Category: New Orleans
“My Eye” on Louisiana: The Works of Kerry Griechen
All photographs by Kerry Griechen, courtesy of the artist and My Eye Photography
by Reggie Rodrigue
Having a wandering eye is typically not something of which to be proud – unless one is a photographer. In that case, having a wandering eye is essential. Curiosity about the physical world around oneself and the intense obsession with capturing an image of it either objectively or subjectively (and who can really tell the difference between the two anymore) is the basis for all of photography. Mature photographers typically focus on one or two particular corners of reality; however, every serious photographer I know started his career with an indomitable drive to document his life and travels in light, photographing everything that his insatiable eye could consume until he found a subject or a process that truly spoke to him.
Lafayette, LA‘s Kerry Griechen is a photographer of many things. However, his eloquence comes to the fore when he is focusing on the natural wonders, urban landscape, and people of South Louisiana. Griechen’s body of work offers viewers a dazzling and beautiful mosaic of life in the region from a mother roseate spoonbill feeding her fledgling in the wild or the time-worn pastiche of a decrepit warehouse facade to a New Orleanian starting his day by hosing-off a French Quarter sidewalk.
In truth, none of these subjects may be particularly new or novel to South Louisiana’s native population. They may not even be new or novel to people outside of the state. There isn’t much in the way of disquieting or provocative imagery in Griechen’s photographs. He isn’t exploring some esoteric or conceptual process in his photography, either; although, he does dabble in Photoshop techniques every once in a while to highly mixed results that veer toward the dismissible. Therefore, some avant guardists may wonder about the artistic merit of such work. One can hear their groans: “Beauty for beauty’s sake? Bah! Humbug! Bring me an MFA grad who eats glass, takes photographs of his excrement and subjects said photographs to a complex chemical process that renders them illegible! Now that’s art!” That may very well be art in the right hands, but a straight-forward, beautiful image of the world can be art as well – in the right hands. Griechen proves this over and over.
In his most arresting photographs, Griechen focuses his sharp eye for composition, pattern, texture and color on mostly solitary figures and quiet moments devoid of any human presence. Through his simple process, he manages to mine some complex and layered images of Southern Louisiana that are both mundane, serene and, simultaneously, breath-taking in their attention to detail. When other people may walk past a dirty, brick wall festooned with an electrical meter, water pipes and graffiti, Griechen sees an opportunity to zoom-in tightly on the particulars and create a quasi-abstraction that would look smart beside a Kandinsky. The combination of a fence and the corner of an Acadian house with a stairway leading to its garconniere offered another photographic opportunity to Griechen: in this instance, he deftly exploited the angles of the architecture to create an image of visual complexity to rival any of M.C. Escher‘s imaginary labyrinths. Griechen has taken a photograph of a walking path surreptitiously created between a group of sugarcane harvesting trucks that visually echoes a path through an autumnal wood. He captures lush, green water lily pads or cypress trees framing and offering a sense of depth and scale to lone and elegant egrets in the wild. He finds visual drama and dynamics in an open doorway which leads from the blunt geometry of a worn, green French Quarter wall to a luxurious and inviting courtyard or the sight of a rainbow as seen through the nets hanging from a trawling boat. He also finds something poetic in the sight of a man putting away a pack of cigarettes into his jeans pocket while lingering in the doorway of a New Orleans tourist trap. To come full circle – if one looks closely to the left portion of this image, one can spy a three-quarter profile view of the graffitied wall mentioned at the top of this paragraph.
It’s no secret that in many respects, Griechen is tackling some well-worn, cliched Louisiana subjects, but it is the depth and precision of his response that rescues them from banality and superficiality. That, in and of itself, is an art. There is something to be said for a body of work that simply and effectively renews one’s interest in the world around oneself with all of its wonder and beauty. For all of those people who cannot accept an unabashedly beautiful, if somewhat conventional, image as art, I have this to say: artistic rigor is one thing; artistic rigor mortis is another thing, entirely. Too many artists these days confuse artistic rigor with difficulty, obtuseness and the idea that beauty is anathema when beauty (whichever way it is achieved) is really the name of the game and the game itself.
Some people find beauty in nature or the streets. Some people find beauty in geometry or abstraction. Others find beauty in ideas. Some find beauty in sexually charged material or blood, guts and excrement, and others find beauty in nothing.
However, the best people find beauty in everything!
Kerry Griechen is currently exhibiting his work in Lafayette Consolidated Government’s City Hall building on the corner of University Ave. and St. Landry St. in Lafayette, LA until the first week of May 2013.
To view more works by Griechen online, visit his website www.myeyephotos.com
Cultcha! Cultcha! Cultcha!
I’m very excited to announce that recently I got invited by the Acadiana Center for the Arts to be an ongoing contributor to its blog. My first official post is up, and it’s on the vital role culture and arts play in the South Louisiana. If you’d like to read it, follow this link to the Acadiana Center for the Arts Blog site.
Pattern Recognition: Stephanie Patton and Troy Dugas at Arthur Roger Gallery
by Reggie Rodrigue
Stephanie Patton, “Intersection,” vinyl, batting and muslin, 2013, 62 x 60 x 4 inches, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Troy Dugas, “Rye Whiskey Blue,” vintage labels mounted to paper, 2012, 72 x 72 inches, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Patterns. They’ve always held a fascination for us. We divine them from nature. We see them emerge in our own lives. We reconstruct them. We interpret, alter and interpolate them.
In truth, being able to see, recognize and interpret patterns is crucial to the survival of the human species. Without some sort of pattern recognition, no higher-order organism could function or survive or be called a higher-order organism, for that matter. This is because pattern is intrinsically linked to organization. Pattern is in our DNA, our brain structure, along with the rest of creation.
Pattern is also that upon which we build our digital lives and affect change in the real world of the 21st century. In the digital realm, we use complex algorithms – a finite set of mathematical procedures performed in a proscribed sequence – to compute vast amounts of data that would otherwise be impossible to do without algorithms. From these computations, we can begin to interpret patterns in the data. By doing so, we can better understand a pattern that may be an invisible or underlying cause of an issue which confronts us such as climate change, traffic flow or any number of other complex problems that are bigger than one mind can bear.
Currently at the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, two Lafayette, LA artists who bring pattern to the fore in their own works are exhibiting: Stephanie Patton and Troy Dugas. Within both bodies of work, the two artists begin with a simple premise, a minimum of materials, and a highly repetitive process. However, their finalized works speak to the complexity, beauty and meaning that can unfold from such humble and rudimentary origins.
Stephanie Patton is a multimedia artists who currently lives and works in between Lafayette, LA and New Orleans, LA. She received a BFA in Painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1993 and an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. After this, she spent some time living in New York City, engaging in the art scene there as well as taking classes with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where she honed her skills as a comedian. In 2001, Patton returned to Lafayette, LA and continues to grow her career as an artist as well as an educator. She also became a member of the wildly successful New Orleans artists’ collective, The Front.
Stephanie Patton, “Strength,” vinyl, batting and muslin, 2013, 79 x 79 x 15 inches, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Stephanie Patton, “Valor,” vinyl, batting and muslin, 2013, 81 x 81 x 15 inches, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Stephanie Patton, “Meeting,” vinyl, batting and muslin, 2013, 55 x 86 x 17 inches, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Patton’s exhibition at Arthur Roger Gallery is titled “Private Practice.” The title is now part of a running joke with Patton’s work. Her last exhibition at The Front was titled “General Hospital.” Both titles refer to soap operas/dramas centered around doctors and medical environments.While the thought of naming one’s art exhibition after such processed cheese from television is extremely humorous, there is another point to the titles. They offer a point of entry and a certain amount of accessibility for the viewing of Patton’s Postminimalist works. The titles – with their allusions to drama, tension, sickness, healing and recovery – give viewers a clue that Patton’s works are more than just exercises in design and pattern.
