Adam Bateman . . . from page 1
Bateman’s works are referred to as “minimalist” -- a good enough guidepost, but one, I think, which is inadequate or which will lead you to only a partial view of the works. Take a moment and google “minimalism” and you’ll begin to get a general sense of what we are talking about.
At Artlex you’ll find the following: "Minimalism- A twentieth century art movement and style stressing the idea of reducing a work of art to the minimum number of colors, values, shapes, lines and textures. No attempt is made to represent or symbolize any other object or experience. It is sometimes called ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, and rejective art."
Bateman certainly reduces the means of his creative process, using little color or shape. But I doubt you can experience these works and not be taken to any symbolic place or experience.
Though books, in some circles, may be on their way to becoming anachronisms, it is the experience that everyone, or almost anyone, has had with a book that makes Bateman’s work effective. (It was a lazy Saturday afternoon as I looked at Literal Sculptures at the Kimball, and a family with preteen children came into the sparse exhibit. The kids couldn’t quit talking about how “cool” it was. I really doubt that the reaction would have been the same if the sculptures had been created out of stacks of shipping crates or even Campbell soup cans.) Whether our experience with books is that of cheap paperback novels, like those used in Bateman’s “All Our Tomorrows,” |1| or dense law tomes such as appear sporadically in “Secondary Structure (How Not To Be Cowed),” we have all had the experience of that small physical object, the book, taking us to the vast experiences of the mind.
Books are simultaneously dense and light. Just look at the sculptures, the weigh books sag and bend beneath the weight of their comrades. You see and feel the weight of the pieces. But you also “know” books and that is why they remain, in a sense, light. For they are filled with words and words are about density and lightness -- the dense opaqueness of the ink floating across the light and infinite surface of the white paper. A book is as much about the margins and the spaces – the reading between the lines – as it is about the black ink on the page.
Though sometimes Bateman creates spheres, waves and spirals with his book sculptures, in the Kimball exhibition he relies almost entirely on straight angles: two massive cubes, rectangular mats of tiny letters on the center’s floor, and straight stacks of paperbacks on bookshelves.
Looking at some of the patterns in “Secondary Structure (The Word, The Flesh and Father Smith),” |2| I can’t help but think of Dubuffet’s Hourloupe series. This sculpture is a massive eight by eight by eight-foot cube. Lit from just one side (or at least it was when I was visiting), each corner slips into a relative degree of darkness, making me think of our space age vision of a sunlit earth, seen in the four corner framework of the ancient Greeks or Navajo. |3| A smaller (6’x 6’x6’), though similar sculpture, “How Not To Be Cowed” is installed nearby, a satellite or smaller planet to its larger neighbor. The planet motif is echoed by a spherical work, “Sphere #5,” but in the straight-line context of the installation, this piece feels out of place.
In three works related to the book sculptures, Bateman moves one step down on the linguistic hierarchy, creating works using letters – black pasta letters – rather than books. They are preserved in canning jars – evoking the unused forces of language? – |4| or, in "Accumulaton 1 & 2", spread on the floor in a rectangle not unlike a Buddhist sand painting.|5|
In his piece, “Custard Died For Your Sins,” |6| we recognize the colored pages of cheap paperback novels, evoking countless cowboy adventures designed to be consumed and discarded. But look at the underside |7| and you’ll see the paperback of the work’s title. With the subtitle, “An Indian Manifesto,” it is the underside of the romantic dime-store version of the American West.
This one glimpse at an individual book is an important reminder. Whether or not we know its identity, a book is never just the sum of its physical parts. It is not just the board, the crash, the endsheet, the flyleaf, the fore-edge, the gutter, the head, the hinge, the joint, the lining, the paste down, the spine, the spine piece, the square, the tail and the text block. It is always more than this. It is “A BOOK.”
Though in most instances Bateman turns the book inwards and says the actual book is not as important as the structural element it provides, his work cannot escape elements of the biographical. The biography of the books that is. When you see a detail, like the stamp of the Denver public library, on the pages of a book, you are immediately taken hundreds of miles away. You are transported through time, through the biography of the book, the hands that held it. (Think what a beautiful exhibition could be had with the old checkout cards from library books). With stamps like “no return” |8|or “withdrawn,” |9|I feel a ghostly presence, and can’t help but think of Melville’s Bartleby, laboring in the Dead Letter Office. I hear, echoing in the spaces of the Kimball now that the family has left, Bartleby’s refrain “I would prefer not” and the narrator’s last words “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!”
And the hearing of voices is not far off when experiencing these sculptures. The words in the books, though unseen, are felt. The grand spaces, the ideas and words expressed in the books take the mind to vast spaces of interior sense, like stepping on the threshold of an expanding universe. Bateman’s massive sculptures are fortresses surrounding a chorus of voices we can only guess at and vainly attempt to decipher. It is whatever chorus we bring with us, the white noise of our lifetime of reading, our exposure to books. When I see them, I hear Bartleby. With you it may be Holden Caulfield, Saint Augustine or Harry Potter. But you will hear voices.
