C8
EZ SU
KLMNO
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010
galleries Large-scale imagery, at times, is lost in translation
BY JESSICA DAWSON L
ook no further than the Embassy of Australia for an exhibition so full of information that it could
use a year-end cleanup. The work of Perth-based artist Gregory Pryor in- clines toward memoir — of his artist residencies in Taiwan and Austria, and of indigenous flora in his homeland’s rugged southwest coast. For Pryor, forgoing editing—ofimage, of text—is the main strategy. And it works as often as it fails. Pryor presents four major works
and a smattering of small paintings. The major works are literally very big, made up of sometimes hundreds of panels of drawings that wallpaper the gallery in grid formations. As installed here, these ink and text
piecesmake lovely, decorative arrange- ments. But the eyes begin to glaze at themany detailed renderings of botan- ical specimens for which Pryor clearly feels a deep passion.He tackedsometo the wall; others he installed dramati- cally in funereal vitrines stationed in a long line at the gallery’s center. Al- though true to life and lovingly de- tailed, they all look the same to un- trained eyes. The works exhibited in vitrines are entombed in black cases on which a very long rusty chain and a few heavy balls sit. The scene invites dramatic, punitive readingsandsuggestsAustra- lian convict lore. Turns out, though, that those shackles found a second life in the clearing of the country’s wild brush. Drag them along the ground and they’ll take up anything on their path, apparently. As for the drawings of exotic flora,
they act like botanical snapshots of a region. The subtext here is the incur- sion of non-native species and their clashes with indigenous ones. In theo- ry, at least, they suggest the great sweep of Australian history — the convicts, the aboriginals, the imperial invaders. But those larger issues re- main submerged, lost in details and Latin nomenclature best saved for spe- cialists. Unsurprisingly, Pryor has secured
several international residencies re- searching
plants.The herbal obsession prompted a series of trips that forced the artist into unfamiliar places and yielded the most interesting works here.
While seeking out a rare plant in
Taiwan (it yields a sought-after artist’s paper), Pryor documented his daily goings-on in diary-like pages of dense text written in ink on silk. The artist asked a local to write a response,which was written in elegant and (to me, at least) indecipherable Chinese. The resulting 288-panel artwork (it
covers a most of a long gallery wall) juxtaposes Pryor’s musings with those of his new friends. These texts are supplemented by simple, ink-on-paper images, such as one showing the out- line of the island nation. What’s happening here is anyone’s
guess. If I readChinese I’dknowbetter, but for themoment,I prefer remaining in the dark. Pryor’s emphasis on daili- ness and detail hints at the pleasures (and problems) of miscommunication and finds something more substantive than the filigreed veins of a leaf.
Jonah Takagi at Civilian Art This month, Civilian teams up with
Douglas Burton and Christopher Ral- ston from design shop ApartmentZero (once bricks-and-mortar, now online- only) to showcase a rare bird: a talent- ed, District-based designerwho’sgoing somewhere. His name is Jonah Takagi, he’s 31,
and his lamps and tables show up in Dwell, Details and the New York
JONAH TAKAGI/CIVILIAN ART PROJECTS AND APARTMENT ZERO
PAUL MORIGI/EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA CALLFORRESPONSE: At the Australian Embassy, a 288-panel artwork juxtaposes Gregory Pryor’s musings with those of his friends.
Times. Manufacturers nationwide are producing his prototypes, and he’s the talk of furniture fairs. Also, he’s in a band.
Which means: This is the first and probably last time you’ll see him in a space as intimate as this. The show’s highlights suggest the influence of offbeat Dutch design. Tak- agi transforms the quotidian into the uncanny with economical gestures — he hung a table lamp from the ceiling and christened it a chandelier; he tweaked the scale of an industrial street lamp and now it illuminates your desk. Amarvel of stiff simplicity and cruel
beauty,Takagi’sAmericanGothicTable is a five-legged affair that’s just odd enough to invite further looking. And yes, it does suggest the storied Grant Wood painting, making me wonder if that forbidding couple would have been so much happier had they owned a piece like this.
Heather Bursch at Flashpoint Bynowyou’ve heard that Flashpoint
lost its major funders for next year — deep cuts in theD.C. Commission on the Arts andHumanities budget are partly to blame. The gallery re- cently issued a plea for funding. The caliber of work shown
here has improved steadily in recent seasons, and the cur- rent gem is no exception. This sweet curiosity is a minute-long video by Los An- geles- and New York-based artist Heather Bursch. A tour de force of appropriation, it’ll take paragraphs to explain what’s happening and even then, it probably won’t
STIFF SIMPLICITY: “AmericanGothic Table” by Jonah Takagi.
make sense. The synopsis: A sometimes muffled
audio snippet from Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” begins as our hero — or antihero — takes the stage, says something about being from New Jersey and then joyous applause turns to wicked ridicule. Sounds morph and the situation—aurally, at least—goes from bad to worse. The visuals that Bursch offers are minimal. She has placed us just behind the comic, facing the stage as he takes it. Fairly quickly, though, we lose all reality markers. The comic appears in silhouette, and the audience devolves into a bunch of pixelated images. Andwhat are those pixels?Turnsout
that the screen is made up of 1,024 moving images — movies within the movie—that show the artist waving a golden placard to catch and deflect light. It’s a curious visual building block for this bizarre little artworkthat seems at once off-putting and highly personal.Go see it for yourself.
style@washpost.com
Dawson is a freelance writer.