Most of the works on display in “Private Practice” are quilted and shaped wall sculptures composed of white vinyl, batting and muslin, which hover and undulate before the viewer like some sort of hybrid between a cloud, a work by Frank Stella and a mandala. The works are anodyne, yet forceful and rigorous. Patton has found a way to take soft materials associated with rest and transmute them into a series of objects that speak of strength, presence, perseverance, and healing. It is an impressive feat, and viewing these pieces puts one in the frame of mind to think about, not only the more abstract and metaphysical ideas engendered in the work but, also, the thought, time, work, skill and care that went into sewing and composing it.
Stephanie Patton, “Conquer,” Video, 8 minutes 8 seconds, 2013, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
The real tour-de-force of Patton’s exhibition is a video, however. “Conquer” is 8 minutes and 8 seconds of gut-wrenching pain and claustrophobia followed by sublime relief and stoic transcendence. The video begins with a close-up of Patton’s head, neck and shoulders covered in a tight latticework of band-aids which gives her the look of a badly sculpted, clay bust. She stands before her work “Intersection.” The work acts as a formal backdrop to the action in the video. The action begins with Patton searching for an appropriate band-aid to pull. She finds one, and then … RIP! The pain of the action is palpable, and it just keeps going for what seems like an eternity of band-aid ripping; however, it is riveting. One winces and squirms while Patton steadily removes her dummy mask, keeping time with the sounds of her breathing and those nearly interminable separations of adhesive bandage from flesh. By the end of the video, Patton’s full face emerges from its cocoon. One can almost feel the blood coursing through her inflamed skin. Her wide, watery eyes stare out at the viewer with a startling amount of restraint; yet, there is also much in the way of clarity, openness and beauty in her gaze as well. It’s a brief moment of silent reflection and equanimity … and a challenge to the viewer to move through whatever pain is stifling his/her life into a similar state of unshakable grace.
If you would like to view Stephanie Patton’s video “Conquer,” please follow this link to the Arthur Roger Gallery website.
Troy Dugas, “St. Jerome #4,” European liquor labels on paper, 60 x 60 inches, 2012, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Troy Dugas, “Fragancia,” cigar labels on cut paper, 47 x 47 inches, 2013, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
Speaking of unshakable grace, artist Troy Dugas has that in spades as well. One needs such things to produce work at the same caliber as Dugas’ vintage label collages.
Dugas graduated with a BFA from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1994. In 1998, he received his MFA from the Pratt Institute. He currently lives and works in Lafayette, LA.
Early in his professional life, Dugas began working with a particular form of collage that involves using duplicates of the same image, rather than the usual pastiche of dissimilar images and materials that typifies most collage. To put it in mathematical terms (which somehow seems fitting), if the usual form of collage is a process of addition, then Dugas’ form of collage is a process of multiplication – amplifying a single element into what seems like an ecstatic, geometric infinity of pattern. In earlier works, Dugas used identical, vintage prints of ships at sea and flower arrangements to create images that mimicked what one would see if one were to look at the original images through a prismatic lens or the compound eyes of an insect.
Today, the focus of Dugas’ work is on creating abstract designs, second-hand portraits and still lifes with large quantities of vintage product labels.
Dugas abstract works mimic sacred geometry, calling to mind the sort of patterns one would find in a church, mosque or temple. From afar, they take the form of mandalas and are quite meditative in their overall impact.
For the uninitiated, the shock comes when one realizes that these exquisite works are made of old labels for liquor, cigars, fish and canned vegetables, among other commodities. At first, discovering this is a wonderful surprise; however, if one thinks about the meaning behind such work long enough, one reaches a gray area where marketing and spirituality rub shoulders a little to comfortably with one another. This forces one to wonder whether these are glorified advertisements or the sincere works of an artist on his own spiritual path. Personally, I tend to think the latter is closer to the truth.
In an age where everything, including our own digital lives on social media websites, is a product to be marketed and advertised ad nauseum, it is difficult to find a space for reflection and spiritual pursuit that eludes the dictates of “the market.” While Dugas’ works are certainly part and parcel of the overall system of capitalism (they are being sold at New Orleans’ poshest gallery after all) and are composed of the refuse of this system, they still manage to take the viewer somewhere beyond the daily grind of consumption – a space of pure, Platonic freedom.
Dugas is involved in a game of extreme subversion. He begins a work with a pile of the lowest form of art and creates something wholly ineffable and transitive. In the context of our time, there is something truly transgressive about Dugas’ work in that it exudes skill (countering the prevailing rubric of “deskilling” in art today), it obviously takes much time and patience to complete it (two things of which most people have very little these days), and most importantly it turns pop culture and pop art on its head. Given enough green bean labels and time, Dugas can create a work of art on par with a Byzantine mosaic or a Buddhist mandala. He metaphorically takes Warhol’s soup can and runs with it in the other direction. By slicing and dicing commodity labels into a million little pieces and recontextualizing them, Dugas points to a way out of the consumerist paradigm by diving right into and through it.
Troy Dugas, “Fayum Clos du Calvaire,” European liquor labels on wood panel, 48 x 48 inches, 2012, photogrpah courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
However, Dugas has recently decided to go in other directions as far as the type of images he produces. His “Fayum” series is a case in point. The product labels have remained a constant and pattern still plays a key role in shaping the work, but Dugas deploys these to compose representational images which riff on the tradition of Coptic Fayum painting. This type of work flourished in Egypt during the Roman occupation of the country at the tale end of the Roman Empire.
Fayum paintings were typically made of encaustic or tempera on wood panel, and they represented living portraits of deceased individuals. These portraits were painted during an individual’s lifetime, displayed in his/her home, and then placed over the head of his/her mummy as a reminder of what the deceased looked like when he/she was alive. Fayum paintings were basically the Graeco-Roman innovation on the ancient Egyptian funerary mask.
While unequivocally beautiful, Dugas’ “Fayum Series” complicates an already complex and hybridized tradition. These works have a particular sort of resonance for our time, bringing to mind the collapse of a civilization (possibly our own included); the atemporality of our digital age where information, ideas, art, and design from vastly different eras coexist through various media simultaneously and are equally valued; an exploration of the colonialist impulses of much modern art such as Picasso and Matisse’s osmotic response to African art and our own colonialist polemics in the Middle East today; and a porous view of individual identity. Beside the infiltration of corporate logos in these works replicating ancient funerary paintings of people who actually were alive at one point in time, Dugas throws another conceptual monkey wrench in the proceedings by basing some of the works in the series on contemporary arrest photographs found on the internet. It’s a chilling touch that begs viewers to answer the uncomfortable question of what posterity and history have in store for them.
Troy Dugas, “Still Life Cactus,” assorted labels mounted to wood panel, 28 x 35 inches, 2013, photograph courtesy of Arthur Roger Gallery
The specter of modernism haunts Dugas’ “Still Life” Series a little more lightly than his “Fayum” Series, if no less significantly. Here, Dugas breaks with his convention of using a single type of label. He employs an unprecedented assortment of labels to approximate the varying colors, textures and techniques utilized in modernist still lifes. Dugas’ obsessive technique seems to loosen in these works, affording them a sense of playfulness and breezy, if scattered, sensuality.
Together, Patton and Dugas’ current artworks afford viewers vital insight into the ways pattern can be more than simple decoration. Before the onset of modernism and postmodernism in Western culture, there was much meaning invested in pattern. Viewed as symbols of status and origin, pattern was used as a tool to visually order and label the world around oneself. Because of this, every pattern had a fixed meaning. This view of pattern generally broke down under the influence of the modernist impulse to purge symbolism from visual culture. Postmodernism then relegated pattern to being a handmaiden to style and design. The beauty of the contemporary use of pattern is that now it has a freedom of use unafforded to it in the past and it can carry a plethora of meanings depending on its contextualization. This is because we approach pattern from a multitude of different perspectives in our own contemporary moment.
