Exhibition Review: Salt Lake City
Adkinson, Whipple & Gunnell at Kayo by Vera Bachman
As we crowd around the shady side of a patio table at Cocoa Caffé to discuss the upcoming group show at Kayo Gallery, Sri Whipple calls for revolution. It is Saturday morning, and soon it is apparent that I am dealing with a bunch of cavaliers. I notice Garrett Adkinson has already finished his espresso, so I decide to start by asking him about themes and influences in his work.
He says something about feeling uncomfortable in his own skin, and that he doesn’t want to get overly theoretical about it. Sri interrupts to say that he hates art, especially talking about it at nine in the morning, and then throws me a sideways glance. There is a brief respite and then Garrett launches straight into Rauschenberg’s work in the fifties.
He took canvases out from the wall, breaking two-dimensional space, destroying the traditional idea of a painting as a window—this intrigued me. I found Rauschenberg’s idea of “painting as object” visually powerful.” Garrett graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland. During school his work was more figurative and academic, influenced by Richard Diebenkorn. He explained how his work changed when the shapes in the portraits he was painting took on greater importance than the subject matter. After departing from what he refers to as the “transcendental psychology of the image,” he was left with basic shapes and the tactile quality of the materials. He says, “That felt more pure to me.”
Adkinson’s work is singular, not typical of sculpture or painting. His “wall structures” are about the details of the form and the materiality of the wood, muslin, oil paint, stain, and cold wax that gives a skin to the “painting as object and the object as painting.” The undulating details of the form are contrasted by splashes of color. Garrett says this particular series explores how objects evoke memory of an object and how memory changes and the object changes. At this point Garrett reaches down and pulls out one of his pieces. He holds it up for us to see and then places it on the table. I reach over and touch it. It makes me think of an old man’s wallet and then the delicate spine of a sun-baked reptile.
Garrett says, “Memory itself is like a collection of art pieces in your head, your mind is a museum of personal experience.” He tells us he’s making around thirty pocket size pieces for the show. I ask him if he views his work as unusual. He replies, “Not too many people are challenging the status quo here. The work that comes out of the U art department all looks the same…technical proficiency is important, but it’s all academic—the figure on a pedestal draped in fabric.” He points out that abstract painting has been around for a hundred years, yet here it’s still perceived as modern and edgy. Brady Gunnell interjects to say the same goes for experimental film, “It’s a relatively old medium. It’s been around since the fifties in galleries, and video since the seventies…it doesn’t get the exposure [here].”
Brady Gunnell and Garrett know each other from Pacific Northwest College. Cocoa Caffé is their usual meeting spot. They are collaborating on a video installation piece for the Kayo show—intended to bridge their work. According to Brady, “The video piece will be an overarching document of themes manifested in images.” I’m not familiar with Brady’s work, so I ask him what he’s into. Without hesitation he lists experimental film, nontraditional narrative, esoteric subjects, and themes of time, history, and memory. He cites the influence of experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller, whose work in the fifties grew out of abstract expressionism and science fiction illustrations. He also mentions filmmaker Atom Egoyan.
After Pacific Northwest College, Gunnell came back to Salt Lake and graduated from the U of U film department in 2004. I ask him for his take on the department, and he says, “It could really be great. They need new faculty. You get out of it what you put into it…I thought, ‘I want more; what can I do?’ I approached professors and tried to get an independent study to work with 16mm, but they wouldn’t take the time, so I just got the f*** out of there as fast as I could.”
Sri interrupts to declare that he is the best example of everything that went wrong with art school. I slip inside for a refill. Allison is behind the counter looking brainy and beautiful. I love their euro coffee cups, saucers, and little spoons. From the counter, I look out the window to the patio and wonder what I’m missing.
As I settle back down at the table, Brady Gunnell begins to tell us about the sculptural piece he is planning to show. It is a modular pyramid made of plaster, formed of small pyramids. It is a work in progress. He says he made it a while ago and has been documenting the pyramid’s set-up, presence, and then disassembly in different environmental contexts, and its physical transformation since its inception. Brady says he is interested in the historical pre-eminence of the pyramid as the oldest monumental structure reaching back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the pyramidal shape’s relationship to time, memory, decay, and disintegration.