Gregory Pryor: Vapour Trails at the Embassy of Australia through Feb. 4.
1601 Massachusetts Ave.NW. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or by appointment. The embassy will be closed for part of December. 202-797-3383.
Jonah Takagi:NewAmerican Design
at Civilian Art Projects through Jan. 8. 1019 Seventh St.NW,Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 1 pm. to 6 p.m.; Friday, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. 202-607-3804 or
civilianartprojects.com.
Heather Bursch:Unreleased
at Flashpoint through Dec. 22. 916 G St.NW, Tuesday-Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. 202-315-1305 or
flashpointdc.org.
JONAH TAKAGI/CIVILIAN ART PROJECTS AND APARTMENT ZERO
DESIGN ELEMENT:“Hanging Table Lamp” by Jonah Takagi.
Protesting Portrait Gallery censorship, artist wants to remove photo bronson from C1
of his partner, Felix Partz, lying in bed minutes or hours after he died of complications fromAIDS. The photo is one of the exhibition’s
linchpin works, which this writer praised as a “harrowing, almost unbear- able image” in a review of “Hide/Seek.” “I do this out of solidarity with David
Wojnarowicz,” Bronson said by phone fromNewYork on Thursdaymorning. “I feel I have no choice but towithdrawthe work.” He said his decision came after the
Smithsonian refused to reinstate Wojn- arowicz’s work in the show, even though the Andy Warhol Foundation had an- nounced that it would withdraw future funding to Smithsonian shows if the video wasn’t put back on display. “As far as I’mconcerned, everybody in
the show should withdraw their work,” Bronson said. He said a Portrait Gallery curator e-mailed asking that he reverse his decision, but he plans to forge ahead with the removal. Bronson requested the withdrawal in
an e-mail toMartin Sullivan, director of the Portrait Gallery, in which he in- formed Sullivan that he has asked the National Gallery of Canada, the work’s
lived through, and died with, I cannot take the decision of the Smithsonian lightly. To edit queer history in this way is hurtful and disrespectful.”
“As an artist who saw firsthand the tremendous agony and pain that so many of my generation lived through, and died with, I cannot take the decision of the Smithsonian lightly.” —AA Bronson, explaining his decision
owner, to take back the photo. “I had resisted taking this step, hop-
ing that some reconciliation could be reached regarding the censorship of the David Wojnarowicz video,” Bronson wrote, “but it is clear that this is not coming anytime soon. As an artist who saw firsthand the tremendous agony and pain that somany ofmy generation
If the Canadian museum chooses not
to withdraw the work, it is not yet clear whether Bronson can force them to do so. “I don’t think I need to compel them,” he said. “I think they’ll be quite support- ive.” He said he has corresponded with a
curator at the National Gallery of Cana- da who agrees with his position but had
not yet spoken to themuseum’s director, MarcMayer. Bronson also raised the possibility
that even Mayer might not have full authority to have the piecewithdrawn, if the loan agreementwere for a fixed term and the Smithsonian chose to enforce it — which, however, Bronson finds very unlikely. Reached on Thursday afternoon, a
Portrait Gallery spokesman said, “The work by AA Bronson is currently up on view. We will adhere to the loan agree- ment, and the lender has not asked us for this to be removed.” On Thursday evening, the National
Gallery of Canada said that Mayer was not yet ready to comment on thematter, as he had yet to speak to the artist. Reflecting on the controversy over the
Wojnarowicz video, Bronson said that “the issue is not an issue of art versus religion.” Though not a follower of any single
creed (”I’ve never figured out what I am”), Bronson works as artistic director of the Institute for Art, Religion and
Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York, which describes itself as “the oldest independent, nonde- nominational seminary in the nation.” He said that many of his peers at the
seminary findWojnarowicz’s video to be an “entirely appropriate” use of Jesus on the cross, whose image, they think, stands for “universal suffering.”Bronson said he believes “a very large contingent of Christians” would approve of this reading of the video, “but it is less visible than the Christian right.” Though raised in the Anglican
Church in Canada, Bronson says he stopped practicing when he was 7 because of fury at a hypocritical Sunday- school teacher. More recently, he spent 14 years as a
practicing Buddhist. “In the end,” he said, “I seem to have come back in the direction of Christianity.”
gopnikb@washpost.com
6
DO YOU AGREEWITH BRONSON? Add your opinion and see how others are
reacting at
washingtonpost.com/style.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112