Over the last six months or so, I have been approached by a number of people asking me to introduce a critical review of the visual arts in the Lexington community. I spent a good deal of time pondering the goal. Should I write the
column†to compel a greater awareness of the arts; to help expand knowledge of the broad†landscape of arts practices in Lexington; or to place what is happening here in an historical perspective?
What I can promise you is that this column and its contents will be an exercise in critical thinking. My hope is that it will be for you as well. If you have ever turned away from a work of art and dismissed it with, "Oh, I could do that," then this column might be for you. Because I am banking on the fact that somewhere in the back of your brain, you were at least wondering, "How the hell can they call that art?" It is my pleasure to offer the first of the Chevy Chaser's critical reviews.
"Wall-to-Wall"
He said it would be full of life, that it would be monumental, but the artist I saw drawing on the walls of the Loudoun House projected a previously drawn image and was tracing it with a peach-colored pencil. I could not see the work from a distance. I was skeptical, even a little disappointed-I thought perhaps the new visual art director for the Lexington Art League was about to bomb his first exhibition at the Loudoun House, titled "Wall-to-Wall." That was my first visit and it was during the installation.
In another room, there was a mess: graphite from the wall drawing had gathered on the floor molding highlighting the nicks and scratches in the surface of the wood. It had fallen on the mantle above the fireplace of the 19th century Gothic Revival villa. It had collected in clearly visible hand and fingerprints on the wooden shelving where the artist had obviously steadied herself while stenciling hundreds of little fish from floor to ceiling. The visible residue of the apparently aggressive process involved in creating the work was powerful.
A comical contraption loosely assembled on the floor of another gallery looked as though it were responsible for the stupid, unsophisticated drawing of tanks and birds on the adjacent wall. The painted wooden assemblage was not apologetic, but seemed to be shouting for everyone to come take a look.
The wall drawings by Jennifer Yerdon, Ebony Patterson and Travis Townsend were so different. While one spoke in a frustrating whisper, the others shouted loudly.
The only thing that seemed to unite them was the dialogue that was taking place in the galleries about how these artists met the challenge issued by the Lexington Art League. A challenge that was, in the broadest sense, to expand our view of the way art is understood and practiced. Specifically, these artists were asked to stretch the medium of drawing beyond its traditional and foundational boundaries.
Mike Deetsch, the visual arts director for the Lexington Art League, drew his inspiration for "Wall-to-Wall" from an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, titled "Projects 85: Dan Perjovschi," which took place during the summer of 2007.
The exhibition included the creation of the wall drawings while the galleries were open to the public. Using a man-lift in the large atrium at the MoMA, Perjovschi maneuvered up and down the walls drawing simple, "talking" stick figures captioned with sardonic messages.
For Deetsch the experience was very powerful, because it removed for the viewer the mystique behind the making of a work of art, encouraging dialogue about contemporary art practices.
"I was immediately attracted to Perjovschi's work and his style because his exhibition was 'living' in the galleries," Deetsch said.†
"I thought this would be something the Art League could do, bring in artists who were interested in creating works that would be unique for the space, like Mr. Perjovschi did at MoMA."†
Deetsch wanted to create a "living drawing," but the initial impression is that he had to modify this ambitious goal: the three artists mentioned above are the only artists in "Wall-to-Wall" that created wall drawings and none of them did so while the installation was open to the public. Yet Deetsch found a way to make this exhibition come alive by including other interactive works, like Jelena Berenc's "Body Drawing" and Nate Sensel's "Ellipses."
Although he did not articulate what it was about the "Projects 85" that was "living" besides the act of drawing in front of a live audience, Deetsch must have been aware that the conversations that filled the space played a significant role.
(Details discussed in an interview between Dan Perjovschi and MoMA curator, Roxana Marcoci, titled "What Happened to Us?" published on April 26, 2007 is available on MoMA's Web site).
Conversations about the wall drawings
It was not an insult to Travis Townsend to hear descriptions like "unsophisticated" or "non-academic" being used in conversations about his work, because in his own words, his style is purposefully naÔve.
"I have for many years been motivated by Funk Art, which stemmed from the counter-culture movement of the '60s; my works are funny, purposefully unsophisticated, purposefully stupid, using visual puns and humor to confront serious political issues and blatant contradictions in our own human experiences," Townsend said.
After speaking with Ebony Patterson, I know she would be excited that viewers were discussing the manner in which she mounted this installation. It includes not only the wall drawing, but also video and sound in a raw and unapologetic nature through which she examines the grotesque violence found in Jamaican dancehall culture.
Patterson sees an interesting parallel between the process by which this installation was mounted and dancehall culture - †both involve dangerously excessive quantity and gesture. "When I first completed the drawing the graphite residue was all over the floor and†had to be removed so that no one would hurt themselves," Patterson said.
Yerdon's drawing had people whispering; from a distance most of the viewers were not sure that anything was there. Her very timid approach demanded that you physically move closer to the wall and connect to the space.
"I use very personal symbols drawn on the wall to quietly combine space and image for the viewer; the pieces in the Loudoun House follow a circular pattern that relate to the period of the building and the use of windows during that time," Yerdon said.
The most revealing conversation was one that I had with Mike Deetsch while standing in front of what could have been a wall drawing, an image drawn on a piece of paper that must measure 10 feet in length.
Michael Matarese's "Idol" contains an infinite number of simple, uniformly drawn, penguin-like figures following one another. They travel by foot, by boat, by plane and by train, dutifully moving toward a much larger figure, presumably the Idol. There was something disturbing about the fact that this figure was identical in every other way to the smaller figures.
Mike and I looked at one another and smiled; from our vantage point, outside the frame of the drawing, we could see something that its inhabitants could not. Caught up in whatever motivated them - routine, expectation, lovers, family, duty, faith or tradition - the figures were forever locked inside the mystique.
It is gaining this perspective about contemporary art that the Lexington Art League, as a community art center, hopes to facilitate and "Wall-to-Wall" is certainly one step toward bringing that to life.
Christine Huskisson has worked to support the arts in central Kentucky for 28 years. She holds both a Masters of Art History and an MBA. She has occupied positions from intern to executive director working with the Kentucky Arts Council, the University of Kentucky Art Museum and the Anne-Wright Wilson and Dr. Donald and Dorothy Jacobs galleries at Georgetown College. She is currently a board member with the Woodford County Heritage Committee, teaches Museum Studies for the University of Kentucky Art Department, and is covering the arts on KET for Business Lexington.†