With Patton and Dugas, we have two examples of contemporary artists reinvigorating past forms and materials within new contexts. Their works hold the mirror up to our own complex lives in subtle yet profound ways, unearthing and reflecting undercurrents and patterns of reality. We are given the responsibility of recognizing the patterns and determining their significance.
Stephanie Patton’s “Private Practice” and Troy Dugas’ “The Shape of Relics” are both on view at the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans until April 20, 2013.
Signs, Signs! Everywhere There’s Signs!
by Reggie Michael Rodrigue
A cover of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In the novel “The Great Gatsby,” the penultimate meditation on the dark heart of America in the Roaring 20′s, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces his readers to a profoundly denatured landscape – a modern wasteland – known as the Valley of Ashes. It is a toxic zone where industrial ash is dumped between the embarrassingly affluent, new money enclave of West Egg, Long Island and the bright lights and big dreams of New York City. In the context of the novel, the Valley of Ashes symbolizes the spiritual, social and environmental decay that is the end result of a life spent in the unbridled pursuit of wealth, consumption and pleasure at any cost.
An ashpile
Within Fitzgerald’s wasteland, particular interest is paid to signage and advertisements. As the American economic engine of the 1920′s raced into its seemingly dazzling future with the fury of a hellbent Duesenberg after WWI, advertising was there to stoke it’s fire. Consumerist culture reached a new apex in the 1920′s due in large part to the nascent proliferation of newspapers, magazines, leaflets, billboards, electric/neon signage and radio. All of these media converged on the nation and advertised the latest and greatest innovations to a public desperate to move past the horrors of the war into a modern, gleaming pleasure dome of unknown convenience and luxury.
The cultural landscape of the nation succumbed to desire, and Fitzgerald was keenly aware of this. The most potent and terrifying symbol in “The Great Gatsby” is not the Valley of Ashes itself, but a faded billboard located in this liminal zone. The billboard advertises the practice of occulist, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The billboard simply presents the large, bespectacled eyes of the doctor hovering over all of the desolation. On one hand, the billboard represents the eyes of God judging America from on high. On the other hand, the billboard obliquely represents an erosion of progressive vision and meaning in a land engulfed in wantonness and consumption. Fitzgerald seemed to be saying that when all of the images a people hold sacred are foisted back on them for the purposes of selling toothpaste, gasoline and soda, the world becomes meaningless and a vacant shell only suitable to be filled with more commodities and the refuse left behind after the act of consumption has taken place.
Recreation of the Valley of Ashes with Dr. T. J. Eckleburg’s Billboard as described in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”
Nearly a century after Fitzgerald’s time, the transformation of America by capitalists and the media into the world’s used car lot is complete. Nearly every square inch of America has become mediated for the purposes of selling something, whether it’s cars, smart phones, breakfast cereal, insurance and healthcare, public schools, ideas and even you, dear reader. You’re being sold, too. Take some time to look up what a “data broker” is and delight in the fact that personal information about your life and what you buy is a commodity as well – to be schilled to corporations thanks to the ease of aggregating terabytes of data by way of the ubiquity of digital technology in our lives. The implications of this brave, new world of consumer data mining are vast. Whereas the media of the 20th century was all about creating large, singular marketing projects that were meant to carpet bomb the cultural landscape of the time for mass effectiveness, the media of the 21st has learned to be a lot more insidious and personal. After all, what company really needs billboards anymore, when said company can interact and send perfectly targeted advertisements to prospective consumers through Facebook and other social media sites selling your personal information, where the masses commune alone-together inside the pseudo-privacy of their digital bubbles.
In this sense, pop culture has begun to eat us and itself. We’ve begun to be nostalgic for a simpler time when pop was a high-wattage diner sign gleaming on the horizon, the kooky messages and curt phrases of letterboards or a homemade advertisement slapped together by a mom-and-pop store. To us in the 21st century, these things now seem quite Romantic-with-a-capital-R. The fact is that many of these artifacts of early consumerist culture are either in a state of half-life, ruin, or they are vanishing from the cultural landscape altogether. Inspect any new Apple Computer Store and take a whiff of what’s to come. This is the future- and this as well. Seamless consumption! Today, the Romance-quotient of earlier forms of advertising and marketing blooms like a cross between a Googie architecture sunburst and a Caspar David Friedrich painting of a gutted church in the wilderness. We remember the good old days of coming together in person under the auspices of that banal yellow Waffle House sign to worship Baal covertly in plain sight while stuffing our faces with hashbrowns, pork sausage patties and eggs, and it was good (even though Waffle Houses still dot the American landscape). How metamodern of us – to be nostalgic for something that is still with us, although in a degraded form! Amen!
The reason for all of my babble about advertising, consumerism and nostalgia is an art exhibition at May Gallery by two artists from Brooklyn, New York – Alli Miller and Trey Burns – in the St. Claude Arts District of New Orleans . The exhibition is titled “Wessel Castle,” a portmanteau derived from combining the beginning of pop artist Tom Wesselmann‘s surname with the “Castle” in White Castle, the burger chain known for deliciously shitty, little square burgers with steam holes in them that have attracted rabid fans across our nation – most notably the writers of “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.”
Title wall for Alli Miller and Trey Burns “Wessel Castle” exhibition at May Gallery
Installation view of “Wessel Castle” with title wall at May Gallery
Installation view of “Wessel Castle” at May Gallery
Installation view of “Wessel Castle” at May Gallery
Installation View of “Wessel Castle” at May Gallery.
Images of Wesselmann’s works or White Castle chains are non-existent in the exhibition, but by invoking them, Miller and Burns set up a dialectic for the show that casts a pall over the exhibition while still evoking the Romantic. In the 1950′s and 1960′s, when Wesselmann and White Castle had hit their stride as cultural zeitgeists, they stood for a confluence of cultural ease, efficiency and sensual delight that was America’s promise at the time. Within “Wessel Castle”, we, the audience, are left with the abject physical and metaphysical fallout from such short-sighted lines of thought along with a heaping dose of nostalgia for a simpler, less complicated time.
The exhibition is mostly a photographic exploration of the cultural backwaters and architectural relics that fit into the rubric of what Wesselman and White Castle represent to us today. However, Miller and Burns’ images are all presented to us on a ground of Tyvek – the relatively new industrial insulating material which the long-standing, corporate giant Dupont advertises as “Superior protection against water and air infiltration. Improved energy efficiency & air quality.“
Tyvek is actually quite a humorous and ironic choice in which to cover the walls of the exhibition. Here, Miller and Burns exploit the material due to it’s connection to New Orleans, a city still in the process of rebuilding itself after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Visit any ward in the middle of a revitalization in New Orleans, and one will surely see Tyvek being placed on new homes and buildings. Tyvek was also the material of choice for the protective suits worn by first responders and clean-up crews after the hurricane. Beyond this connection, one can also view the Tyvek of the exhibition as a sly recreation of red carpet backdrops at major entertainment events that advertise which companies have supported the event proceedings with funding. The Tyvek background of “Wessel Castle” forces the viewer to question the sincerity of the nostalgic/Romantic photographs on view.
There is another questionable presentational device in the exhibition as well. Each wall-mounted photograph in the exhibition is presented in a frame with its protective, cardboard, cornice sleeves in tact. A quirky, little touch like this has a big impact, demanding one question the intent of the artists. Are the sleeves there to offer protection to the fragile images, or are they there to mock them as freshly minted commodities? Personally, I think that they do both.
