Bartlett’s exhibition this month at Locks Gallery plays with symbolism much like the Thomas Chimes show downstairs.  They hold in common that an approachable symbol relies on being a reductive visual entity, not a faithful representation of an observed form.  Bartlett uses the arrangement of an isosceles triangle on top of a rectangle whose width is greater than its’ height to create a house, a symbol ubiquitous to anyone over the age of 2.  This simple figure forms the jumping off point from where Bartlett can explore the expression of form in both its rigorous adherence to an underlying structure, as well as what recklessly abandoning the latter allows the viewer to visually explore.

Graph paper is what Bartlett uses to construct her studies for the larger enamel plate works.  I was interested to see that not only are her studies for “House” on view, but also those for “Mountain”, “Ocean”, and “Tree”.  The grid that she orients her vision with in these studies is copied over to the plates.  In the beginning of the works, she chooses to adhere to this structure, either placing a dot in each formed square or painting “within the lines” she has defined as boundaries.  We see her quickly move away from the authoritarianism of such a framework and explore gestural strokes of color, replicating the original shape, always with a hint of grid in the background, but now examining the content of expressive deconstruction of the structure.  Her use of paint and brush remind me of a number of different artists, Haring, Seurat, and Mitchell among them.  The works go on, splattering and disjointing the form, and in the end I felt like I had experienced an all-encompassing examination and interpersonal exhalation of this simple symbol.

There are two works that break away from the “House” model.  These towering pieces were probably my favorite part of the exhibition.  They feel like Bartlett is pitting the history of art from the Renaissance through Impressionism against the more recent legacies of Modernism through Minimalism.  They both seem to represent physical spaces, but in starkly different terms.  It’s like a Gothic Church and a Frank Lloyd Wright Home are duking it out.  All in all it’s really enjoyable.

“Addresses” runs through May 25th at Locks Gallery.  The work requires time to view it, but it’s worth it.  

(Rating: 4.0/5.0)

Disclaimer: I have been thinking about this show since first seeing it at the beginning of the month.  After having gone to see the Dufala Brothers’ open space in West Philly a week or more ago and talking to Billy about doing a review, I was greeted last night with a reminder to do so.  So here it is.

——-

I am a member of the Tongue-In-Cheek Generation along with the Dufalas.  It is a part of our nature to enjoy irony, spectacle, and nostalgia fervently, and value their juxtaposition to one another in ways that previous generations couldn’t have dared to imagine as pleasurable.  We could go into why this is so, but you need to research such things on your own time.  The Dufala Brothers take this Weltanschauung and run with it, in the case of their recent show at Fleischer/Ollman, with mixed results.

Before entering the gallery I was greeted with the concept of the “F”.  If ever there was a letter able to divorce itself from its lexicographic context into a symbol of fear for a public-school reared person, this is it.  The Brothers manipulate the “F” throughout the exhibition by making small jokes and taking on the role of the class clown.  However, the class clown’s weakness, which seems so obvious post-High School, is that their jokes are a thinly constructed veil for people who possess great fears of inadequacy.  This vulnerability was palpable in “F” and made me nervous throughout, like something was trying to be proved to me.  Was this the point?  It seems direct, and I wasn’t able to believe that the Brothers were so unaware that it wasn’t intentional.

It seems like this show is a broad survey of the past 10 years of output by the Brothers, but I know it is all more recent work.  Not all of it hits home.  When entering you are greeted by filled trash bags wearing underwear and heaped in the corner.  This take on the adonis is funny, but I wish the trash bags had had more content to them by being less amorphous, and instead perhaps having identifiable objects filling them.  There was nothing to grasp from this work but an initial smirk.  There are watercolors on paper of leaves making up various objects, yep.  There are several works on paper of letter grades (even an “F+” and “F-“!) in graphite, seemingly constructed by ductwork.  I liked the continuation of an easily identifiable theme of the Brothers’ work (as most people will know them for their ductwork installations) presented in a different medium, even if the grades only started at “C” and declined.  This reference to defeatism or failure I found too self-effacing and “cool”.

