Anna Neighbor (left) moderates discussion with artists Matt Giel (center) and Alanna Lawley (right) at Grizzly Grizzly

For some of us squeezed into the gallery a week ago Sunday for a talk, the experience was similar to sitting in the “view obstructed” seats at the Academy of Music. (Not me; I sat in the one and only chair).

We were there for Grizzly Grizzly’s first ever artists’ talk for a show in their space.

The show, Duett, includes work by two artists, both of whom use photography. Matt Giel (hard G) is a Philadelphian, and Alanna Lawley (second a in Alanna is long), a Brit stationed in Berlin, and they both need pronunciation guides for their names.

Matt Giel's endless seascape, plus a pin-up version with real t-pins and unexposed t-pin shapes on the print.

Giel first came to our attention in last spring’s University of Delaware MFA show. with a life-sized self-portrait photo draped over a chair, for one thing. And show curator Becky Hunter, on seeing Giel’s work in that same show, thought it would make a good pairing with work by her old school friend Lawley. Hunter, having moved here from England, was a bit homesick and disconnected. So inviting her friend Alanna to show here with Giel seemed like a good personal solution, she confessed in her introductory comments to the talk.

Vox artist  Anna Neighbor, who moderated the discussion, wanted to know what frustration with the limits of the 2-D photographic surface led the artists to explore beyond the flat, framed piece of paper. (Pause for a moment with me to add these four presenters to the count of people squeezed into the gallery space).

Giel’s main piece is a rolled-up, 305-foot long horizontal scroll of a seemingly endless seascape photograph, the end taped around the room like a chair rail. The image was made from a commonplace shot of the ocean from the Atlantic City boardwalk, he said. He dragged the exposure process across the length of the scroll in a darkroom during a 7-hour process in an effort to transcend the usual 2D image. He defined the work as a performance piece–starting in the darkroom and ending in the gallery installation.

Alanna Lawley's installation of faux domestic spaces was like a stage-set.

Alanna’s scrolls hang vertically, using design and architecture magazines as her source material for domestic spaces. But the spaces are anything but domestic. They are chilly yet meant to seduce. Of her blowups, she said that they too are seductive at the same time that they repel the eye with their commercial intent and their confusing, broken up spaces. The images are further broken up by the dot printing process of the original printed pages.

“Where do you put the toothpaste,” Neighbor said, summing up how inhuman Lawley’s “spaces” are. Lawley went on to describe the spaces as “aspirational and ultimately unlivable,” an idea of an ideal home that’s fractured and so slick the images can be dismissed at first glance. There was some discussion about the aspiration qualities of both artists works and how they were the same–perfect home, perfect seascape.

Neighbor then moved on to how they were different.  While Lawley’s spaces and scrolls have an untouched quality, emphasized by the high-tech metal bars from which they hang, Giel’s have a strong sense of the artists’ hand manipulating the installation by taping and pinning. Giel’s work, he agreed, was very much about the body and the physical relationship of the work to him and to the audience.

“Some photos don’t exist in the physical world,” said Lawley.

Giel agreed–or not: “You have to experience them.”

I asked Lawley how she got her work here from Berlin and she said her fabulous printer did it all–made the prints, rolled them all up in one package and mailed them here.

This may have been Grizzly’s first talk, but it won’t be it’s last. Another is on tap for Sunday Jan. 22, 3pm, also at the gallery, let by web pro and curator Kelani Nichole. Giel and Hunter will be in attendance and Alanna Lawley, who has returned home to Berlin, will be there via Skype–as part of the preparation and thinking that went into this show, the artists Skyped back and forth. (Kelani used to be artblog’s web guru).

Leah Bailis, detail Facades, 2009, cardboard, paint, wood, cinderblocks and light

Taking Measures, features work by Delawarean Chad States, and two Vox Populi members,  Leah Bailis and Anna Neighbor, each of the three channeling a different aspect of secretiveness.

