Memento Mori

Robin Rice on Visual Art

by Robin Rice

With "Foreclosed" at the Print Center, John Caperton has created something curators aim for but rarely achieve: a juxtaposition of contemporary artists who are distinctive and yet share a clear visual sensibility. This show makes a big, provocative and timely statement.

Though the photographs of six artists record furniture and room-size arrangements of stuff, I'd describe them as still lifes. There's almost a memento mori character, even in the most complex, like Tommy Reynolds' huge wall-size Needing Something for Which There Is Nothing.

Colors tend to be limited and coolly synthetic. Compositions emphasize abstract values. Every setup seems planned for photography, but there's a striking sensibility reflecting that brief moment of vision which does not take account of identifying objects or meaning, a kind of emotional or even cognitive disengagement. This is what Caperton was probably trying to get at with his title, which is unfortunately topical and too limited for this strong mixture of lush visual experience united with arid affect. Still, words are peripheral to the well-calibrated visual experience.

Also at the Print Center, Masao Yamamoto's tiny, roughly shaped unframed photographs (pictured, p. 43) are organized into exquisite constellations that gracefully acknowledge random gallery details like blind electrical outlets and vents. Repeated compositional motifs and shadowy miniaturization imbue Yamamoto's installation with a nostalgic, dreamy aura, like a fragment of melody floating from an open window.

Muralist Don Gensler and his dog, Oso, are the nexus for artwork and activities including two murals and two exhibitions of portraits and self-portraits made by residents of West Philly's Park Pleasant Nursing Home. "I was doing a project on disabilities [at Hahnemann University Hospital]," says Gensler, "and I thought involving the Park Pleasant residents could be a win-win interaction."

Gensler, who teaches a mural class at UPenn with Mural Arts Program director Jane Golden, spent time getting to know the nursing-home residents for his Independence mural at the hospital. He knew one-on-one interviews would help keep ideas for the mural from "falling into clichés." It would also be rewarding for residents, since some have few visitors and are not able to get out very often.

Oso's role was relatively passive. "I met the residents of Park Pleasant through the Chester Avenue dog park at 47th and Chester," explains Gensler, a muralist who frequently works with MAP. "Park Pleasant makes quite a large space of land available for a minimal dues of $60 a year." In return, dog park users volunarily began bringing their dogs there to visit with residents.

Gensler included portraits of two Park Pleasant residents among the images of Philadelphians with a variety of disabilities in his Independence mural. While working on the mural, Gensler began leading weekly art activities for the residents, culminating in two groups of paint-by-number creations — a chore, that, as Gensler says, "isn't necessarily easy if you're 96 and have cataracts."

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Another piece was soon added to the mix: a second mural adjacent to Park Pleasant itself. This wall, a West Philly favorite, depicts a huge window with billowing curtains. Lead artist Phillip Adams, who took Gensler's class at UPenn four years ago, incorporated words from the residents' interviews into the mural's painted wallpaper, and decorated a small courtyard nearby.

"I feel a connection to social change and I feel a certain level of necessity in being connected with groups," Gensler says. The overlapping spheres of his work certainly demonstrate how true and enriching this is.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

The Print Center "Foreclosed"; "Nakazora: Space Between Sky and Earth"; through Nov. 26, 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090, printcenter.org

Mural Arts Program Don Gensler's Independence, Hahnemann University Hospital, Broad and Race streets; Phillip Adams' Wall of Windows, 47th Street and Kinsessing Avenue; 215-685-0750, muralarts.org