C8
GALLERIES
weekend, but my head is still split- ting. From that crashing opening fight to a sticky denouement, LaBute pitched his narrative at chronically el- evated levels. Such a LaBute thing to do: Ham- mer a point home, add polemics and stir. And it works . . . if you enjoy be- ing bludgeoned. But even if you don’t, the playwright’s strategy — a narra- tive built around caricatures, not characters — offers a powerful hyper- realism that digs straight into the meat.
I mention LaBute’s tactics because visual artists traffic in these moves, too. It’s most evident when they give us pictures or sculptures of the body — no subject invites such wide-rang- ing interpretation. Some artists at- tend to subtleties, others tease and ex- aggerate to make their point. In recent weeks, I’ve noticed quite a
few brashly LaButian approaches to the figure. It got me wondering. When, if ever, does overwrought art- work actually succeed? When isn’t it a turnoff? Artists risk losing us every time they try it. You’d never mistake Brooklyn- based Aaron Johnson, half of a two- person show on view now at Irvine Contemporary, as a model of subtlety. His subject is people, or some rough equivalent — “humanoid monsters” might be a better description. His art privileges ideas over individuals. Johnson’s figures repulse even as they beg for attention. (And so does their bad-boy creator, who lists as the ma- terials for one of his artworks “acrylic, copper pigment and urine on polyes- ter knit mesh.” Very Warhol.) Yet con- sidering how obsessively — and I mean that as a compliment — John- son paints these psychedelic visions, they’re worth spending time with, just to see what this artist is up to. Johnson’s layered, loping style re- sults in crazy images — he manages to paint both the innards and outer bod- ies of his figures, nearly simulta- neously. Eyeballs pop out, cartoon- like; a web of pink fissures suggests veins and capillaries. Johnson layers on clear resins and builds up his sur- faces for 3-D effect.
But are these really bodies? John-
son’s tableaux are derived from anx- ious nightmares. Here, perversion rules, sexuality is currency and self- satisfaction is one’s highest calling. Beware the vagina dentata — Johnson favors castration-capable female gen-
Hyper-realism: Sometimes, it’s really too much
D
by Jessica Dawson
id you see Neil LaBute’s “Rea- sons to Be Pretty”? The play’s Studio Theatre run ended last
“Milk,” far left, one of Aaron Johnson’s too-crazy-for- their-own- good images.
“Sweet Meat, Part 1, No. 7” by Victoria F. Gaitán: Just outlandish enough to work.
IRVINE CONTEMPORARY
italia, painting them eagerly and of- ten. It would be subversive subject mat- ter if it weren’t such a cliche. The more time spent in front of Johnson’s pictures, the more tepid they become. Grotesques give way to the predict- able; “nightmares” run on Freudian stock scripts. There is something bloodless in Johnson’s maniacal ges- tures. LaButism: A Efficacy: C Over at the Greater Reston Arts
Center, a show called “Beautiful: Vir- ginia Women Artists and the Body” offers more opportunity for LaButian musings. Here, four Virginia-based artists address bodies — women’s, men’s — with varying degrees of realism and fantasy. These artists’ agendas vary widely — one enacts a kind of reversal of the male gaze; another speaks to women’s straitened lives; a third ex- amines women who have had mastec- tomies; a fourth looks at consumption and objectification.
Aaron Johnson
Irvine Contemporary, 1412 14th St. NW, Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., 202-332-8767, through June 12.
www.irvinecontemporary.com
Beautiful: Virginia Women Artists and the Body
Greater Reston Arts Center, 12001 Market St., Reston, Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 703-471-9242, to June 11.
www.restonarts.org
Elissa Farrow Savos is a master La- Butian — her series of sculptures amount to a theater of the over- wrought. She fashioned women’s busts and heads out of clay and plant- ed them on top of bottle racks (the Duchampian trope), wheeled carts or a wire-framed skirt. Each figure’s pas- ty white face looks as forlorn as the next; they form a sisterhood of sor- row. “Every piece I make is about story-
telling, each a narrative of some wom- an somewhere, and every woman ev- erywhere,” Savos writes in the exhibi- tion brochure. It’s a quest for universality. Yet these pieces are trying so hard to en- gage us — and leaving so little to our imagination — that they’re off-put- ting. LaButism: A- Efficacy: D In a fantasy sequence played out across a slick 12-photograph series, Victoria F. Gaitán gives us a gorgeous woman slathering her chest with do- nut frosting. Gaitán’s subject alter- nately stares at us from under well- groomed eyebrows or looks down toward an explosion of pastries. These pictures call to mind eating dis- orders and objectification, binging and lad mags. Here a gorgeous wom- an is both gorging and posing, often in the same frame. In her artist’s statement, Gaitán writes: “I utilize human subjects as meat puppets in my flesh and blood still lifes.”
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Again, it’s got LaBute all over it.
Gaitán’s subject is a stand-in for an idea. This woman’s corset and her pink-frosted drool shove a crazy mix of ideas in your face. And it’s all just outlandish enough to work. LaButism: A Efficacy: A- Elizabeth Menges advertised for women who had had mastectomies and found three who were willing to pose for her. In “Beautiful,” Menges focuses on Carole, a woman she both painted and drew. Menges is at her best working in charcoal — two large- scale drawings are in this show, and they’re her most riveting. The medi- um’s scratchy, roughed-up lines are well suited to her subject. Paint erases this woman’s individuality. For Meng- es, the particular must trump the uni- versal. LaButism: C- Efficacy: B+
style@washpost.com
Dawson is a freelance writer.
S
KLMNO
FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
Her chef husband has fame, groupies and a stewing wife
CAROLYN HAX
Dear Carolyn:
Husband is local celebrity chef, who quickly gained notoriety during our first four years of marriage. This created some conflict with “foodie groupies” and my husband’s inability to lay down boundaries when they hug, kiss or hit on him at local events.