Leave Your Door Slightly Open, archival pigment print, 16 x 20 inches

Chad States’ conceptual take on the internet, on chat rooms, on illicit sex and on the nature of language is pitch perfect. He has created seven archival pigment prints of white on white lettering. The words, difficult to read, are the sorts of language that no one would ever record as quotable:

Walk Into The Woods, Follow the Path near the Pond
Use Your Instincts
Go Down the Road a Mile Or So, There Is a Parking Lot on the Right

The words come off an internet homosexual chat room, said FLUXspace’s Nike Desis, when I speculated about the source.

Chad States, installation shot of barely visible, white on white prints, at FLUXspace's Taking Measures

This is the best piece of ultra-conceptual art that I’ve seen in a long time. It gives the flavor of hiding, of the anonymity of the chat room and of the barely visible quality of any sexual encounter that society doesn’t sanction. And the sheer ordinariness of the language is a nice reminder of the sheer ordinariness–and seediness–of these sorts of encounters, mostly devoid of romance but intense in desire and danger.

The anonymity here is a very different take on dirty from the pole dance pictures of Philip-Lorca diCorcia. What’s with society that women doing sexual acts with poles can reveal themselves to whomever, with their noms de pole attached? They are items of display, not in the least furtive. The only nods there to sneakiness is the dark room and the pseudonyms. That hardly qualifies as anonymity and invisibility!

Anna Neighbor, from her Hideout series, archival inkjet prints, 32 x 40 inches each

In a nice pairing with States, Anna Neighbor has photographed “hideouts” in overgrown scrub. Desis said the hideouts are places where people go for sex. Even if you’re not in on that information, the word hideout in the titles allows you to surmise that someone meets there secretly, perhaps some kids playing out of sight of mom and dad. Either way, it has the feel of thrill and danger and secrecy.

The large scale of these archival inkjet prints, 32 x 40 inches, gives the sense of entry into the hollowed out areas in the scrub. Rather than the small-scale, peep-show gropings of  Kohei Yoshiyuki‘s infrared photographs of clandestine lovers in a public park that showed at Yossi Milo Gallery in 2007 (such a crowd to see the porno that I could only edge my way in!), Neighbor’s photos offer a poetic openness to multiple interpretations and situations.

Leah Bailis, Facades, 2009, cardboard, paint, wood, cinderblocks and light, with Tables and Chairs in the background. Both pieces, dimensions variable, as installed in FLUXspace

The third piece, Facades, by Bailis, is essentially the narrow alley between two white clapboard or siding walls, a small spot where kids can hide and talk, out of sight of adults. Although the space between is beautifully lit by sunlight, it is still an emotionally dark space. Bailis has also installed another piece, a pair of tables and chairs. They are set up so whoever sits in the chairs cannot see what’s happening in the alley between the walls. The tables are two different sizes–Mama table and Papa table?

Leah Bailis, Facades, 2009, cardboard, paint, wood, cinderblocks and light, with Tables and Chairs in the background. Both pieces, dimensions variable, as installed at FLUXspace

Tables and Chairs is a separate piece from Facades, but the two work together nicely, plus they take the show in another direction, and bring to mind school desks and kitchen tables and ordinary family life– and just how do we measure what is normal, what is acceptable, what is public and what is secret?

The exhibit is the first that FLUX’s new Art Advisory Council–Mark Shetabi, Tim Belknap, Winifred Lutz, Tom Zummer, Stamatina Gregory and Peter Krashes (the lone New Yorker)–selected from about 30 proposals FLUXspace received in answer to a call. More exhibits to come from this process!!!

Vox Populi’s December members’ show is a conceptual outing that—with the exception of Amy Adams’ sparse but evocative “Our Boat That Is Made of Flowers”—is totally puzzling.

The newly married Adams is the former executive director of Vox and now works as the director of Fleisher-Ollman Gallery. Her installation is about power, love, war and peace, triggered by her recent honeymoon to Europe where she saw many old paintings of battle scenes and power brokers. Adams’ installation has two parts: a video animation of ocean waves abstracted from a maritime battle painting, and two portraits comprised of words from emails between the artist and her then-fiance.

