Static Cling

Robin Rice on Visual Art

by Robin Rice

The second Fabric Workshop and Museum show to spotlight recent residencies, "New American Voices II" easily justifies its name. It does not, however, point to new American directions. The four featured artists — Jim Drain, Jiha Moon, Robert Pruitt and Bill Smith — are intellectually and visually engaging and original within the spectrum of current art-world explorations. But it's not a revolution. Rather, these artists represent a contemporary quartet that builds squarely on the past.

Moon has lived in South Korea, Iowa and now Atlanta, Ga. She layers and embeds visual cultural clichés — both popular and traditional — in delicious wall-mounted work. Commercial embroidery appliqués, anime, fabric from Moon's mother's wedding dress, brush painting and hand embroidery are elements of these autobiographical and historical narratives. Moon's layered surfaces (as in Botan Garden, pictured) make an experiential statement about shifting perspectives and the accretion of a visual vocabulary throughout a person's life.

Like Moon, each "new voice" mines a personal vein of identifiable imagery. Drain suggests mid-20th-century domestic interiors with suspended clusters of upside-down glass and metal table lamps, looking a little like Jorge Pardo's lighting for FWM's old location. Perhaps influenced by Yinka Shonibare, Pruitt utilizes American display conventions of family photographs as an index to his sculptural masks and clothing, augmented with startling firearms covered in gold or African-inspired beading.

The recognition that science is fashion-driven fascinates many artists today. Smith's "Magnetically stabilized, air-driven, computer interfaced, chaotic emu egg pendulum" pieces merge modern electronics with ornate Frankensteinian science. His computers and floating emu eggs — "Ouija-ish," as FWM employee Joe Lacina describes them — select images in a random and arcane process.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

New American Voices II | Through mid-April, Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch St., 215-561-8888, fabricworkshop.org