Two hours and thirty-five minutes of visual art.
Mark Smith. Figures in Line, 2005.
We are new fans of PSU instructor, Mark Smith and his stripey, floral, checked and dotted silhouettes of sports and music figures carved from newspapers and executed in fabric and acrylics on canvas. They are arranged on grids or giant game boards or playing fields. A visual archaeologist mining media for image, Smith makes work that hints at Americana quilting with a sharp eye on the zeitgeist. Plus, we like him.
Seems we were chasing Jeff Jahn around all night (or he us). Kudos to him as curator and gallerist Justin Oswald for the Intertia 2005 show at Gallery 500. The work came from all over, Tuscon to Brooklyn, and was an extraordinarily strong show. In fact, worth a second look. And although there was disagreement in our party, we appreciated the cranberry colored (crocheted or knitted, we were having too good a time to pay that close attention) tool cosies. Joseph Lupo’s “1-18-02″ giant pastel drawing of a cash register receipt…the old kind with just the numbers, thank you, was a standout. Patrick Rock’s “IGGY WANT TO FUCK” was another ace: we had to enter a white cove and face the rest of the gallery goers to watch this video in which a Chris Farley-esque character in a suit with split-pants repeatedly places a styrofoam cooler in the same spot in a parking lot, removes a beer, pops the top, and sits down on it, crushing the cooler. Re-pea-ted-ly. Talk about inertia. LOVE. Honorable mention to Brian Lemond’s graphic end-cut fir collages. When we were leaving, the rest of beautiful Portland was coming, and the stoic, pierced elevator operator was kept busy.
Joseph Lupo. 1-18-02, 2204
Hear/say: we hear that Semper Fashion staged a guerilla fashion happening (and teaser for their upcoming fashion week of shows) in The Pearl. They could have passed off the girls marching up and down the sidewalk at several locations, perhaps, as a Vanessa Beecroft performance piece, but for the stretch limousine that apparently hauled around the lovelies in silk Saffrona dresses.
But oh dear lord, adore Eva Lake in a black Chanel shift with a short pleated-front skirt and fabulous Chanel cuff at her Chambers Gallery. Eva Lake=art.
POSTED: September 2nd, 2005 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art | No Comments »