Brady moves on to something he’s been thinking about recently—the writings of Czeslaw Milosz on the importance of human experience and common sensation. “People get caught up in intellectualism and accomplishment, and the stack of books they read and can refer to. But the essence of life is experience.” Garrett concurs and then adds, “Outside, pop culture bombards us with images that are disconnected. Art happening now is more personal. The work demands attention; it demands time.” Sri nods his head. According to Sri, the medium is secondary; the point is, “the true expression of one’s own experience.” There is a pause and Sri tells me my sunglasses are wicked. I sense he’s forgiven me for getting him up so early. “I’m a painter,” he says, “even though there are other areas I want to get into, painting is my focus now.” He continues, “I’m very intent on being an active participant—not a consumer. I know there is a hidden art market here, a niche that’s not dumbed down for consumerism. There’s a rising community…a fertile scene…the most exciting stuff I’ve seen is coming from young people on the outside of the gallery system making what they want to make even if they have to work a job.” Sri continues, “But there’s no use in being an elitist. I can’t judge artists making to sell…it’s just not my bag.”
Sri Whipple earned a BFA from the U of U. Now he paints at the Guthrie building. It’s an understatement to say that his work is respected among his peers. Sri and I were in foundations together in the 90’s. The department was very academic in those days and completely male dominated. I remember a foundations student bemoaning the fact that it was the most non-creative place she’d ever been. Sri’s drawings were criticized for looking “cartoony.” “The ‘old boys club’ professors I had there, Tony Smith and Paul Davis,” Sri says, “were the best teachers I had…it was a lot of intensive figure study, with an emphasis on drawing and technical ability… I took a twist on it…we didn’t get exposure to the whole contemporary side of things.”
For example, Paul McCarthy, known for his raw visceral work, was born in Salt Lake City in 1945. He went to the U with Sri’s parents, who were famous for organizing “happenings.” At one point, McCarthy jumped out the second story window of the art building, unharmed. Sri says, “Now here’s someone [Paul McCarthy] making something as crazy as anything I would ever make, and he went to the U.” But when we were there, McCarthy was never mentioned. Brady interjects, “The modern art collection at the museum [UMFA] is substandard. If they had one Paul McCarthy piece it would enrich the whole collection.” We nod in agreement.
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As a child, Sri says he responded to symbolism in Renaissance art and cultivated an appreciation for painters like Rembrandt and Caravaggio. He also soaked up cartoons, music, and comics like Big Daddy Roth’s Rat Fink, and gross art like Garbage Pail Kids. “Pop surrealism is a new term I just read yesterday,” he says. “I like adult themes, sexual but nongender specific, hermaphroditic, polymorphic forms, esoteric symbols…subtle historical themes.”
Sri says he’s been exploring the Pieta. He says he’s been using “feminine” colors to interpret form in chiaroscuro. His painting technique is very traditional—direct color applications of halftones, highlights, and glazes. “I’m a victim of art school, I use paint in an anal and obsessive way. The paintings are over-worked. I touch every single place on the painting at least three times.”
Some of the feminine shapes are beautiful, others grotesque. He tells us his recent work is directly related to his relationships with women, in addition to his own feminine creative energy. “Everything is a self-portrait,” Sri says. “My own creativity manifests itself with a genital twist.” He starts his drawings (square in format) with no preconception. “I make a line and then I react and react on a subconscious level. As it develops it takes on meaning.”
My phone rings. It’s Kenny Riches, owner of Kayo Gallery, calling to see if the guys want to come and check out the space. I leave them in front of the gallery—it’s nearly midday.
Garrett Adkinson, Sri Whipple and Brady Gunnell are showing together this month at the Kayo Gallery. Object of Memory will continue thru October 15th.
