Rubber Soul

Sensuous rubber and playful technology at Nexus.

by Robin Rice

Raquel Higgins: The Elusive Lineaments of Fulfilled Desire

Chris Vecchio: Technology Fetish

Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, 137 N. Second St., through April 25, 215-629-1103

After working almost exclusively with paper for four years, Raquel Higgins' show at Nexus Gallery introduces a new material into her repertoire: rubber. There's also an emu egg. Higgins mixes chemicals into liquid rubber and casts it into a few rectangular forms (very slightly reminiscent of Rachel Whiteread) and into sheets, which she frequently manipulates like the Japanese silk tissue she also employs in several pieces. This body of work is called The Elusive Lineaments of Fulfilled Desire, an echo of William Blake's line about the (not "elusive" to Blake) "lineaments of Gratified Desire." In the gallery, she told me that the inspiration for this title was an experience during a residency in Newfoundland. One evening she felt the impulse to dance and regretted that she was alone in her studio with no partner. Then she recognized that it is "a birthright to be able to dance by oneself—to accomplish without outside help what is desired."

There is a strong sense of line and contour in these works. Sometimes the line is created by black rubber tubing (this was not cast by the artist) and sometimes it develops from folded sheets of rubber or tissue. A group of three similar works are folded strips of rubber that are suspended from either end to form a hammock-y compromise between a 'V' and a 'U' shape. An object is cradled in the bottom of each: a glass vial of amber color or a pale roll of rubber. A related group of five works are mostly long ribbons of tissue draped, or loosely knotted, sometimes supporting an oval scroll or panel of rubber.

The work often gives the impression of something grasped, enclosed or carried, in an almost maternal way. And a sense of sexuality—or at least of the body -that is never entirely explicit. The black-painted emu egg, which is held between segments of looped black tubing, might be read as a uterus, or just as an egg.

Higgins told me that inside many of her works is another image—either covered with a layer of pigment, enclosed by folds or hidden by a pour of rubber. "I like to know something about the piece that no one else knows."

Higgins got two works out of that egg. Before becoming part of the tubing work, it was cast in the center of a shelflike piece of ale-colored rubber that projects from the wall. Higgins intended to fill the egg-shaped cavity with water, but decided that water did not suit the container and, instead, poured a slightly more translucent rubber into the opening. She left a long groove in a related wedge-shaped chunk of rubber with the intention of filling it with water, too, but opted again for rubber. This piece has rough broken edges that refract the light. The narrowed darker end is curled up against the wall, flexible and tonguelike. This one and the egg-shelf piece are among the most interesting in the show.

A group of different-sized circlets of black tubing are covered like embroidery hoops with paper of slightly differing colorations. I told Higgins, "They look like diaphragms."

"That's what everyone says," she replied. "I never had one. Maybe I have diaphragm envy."

One draped piece of paper is lacquered gold and crisp-looking. It makes an interesting color and texture contrast to the rubber works, which often appear similar yet are not. Higgins has even placed two small sheets of rubber and tissue for visitors to touch so they can experience the difference. Two cones slightly resembling coffee-filters remind us of Higgins' recent paper work. One is mostly black, the other lighter.

A translucent bronze blanket of folded rubber layered with netlike Mokuba paper is displayed on a pedestal. It's exceedingly minimal yet full of linear and textural interest. Higgins told me that inside many of her works is another image—either covered with a layer of pigment, enclosed by folds (as in the Mokuba piece), or hidden by a pour of rubber (as in the emu egg impression). Each is constructed so that if the hidden were exposed, the work would be destroyed. "I like to know something about the piece that no one else knows," she said.

Higgins, a native of Spain, saw Goya's paintings in the Prado frequently as a child. An interview with her will be included in Channel 10's program on Goya (subject of a new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), April 16 at 7:30 p.m.

Cloud Control: Chris Vecchio's The Myth of Genesis (1996), ultrasonic cloud generator, spark gap, beaker, water, sheet steel base.

Modern man has lost the love of inanimate object," Chris Vecchio, also at Nexus, quotes Herman Hesse in his artist's statement. Vecchio wants to change all that with his wonderful electronic sculptures in which circuitry and functional gauges don't do anything practical but provide a sense of delight in technology. Most are mounted in pseudo-vintage cabinetry with cherry, walnut or maple burl veneers and elaborate inlays. Though they look vaguely familiar, such amazing cabinets were never mass-produced. They are fairy-tale (imitation) antiques.

Most of the pieces are accompanied by framed illustrations of their circuitry, again elevating technology to an art form—or at least asking what the world would be like if we did so.

(the myth of) Progress is a nautilus shell mounted on wood and adorned with cherubs. A volume control allows one to hear white noise, presumably the sound of "the sea" inside the shell. In The Myth of Genesis, an ultrasonic cloud is generated in a beaker of water. It's quite dramatic. Most of the other works combine arts and crafts sensibility with circuitry in charming ways that truly achieve the artist's goal. In the bathroom, he's even showing a pseudo-primitive Mardi Gras Mask with ticking eyes, as well as a picture of himself wearing it.

Correction

In last week's review of Domestic Spaces at the Art Alliance, two works were misattributed. The large handsome oil painting of a mirrored Room with Pictures is by Mark Barmak Shetabi. The white rag Rug adjacent to Catherine Lumenello's all-white installation is not by Lumenello. It was correctly attributed to Laura Hutton in the in the photograph that appeared with the review.