There is a bunch of sculptural work that might as well be punchlines installed on the wall.  A Dryer Lint Teddybear, a Baseball Coconut, Modified Cutesy Decorative Dogs, Skinned Elmo and an Elmo Purse, “Metallica” Soap, Crushed Saltines in their packets with a butterfly knife, and others.  There are works on paper like a “Hair Brain” and a “Hair Plane”, which are nice, but whatever.  There are two skulls, one made from toothpaste and the other resembling a Hyungkoo Lee cartoon skeleton work.  However, in the middle of all this there were three (or four?) very small graphite works on paper that could have been midnight landscapes by James Castle.  It was an odd assortment.

The Brothers pulled it together with some more “typical” work on view.  The ductwork installation is solid and fun to see.  The works on paper of contorted ductwork environments, not unlike Escher’s “Relativity”, were quite lovely and a nice complement to the letter-grades earlier in the exhibition.  There is a ladder whose steps have been replaced with the plastic-composite belts off lawn chair seating.  A planter holds small scaffolded towers with dead leaves on top, which remind me of the computer graphics available in a 1980s scifi romp that centers on biogenetical research of some sort.  There is a hammock made out of electrical cords and power strips, with a fan directed at it plugged into an “Igloo” cooler.  Har Har-umph.

At the end, everything seems like a bit of a joke.  I like jokes.  I’m not good at telling them but damn do I enjoy a good laugh.  I didn’t get much more than a chuckle from most of the work that was motivated by the Tongue-In-Cheek aesthetic though.  

Here’s the redeeming factor: the construction of everything is unimpeachable.  The Dufala Brothers have done a great job with materials that lend themselves to quotidian construction, because building as an action is where they excel.  This show gives you the impression that they’re able to make anything, but construction and content are two different devils.

“F” is open through May 12th at Fleischer/Ollman.  It’s worth a look if just to see younger artists being shown at prominent galleries in the Philadelphia scene.

(Rating: 2.5/5.0)

Thomas Chimes is usually a name thrown around at Box-of-Wine Parties by grad students and working artists in Philadelphia, as someone who is firmly entrenched in the Art History of the city.  His 2007 major museum show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art followed a couple of years later by his death has established this fact.  However, when walking into the Chimes show at Locks this month, I wasn’t confronted immediately by a monolith erected in my own backyard.  Instead I encountered a fellow artist, who saw the same things I see everyday, combining and deleting various visual influences in an attempt to gain a greater precision of his visual vocabulary.

The thing I found most interesting about the works on view was Chimes’ literal staging of his symbols in makeshift theaters erected outdoors, never too far from water.  Perhaps if I knew more about him as a human being than the last line on his CV, I could speak about this more.  It was a consistent presence in the works too obvious to be overlooked, and made me want to delve deeper.  

The use of stage and environment was particularly exciting when the symbols started to interact with both simultaneously, breaking the fourth wall, entrenching them in a cast role unknown to the viewers, and freeing them of the constraints of referring to something greater.  Chimes also anthropomorphizes them in several smaller works that makes me wonder what importance these elements might or might not be imbued with.  This was the most difficult point for me to reconcile, but at the same time, I feel like the mystery of not knowing is perhaps a bit more seductive.  Chimes is particularly fond of the “X” symbol, varieties of which propagate themselves throughout many works.  Several of his Christ on a Cross works were on view as well, and I started to wonder if his Xs were symbols that reduced the narrative of Christ and his feelings in regards to it into two strokes, one perpendicular to the other.  Again though, perhaps better not to know.

Watching Chimes’ colors change amongst the works was also fun.  Sometimes he’s using primaries, sometimes pastels, and at other times black ink on paper.  The collection of works and the mediums that they’re in are a delight and I was happy to see such a variety, including some more representational works thrown in for good measure. 

“Symbolic Landscapes” runs through May 25th at Locks Gallery.  It’s a really good show. There’s a lot more to the works than what I’ve said above, but with visual information this abstracted from reality, it’s best you make of it what you will for yourself.  And you should.