Within the images of “Wessel Castle,” Miller and Burns point us toward a couple of strange roadside attractions and a preponderance of billboards and letterboards in various states of disarray.
In “Espresso,” the viewer is asked to contemplate the kitschy glory of a coffee shop housed inside a concrete replica of an American Indian tepee.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “Espresso,” photograph
“We Buy Gold” is a beautifully haunting image of a repurposed Waffle House sign hovering over a motel pool surrounded by trees. The combination of the reflective, blue water, shady trees and the deadpan audacity of the towering yellow sign advertising a pawn shop/gold exchange lure one into the image. The photograph is drowsy with cheap luxury and the sort of blue sky noir one finds in David Lynch films.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “We Buy Gold,” photograph
On one of their roadtrips, Miller and Burns were lucky enough to come across a Geico Insurance advertisement via skywriting. The photograph “Geico Geico” is the end result of this coincidence. Here, the name of the company hiccups across the sky in short puffs of smoke while a street light seems to reach up and underscore the advertisement.
In “Untitled (Road Signs),” a quartet of cacti are adorned with wooden ladders or supports for some mysterious reason. They rise in isolation from a desert landscape while vehicles and highway signs dot the horizon behind them.
In another photograph of a nearly barren landscape, “Museum Next Exit,” a shoddy, utilitarian sign advertises the near presence of culture behind a barbed wire fence.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “Museum Next Exit,” photograph
“Untitled (Memorial)” commemorates a hilltop site of remembrance capped by a white cross and a propped-up wooden rainbow. The image is equally beautiful and pathetic.
“Untitled (Geometric Sign)” presents the top of a disused and repurposed highway sign peeking out into a serene sky from the bottom of the photograph. What purpose this sign has now seems to be a mystery since all that occupies it in the image are modernistic blocks of color. Maybe the sign points the way to some type of secret Bauhaus utopia off one of America’s lost highways?
The last of the quasi-yet-hyper-surreal images in “Wessel Castle” is “Untitled (Double Horizon),” which provides the visual enigma of a painted desert landscape on a shipping container located in the middle of an actual desert landscape. It’s one of the smarter and more enchanting images in the exhibition. The artifice of the painting (despite its clumsy nature) seems more real by virtue of the stupendous bluntness and incongruence of the shipping container supporting it. It’s as if one can step into the landscape a second time through the painting on the container. “Untitled (Double Horizon)” one-ups the work of Rene’ Magritte and is a sly homage to the surrealist/advertising man who could also be a spiritual father of the work in the exhibition.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “Untitled (Double Horizon),” photograph
Along with the images above, one must wrestle with the achingly banal yet disconcerting images of abused, neglected or abandoned letterboard signs communicating gibberish in the midst of urban blight/sprawl or lonely stretches of the American landscape. The titles of the images like “B B OW E,” “GR EENL AWEBARBER P,” and “– P E C” telegraph the communication breakdown. The signs in these images have nothing and everything to say about where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going as a society. As Romantic landscape/memento mori, these images ask us to come to terms with our collective past as the world’s most recent divinely manifested consumers, and they remind us that today’s Facebook will inevitably be tomorrow’s disabused letterboard – only this time all that will remain will be data inside a digital cloud. That is if we and the cloud do survive.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “– P E C,” photograph
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “GR EENL AWEBARBER P,” photograph
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, ” B B OW E,” photograph
“Wessel Castle” also has some sculpture, but these 3-D stabs at the subject seem less successful than the photographs. Two pedestals made from what look to be wire crates each display two photographs. The gestures here seem rather glib, arbitrary and presumptive – as if the artists thought that their audience needed sculpture to complete the experience of the exhibition and neatly fit into the rubric of 21st century, multidisciplinary artodoxy (pun intended). Miller and Burns’ “Lightbox,” a plastic bin converted into an actual lightbox displaying a photograph of a brick wall with a badly painted trompe l’oeil chest of drawers inside the lid, is more of a success than the pedestals in that it is clever; however, it still seems unnecessary within the context of the exhibition. That also applies to the coat rack from which “We Buy Gold” hangs.
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “Pedestal #2 ‘Signscape’,” mixed media sculpture
Alli Miller and Trey Burns, “Lightbox,” mixed media sculpture
In summation, “Wessel Castle,” despite its small, 3-D disappointments, with its abject/pop/Romantic subject matter, is as formidable as it’s name implies in that it asks deep and timely questions about our collective values in this age of postpop hyperconsumption. We may have moved on to more ethereal, elegant, precise and intelligent ways of marketing ourselves in the 21st century, but so far, this has mostly just served as a means to continue to feed the voracious appetites we acquired in the past. Luckily, the beauty and wonder of the photographs in the exhibition make the contemplation of such things more palatable and also add another level of complexity to the exhibition. Within ‘Wessel Castle,” we see a glimpse from our society’s rear-view mirror, and the signs, objects and landscapes are unequivocally closer (and more complicated) than they seem.
** All photographs of “Wessel Castle” are courtesy of May Gallery
** For more information the May Gallery, click here.
Poet Clare L. Martin’s Ekphrastic Response to a Scuplture by Luba Zygarewicz
LUBA ZYGAREWICZ, “Petrified Time: 12 Years of My Life, Folded and Neatly Stacked,” sculpture/stacked dryer lint, tags and rope
Last month I hosted a meeting of the Acadiana Wordlab thanks to the graciousness of the lab’s founder Jonathan Penton who also publishes the literary journal “Unlikely Stories.” During the lab, I exposed the attendants to a wide variety of my favorite contemporary works by artists from Louisiana and discussed the merits and relevance of them and their works.
It was great pleasure, and I personally got a lot out of the lab due to the quality and variety of ekphrastic responses I received from the attendants. If you’re wondering what an ekphrastic response is, you’re not alone. I had no idea what one was until I hosted the lab. Once I found out what one is, I felt a little stupid. It’s what I do here all the time – literary responses to and commentary on art. Unfortunately, I had never come across this phrase in any of my studies. Considering, I’ve been doing this for years now, I felt like there was a little egg sliding off my face after I was told what the phrase meant. The moment was certainly humbling, but not beyond the scope of my life as a critic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my experience is that you can know most of a topic of interest, but you can never know it all, which is why I love hearing other peoples’ responses to art and the world around them.
My current and favorite ekphrastic response is a poem from Clare L. Martin. An Acadiana poet of growing renown in South Louisiana and beyond, Martin recently published a ravishing book of her work titled “Eating the Heart First.” She also writes a blog about her work and life titled “Orphans of Dark and Rain.” Martins’s work generally is invested in digging deep into the darkened corners of her life. Through poetic excavation, she brilliantly manages to uncover great sensuality, beauty and enlightenment in the shadows and emotional wreckage of her life.
When I spoke about Zygarewicz’s sculptural tower of packed and tagged dryer lint which she saved from her own family’s clothes dryer for 12 years, something connected with Martin on a spiritual, psychological and temporal level, and “Of Lint” is the result of that connection. I hope you enjoy this pairing of art and word as much I do!
OF LINT
after LUBA ZYGAREWICZ, “Petrified Time: 12 Years of My Life, Folded and Neatly Stacked,” sculpture/stacked dryer lint, tags and rope
The blood of our days, sweat
and tears that flowed between us
all washed clean.
But the mud of wrath
never comes out
even though my knuckles
are raw from scrubbing.
I have formed this narrative
into an ominous tower.
Kneaded the soft pulp
into small bodies
piled upon small bodies.
My own body hardens
with an emotion
I cannot name.
My children grew and went away.
I do not know where to find them.
This strange, looming thing
marks their existence,
and by chance, my own.
