Friday I went to the Vox building with Cate and a few of my St. Joseph’s students. We were early and so missed the huge crowds which was good for seeing the art. This is in no way a comprehensive review of the many shows on view but it seemed that revolutions were the recurring theme of the evening.
With Nick Paparone’s evil eyeball circling maniacally via a little motor in his frat boy sex, beer and hangover room installation, the revolutionary air was set at Vox. Brent Wahl’s quiet revolving zoetrope, a tinfoil mini landscape on a huge turntable that was captured by video and thrown up on the wall as a travelling landscape of the mind echoed the revolving nature of life. The piece is lovely.
Onions, sliced in half and and dipped in rainbow-colored dyes were odiferous circles at Copy in Constance Mensh’s installation. Mensh photographed herself in situ working with the aggressive vegetables. Here she is crying her eyes out; there she is looking serene and like she’s done battle; here she is, frock covered in a mess of dye.
Onions make us cry. But so do breakups, sad movies, pretty rainbows. Many things make us cry. Good food can make people cry. Some of Mensh’s photos — where she is standing behind a table laid with her onions in dye baths — have a wacky Food Network ambiance, like out-takes from a Nigella Lawson show where something went wrong.
Much more to see in this building, from Alex Paik’s new tiny drawings at Tiger to Victorian-esque photographs by Margaux Kent at Jeffrey Stockbridge and, up on 6, a nice view of the Reading Viaduct that one day might just be the Philadelphia High Line (any funders may now please step forward).
I will put in links later (sorry) going to ICA now.