Another voice I hear is the ominous “hallway” in Mark Z. Danielewski’s “House of Leaves.” You’ll forgive another literary illusion, but in the case of Bateman’s exhibit it seems appropriate and almost unavoidable. Danielewski’s novel is a literary “Blair Witch Project” in which an impossible hallway is discovered in a newly purchased house. The house, or its interiors, collapse, expand, go down or up or continue to infinite depths inside this hallway while the exterior of the house remains constant. It is a dark, infinite expanse that changes form with each occupant.
Bateman’s sculptures are similar. The works are much more vast than the simple volume taken by the eight foot square space they occupy and the voices contained within them change according to the experience of the viewer.
Bateman’s stacks of books, his literal sculptures, can look fenced in, surrounded, unmovable; but our own knowledge, individual and subjective, of the nature of books, of their infinite possibilities, gives these pieces a nuclear energy. Bateman has struck on a medium, the book, that can achieve the elemental structural goals of a minimalist art, but which, by its nature, expands the experience and reference of his work into an infinite space that belies the physical weight of the book stacks themselves.
Of course when you go to the Kimball, all you’ll see is stacks of books.
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Gallery Spotlight: Salt Lake City
Kayo Gallery by Mariah Mann Mellus
photos by Tami Baum
Kayo Gallery opened seven months ago after a facelift transformed this previous optical center into a sleek contemporary art gallery and studio space. Located at 300 South at 315 East in Salt Lake City, Kayo Gallery sparked new life into this otherwise matured neighborhood. The list of emerging artists who have shown here reads like a who’s who of new artists in Utah. Recent shows include the “Print Exchange” series hosted by Camilla Taylor and August’s graffiti show, curated by local comic book creator and artist Trent Call.
While attending the University of Utah, gallery owner Kenny Richins saw the need for new venues focusing on young artists. His ambition and drive are a welcome addition to the Utah gallery scene. I find it inspiring to see emerging artists getting recognition in a formal gallery setting -- especially when the selected media and styles are nontraditional.
The physical space at Kayo Gallery is functional, transitioning from cozy art gallery to lofty installation space. I asked Richins if this particular space was modeled after an art gallery he had seen or admired and he noted that Plus Gallery, which Cordell Taylor owned/operated for a time in Denver Colorado, had a similar look, with exposed brick and long available walls. “The gallery had a great space and the people there where just amazing; to this day I can still count on them when I have questions.”
Questions may well come up for this young entrepreneur as he not only opened one new business, but three: Kayo Gallery, The Frame Shop on 6th avenue and L Street in Salt Lake City, and Art Speak, an art magazine now in its third issue.
From the promoting of local artists via magazines to hosting the show itself and then framing the work afterward, Richins has his hands on all the cards to a successful business. He admits it’s been a lot of work, but he has high hopes and many exciting shows in the future. September brings artists Sri Wipple, Garrett Atkinson, and Brady Ganelle to the gallery and if the past is any inclination, this show will be as brilliant and well executed as the rest.
Alternative Venue Spotlight: SLC
Visage Salon
by Mariah Mann Mellus
photos by Tami Baum
Visage Salon, located at 2006 South 900 East South, is a new face on the Gallery Stroll line up. Visage has been a member of the official Gallery Stroll Association since May 2005. Their membership is new, but the concept for opening for Gallery Stroll began with the opening of the salon six years ago. The original owner felt that the salon would work well as a exhibition venue but as time passed Gallery Stroll fell by the wayside. Fast forward to the present day, and new owners, Kacie Hersh and Rhonda Halliday, are revisiting this event in hopes to contribute to the art community in the Salt Lake Valley.
Visage Salon is positioned perfectly to link the downtown gallery experience to the historic Sugarhouse shopping and art district. So many people think of downtown when they decide to take in the galleries, but Sugarhouse has a lot to offer during the monthly stroll. Hopes are high to draw gallery patrons in and in turn provide them with maps to the surrounding galleries.
A salon by day, this location houses fifteen independent stylists and beauty professionals. The venue itself is original in offering a community atmosphere for stylists but private rooms for a more personal experience between the stylist and their clients. Most Visage stylist have an established clientele but do not want the overhead of owning an entire building. Services range from manicures and pedicures to hairstyles and hair removal. With so many leasers, Gallery Stroll presented a time to promote the establishment and engage the stylists. The stylists are encouraged to stay open and meet guests, handing out information on services and possibly providing discounts for new clients.
The Salon will be participating in the Salt Lake Gallery Association’s September Gallery Stroll, Friday September 16, from 6 to 9 p.m.The exhibit will be, “Watercolor Paintings by Daniel A. Nielsen,” which will continue through October 8th. Salt Lake City artist Daniel A. Nielsen is from an artistic family and has been painting since the age of five. His love of watercolor media began during his studies at the University of Utah. One of his monochromatic architectural pieces was selected from an open entry, by the LDS church, to be used on a hand out card during the 2002 Olympics. Nielsen has continued to paint despite career and family obligations and finds his artistic talent provides peace and balance in his otherwise often hectic life.
Whether you go to Visage for beauty treatments or to take in art, it is a relaxing stop on your gallery stroll agenda. The knowledge that they care and contribute to our community is just a nice bonus. For more information call Kacie Hersh at 860-4333.
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