I am accused of being jealous and insecure when I mention that it makes me uncomfortable. Duh. Husband has now received a job offer
with even more notoriety and recognition on a national level. I will have to appear with him at social events that I despise. How does one act at such events, especially when women elbow me out of the way to get to my husband?
J.
This isn’t about how to act at events.
(Duh.) This is about your resentment, and
finding a place to put it. And that, in turn, is about how you can reconcile your husband’s delight in his fame with your utter contempt for it. It can be a short answer, really: If you can’t be happy for him, and dismiss groupies as a minor annoyance, then his fame will come between you. I realize that makes it sound as if
you’re the only one with responsibilities here, which of course is never true in a marriage.
But your husband has made his position clear: He likes the attention. He likes these events. He likes life as a rising star. Admittedly, it sounds as if his way of telling you was petulant and defensive; “J, this is the ride of a lifetime, and I want you to enjoy it with me” would have gone over a lot better than “You’re just jealous and insecure.” Nevertheless, his position delineates your options. It says the boundary question is asked and answered: He’s not setting them. It says you might as well get used to these events and, if you attend, get elbowed occasionally. It says that, no, this isn’t the marriage you thought you signed up for — but it’s the
NICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Don’t let bragging relatives dominate the conversation
FAMILY ALMANAC
Marguerite Kelly
How should I deal with some of my husband’s difficult relatives? For many years, I’ve tried to focus on their good qualities, and my husband has appreciated it. But over the last year or so, I just feel like I have had enough. Their utter self-absorption, their bragging and their way of steering every conversation to themselves, their church and their kids’ school is getting worse, not better. I used to be happy for them when they
gave us their reports, but now I feel disgusted every time they start talking about themselves. Their complete lack of interest in my family makes it hard for me to say, "Wow, your kids got straight A’s AGAIN!" — what I used to say, and enthusiastically, too. Now I just want to say, “I get it. You don’t have to keep telling me that your kids are great students and great athletes.” Instead, I nod and say, "Good" or "Huh?" or give some other low-key response. I thought my diminished enthusiasm for their accomplishments and for the accomplishments of their children — of which I have heard about over and over again — would give them a hint but it has only made them turn up the volume. They seem to think, "Well, if that
marriage you’ve got. If your husband can’t show any
sympathy for your discomfort, then maybe it isn’t much of a marriage. But I don’t think you can demand something you aren’t willing to give — and your letter has zero sympathetic words for his good fortune. There isn’t an “I’m really proud of him” or “He’s living his dreams” or even just “I know I should be happy for him.” Maybe your choice of words wasn’t quite this deliberate, but even “notoriety” comes with a negative pitch. It bears repeating that your husband will need to do his part to hear and heed you — a significant variable. But you have the more pressing need to make peace with fame as the third party to your marriage — so you need to speak up. Instead of focusing on events and strange women, seek your husband’s
help with the bigger issues — namely, why does his career threaten you so, and where do you fit in? Collaborating on a solution will boost your confidence in that solution. Now, you aren’t confident, and without confidence, skipping these events becomes punitive and going demurely becomes doormat-y, and cleaving to Mr. Fame demotes you to groupie in chief. With confidence, though, any one of these approaches becomes viable — a joint statement on how you’ve both adapted to fame.
Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or tellme@
washpost.com.
ONLINE DISCUSSION Carolyn Hax’s weekly Web chat is at noon Fridays
at
www.washingtonpost.com/discussions.
doesn’t impress you, then listen to this . . .” Or maybe they think that I’m jealous when I really am not. I just want to share some stories about my kids — who, I happen to think, are wonderful, too — but instead I feel like I’m being drawn into a competition. So now, at our mandatory gatherings, I get quieter and quieter and then I get angry when I get home and I need to vent. Is there a subtle solution that doesn’t involve a confrontation? Or do I just need to suck it up and be silently grateful for all that I have?
When people brag too much about their children, they’re usually trying to feel better about themselves or they’re thinking of their children as trophies on the shelf or as extensions of themselves —an attitude that not only trivializes the children but can make the parents feel betrayed when their children screw up. And every child screws up sooner or later. Your patience and forbearance in the
past has been a gift to your husband, and to his relatives, too, but you need to give that same gift to yourself by avoiding them as much as possible the next time you meet. You can do it by sitting next to the
quietest, least boastful relative in the family and asking her what she thinks about, say, climate change, the 2012 election or a new TV show — anything but her children, her church and her family — or simply by asking her to help you in the kitchen. The other guests won’t mind if you leave the room as long as you are fixing some food for them to eat.
When you do have to sit with all of the
relations, concentrate on their goodness and try to tolerate their dronings as best you can, but when their conversations get too much for you, say, ever so sweetly, “Would you like to hear about my children, too?” This question should be followed by a
long, long pause on your part until one of these relatives is forced to say, “Yes, of course, and please do.” These relatives won’t listen to you for as long as you listened to them or ask you about your children the next time you meet, but you can still interrupt them to talk about your children and your life, so you won’t explode later. And yes, they may tell each other that you are a jealous, competitive wretch, but so what? You know that you’re not, and it is your opinion of yourself that matters, not theirs. However, when you tell these
relatives about the A’s your children have made and the teams they have joined, be sure to tell them about any C’s and D’s they got, too, and which teams they didn’t make this year, because you want them to know that it’s okay for your children to have weaknesses as well as strengths. You also want them to know that your children are the ones who should be complimented for their successes, not you or your husband. The more they hear this old-fashioned idea, the less they’ll need to brag.
style@washpost.com
Marguerite Kelly is a freelance writer. Questions? Send them to advice@
margueritekelly.com or to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.
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