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Also this issue: Aftershocks Book Show Artstream: North American Dish Makers Rent Couch: A New Play by Six Authors Artsbeat |
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September 5-11, 2002
art
 Window treatment: The National Building is one of the sites for InLiquidâs Fringe art project, ãIn:View.ä Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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In:ViewThrough Sept. 14, National Building, 131 N. Second St.; Arden Theatre, 40 N. Second St.; Minima, 47 N. Second St.; TLA Video, 517 S. Fourth St.; Atlas Wallpaper and Paint, 742 South St.; 215-592-1310
The Fringe is expanding from its comfortable seat in Old City. “In:View,” Inliquid’s ambitious Unfiltered Fringe event featuring local and international visual talent, perfectly demonstrates this. Pulling together 15 installation artists to take over a variety of non-art spaces, “In:View” is a reminder throughout the eastern portion of the city that the Fringe is here. The recently nonprofit venture is showing an increasing presence in Philadelphia, having curated a number of shows and continuing to provide an online home for Philadelphia’s art community. “In:View” is Inliquid’s most adventurous curatorial effort. From the National Building’s storefront to an empty commercial space that soon will house Minima interior design shop, the installations present to the public playful, coy and sometimes cheeky subversions of childhood themes.
In one half of the National Building storefront, collaborators Paul Swenbeck and Joy Feasley built a psychotropic pumpkin patch that further explores their interest in the symbols of American witchcraft. An iridescent rainbow obscures the view of the diorama and casts an ethereal glow on the sculpture inside. The other half of the enormous window contains Nadia Hironaka's video-kaleidoscope -- a fantastic starfield through which the viewer can see an abstract video refracted in a three-dimensional tunnel of mirrors. The two installations transform the storefront into a vaguely nostalgic, slightly off-kilter homage to '70s children's programs inspired by hallucinogens and psychedelia.
A more literal reference to childhood depictions of intoxication is Tristan Lowe's enormous inflated Dumbo at Minima. Crafted to resemble a parade float, the elephant is in a constant state of expansion and deflation and moves perpetually and almost imperceptibly. The image, appropriated from a scene in Disney's Dumbo in which the large circus elephant unintentionally becomes drunk and turns pink, fits with Lowe's larger body of work that often alludes to drunkenness. Reminiscent of Paul McCarthy's twisted Santa's workshop, Dumbo lacks the scatological subtext that makes McCarthy's work so disturbing and resonant, but fits almost perfectly in the space.
With her latex-genitalia toys, Jennifer Butler-Kaler presents an incidentally Freudian view of sexuality. While the toys are demarcated by signs reading "pull gently" or "squeeze hard," they are also enclosed in a locked display case, giving the lurid, teasing double message of touch and don't touch. Edward Dormer's Minefield in the basement presents a similar beckoning and repelling. In an almost completely dark room, an egg stands tenuously on a lane of crushed coal, illuminated by a red laser beam. The delicateness of the egg creates a heightened tension and a foreboding sense of vulnerability -- and is a de-contextualized reference to precision warfare.
Offering an entirely different feeling of danger is William Cromar's 200207_puc[w], an "implicit volumetric figure" composed of thin wires stretched at intervals along a diagonal plane. The piece is threatening in a piano-wire-at-the-neck kind of way. The wires fade almost invisibly into the constructed white wall, requiring the viewer to step into the sculpture. In the same room, Jeannie Yip's video installation of an unweaving cloth projected onto the same cloth, which has been bleached, has a deceptive sense of depth. Its delicate, meta-conceptual presentation seems familiar and borrows heavily from Gary Hill's Hole in the Wall and the early self-referential video work of Yoko Ono.
The major spectacle at Minima is gadarchitecture's multi-channel presentation-style video installation. Merging computer-assisted design with video footage of architectural structures, the piece offers an MTV cut 'n' paste jerk with as little substance as a Blink-182 video. The result is an artistically arranged peek into their collective architectural portfolios, but not much more.
Other artists in the show include Kevin Reay with his piece Magazine, after Gilbert and George, Colette Copeland, Randall Cleaver and Kathryn Pannepacker (full disclosure: I am in a live-in relationship with Reay, so I reserve judgment about his work). "In:View" officially opens First Friday, Sept. 6 at Minima from 6-10 p.m. with DJ Ivan Ross.
As an addition to the Fringe, "In:View" adds an acute and edgy visual component. In a festival dedicated to performance, its presentation is theatrical and large-scale. It demonstrates the increasing overlap between visual art and theater and the breaking-down of barriers between different artistic genres.
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