I could burn it. The smoke of it
rises into leafless trees. Or bury it,
until that which still breathes
suffocates.
Who are we if we forget
where we have been?
Who are we if we forget
the true living we have done?
This artifice is evidence
of something cherished, and not—
Evidence of something felt,
something keenly known.
- Clare L. Martin
LINKS:
Clare L. Martin’s blog: Orphans of Dark and Rain
Acadiana Wordlab’s site on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acadiana.wordlab?ref=ts&fref=ts
Unlikely Stories’ website: http://www.unlikelystories.org/
“Les Bons Temps”: A New Digital Exhibition on Pinterest
HERB ROE, “Fille avec un Poulet,” painting
“Les Bons Temps” is the first in a series of Pinterest boards curated by myself, Reggie Rodrigue, that will be used as digital galleries for the exhibition of visual art and other cultural artifacts together. The contents of each monthly exhibition will be dependent on one particular concept. “Les bons temps” is French for “the good times,” and one can hear the phrase in everyday conversation or music in Louisiana often. Considering that Mardi Gras takes place in the middle of February, I thought it would be an appropriate concept for this month’s exhibition. It is filled to the brim with artistic and musical goodness from Louisiana and a few other places, and speaks to the “joi de vivre” of life in Louisiana during Mardi Gras and the rest of the year. To check out “Les Bons Temps,” follow the link provided below:
http://pinterest.com/rmrodrigue/les-bons-temps-exhibition-1-february-2013/
If you like the exhibition, please feel free to share it’s URL with friends as it is open to the public of Pinterest and meant to be shared digitally and pinned. You can also check out the other boards on my Pinterest site, including one which hosts the “Louisianaesthetic Collection.”
A Slice of Louisiana with a Side of Art!
“St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans” from the “Louisianaesthetic Collection”
The “Louisianaesthetic Collection,” a portfolio of digital collages highlighting the visual wonder and romance of Louisiana’s history, culture, and natural surroundings, is now available for purchase in a printed format. Proceeds from the purchase of prints will go toward funding the travel and other expenses associated with the running of http://www.louisianaesthetic.com, Reggie Michael Rodrigue’s blog exploring the contemporary art scene in Louisiana. Each digital collage is available for print on durable matte, white, acid free cardstock (measurements 8.5″ x 11″), along with other formats, and signed by Reggie Michael Rodrigue with a hand-written statement to accompany the collage. To view the collection, go to http://rmrodrigue.wix.com/art and press the “louisianaesthetic” button above in the main menu. For information about purchasing one or more digital collage prints from the “Louisianaesthetic Collection,” please click on the “shop” button above and then click on the “digital prints” and “purchasing issues” buttons. Thanks for your time and interest!
THE LOUISIANAESTHETIC COLLECTION
“Alligator” from the “Louisianaesthetic Collection”
The “Louisianaesthetic Collection,” a portfolio of digital collages highlighting the visual wonder and romance of Louisiana’s history, culture, and natural surroundings, is now available for purchase in a printed format. Proceeds from the purchase of prints will go toward funding the travel and other expenses associated with the running of http://www.louisianaesthetic.com, Reggie Michael Rodrigue’s blog exploring the contemporary art scene in Louisiana. Each digital collage is available for print on durable matte, white, acid free cardstock (measurements 8.5″ x 11″), along with other formats, and signed by Reggie Michael Rodrigue with a hand-written statement to accompany the collage. To view the collection, go to http://rmrodrigue.wix.com/art and press the “louisianaesthetic” button above in the main menu. For information about purchasing one or more digital collage prints from the “Louisianaesthetic Collection,” please click on the “shop” button above and then click on the “digital prints” and “purchasing issues” buttons. Thanks for your time and interest!
Louisiana’s Greatest Artistic Hits (from an Alternate Universe)
Happy 2013! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything for you, my Louisianaestheticians! 2012 was a rough and tumble year for me personally, filled with some incredible highs and some lowly lows. I needed a long moment for some reflection, and in many ways I’m still in that moment. God knows what 2013 has in store for me or for you, but I’ve decided to start the year off on a high-note with a series of art jokes.
But first … recently, art, artists and creative professionals from Louisiana have been getting a little more traction in the world than usual. New Orleans has become an “it” destination for the creative class. New Orleans-based arts writer Nick Stillman has started writing for Art Forum. Los Angeles art critic Peter Frank just wrote a review of artist Shawne Major’s solo exhibition at the University of Louisiana’s Hilliard Art Museum. The New Orleans Museum of Art‘s curator of Modern and Contemporary art, Miranda Lash, is currently the juror for the next installment of New American Paintings‘ Southern Regional Issue. Quite a few Louisiana artists have been making their debuts on the art fair circuit – most notoriously, the New Orleans duo Generic Art Solutions performing as “art cops” at Art Basel Miami. This got me thinking about Louisiana’s history in the visual arts, which is spotty at best, but has it’s moments of brilliance and significance.
The issue at hand is that Louisiana’s musical influence on the world at large has always overshadowed its contributions in visual art – think Jazz, Blues, Rock, Rap and Bounce and then think about how much lip service and attention has been given to these genres versus the state’s visual side. Granted the musical attention is deserved; however, the state of Louisiana has given the world the work of John James Audubon, Ernest J. Bellocq, Clementine Hunter, Noel Rockmore, George Dunbar, George Dureau, Clyde Connell, Lynda Benglis, Keith Sonnier, Richard “Dickie” Landry, Ida Kohlmeyer, Elemore Morgan, Jr., Eugene J. Martin, Tina Girouard, Robert Gordy, Robert Tannen, Hunt Slonem, Willie Birch, George Rodrigue, Francis X. Pavy, Dawn Dedeaux, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Lynda Frese, and Rashaad Newsom. There’s no shortage of emerging talent from Louisiana as well: Amy Guidry, Alex Podesta, Anastsia Pellias, Bob Snead, Brian Guidry, Courtney Egan, Cynthia Scott, Dan Tague, Dave Greber, Deborah Luster, Generic Art Solutions, George Marks, Hannah Chalew, Jennifer Odem, Jessica Bizer, Jonathan “JJ” Wilson, Jonathan Traviesa, Kevin Kline, Lee Deigaard, Lisa Osborn, Louvier + Vanessa, Matt Bell, Michael Pajon, Michel Varisco, Miss Pussycat, Monica Zeringue, Nina Schwanse, Patrick Segura, Pat Phillips, Rachel Jones, Ralph Bourque, Regina Scully, Shawne Major, Skylar Fein, Sophie Lvoff, Srdjan Loncar, Stephanie Patton, Stephen Collier, Stephen Hoskins, Stephen Kwok, Tameka Norris, Thomas Deaton, Troy Dugas and Wesley Stokes. As anyone can see, the list of emerging talent is twice as long as the first. The visual art ball in Louisiana is definitely rolling and gathering more traction.
Here at Louisianaesthetic, I pride myself on exposing the world to serious art from Louisiana, and there will be more to come in this new year, but for now I just need a good laugh. Since the world is getting more of an introduction to art from my fair state lately, I started thinking about what art would look like in an alternate universe where all of the greatest artists from the past 100 years or so were from Louisiana. This got my creative juices flowing, and a series of digital collages ensued. Think of it as a primer on the major themes of the state for those who may be unfamiliar with our peculiar ways or a refresher course for those of you who are natives. And if anyone wishes to hate on any of this, please take it with a grain of salt and a wink of the eye, and be assured that I love my state, with all of what that entails. I also have a lot of respect for the artists named above and the ones being lampooned below, Here’s the goods, and I hope you enjoy ‘em and get a good laugh. God knows we could use one at this moment in time!
