Two Exhibitons
November 24, 2019
This weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting two exhibitions in Brooklyn. The first was Ms. Jennifer Slavin Harris, a mixed media artist mainly known for printmaking, and Ms. Dorothy Trojanowski, an artist who doubles as an infographic designer by day. Slavin's show at Undercurrent Gallery in Dumbo is her first solo show. A shiny orange stairwell leading down to the exhibition space was lined with smaller works featuring pieces of wood --splinters, tailings, cross-sections, cabinet doors, and ax handles. One piece propped off the wall revealed an over-sized wooden clothespin to anyone who cared to see what was doing the propping. Another, a rigid geometric puzzle made of pieces that look like they had been dug up from the ground had an odd shim forcing it into some arrangement according to Harris’s visual logic. The exhibition room was full of similar pieces, but more complicated, and with recurring boat allusions. The weather beaten and abused pieces Harris uses look a lot like what fills your standard city dumpster. An assortment of fasteners keep the bits united, some of these loudly announce their purpose, and others, a pin-nailer I presume, are discreetly burrowed. Color is present, but natural wood hues dominate. Although the pieces are constructed from heavily distressed components, they are solidly arranged, allowing the eye to find its conclusion within the piece. The wood was splintered, but finished simultaneously. They were synthetic. Masculine.
Trojanowski’s exhibition took place in a studio warehouse building in Bedford Stuyvescent, Brooklyn, at a new space: Occhio Studios. What guests attending this one night event did not realize was that they were about to become archaeologists. The imposing square pieces, each titled “Birth”, stood proudly off the wall by at least a foot and seemed to intrude into the room. What could possibly be so important to take up this much space? Drywall. The boxes housed sections of drywall laminated together into stacks, and guests were invited to use a hammer and a chisel to “excavate” into the “walls” where they found small artifacts- black and white photos of people from a bygone era in pretty silver frames--a man in uniform with a stiff mustache and a prideful smile, a wedding couple tentatively holding hands; there was a rosary, a set of dentures, a wooden toothbrush, a tiny New Testament. The rings of depth were layers of time, reminiscent of the way slate weathers into nested crescents. Crumbs and plaster dust fell to the ground creating a lovely white mess. Trojanowski found the photos and treasures in Detroit, where they had once belonged to a small erstwhile Polish community with which she felt a kinship. Looking closely at the faded photos, one could make out the Polish features of the subjects and it was impossible to not wonder what became of them.
Both of these shows incorporate the idea demolition, rescue, and artifact. Harris’s work is evocative of Picasso’s assemblages from 1913-14 or the Russian neo-primitivists. The highly resolved pieces made of refuse and discardia proclaimed their identity as commodity. “Artists are entitled to get paid for their work.” a tipsy artist announced to me at the opening. I didn’t disagree. Trojanowski’s work was more like a “happening” from the 60’s in its anti-commercialism and ephemerality. Her art had only ever existed in a state of change. This was in contrast to Harris’s assemblages, which had been trapped in a moment, controlled, killed -- like Madame Tussaud’s preserved cadavers.
What is it about the haphazard that is so attractive? Is randomness in of itself appealing when manifested by the chaos of erosion? The Japanese practice the art of wabi sabi, which is something that is felt from the soul, but is sometimes dimunized in the form of coffee table books, is, among other things, reverence for the old, seeing beauty in sincerity, and a peaceful relationship with change. Texture is a signifier of decay and we respond positively to the formal attributes of the old and weathered. Peeling paint, cracks, fissures. Perhaps it is the suggestion that there is a story behind the old thing. I can understand the allure of an antique patina or a cracked leather. These items were precious to begin with, and their age signifies their durability. “This is something worth holding on to”, they seem to say for themselves. The idea of taking something that is so obviously trash and presenting it as such, but not at all in a ready-made-kind-of-way, but using it the way some people use enamel tiles seems worth thinking about. The impulse to regard a piece of styrofoam as trash is stymied when the styrofoam is nestled so lovingly between shards of waterlogged particle board, and unsensual white plaster plaster particles challenges our definition of art.
We respond to the old because partially because it gives us hope. Part of the reason it gives us hope is because it tells some kind of story, and it doesn’t matter what the story is, but the suggestion is significant. In Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, the plight of a single instrument is tracked through generations--with all their love, tragedy and confusion. It is coveted and discarded on equal turns, and those who cherish it are rewarded. In the 1998 movie, The Red Violin, a similar tale is told. These are like the bottle washing on the shore with its contents being a tiny ribboned hand-written scroll...the intent is palpable. Perhaps inanimate objects permit us to love them more. If we take care of them, they will last forever. And who is to say what is precious and what is not? What is worth keeping, and what is not? This is why art is NOT a zero-sum game; there is no conceivable limit to what can be made when “the waste” is not wasted.
https://www.rosannascimeca.com/(Occhio Studios)
www.undercurrent70.org
https://www.jenniferslavinharris.com/
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