(Rating: 4.5/5.0)

Foss and Sylvester both use abstraction in completely different ways.  Foss uses his to evoke space and architectonic elements, while Sylvester is interested in symbols and systems.  SLAPINTHEFACE!  Take that figuration.  Foss’ work is quite a bit more familiar due to the fact that this type of abstraction is popular, but Sylvester’s surfaces are stunningly created.  While they both have good things going for them, these artists seem to veer away from thoughtful and convincing work at times and lose site of what they’re putting their hand to.

Foss presents a sculpture as well as a series of paintings, large and small.  I like when abstract artists use scale - truly the only predefined context given to their image making - and show the viewer that they are not afraid of it.  However, it was amazing to me how much more successful I thought the smaller works in the show were.  Most of the larger pieces in the show had an “Ocean Park” aesthetic (actually, there are a couple of colors in some works that seemed pulled straight from it), are pretty, and would look lovely in any domestic environment.  They are painted well, if not that excitingly, and they remind me of spaces, but none that I’d like to find myself in.  The smaller works on view are much more adventurous.  Lines are incised through paint, and there is a departure from the compartment and grid aesthetic of the larger works.  I was really taken with the ability that Foss obviously possesses in narrating color to evoke an emotional response in the smaller works.  The sculpture is unnecessary and while I always like seeing artists working in multiple mediums, perhaps Foss should have worked on this piece a little longer.

Sylvester, whose work is located in the smaller back gallery, has taken on the postmodern meme of icon as symbol as nothing.  Johns’ Flag and Rothenberg’s Horse being two precedents, Sylvester has taken on the letter.  This isn’t the first time an artist has used language in such a way.  Any previous knowledge of dadaist tradition tells a viewer that.  However, this is done so beautifully.  Sylvester knows the surface she’s working and is great at using oils.  However, in the end, the work loses its vision on a conceptual point.  The beauty of redefining something known into nothingness and using it as a basis for abstraction is that you aren’t representing it in the logically defined parameters from whence you tore it from.  For letters, this would mean language.  In a few works Sylvester spells out words or phrases - mostly in French mind you, so to an English speaker not so explicit - and this is jarring.  The letters are arranged in series of grid like systems that constrain but never seem overwhelming to the aesthetic, which is quite pleasant.  However, when you are taken away from the enjoyment and beauty of the construction of Sylvester’s works into her use of letters and *ugh* language, all that pleasure is lost with the conundrum of, “why the hell did she choose such unconnected and meaningless text if in fact she purposefully chose to make this mistake?”.  I dunno.

Foss and Sylvester have their work on view through April 28th at LGTripp Gallery.  It’s probably one of the best galleries in Old City, and the work is alright, so it’s worth a pop-in if you’re in the neighborhood.

Rating: (2.5/5.0)

Mendoza’s new exhibition at Projects gallery tackles the domestic conundrum of physical positioning within a social, cultural, and geographic millieu.  At least, that’s what it’s meant to examine as far as I can discern.  The fabrication of the works included in the show are excellent, but there’s no coherent message to draw from the way they are being displayed.  The artist wants to focus attention on the contrasts between intended lifestyle and afforded lifestyle, but I still can’t be sure what these qualities mean to him after having viewed “Location, location, location…”.

The symbolic domicile, the triangle placed on top of a rectangle or square, is a ubiquitous bit of imagery Mendoza uses.  They act like signs pointing to a meaning of comfort and worldly orientation beyond themselves.  At many times in his work they are used without definition, and because of this I found them conflicting with the surroundings he gives them.  Whether it be driftwood, a vertically instead of horizontally oriented plane, being split in too, or totally upended, the home is made into an actor and not taken as a setting.  As I referred to in my intro however, I wasn’t able to figure out quite what the point of all of this was.  The topic could have been as umbrella’d as the housing crisis or as intimate as a childhood spent moving frequently and never becoming familiar with surroundings.  Mendoza never tells us why this imagery is so appealing, or if he does, his work does not.