“Le Cri (for Edvard Munch)” – In Louisiana’s countryside, especially Mamou, LA, the old Cajun version of Mardi Gras prevails. Revelers get dressed up in handmade costumes, get drunk, tease young children, ride horses, participate in dances called fais-do-do’s (FAY-DOH-DOH) and chase chickens and roosters around for the communal gumbo pot. Here, the existentialist dread of Munch’s masterwork is applied to a grievous situation: not being able to catch the main ingredient for the gumbo. “Le Cri” (LUH CREE) is French for “the cry” or “the scream.” C’est pas bon!
“Le Bonheur de Vie/ Le Festival (for Henri Matisse)” – Louisiana is home to many a festival where one can “pass a good time,” which is what Matisse’s pastoral scenes of dancers is all about. I don’t have any doubt that he would have been drawn to Louisiana festivals like a moth to a flame. Unfortunately or fortunately – depending on how one looks at things, there’s not much nudity to be found at Louisiana’s festivals. Matisse would have to use his profound sense of artistic license to correct that situation.
“Three New Orleans Musicians (for Pablo Picasso)” – Picasso was very fond of music and musicians. The preponderance of images of sheet music and musicians in his art is testament to that. He would have felt right at home in Louisiana, especially in the cosmopolitan bohemia of New Orleans with its cast of musicians and characters, and its French culture and Spanish Architecture. Here is a trio of Cubist New Orleans Jazz men playing on the streets of the Crescent City that would make Pablo proud. Unfortunately, if you want a Cubist rendition of the ubiquitous gutter punk musicians who populate the French Quarter now, you’ll have to go some place else.
“Albino Alligator Fountain (for Marcel Duchamp)” – If the early Modernist art world was horrified and confused by Duchamp before, it would have been doubly horrified by a bizarro Duchamp from Louisiana. BTW – albino alligators are a real thing. We’ve got a couple that live at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.
“Suprematist Crawfish (for Kazimir Malevich)” – The Platonic and Theosophical ideal of “crawfishness” in it’s purest essence. Suck da head!
PS: If you’re from Louisiana, you won’t think twice about that last part.
“Swamp Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue (for Piet Mondrian)” – Mondrian had an affinity for trees and water, and these things formed the pictorial foundation for much of his experimental early work which lead to de Stijl. Louisiana is home to a vast network of swamps where trees and water meet. Piet would have fallen off his Modernist rocker here, and probably would have been much less of an orderly tightass. The heat, decay and lust for life and death here obliterate any pretense at absolute neatness and order. It ain’t called the “Dirty South” for nuttin’! The muck would have found it’s way in to his airtight compositions somehow.
“Fur Gumbo Pot (for Meret Oppenheim)” – Nothing in the Surrealist canon is as beautiful and unnerving as Oppenheim’s teacup lined with fur. In Louisiana, Oppenheim would have traded in her teacup for a gumbo pot, and made something even more disquieting yet filling on a cold Louisiana winter’s day! Bon appetit!
“The Persistence of Hurricanes … and Soggy, Wrecked Yards (for Salvador Dali)” – Memory, nightmares, blighted surrealist landscapes and Hurricanes go hand-in-hand over here in Louisiana. Dali would always know what time it was between the months of May and October. Of course, most of us wouldn’t even bat an eye over him. We all have family members that can bring the crazy faster and better than anything from Mr. Dali. I have an aunt that wears something we in my family refer to as “the sausage dress” on hot summer vacations to the beach. I had a great aunt who consumed a spoonful of sugar-infused Vick’s Vapo-Rub on a nightly basis to ward off illness, until she died of cancer. I have another story about another one of my family members that involves explosive diarrhea and BINGO that is too heinous to repeat in public. Case closed. Without a doubt, bizarro Louisiana art history Dali would be much more interesting.
“The Cypress Ladder (for Joan Miro)” – Once upon a time in Louisiana, a little betaille (BAY-TIE, French for “monster”) named T’Joan from New Iberia was being chased by an alligator in da swamp. He climbed a cypress tree all da way to da top. Dere he met a nice egret dat gave him a ride to da sky dat was full of stars. He lived happily ever after in a nice cloud dat was like steam from a bowl of warm rice. Da end.
“Son of Swamp People (for Rene Magritte)” – The mystery of human swamp consciousness revealed! Choot ‘em first. Ax questions later!
“Wolf Mother (for Louise Bourgeois)” – Cajun mamas are a force of nature. And screw spiders! The scariest thing bumping in the dark Louisiana night is the Rougarou (ROO-GAH-ROO, the Cajun werewolf). Louisiana folklore has it that the Rougarou is the product of a cursed/jilted lover gone rogue who becomes a demonic wolf that prowls the night in search of the blood of innocents. When children misbehave in Louisiana, their mamas will often tell them that if they don’t behave, the Rougarou will come and get them. Scary animals, scary mamas, jilted lovers – what’s not there for Bourgeois to like? She’d be on dat like white on rice!
“Lavender Mist (for Jackson Pollock)” – Lavender mist happens every morning around 6AM over in the swamp. Dancing around things ain’t nothing special over here, either – especially paintings. At Fais do-do’s (FAY-DOH-DOH) which literally means “making sleep”, parents who needed to pass a good time would get together and have dance parties while their children slept. Take that Jackson! Trying dancing around a sleeping child in a drunken state of chanky-chank ecstasy, and see how that goes for ya. If you were here back then, maybe you would have discovered your drip a little sooner.
“Untitled – Rig (for Mark Rothko)” – Rampant soil erosion, rising tides, cancer alley, a blight on the state’s natural resources, including the seafood industry, and the 2010 BP Oil Spill. Ever since Louisiana got in bed with the petrochemical industry, we’ve had our fair share of tragedy. Rothko would understand. “Tragedy” was Rothko’s middle name. If he was from Louisiana, he would have gotten over his depression with some good beer and a bunch of fried shrimp poboys. My doctor says shrimp poboys are packed with B-12 – especially after the spill!
“Feu Follet (for Cy Twombly)” – Louisiana has much in the way of history and myth, which would have appealed to Twombly. One such myth is that of the feu follet (FUH FOLAY), or swamp gas spirit, said to lure unwitting visitors to their water graves with their luminescence and the empty promise of safety in the darkness of the swamp. According to local myth, feu follets are said to be the spirits of unbaptized children. Did I mention that Louisiana folklore is kind of jacked-up in a lot of ways?
“Bayou (for Robert Rauschenberg)” – Rauschenberg grew up in Port Arthur, TX, not far from Louisiana. Port Arthur was a maritime and petrochemical hub, and has its bayous, along with a bit of Cajun culture. Rauschenberg’s family also moved to Lafayette, LA early on in his life. So the artist has some Louisiana connections, but many of his most iconic works have a dirty, downtown New York meets Western desert sort of swagger with their references to canyons, sheep and hawks. If Rauschenberg would have stayed closer to his roots, he might have made works about bayous, egrets and rice. Maybe there’d be some red beans up in dat “Bed” of his, too.
“Triple Edwin (for Andy Warhol)” – Andy said in the future, everyone will have their “fifteen minutes of fame.” Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards is on his 45th minute. The slickest, most corrupt, most stylish, silver-tongued and haired politician Louisiana has ever seen, Edwards is an icon and three heads above all of the other slimy politicians in the state. He brought casino gambling to the state in the 80’s. He also got sent to the pokey for racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud and wire fraud in the 90’s. But he’s like Teflon. He’s back in the 21st century, out of jail, has a new 30-something year-old piece of eye candy by his side (he’s 85 and his eldest daughter is in her 60’s), a bunch of crazed political backers who want to see him in politics again, and a reality TV show on the A&E network in the works! Andy would approve!
