Sounds Great But What Does It Look Like?

If you peel away the skin is there anybody there
If you peel away the skin is there anybody there
If you peel away the armor is it too late to begin
Is there anybody hiding if you peel away the skin

from “Skin” by Oingo Boingo

This show is a great idea turned into a hot mess.  Perhaps peeling back the skin and looking at the guts of the pre-art making process is, in this case, like seeing your steak get the air-bolt to the head; something only the toughest of carnivores can take.  With that said, maybe this show is so solipsistic it is great.  Artists marginalized, or rather artist’s most marginalized activities, i.e., sketches, doodles, mind-farts, etc., are given voice in this exhibition. But, the major question is who cares?  We skip from unrealized work to unrealized work, and one gets visually down, without the conceptual up.  I really get what Raftery (the juror) was going for, and I’m sure in the dark with slide after slide snapping by it looked really cool in his head, but on the wall the exhibition has an insurmountable incoherence.  Oh, sure there are pieces (two on the home page) exemplifying the beauty of the ’sketch’, and there is the video by Nicole Ratos Enerson which stand up, or out in the noise of unrealized art; like a show of ugly ducklings–I know there are some swans, somewhere.

The really great concept of this show is not enough to save it from formal mediocrity.

Go see it and tell me if I’m wrong!

Juror: Andrew Stein Raftery

Artists:

Gwen Barba • Nancy Berlin • Nataliya Bregel • Dana Clancy • Ken Clark • Camila Chavez Cortes • Michael David Stella Ebner • Liz Ensz • Andrea Evans • Jodi Hays • Diane Hoffman • Victoria Jacob • Julie Levesque • Clara Lieu • Lara Loutrel • Jeffrey Marshall • Nancy Murphy Spicer • Kristen Mills • Stephen Mishol • Lynn Newcomb • David Teng Olsen • Andrew Pez • Linda Price-Sneddon • Trudy Raftery • Nicole Ratos Enerson • Matthew Rich •  Amy Sallen • Karen Schiff • Suzanne Schireson • Brian D. Smith • Jill Slosburg-Ackerman • Linda Stillman • Jonathan Weinberg • Deb Todd Wheeler • Sung Won Yun
Opening Reception: September 10, 2009 at 6:00 pm. Free and open to the public.

Gallery Talk: Andrew Stein Rafferty will give artists talks on Wednesday, September 30 and Wednesday, October 14 at 6:00 pm in the Mills Gallery.