This week’s Weekly has my Editor’s Pick preview of Cara Erskine and Norm Paris’s “Huddle” at Tower Gallery. Below is the copy with some pictures.
Norm Paris, Son of Arnold, mortar, foam, papier mache, paint. approximately 11 ft high.
In 2005 at his Fleisher Challenge exhibit Norm Paris presented a small army of cast-plaster Michael Jordans with tongues hanging out attempting to catch falling bombs. In this new two-person exhibit, Paris and his Yale classmate Cara Erskine present a dialogue of works in paint, sculpture and prints in which the sports metaphor again presents issues of hero-worship and hope—and the impossibility of false heroes saving the world. Tower’s owner Jenny Jaskey says Paris created a massive concrete and forton MG sculptural installation, and this time the hero is a baby—”Son of Arnold (Schwartzenneger)”—who appears to be bench-pressing a pile of concretized rubble in a rubbish-strewn urban construction zone. Whether the reference is Iraq or Ground Zero, baby Superman or baby governor of California, the idea of misplaced hopes and failure are tied together in a sad package.
Cara Erskine’s “Hands”, a 13-ft diptych of gender-ambiguous hands covered with sports rings
Erskine, represented by six works (including a 13-foot-long diptych), presents the ambiguity of winning with works that show victorious players whose faces register everything but happiness.
PS. See Rob Matthew’s post about the show’s opening for more pix and commentary.
Cara Erskine and Norm Paris: Huddle. Through March. Free. Tower Gallery, 969 N. Second St. 215.253.9874.