The other bit of continuity in his work is the visual element of trees, and the use of actual dendrological samples.  One work uses a charred tree split into two, brass plates affixed to either interior, with war planes mounted on each plate.  It is great to look at.  Again, I can pick a lot of meaning out of it, but at the same time, I have no idea why this work is in the show.  As far as his metal facsimiles of trees that are included in other works, I am unaware as to their purpose as well.  The home is where people put down their “roots”.  If this is the visual metaphor, then how come it is so tenuous throughout the show?  I dunno.

Mendoza’s “Location, location, location…” runs through the 28th of April at Projects Gallery.  It’s funny how this gallery has good artists, but never curates the work all that well.  I feel like I could have liked this show and recommended it more fully had it been better contextualized.  As it is, I’d say it’s a miss.

(Rating: 2.0/5.0)

Annica Cuppetelli and Cristobal Mendoza have brought a bit of tech to Grizzly Grizzly this month with their work “Threaded Interface”, as part of the FiberPhiladelphia programming.  On First Friday the gallery was packed with partially intoxicated patrons all hoping to participate and make the work react to their own flailing gestures.  It was fun to watch, but upon visiting it the next day and being the only person in the gallery, I felt like the work needed a cohort of like-minded people to be truly appreciated.

The first thing I have to make a point of is that this work is by no means innovative.  I’ve been following “new-media” (I can’t wait until someone comes up with a better term) since my college days, and this work has been created before and is always received well.  The reason for its ready acceptance is twofold.  The first is that it is simple.  Why would anyone question an aesthetically pleasing series of monochrome columns standing in front of them?  It’s entirely orderly and pleasant to see.  The second is that it is interactive, and in this vein implores people to participate and distort the orderliness that was sustained before their encounter.  People love the unquestioning sensibility that a system embodies, as well as it’s interruption.  

The physical installation was interesting, and became the thing that differentiated this reactionary projection from the ones I have seen before.  The digital strings are projected from behind (of course), but they are projected between (/over?) strings suspended between to wooden supports above and below, that stretch them the length of the projection zone.  The physical strings remain static while the digital strings move.  In the darkened space the former disappear (or at times of rapid movement, impede the illusion) and it makes me wonder why they were at all ever relevant.  Was it just to differentiate this work from similar previous works?  Was it because the call for submissions for FiberPhiladelphia demanded some physical fibers in the exhbition?  I don’t know.

“Threaded Interface” runs through the 28th of April at Grizzly Grizzly.  If you want to look like a big doofus staring at a wall while agitating your limbs about, I recommend it.  Even if you don’t, I still recommend it.  It’s nice to see a little tech art come to Philly, be a basic introduction to the medium, and have such a pleasant reception.

(Rating: 3.0/5.0)

Ben Schumacher and Elaine Cameron-Weir (BSaECW) have created something at Bodega gallery that leaves me in awe.  I’m not sure how to describe it, but I’ve tried to a dozen times since our first encounter at the beginning of March.  I haven’t written about it until now because I wanted to go back and visit again, just to see if the mystery was still there - it was.  I decided the best way to explain it is that “1867 1881 1981” is like a great book that promises a sequel, but whose author for one reason or another is unable to produce the latter, and leaves you wanting to know how it all turned out.

It’s timelines and lineage, distance and the ability to traverse short moments, identifying with a specific location, the apparent loss of spirit with a backbone that proves otherwise, trepidation, contemplation, and oh so much more.

My boyfriend asked me to explain what I thought of this show to him.  I could only offer a five-minute diatribe that ranged from my Grandfather’s Greek Orthodox traditions made part of him by his immigrant parents, international trade and its implications, the ability of objects to transcend their physical boundaries in ways previously undiscovered, trial and error philosophy, as well as the importance of small moments.  BSaECW have created an environment that forces you to work towards an understanding.  I feel like if I had to come up with a mascot for the exhibition it would be a cheeky immigrant boy in the late 19th Century, peering off the bow of a ship while his family is sleeping below deck, and being the first of his family to see Ellis Island in the wee morning hours.  I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense.  

