floor and walls, the walls and the corner, between the colors of the object as well as the gnome and his 'shroom. The resulting orientation is anything but a passive sleepy lawn decoration posited in a gallery!

This Duchampian recontextualization is fantastically magical despite its suicidal tendencies. Yet, is Kono's object trying to call our attention to something that is often overlooked in our white gallery spaces and green front yards? We may never know the answer and think of snuffing it ourselves, but that isn't the point. It might be the fact that there is a lot of magic in our material world. Perhaps Kono is interested in forcing together these different materials of our world so we can find the active magic at the edge conjoined spaces.