Exhibition Review: Salt Lake City
Lisa Nichols
by Tony Watson
I am currently reading the book 1491, by journalist Charles C. Mann, which examines current research into life in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans. One of the main theses of the book is that the continents were much more densely populated with more advanced civilizations than we had previously thought. The civilizations that the majority of the explorers and conquistadors came across were already extremely depopulated and reeling in chaos due to the smallpox and other diseases brought by Europeans that usually preceded them into these civilizations.
Such, of course, was not the case with Columbus (whose day we “celebrate” this month), the first European to encounter American civilizations. This encounter between Columbus and the Arawaks is the subject for a current exhibit at the Sprague Library by printmaker Lisa Nichols (thru November 19th).
Nichols’ exhibit consists of two series of prints. One series, six monotypes titled “USA Inc,” is a commentary on current political issues. The other is the aforementioned series on Columbus and the Arawaks done in woodblock prints with quotes in a calligraphy style on each piece.
Both series are obvious political statements. I do not exclude, as a rule, political statements in art, but I must confess my trepidation when art becomes activism because far too often the activism wins out.
Nichols’ woodblock prints depict scenes of conquest, enslavement and death in the encounter with Columbus and the Arawak. Each of the six pieces – “The Meeting,” “The Search for Gold,” The Great Slave Raid,” “The Mountains are Stripped,” “The Children Died,” “A Culture Erased” – are well composed juxtapositions of black and white, with simplistic figures done in a somewhat awkward hand. The choice of media and style of execution are interesting because the woodblock prints mimic both the illustrations in books of the time depicting the “New World” as well as childhood storybooks, where we get much of our received notions of Columbus.
Because Nichols point, of course, is that the encounter between the two cultures was not a discovery of a new world but the murder, enslavement and exploitation of one culture by another. With each of the prints she has included -- on the paper and part of the work itself -- quotes about the encounters. Most are from the original explorers, – Columbus and Bartolome de Las Casas, – but a couple are from current books on the subject. This mixed bag of quotes has a mixed result. When the quotes are directly from the source, such as when Columbus says, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold,” they are jarring and effective. When Nichols quotes from sources like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980), they are maybe more informative (by 1550 there were only 500 Arawak left) but less poignant.
Which leads me to my point about art as activism. Political art is so difficult because to be political is as easy as saying “the Left is right” or “the Right is wrong But to make it art requires taking it to a different level. Though at times, with her juxtaposition of the images and the quotes, Nichols’ pieces approach interesting art, ultimately they lack the irony or insight that would give them depth and make them something more than political statements.
This is especially the case in Nichols other series, “USA, Inc.” These six grainy monotype prints address current political issues. The grainy nature of the monotypes is problematic for these pieces. In a work like “Collateral Damage,” where we see a lone child standing among remnants of bodies, the grainy feel seems appropriate, giving us a sense of the moment conveyed without deteriorating into opportunistic voyeurism. But in the other pieces, especially “Mass Transit,” which shows cars blocked on a highway ramp, the materials do not seem adapted to this message. continued next column
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Lisa Nichols . . . continued
This, I believe, is one of the most important aspects of art as activism. For the activism not to overshadow the art, everything, including the materials, must be made an integral part of the statement. This is something that I think Max Grundy, also showing this month, does well. I understand that someone else is writing on Grundy’s exhibit [see page 7], so I won’t dwell on his show too long. Suffice it to say, his mass-produced propaganda style art subverts propaganda and its political statements by incorporating its means. Nichols’ pieces do something similar with the use of a stamp, in red, imprinted on each monotype that reads “USA Inc.” Ultimately, though, I feel the pieces are illustrations, or a propaganda of their own, and not exceptionally well executed ones.
I’ve never seen Nichols pieces before and I think she might have some promise with her woodblock prints. Her pieces are certainly topical considering the upcoming holiday, and might be a nice starting point at the library before picking up 1491. But I think they are also a warning about the difficulties of making art as activism.
Discovery and Conquest, an exhibition of prints by Lisa Nichols is now on exhibit at the Sprague Library (2131 South 1100 East, SLC) thru November 19th.
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