I could deconstruct the show object by object and interpret their juxtapositions and interrelated qualities.  However, this show BEGS to be seen.  I can’t stop thinking about it, and am so excited for such a wonderful experience to be only a subway-ride away, if only for another week or two.

BSaECW’s “1867 1881 1981” runs through April 22nd at Bodega.  If you are reading this I want you to cancel your plans for next Saturday and go!  It’s not near anything in particular, but isn’t that part of the charm?

(Rating: 4.9/5.0)

One of (if not “THE”) newest gallery in Old City is Gallery ML.  It just premiered this month and charges itself as: “The Worlds First Collective Body Art Gallery”.  Their mission seems to be bringing body art into the realm of Fine Art.  When I viewed the collection of work they have available for public consumption, I entered a room filled with Giclee Canvas prints adorning the walls.  Giclees does not a foray into Fine Art make.  They had a show in their front gallery by E. Ashleigh of photographs taken somewhere in South America.  The most disturbing thing about this show was that there were barely any bodies to be found.  A first impression is a one-time event, and this show doesn’t take advantage of that.  

Instead of talking about the works in the second gallery of ML, I’ll just post two pictures.  I don’t really feel like there’s anything I can say that they can’t:

TITS!  ’nuff said.

Onto the work by Ashleigh.  The photographs presented are printed both digitally and by hand.  The compositions are nice, the colors great, the subject matter exotic, and because of that, they are intriguing.  However, besides being really fabulous tourist shots, there’s nothing that takes me into (or lets me out of) Ashleigh’s vision.  He makes abstract compositions out of weathered boards on the side of houses and close-ups of plants.  I imagine it’s the kind of thing West Elm would have a wet dream over being able to offer in their store.  However, as Photography, his inability to offer the viewer anything more than simple aesthetic pleasantries makes the show fall flat.  The best work he has are hand printed black and white snapshots arranged on the wall in a grid-like fashion.  A couple are really spot on.  My favorite was of people and a photographer on some foreign beach, sparsely populated and with just the right amount of tension between viewing it and wondering why the photographer and Ashleigh were there simultaneously.  I would have liked to photograph this work myself, but the lighting hit it so poorly that unless viewed in person, the imaged would be totally obscured by the frame’s shadow.  I’m glad Ashleigh had a good trip, I just wish he could have made it more interesting for me.

Asheleigh’s show runs through ?! because no bit of lit that ML Gallery has available, digital or otherwise, lets you know.  Just walk on by if you should find yourself down there.

(Rating: 0.5/5.0)

Germán Gómez, you are Gay.  Not like, “There’s not enough foam in my latte”: Gay.  Like, “I gotta line-up at the door for Club VanDerSex’s latest Dungeon Party in The Hague”: Gay.  Wow.  As a gay man, I was overwhelmed by this recent exhibition at Bridgette Mayer.  As an artist, I thought it was ok.  I am certainly not the most objective viewer for such a show, but with that many hot guys, who could blame me?  There are elements of self-destruction and a soulful wish for reconstruction of identity that become evident throughout, but mostly, there’s a lot of hotness.

I try not to speak to anyone in a gallery that I am writing about while there.  I was a little surprised when Miss Mayer asked about my thoughts regarding the show as I exited.  After the most generic of statements that I could muster about “interestingness”, she informed me that this show is a mini-Retrospective.  Oh, how I have come to detest the ludicrousness of these placations of the art world.  The fact that such words can escape a gallery owner’s lips is amazing.  Why not be honest and say: “He’s not showing anywhere at the moment, so the work was up for grabs.  He was in some important shows 2-3 years ago in Bogota and Madrid, and now I am trying to catch the upswing of the American leg of his career.”?  I like that explanation much more than the one I heard.

