Sunday, July 17, 2016

Buns, Bugs, Nubbins and “What they thought” in Normal, IL

-->
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” William Shakespeare

That famous quote from Hamlet is apropos to this review of art for at least two reasons. First, it was in fact to see a performance of Hamlet that I found myself in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois this past weekend. There is an annual summer Shakespeare festival (going on 40 years, they said) and several members of the Milwaukee Rep were acting in their performance of Hamlet, including the unconventional choice of a female title character played by Deborah Staples.

The performance was wonderful and wickedly funny. Staples brought to Hamlet’s character a kind of youthful, even adolescent energy and fragility, which shifted some interpretations of his temperament, words and actions. (Read a review in today’s Mke Journal/Sentinel.) All well and good, at least my thinking makes it so. But what about the art?


My wife and I went with friends to Bloomington/Normal where we were fortunate enough not only to stay with family but also to have a guided tour of art offerings in the twin cities. It was a great surprise and delight to find an exhibit of Claire Ashley’s work at the ISU University Galleries in Normal. Ashley came to my attention (in a big way) when I was artist in residence at the Lynden Sculpture Garden last year. As a visiting artist, Ashley was a huge hit with her enormous and interactive inflatable sculpture that visitors were able to enter and move around the grounds. (See my blog post about it.)


The constraints of the gallery setting made her work less interactive but no less marvelous or enormous. In fact, her wildly colored, bloated forms were squeezed into what otherwise would have seemed like large spaces making them seem cramped, like Alice after taking a bite of cake and growing large.


The playfulness of the work is accentuated in their titles, which run from goofy (“Hunnybunny”) through descriptive (“Hangin’ Drape”) to suggestive (“Worms,” “Suckers,” or “Rump.”) The show title itself is equal parts bawdy and enigmatic: “Cawt, Taut, Hot … Not.”


This untitled, site specific installation made out of colored and distressed foamcore, along with a selection of her more characteristic pillow-shaped and spray-painted forms in plaster became part of the gallery wall.


A separate, smaller gallery contained (barely) two related forms with glowing paint eerily illuminated with black lighting. Ashley describes her work as “cartoony organisms referencing motherhood and eroticism.” Drawing on her training in psychology, my wife had another interpretation. She saw the blobby, organic forms as both invasive and banal like petty everyday anxieties that have grown out of control and can no longer be ignored.


Ashley shared the gallery spaces with another artist, Rob Swainston. The title of his show, “We thought they thought what we thought, but they didn’t,” was what reminded me of the Hamlet quote.


Although two-dimensional prints, Swainston’s work was no less monumental than Ashley’s. And if they were therefore less claustrophobic they made up for it with a barely decipherable density of dark, moody imagery with veiled references to something apocalyptic.


Measuring a full 16 feet tall, the largest reached from floor to ceiling, evoking Chinese scrolls. Most involved complex, multilayered and off-register woodblock printing. Some layered the woodblock-printed images over digital, inkjet-printed ones, an intriguing and surprisingly harmonious combination of ancient and contemporary technologies.


Less successful, I thought was an installation called “Shingles” that wrapped around the corner of one of the galleries. But clearly, it must have been my thinking that made it so. Hamlet also said, “Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

8 comments:

  1. just admiring your society and questioning how you controlled this weblog so adroitly. Its for that protection extraordinary that I can't have enough money to not go through this fundamental guidance on every occasion I surf the net!
    JSC Result 2018
    JSC Exam Result 2018
    PSC Result 2018 Dhaka Board

    ReplyDelete
  2. Personally I think overjoyed I discovered the blogs.All online bangla newspaper

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really enjoyed reading this post, big fan. Keep up the good work andplease tell me when can you publish more articles or where can I read more on the subject?BD news live today

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to say thanks to you. I have bookmark your site for future updates.Free gift card codes generator

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is really very nice post you shared, i like the post, thanks for sharing.. All Bangla Newspaper List

    ReplyDelete
  6. I’ve read some good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much effort you put to create such a great informative website. Giftly

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very good points you wrote here..Great stuff...I think you've made some truly interesting points.Keep up the good work. All News Bangladesh

    ReplyDelete

  8. Great info! I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have.Please visit site instagram viewer to see top hashtag on instagram.

    ReplyDelete