ART BY
Studios Inc. under the microscope
THE RE S A BE MBNI S T E R
B R I T TA N Y F I C K E N
LAB RESULTS
Group shows at Paragraph and
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roup exhibitions, particularly those with no overarching theme, can be tricky organizational feats. With no structure to guide the selection or placement of artwork, and no curatorial premise to coax new meanings and interpretations, individual pieces must stand on their own. Two local residency programs, Studios Inc. and the Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urba n C u lt u re P rojec t, have taken very differE R MO ent approaches to their latest g roup ex h ibiAT tions. At the former, E N I ONL .COM 13 artists-in-residence PITCH h ave sele c ted one or two works each to represent their output, with the results spread throughout the cavernous gallery space. The Charlotte Street Foundation, meanwhile, assembled Observation/Hypothesis/ Experiment: Studio As Laboratory with the help of Plug Projects, a curatorial collaboration of five artists, who together operate their own exhibition space. The Plug show’s title suggests a complex curatorial thesis, and the press release accompanying the exhibition doesn’t dispel that impression. O/H/E, it says, “Explores the idea of the studio as a place to discover and explore” and uses the scientific method as a loose basis for its organization. As I said: tricky. The curators have broken up the work — including painting, sculpture, video, collage and sound — into three categories. In Plug’s words, “Work that focuses on looking and
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listening, and is reliant on taking in exter- consulting the checklist, it’s impossible to determine exactly what the thin, dried nal information is classified as ‘Observation.’ ” Those artists who collect information membranes are in Skye Livingston’s “23 Files.” Pinned to the wall like a specimen through “testing and revising” have been placed under the “Experiment” heading. collection, they are, in fact, grapefruit skins, Finally, the “Hypothesis” artists are those peeled and splayed open for arresting, grothe curators understood to be “making work tesque display. Hanging nearby are Elizabeth Allen-Cannon’s four untitled collages, based on a proposition as basis for the reawhich combine coloring-book cutouts of soning in making decisions.” familiar cartoon characters in unexpected, If that all sounds pretty convoluted, it does at least count as a theme — something nonsensical ways. There’s Spider-Man, crushed beneath a falling, that, in theory, helps any upside-down letter P. And UCP undertaking. Unlike 2012 Resident there’s a balding tough guy the Studios Inc. residency Group Exhibition who wears the top of Bert’s program, which proThrough February 8 head like a stocking cap as vides space exclusively at Studios Inc., 1708 he force-feeds a heart into fo r m idc a r e e r a r t i s t s , Campbell, 816-994-1226, Ernie’s wide-open mouth. the UCP works primarthestudiosinc.org No concept unites the ily with emerging artists pieces on display in this whose work would benefit Observation/Hypothesis/ year’s Studios Inc. resident from an astute curatorial Experiment: Studio show, but that turns out to vision. But approaching this As Laboratory work just fi ne. art through the lens of the Through February 1 Diana Heise’s “Mo Zistscientific process, at least at Paragraph Gallery, 23 East 12th Street, 816-221-5115, war Morisyen (Excerpts as executed here, doesn’t charlottestreet.org From Captain’s Log),” a lead the viewer to greater series of 10 digital prints, insight or understanding. doc uments t he a r t ist’s There’s little to explain why some works fit into some categories, which experiences of a trip abroad through phoare defined in a way bound to leave plenty tographs and text. Heise’s warmhearted memories recall directions to a friend’s of gallerygoers scratching their heads. The home, visits with students, and a ritual intwo-dimensional works based on study from life, for example, fit more or less into the tended to banish a migraine. The prints are strikingly tactile and tender, particularly “observation” category, but we’re left to now that most travel updates reach us via guess the propositions motivating the artthe Internet. ists filed under “Experiment.” Also notable is Barry Anderson’s “CasA few works still stand out. Without
Left: Allen-Cannon's “Plantpant”; above: Studios Inc. cade,” four fl at-screen monitors mounted to a wall in a vertical line, each angled a different direction. The monitors display a mash-up of water imagery in horizontal bands moving downward, an effect that provokes a sinking feeling, a visual undertow. Curiously, Beniah Leuschke’s “Pay Dirt” is the only piece on the checklist that doesn’t include a price. On the bottom half of the work, Leuschke uses iridescent sequins to decorate the surface of a panel. On the top half, he cuts out and reglues letters spelling out the work’s title. Is this a joke concerning the object’s value, or is it the price? Matthew Dehaemers’ sculpture “Descendents” appears to be an axle ending in two tires of vastly different sizes: one appropriate for a monster truck, the other scaled to a regular automobile. A cool light glows through the thin, delicate Kinwashi paper that forms its surface. The sculpture is at once delicate and rough — a utilitarian plastic bucket and a soiled, moving blanket support its light and airy form. The only thing these pieces seem to have in common is the fact that they were created in the same building. (Heise’s prints were mailed here.) Together, though, they demonstrate that Studios Inc. residents are producing good work. That’s true of the art coming out of the UCP’s studios as well, even if science can’t prove it.
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