The animation extracts the ships, smoke, guns and combatants from the original scanned painting and leaves only the waves that she set in motion. Because her source material is a scanned book plate of a painted sea and lacks color, the waves feel unreal – more like a sea of oatmeal than water. But the undulations still invoke seasickness. The idea of a woman editing the Old Masters, grabbing power from the powerful, is irresistible.

Amy Adams, Our Boat That Is Made Of Flowers pair of portraits of the bride and groom. Photo by Libby.

Adams’ two word portraits, framed and leaning against the wall, are clearly the products of laborious attention to detail. The task of cutting and pasting the words from each email into a “his” and “hers” Word document then sorting the words alphabetically seems an almost crazy thing to do. You can’t boil down a conversation between two people in love to the sum of its parts and have it make sense, can you? Shockingly, the portraits do seem to work that way. The bubbly Adams’ portrait is twice as long as her husband’s and who’s to say that’s not capturing some kernel of truth.

While Adams’ pieces are very straightforward in their meaning, the rest of the show provides a challenge for casual viewers.

Corey Antis, Herman Street, 2008
Arylic, flashe on paper
18 x 24 inches

Corey Antis’ small works on paper circle the first room. The pieces look similar to sketches, plans or architectural drawings. Washy and with surprising colors—salmon and black in one piece—the series suggests ongoing research. Ultimately, the works are puzzles too personal to be compelling.

Anna Neighbor, Hold Me Like You Mean It, 2008
Archival inkjet print
33 x 50 inches

Anna Neighbor’s large photo-based works also allude to something more. One photo is almost entirely black. Former Voxers Justin Witte and Olivia Schreiner’s collaboration in the guest gallery is a disappointment compared to their past outings, and Rebekah Tolley’s slow-motion videos projected on objects are reminiscent of lava lamps. Meanwhile, Mark Lewis’ video North Circular in Screening has cinematic chops that create a sense of mystery, beauty, suspense and denouement. (View it at his website).

“Vox Populi December Members Show.”
Through Dec. 28.
Vox Populi, 319 N. 11th St., third fl.
215.238.1236.

Post-Minimalism and Post-Photoshopism and Post-Illustratorism have all joined forces to abhor the straight line and perspective, abhor the mass produced, abhor the slick perfection and abhor the uniformity that Minimalism and computer graphics–and advertising–promised. Those were the formal issues that struck me silly when I walked into Slought to see The Day After, an exhibit of work by recent MFA graduated of Penn, Tyler and PAFA.

To put it another way, this show is sad and angry, a declaration of innocence lost and dreams tucked away. The Day After is literal in these students’ lives, the day after they have been shot out into the art world from their protected MFA experience; and it’s figurative, the era after 9/11, when the American Dream has collapsed and the American self-image of righteousness, under the Bush administration, has been swept away by the Cheney-Bush-Addington axis of evil (see Jane Mayer’s article in the July 3 New Yorker).

There was a lot to like in this exhibit, and a lot to think about. Some of the work I’d already seen at the Penn MFA exhibit at the Icebox–Wil Medearis‘ Alex-Katzian self-portraits, Pernot Hudson’s blurry family portraits of Boehm birds and other pricy porcelain knick-knacks–but most of it was new to me.

exterior view of Corridor, by Amy Walsh

Amy Walsh’s ramshackle jumbles of random cartons offer peepholes into evocative, familiar spaces–factory loft and city lights, corridor with doors and a window to a blue sky, a building that is either being gutted and rebuilt or has been abandoned before completion, a staircase, a curtain over a doorway. I had thoughts of Urs Fischer and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Miraculously, the miniature spaces still bristled with ambition and boldness. I loved this work.

