(This post was written in 2014, a year before this blog began in earnest. I considered throwing it out, but a lot of the concerns and ideas in it are still accurate to my opinions. Consider it a sample of my less developed writing style.)
A pair of gallery openings sponsored by the SCSU art department happened this week. Each was quite well done, and together they're emblematic of the personality and approach to art that the school promotes.
Night String Story, an exhibition of quiet, formalist works by Tetsuya Yamada, who teaches ceramics at the U of M, opened on Tuesday. As is usually the case, the opening and artist's talk were attended by professors from the department, students who had classes at 4:30 on Tuesday, and a smattering of individuals with some connection to the artist. There's something to be said for this more intimate and close gathering, as it provides each individual more face time with the artist. Still, I had hoped to see the gallery make a stronger effort to reach out to the greater campus community. Nevertheless, I believe the talk was a success, as it helped to illuminate Yamada's process and product a bit more. For example, the works showed dealt primarily with line, and the artist's talk revealed that he was thinking about Ayatori (the Japanese version of the game Cat's Cradle) when developing many of them, which explained this linear focus.
Yamada's work is difficult to grasp upon first viewing, an attribute common to works in this style. Oftentimes one's first, visceral reaction to minimalism is nothing, which for the informed viewer is a good sign that one should sit and wait with the work, considering it and letting one's mind think "in the background", so to speak. The idea is that eventually, you'll alight on something interesting. The more I sat with Yamada's work, however, the more I was filled with a sense of emptiness, a feeling something like the absence of communication, as though I was looking at nothing at all. Perhaps this is the content of the work. Perhaps the simplicity of a few lines and their unwillingness to communicate anything which does not come from the viewer themselves was what Yamada found interesting.
Whimsey, an open call exhibition curated by the department's own BriAnna Lundquist, opened Thursday evening. Humor is difficult to communicate in art, but a few fine artists have made entire careers attempting to be funny--David Shrigley and Wayne White come to mind. Whimsey seemed to be more about the quiet chuckle than the belly laugh, though. Odd, quirky and fun are all attributes that could very easily be used to describe Lundquist's own work, and this clearly shows through in the pieces selected here. One work, "Brohemian Rhapsody", shows a man cleaning a pool with the lyrics "I'm just a pool boy, nobody loves me / He's just a pool boy from a pool family." Another is a Guy Fawkes eggplant high in the corner of the space titled "V is for Vegetable." Whimsy is the perfect title for this awkward collection, a kind of artistic curiosity shoppe.
It's refreshing to see humor in the gallery space, and I hope to see it pushed further. Both exhibitions come highly recommended. Yet there's a relationship between the minimalism of Night String Story and the quiet chuckles of Whimsey. Both express an art that is small and whispers its ideas. An art that meekly requests attention from the viewer. An art that says "Hey, I'm, um, here and stuff. If you, like, want to look at me."
I'm all for art which requires engagement from the viewer, and quiet and meditative images that don't show too much too early seem to have a resonance with artists and art viewers. My only hope is that we can make space in the world of the modern fine art gallery for art that proposes an opposite view: art that is big and loud and demands to be heard. Art that is raw and emotional and energetic. Art that exudes power and declares "I am here! Contend with me!" I think both statements are necessary.
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