The wrap-around installation In Step, by Anne Schaefer, covered the door, too.

Her solution was simple–and striking. Instead of mounting several individual pieces, Schaefer created In Step, an installation of painted vinyl panels that wrap around all four walls of the gallery. To ensure that nothing would distract the viewer from In Step‘s visual atmosphere, Schaefer sunk the gallery’s fourteen foot ceiling of to eight feet and painted the inside of door. Once the door is shut, the sensation of being encased in a work of art is complete.

Anne Schaefer, In Step installation, painted vinyl, at Tiger Strikes Asteroid

Schaefer views In Step as an exploration of limitless variation that can be created on a grid. The result is a vibrantly colored pattern of squares and stripes. As I walked around the gallery, I realized that Schaefer’s grid experimentation continues on a smaller scale. Some individual squares are divided into two or four triangles, each of which has been coated with a different finish. The full effect of In Step is powerful, but the artwork also fulfills its premise at close range.

Visitors to Colleen Rudolf‘s exhibit “CON · NECT [KUH · NEKT]” at the Grizzly Grizzly Gallery might feel as though they’ve stepped into a Please Touch Museum for the thinking adult. Rudolf is both perceptive and playful in contrasting animals’ straightforward and instinctual manner of relating to each other with humans’ inability to give our full attention to any single interaction. Rudolf believes that humans’ lack of focus is a recent development, due to the barrage of technological communication to which we are increasingly exposed.

Colleen Rudolf's Inguinal Sniff at GrizzlyGrizzly

The theme of Rudolf’s exhibit is illustrated most clearly in a series of three works on pedestals. On one pedestal is A Moment, a delicately wrought sculpture of two penguins facing each other. On the pedestal on the opposite end is Cellular Phones, two cell phones standing so close together that they, too, seem to be huddled in intimacy.

Colleen Rudolf, A Moment (front), and Cellular Phones on the back pedestal

All of the show’s interactive works require two participants, and therefore facilitate the direct interaction Rudolf admires. My favorite of the interactive pieces, Elephant Feet, gives participants a chance to literally step inside an animal’s “shoes.” While one person steps up and down while wearing a pair of rubber-and-Styrofoam elephant boots, the person wearing the other pair feels vibrations on the soles of their feet. This mimics an actual method of communication among elephants based on seismic vibration.

Colleen Rudolf, Elephant Feet in action

In a final allusion to humans’ reliance on multiple forms of communication, Rudolf has provided laminated sheets of instructions at the gallery’s entrance. While some of the instructions are helpful, most are tongue-in-cheek. Take, for example, the diagrams explaining that one should look at the sculptures rather than swatting them off their pedestals. Rudolf’s point is clear: Are we so unused to direct, intuitive interaction that we need a set of instructions to understand works of art?

Vox Members Shows

Julianna Foster’s From Morning On

Julianna Foster‘s From Morning On continues the artist’s exploration of narrative through serial photography. This group of photographs shows gorgeous misty landscapes, decrepit mystery interiors that are also misty; claustrophobic backyard mists and more. It’s like the misty moors of Wuthering Heights come to the American Northeast farmland. The actor is a woman who performs ambiguous and rather static actions (listening through a wall; blowing dust off a box; staring out a window). And, maybe it’s because he just died, I’m thinking about Andrew Wyeth‘s dreamy, romantic and nostalgic Americana. Of course, Eileen Neff‘s tres post-modern photos of anthropomorphized clouds who dance with trees and have a lovely existence in the woods and inside houses also come to mind. Foster’s work intrigues by remaining ambiguous at its core, but its lyricism and beauty draw you in. This series is open enough to let all minds wander around and claim the territory for their own.  And let’s not forget we’re in Oscar season.  What kind of movie would this be?

Juliana Foster From Morning On

Several of the photos are framed but not under glass and those pieces become more palpably real — like objects — in a way the glass-framed pieces aren’t. It’s the same non-glass framing Zoe Strauss used for her recent show at Silvertstein and the strategy gives the photos immediacy and plays up their sensuality.

James Johnson, Break, view through the glass door.

James Johnson‘s Break is a breakout piece. The artist used to work in small boxes, putting dollhouse-sized photos in spaces accessible through a peephole or other voyeuristic device. Break is a life-size box (a whole room in the gallery) separated from the viewer by a locked, glass-panel door (the artist selected the door, he says, for its resemblance to Maurizio Catalan’s The Wrong Gallery door.)  Outfitted like it’s a small office this big box has a desk, easy chair, books and slippers. At the opening and at other times during the show’s run it will also have the artist, in residence, sitting, reading, writing and cogitating in the space. Johnson says it’s not a performance piece, but when the artist puts his body in the picture I read it that way. The theatrical aspect pushes into rich territory and I am excited to see where the artist goes next. Artist trapped in a box? I can see that going far.

Eva Wylie, A Continuous Shuffle of Earthturf

Eva Wylie‘s A Continuous Shuffle of Earthturf is a continuous shuffle of imagery in the artist’s virtuoso silkscreen-on-wall method.  From afar the piece looks like an asymmetrical array of candy-colored floating toys or balloons. Up close, the images come into focus as a profusion of women’s hair pieces:  long plaits — thick, double-braidings and solitary ropes — mostly upside down.  Something about the shape of the plaits and their relation to the crown of the head gives them a topsy-turvy jellyfish look, which I quite like. I have no idea what the work is about–whether it’s celebratory or wry — but the image, screened right onto the pristine wall, is dazzling.

Eva Wylie, A Continuous Shuffle of Earthturf (detail)

Vox Alumni show

It’s great that the alternative space continues to showcase its alumni members which allows you to catch up with the artists, or in some cases, meet them for the first time.

Merilee Challiss

Merrilee Challiss‘ delicate white on black works on paper with pinking sheer edges and what appear to be embroidery hoop frames are Edward Gorey-delightful. The work nods to arts and crafts and book illustration and is a nice mix of old, new, high and low.

John T. Lange

John T. Lange‘s mini landscape projection via two clattery old film projectors has a hobby shop charm.

Anne Schaefer.  Photo by Libby.

Anne Schaefer‘s little tower of patterned boxes is elegant and seems like it walked in from the AiA Bookstore — meta-architectural blocks for kids to play with.

Video Lounge

In the video lounge, David Tinapple‘s Scatter Square translates a seascape into a series of digital rows and columns of tiles which it then flips around reconfiguring the landscape like one of those old-fashioned tile games that you can now get for your keychain. There’s a solitary soul on the beach and it’s funny to think of the person being shuffled around willy nilly not even knowing what’s happening. But I guess that’s life for you.