one of the peephole views into The Visitor, by Amy Walsh

What I saw plus what Roberta said about boxes (post here) brought me to the thought that sculpture had changed focus from beautiful exteriors to vulnerable interiors. The exteriors shout, “Can you get past my warts and see me for who I really am?” Walsh is a PAFA grad. (Here are links to my and Roberta’s Flickr sets).

an untitled piece by Blaine Siegel in the window of Slought Foundation

A bristly exterior also covers PAFA grad Blaine Siegel’s sculpture in the front window of Slought, a video screen peeking out from a shingled cave of torn styrofoam and corrugated cardboard. The rough materials and caveman quality reminded me of Thomas Hirschhorn. Siegel’s Gobdiddlymuck monster also dares you to love (Roberta described and photographed Siegel’s Gobdiddlymuck monster so nicely that I’ll just refer you again to her post).

Untowards (09) by Anna Neighbor

Tyler grad Anna Neighbor’s blurry, penumbral “Untoward” photographs–of the part of a chandelier above the lights and a picture of loneliness personified in a double bed with one empty pillow–also dare to show the unlovely and the unloved. Also from Tyler, Joe Protheroe’s deliberately unperspectival, cartoony-crude paintings seem like rebellions against Photoshop, and from PAFA, Max Maddox’s abstractions of crusty gestures dare you to admire their unloveliness. Maddox’s marks made me think of Anne Seidman’s early, Zen gesture paintings–utterly different and yet also challenging and bristly.

a shot from The Baby, by Tricia Lopez

Tricia Lopez’s DVD “The Baby” also demands love for the unlovely, but she puts the beauty on the outside and the ugliness within. A beautiful woman, with a voice distorted to sound deep and disturbed, begs another beautiful woman to accept and love her hurt, broken inner baby. I wondered if this video was influenced by the identity theft commercials, in which an innocent victim channels the voice of the thief.

An Appearance of Comprehension, by Michelle Le Claire

Even Hudson, whose paintings of fine family tschotschkes retain some of the attractiveness of the originals, is putting his family jewels on the line, questioning the values they represent and in a way challenging this part of himself that he isn’t so sure he likes. The tiny photo-shaped drawings of childhood innocence lost by PAFA’s Michelle LeClaire also feed into the American Dream and the ugliness beneath the false romanticism of our past.

A Slow, Still, Dying, by Brent Wahl

I thought at first that Penn grad Brent Wahl was marching to a different drummer. His DVD A Slow, Still, Dying of an immobile man bleeding out in front of your eyes though, again raises the issue of what’s on the inside, what’s on the outside, and just how vulnerable a human being is. This one is right on the edge of 9/11 thinking, the man looking so tough and soldier-like with his shaven head, stoically sitting as the blood seeps out.

The two outlyers were Medearis and Tyler grad Timothy Belknap.

I’m not so sure about Medearis, who puts himself and his girl in a Ralph Lauren social drama. I can’t tell if he loves Alex Katz and Ralph Lauren and these are sincere fantasies, or if the clay-colored skin serves as warning that the fantasy is false and the social aspirations may not be so attractive.

front view of Red Dumpster With Strap-On, by Timothy Belknap

Marching to a different drummer is Belknap. He has gussied up his high-gloss Red Dumpster With Strap-On in a way that emphasizes its perfection as an industrially manufactured product, as a machine (the works are beautifully put together and visible on the inside) and as a toy. He uses its interactive, pristine white-plush drumstick to draw attention. I stepped on the little treadle, waited a little, and sure enough the drumstick pounded the dumpster. Even though I wondered about the sexual implications of a Strap-On, I couldn’t help but think that for Belknap, innocence and optimism were not yet lost.

On the other hand, the dumpster also brought Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum to my mind, its stealth subject matter of false innocence and moral blindness suddenly flipping my view on the dumpster. This might not have crossed my mind in some other context–and with another group of curators who wear their intellectual and political hearts on their sleeves. Osvaldo Romberg, Aaron Levy and Jean-Michel Rabaté’s choices, when I got done coalesced, into a political vision that transcended the personal stories each of these students had to tell.