FRIEDRICH PETZEL GALLERY
NOVEMBER 3-DECEMBER 23, 2006
NOVEMBER 3-DECEMBER 23, 2006
Allan McCollum wants to make the world safe for abstraction. His current exhibition is part of an ongoing series called “The Shapes Project” which aims to provide one mysterious though valid aesthetic object for every individual on the planet.
The models on view here include both two-and three-dimensional aspects. The first is a series of black opaque glyphs in small black frames. A diagonal wall that separated into many small shelves aids us in perceiving them as a multitude of unbelievably random original images, and though they are all silhouettes, they also possess a rather machinelike appearance. One can either be overwhelmed by their sheer number or allow the many closely set images to merge together and suggest liminal forms, like those perceived in tides or clouds, to appear as faces or animals.
The second body of work presents us with another range of abstract approximations of value in the form of particle board cross sections, each standing on a separate white plinth, and resembling nothing so much as lost puzzle pieces. Of course a puzzle piece can be either superfluous or essential depending on who needs it.
McCollum would like us to think that he is no longer engaged in a dialogue between materialism and totemism, but what he has really done is to find a tighter cultural fit for his ideas. Each piece here could be both metaphysically and practically substituted for award statuettes, high school diplomas, holiday gifts, and good luck charms. But art is not lunch money, nor is it an avowal of true love, a cure for damaged skin, or therapy.
McCollum recognizes that aesthetic events occur more naturally in a pluralistic environment and are only as random as we allow them to be. We easily translate the values of material culture into totemic and charismatic ones. But they may still function, both individually and apportionally, as fragments of a dream.
The models on view here include both two-and three-dimensional aspects. The first is a series of black opaque glyphs in small black frames. A diagonal wall that separated into many small shelves aids us in perceiving them as a multitude of unbelievably random original images, and though they are all silhouettes, they also possess a rather machinelike appearance. One can either be overwhelmed by their sheer number or allow the many closely set images to merge together and suggest liminal forms, like those perceived in tides or clouds, to appear as faces or animals.
The second body of work presents us with another range of abstract approximations of value in the form of particle board cross sections, each standing on a separate white plinth, and resembling nothing so much as lost puzzle pieces. Of course a puzzle piece can be either superfluous or essential depending on who needs it.
McCollum would like us to think that he is no longer engaged in a dialogue between materialism and totemism, but what he has really done is to find a tighter cultural fit for his ideas. Each piece here could be both metaphysically and practically substituted for award statuettes, high school diplomas, holiday gifts, and good luck charms. But art is not lunch money, nor is it an avowal of true love, a cure for damaged skin, or therapy.
McCollum recognizes that aesthetic events occur more naturally in a pluralistic environment and are only as random as we allow them to be. We easily translate the values of material culture into totemic and charismatic ones. But they may still function, both individually and apportionally, as fragments of a dream.
Comments
Abstraction made safe: aesthetics made safe with sweet pollymorphous shapes in reliable workaday material. Nothing majestic here, and AM loves that kind of folksy interaction with high art! As if aesthetic aspiration is akin to pretension. Aesthetically the work adapts 1970s reptitions to create spectacle reflecting our? his? desire to possess. In this I agree with the essay that he has found a tighter cultural fit for his ideas--it isn't just art as commodity but desire as the currency.
Problem though: this work is not desirable.
No visual ambition!