“Infinity Graveyard (for Yayoi Kusama)” – South Louisiana’s got some soggy foundations. Dig six-feet-under, and you’ll hit water. That’s why we’ve got all of those fancy above-ground tombs and crypts. That’s also why it seems like we Louisianians are so obsessed with death. In reality, we REALLY, REALLY are. Blame Catholicism and all those hurricanes and nasty critters that surround us. Our obsession with death is also the Yin to our “joi de vivre” (JWA DUH VEEV, French for “joy for life”). That’s our BIG YANG. They balance each other out. You know who is also obsessed with all this stuff, too – that batshit crazy Yayoi Kusama. She’d give her lecherous father’s left nut to do-up one of our graveyards with some spots. In a perfect world, this would be my final resting place. Love ya, Yayoi! REALLY! Come visit some time!
“TV Our Lady of Prompt Succor ( for Nam June Paik)” – IRL, Nam has his “TV Buddha,” which definitely has a better ring to it. But in bizarro-Louisiana art history world, Our Lady of Prompt Succor reigns supreme across the art airwaves. She’s gold and shiny and the freakin’ MOTHER OF GOD! See … she’s holding lil’ Baby Jesus in her arms. We in Louisiana love lil’ Baby Jesus so much we bake little plastic versions of him in our Mardi Gras King Cakes, risking death by asphyxiation if we accidentally swallow him. Whoever finds and survives the ordeal of King Cake consumption is indebted to buy the next king cake and continue to the next round of King Cake death matches leading up to Fat Tuesday. But I digress … Our Lady of Prompt Succor is there for you whether you die from lil’ Baby Jesus asphyxiation, diabetes and heart disease attributed to sugary, seasonal coffee cakes from Louisiana, or just plain old natural causes like Corexit poisoning. She’s always there to succor you … and she’s prompt. She’s got better things to do than sit on a giant lotus blossom under a tree while staring at her navel, contemplating the essential emptiness of the universe.
“Eat and Dance (for Bruce Nauman)” – Eat, dance and let the good times roll! Despite all of the Catholic dogma shoved down our throats, along with the dubious presence of that current gubernatorial killjoy, Bobby Jindal, and his right-wing christian zealots, there are only three commandments in Louisiana. If Bruce Nauman were from Louisiana, he would abide and make some flashy neon art about it that’s supposed to be deep and make you think or something.
“Untitled – Cajun Microwave (for Donald Judd)” – In Louisiana, we don’t have much use for the aesthetics of industrial manufacturing and or the obsessively, theatrical perfectionism of Minimalism. That’s for people who live in glass houses on streets that are perpendicularly aligned. We’re a lot more rough-and-tumble than that. In Louisiana, wood and metal boxes are made for cooking, which is an artform, in and of itself, here. If Donald Judd were from Louisiana, he would have made Cajun Microwaves: hand-crafted boxes slapped together for cooking succulent meats in the great outdoors. Mmm … Minimalism never tasted so good! Ca, C’est Bon!
“The Marriage of Reason and Real Squalor (for Frank Stella)” – As stated in other parts of this post, strict Minimalism is incompatible with the ethos of our fair state. We require something a bit more messy than a couple of black, concentric squares to call it art. Slap some orderly squares on top of a squalid swamp scene and you’ve got something there, Frank Stella! It’s the visual equivalent of spraying Febreze on a rotting nutria carcass. Vive la difference!
“Cajun Musicians (for Gerhard Richter)” – Even though we try to hold on to family, friends, and acquaintances, time and death continually steal them from us like sand falling between our fingers. All that is left behind are memories, photographs, traditions and the secrets and uncomfortable truths that such things blur, soften or hide. It’s as true in Louisiana as it is in Richter’s Germany.
“Fat Tuesday chair (for Joseph Beuys)”- If Joseph Beuys would have went native in Louisiana, there’s no doubt that this would be the ultimate version of his famous assemblage of furniture and fat. Mardi Gras (French for “Fat Tuesday”) is a season and a day in particular to which most Louisianians look forward. It is a period of decadence on par with the excesses of the Roman Empire that we indulge in every year right before the downer of the Catholic Lenten season. During Mardi Gras, every man or woman is a king or queen if they so choose to be. Sometimes he or she can be both at the same time, depending on his or her sexual proclivities. It’s also a time to get really drunk, eat lots of King Cake, dress up in a costume, act the fool in public, flash people and beg them for cheap plastic beads, and also ride ridiculous floats that either vaguely or openly allude to Greek gods, goddesses and other pagan demons, etc. It’s reason enough to feel good about crash landing in Louisiana and going native. To hell with the hang over, your need to piss, or your worries about tomorrow. Drink another hurricane on the Fat Tuesday Chair and show us your regal boobs!
“Real Tree 2 x 4 (for Sol Lewitt)” – From the perspective of most Louisianians, everything looks better draped in real tree, even boring Conceptualist/Minimalist sculptures. In the bizarro Louisiana art history universe, Sol Lewitt made really great art that doubled as duck blinds and deer stands. Louisiana ain’t called the sportsman’s paradise for nuttin’! Choot ‘em, Sol! Choot ‘em!
“Spiral Boom (for Robert Smithson)” – Good ‘ol Rob was all up into ideas about entropy, site specificity and the environment. Just like Rob dumping all that dirt on top of that old wooden shed, British Petroleum took an oil dump all over Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast. Oil boom attained a ubiquitous presence along the coast of Louisiana because flimsy, floating barriers can really make a difference in containing 4.9 million barrels worth of oily shitstorm. Both Rob and Ye Olde God of Entropy had a good laugh at that one. In our parallel universe, Smithson marked the occasion with a celebratory boom formation in the shape of a death spiral!
“One and Three Chairs (for Joseph Kosuth)” – When confronted with Conceptual Art, Louisianians scratch their heads like chimps in need a flea bath at the Audubon Zoo. Add some Saints paraphernalia to said art, and that’s something we can all get behind much like fantasy football. Oh, it’s CONCEPTUAL! In our parallel universe, Joseph Kosuth knew how to deliver the message in a Louisiana friendly way. Who dat say day gonna make art out of ideas? Who dat?
“Untitled – Chris Owens (for Cindy Sherman)” – Cindy Sherman is a master of postmodern identity with a whole storage facility of really shitty and creepy disguises, costumes and props. Lately, she’s taken to impersonating really old, rich women who are desperately trying to hold on to a youthful vitality that set sail on a yacht to nowhere a long time ago. Sherman would have a field day impersonating the Queen of New Orleans, Chris Owens. Burlesque performer, club owner, entrepreneur, bonne vivante, skimpy outfit-wearer and plastic surgery victim – you name it – this ancient lady did it all and still does it all in the heart of the French Quarter without a shred of shame or dignity, and we in Louisiana love her for it despite wanting to wash our eyes out with soap everything we see her. Chris Owens could high-kick every one of Sherman’s socialites in the head with her stilettos, cha-cha over their lifeless, emaciated corpses, eat them for brunch with a Drano Bloody Mary, perform all night, and still have enough strength to show up for church the next morning with her boobs hanging out all over the place. Now that’s what I call life as art! Cindy, you’re still in your prime and kickin’ it. This could all be yours! Just sayin’!
“King Crude (for David Salle)” – David ain’t got the cred that he used to way back in the caviar-infested salad days of the 80′s, but oil companies ain’t looking so hot these days either. Makes, no difference,though. They still makin’ money hand over fist. Nothing says “I’ll kill you slowly and methodically while you sleep and you’ll like it” better than the cool, detached, pathological irony of a David Salle painting. His work is the painting equivalent of all those insanely cheerful post-oil spill commercials from BP, inviting tourists back to the Gulf. Come down to Louisiana, David! We’ll leave the light on for you as long as the oil’s still flowing.