Gomez’s work is very well thought out and constructed.  He’s the kind of artist who has his aesthetic and is choosing to pursue it regardless of audience.  The correct curator makes such an insular perspective resonate with any viewer, which it almost did.  I see what he creates and think Vogue covers, Ancient Greek Wrestling, and Bobbleheads.  The biggest crux of his argument is how one defines themselves.  Is it from the outside or within?  His work uses Thread, Sewing, Photo Prints, Vellum, Steel, Box Frames, Torn Paper, and a number of other visual hyphae to elucidate, and hallucinate a larger structure to his work.  It doesn’t always work for me, but it’s nice to look at.  Images of men are cut up and layered upon themselves.  Other images have their surfaces torn, revealing more images beneath.  I find that these visual metaphors are direct yet unsatisfying due to their having not been pushed further than simply what they are.

For myself, the most salient body of work was the “Registered and Tattooed” portion of the exhibition.  Men, placed in provocative and suggestive positions, are photographed in a medium-format proportion.  Their identifying tattoos and scars are documented, making them more prominent aspects of personage than the image of the men as a whole.  An individuals’ gaze and body-language become distant, yet keenly reflect awareness of being observed.  These people are identified with an ID card separately framed, whose elucidatory tactics make their relationship to the photographer all the more literal, and shove their most mundane traits into a bit of categorical taxonomic excitement.  With this in mind, the models lose a bit of the affection they may have once been entitled to and become composites of their individual traits.  If one were to question the game-playing in between the camera and the subject of who is dom versus sub, it would difficult to discern.

Germán Gómez puts up a fight this month at Bridgette Mayer, and the show runs through April 28th.  While it’s not the best “quasi-retrospective”, it works for better than for worse.  I really wouldn’t have liked to see more, but instead one body of work taken to its conclusion.  The space, placement, and selection doesn’t lend itself to cutting such a wide swath across Gomez’s oeuvre, but offers a tantalizing taste for anyone who would want more.  Stop in if you have a chance.

(Rating: 2.5/5.0)

Walking up the stairs to Goldilocks most recent location, housed in the same building on the 700 block of Chestnut as James Oliver Gallery, I was excited to see what work would be accommodated in this high-ceilinged space perched above Morimoto.  I was instantly transported into a West Philly living-room show.  It was a bit of a surprise, but not in the best way.

The first thing I should mention is that when I walked into Goldilocks at noon this past Saturday, the door was wide open, there were Pabst cans lined up in the corner from the night before, but no one was to be found.  After yelling, “Hello?” into the space a half-dozen times I figured that either this was one very conceptual take on having a gallery sitter, there had been a break-in, or else the owners of this space were more into the idea of having a space than maintaining the most basic principles (one being, lock your doors) of a serious art gallery.  I could have easily taken the art off the walls, grabbed a sculpture or two, and walked down to a waiting moving-van outside.  Oh well, I’m aware the “I haz a gallery now(!)” ethic is an integral component of the oh-so-upsetting Philly Art Seen.  Anyway, getting onto the work.

The show is centered around bedrooms and the acts that take place within, as well as the objective and subjective realities contained therein.  Talk about a jumping-off point that is just filled to the brim with provocative fodder for artmaking.  Sadly, the show seems to be an amalgam of work from friends and friends-of-friends that doesn’t often hit the mark.  I’d have been happier if only half the artists had been included.  I didn’t make it a point to take down names as I felt that I was already trespassing and time was short.  The handwritten Avery labels under each image without titles didn’t implore me to make the effort either.  The highlights for me were the large prints of actual bedroom interiors with all of their ephemera, a brilliantly covert small sculpture on the ground of two power-strips plugged into one another (although how sad neither were turned on!), and two small works on paper done in the vein of family crests detailing loneliness and boredom in regards to the difficulty of maintaining relationships.  The rest, eh.

There were shelving units hanging from the ceiling, the blasé “bedroom” installation with medical supplies every MFA student has at one time thought was brilliant during an idea-binge only to wake up with cognitive regrets, as well as prints, sculptures, and paintings made to exemplify the strange patterns of a dream state.

BEDROOMS//MEGA runs through ?! at Goldilocks Gallery.  Basic principle number two of running any serious art gallery: let people know the run of each exhibition.  Anyway, I won’t be back, but I did love those power-strips!

(Rating: 2.0/5.0)