“Zydeco (for Jean Michel Basquiat)” – Basquiat was deeply invested in the history of art and the history of African Americans and people of color around the globe. In his hands, his style of street-influenced Expressionism grounded in Cubism operated as an incisive weapon, cutting through the arbitrary hierarchies of the art world and Western culture at large to expose the underbelly of a dominant system that still was ideologically an affront to minorities and the impoverished in the 1980′s – a decade generally thought of as a bell-weather for affluence and prosperity in the West. It is to his credit that he did so with such virtuosity and panache that the art world and the general public ate his often dire visual reportage of the minority experience in the West with a silver spoon. Thereby, Basquiat became rich as well – rich enough to paint in expensive suits, and buy lots and lots of heroine to cope with his depression and imploding sense of isolation among the upper echelons of the art world. He ended his life as a casualty and cautionary tale of the excesses of the 80′s, but he also managed to crack open the art world for minorities and brought some of the freshest and most vital work of the 80′s to bare on the cannon of Western art. His work still holds it’s own in the art market today, and every year his name grows in stature. No jokes, here – just honest appreciation. In our alternate universe, Basquiat tackles the subject of the Louisiana Creole music known as Zydeco (ZIE-DECOH), which mirrors the music of the Cajuns. Zydeco is characterized by a more syncopated rhythm and a faster pace than its counterpart. The term “Zydeco” is said to come from the French phrase “Les haricots ne sont pas sale’” (LAY ZAR-EE-COH SAHN PA SA-LAY), which translates to “The green beans aren’t salty” and is a sly way to reference that one is too poor to afford salt meat to season one’s beans. In the painting, our Creole Basquiat paints a Zydeco washboard, or frottoir (FROTWAHR), player, and references the power of the music which essentially comes from a marginalized population and it’s folkways.
“Catahoula (for Jeff Koons)” – In our alternate universe Jeff Koons is a T-Boy from Louisiana with a passion for the state’s official dog, the Catahoula Leopard, which is know for its hunting skills, mottled coat and the colors of its two eyes, which are typically mismatched. T-Boy Koons is still a pretentious ass with a penchant for banal kitsch, though. Check-out his giant flower Catahoula sculpture towering over the Louisiana marsh. He’s out to prove that his flower dog’s weiner is bigger than yours by bending the tastes of the nouveau riche to his eccentric, perverse and ego-maniacal will because swindling people out of their hard-earned money with bogus sugar cane and rice stocks wasn’t sick enough. He had to take it one step further. I hear his next project will be to suspend a big shrimp boat over Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans.
“Cajun Nurse (for Richard Prince)” – She loves the Saints. When she ain’t takin’ care of da patients, she hunts puldos (PUHL-DOHS, a Louisiana waterfowl) wit her old man in da back 40 acres. She’s like hot sauce in da bed, an’ she got a shot of bourbon with cane syrup an’ lemon fo’ you, cher (SHAH)! But she in danger. She been pulled into da boue (BOO, French for mud or muck) in a bataille (BAH-TIE, French for battle) for her family land and her very soul. Can she pull herself out before it’s dinner time and da gumbo gets to cold to eat? Only Cajun Richard Prince knows.
“The Brown Pelican Is Present (for Marina Abramovic)” – Sittin’ and starin’ at people all day ain’t nuttin’. Try keepin’ da attention of da state bird, da brown pelican, witout da help of a pocket full of chum. Louisiana Marina Abramovic has got dat in da hole. Now dats some art, T-Boog! I heard she trained wit da peoples from da Wildlife and Fisheries for months an she even had to pay $15 for a pelican handlin’ license.
“Le Royaume (for Damien Hirst)” – Excerpt from an interview with the Cajun Damien Hirst: Bon Dieu, I had an alligator swimmin’ aroun’ in da bayou in ma backyard. He was a big boudou (BOO-DOO, french for a big, fat beast) an’ he was nasty. He used to make dem evil eyes at my wife. His name was Pierre. We used to feed him table scraps an’ insurance adjustors we didn’t like. Every once in while when I got drunk, I would go down to da bayou and wrestle him. He liked to try to death roll me, but I was too smart and quick for him. Cher, if somebody would have told me I could make 12 million dollas for picklin’ Pierre in a fish tank, I would have told dem dat dey been hit in da head wit da fou-fou (FOO-FOO, French for crazy) stick. But one day, a trapper friend of mine came down to da bayou and he was admirin’ Pierre wit a jealous eye. Dat night I heard some tracas (TRAH-CAH, French for trouble) outside. I go out, and dere’s ma friend haulin’ Pierre out of da bayou. Dat sonofabitch done did-in poor Pierre. I went an’ got ma twelve guage an’ told ma trapper friend to clear out or get a second hole in his fess (FES, French slang for butt). He ran into da woods, spooked like he just seen da Rougarou (ROO-GAH-ROO, French for werewolf). After dat’s when I put poor Pierre in da fish tank. He looked perty an’ I said dats nice. It was only when da man dat sells da billboard signs along da bayou came to dinner at our house, when he said dat Pierre was a great work of art dat it dawned on me dat I was an artist. Now, I’m rollin’ in da dough. I got a bunch of ol’ ladies dat work for me after dey go to morning mass at Sacred Heart, and we make all kinds of stuff. Ma next piece is gonna be a diamond covered coonass.
“The Louisiana Candidate from ‘The Boulette Cycle’ (for Matthew Barney)” – Eh, la! Dere’ ain’t nuttin’ betta dan some good boudin (BOO-DAN, Cajun sausage filled with pork and rice) and cracklin’ (pork rinds). Cajun artist and film maker Matthew Barney weaves a complex tale of mythic symbolism around the origins of Louisiana’s pork sausages and fried pork meatballs in his “Boulette Cycle” a series of 5 films complete with drawings and sculptures and a full replica in pork lard of the one of the many Louisiana gas stations where one can find all of their favorite, succulent pork products. In “Boulette Cycle 4,” Barney takes viewers into the heart of a rousing ATV race around Pecan Island, LA in search of the island’s only gas station where the participants must buy a pound of boudin, boudin balls, and cracklins each and then bring them to the hidden, Indian Burial ground where the Louisiana Candidate, a mythical creature that is half-man, half hog, judges their success. Along the way, a band of letins (LAY-TANS, swamp creatures) assess their progress. If an ATV racer pleases the letins, they give the racer a map of the course. If the letins are displeased, they slather pig lard on the racer’s ATV wheels. The winner of the race is given the hand in marriage of the Boudin Festival Queen, and they retire to a magical pig sty to consummate their nuptials. This concludes film 4 of the cycle. Critics have praised Barney’s “Boulette Cycle” for it’s masterful blending of history, place, myth, pork products and really weird and greasy sex.
“Magnolia Eyes (for Takashi Murakami)” – In our alternate universe, Murakami moved from Tokyo, Japan to New Orleans to teach painting at the University of new Orleans. He is bewildered by the strange people and customs he comes into contact with in Louisiana, and he becomes highly xenophobic, locking himself in his studio and gorging on sushi and Hubigs pies. He uses his Superflat style to create a surreal and claustrophobic field of magnolia blossoms and redfish eyes to express his extreme displeasure.
A Memoriam for Artist/Curator John Otte on Oxford American
Photo of John Otte, courtesy of the estate of John Otte
My new article for Oxford American Magazine is out on the website. It’s a memoriam for curator/artist John Otte who passed in New Orleans on October 3, 2012. He was one of the shining stars of recent NOLA art, and he created what I believe to be the most significant exhibition of art in the city in recent memory, if not in it’s history. Check out the article and find out why by following this link> http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2012/nov/05/only-stair-doesnt-creak-john-otte/
