Ryan Pierce at Elizabeth Leach

Ryan Pierce, Blue Rooster, 2008

acrylic on canvas over panel

Represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery*

I graduated in a hail storm with Ryan Pierce a little over six years ago. Both Ryan and I received BFA's in Craft with an emphasis on drawing and painting. Over the course of four years we took many classes together, and I remember thinking then that Ryan Pierce already had what so many of us did not: a direction. His passions and proclivities, while inchoate, were in place.

I tell you all this as means of disclaimer— I respect and admire Ryan Pierce. I have for years; and while that doesn't make me uniquely qualified to review his solo exhibit at Elizabeth Leach Gallery (on display through the end of this month), it does offer me an extra layer of personal presumption about understanding his technical tendencies and allegorical preoccupations. Some art critics write reviews with far less. . .

* * * * *

The first thing that struck me about the work in Written from Exile was that Ryan has pushed himself to become a far more painterly painter. Many of his stylistic tendencies from years ago are still very much in effect: saturated complementary colors (the blues and oranges of Blue Rooster), crisp graphic shapes (the furrowed ground upon which said Blue Rooster stands), and the outlining of select shapes with a tidy line of darker tone (as evidenced in the rocks clutched by the blisteringly orange talons of the aforementioned Blue Rooster)— but they are tempered by a newer acquiescence for allowing the nature of the paint to run a bit wild.

Carefully selected areas of textured under-painting are allowed to contribute to the overall melange of color, and they contrast well with Pierce's very crisp, albeit periodically fussy, draftsmanship. There are rag wiped waves of glaze-infused pigment in Sea Oats (After Cormic McCarthy) and suminagashi-like tree trunks that dominate the landscape in The Fog Collectors (After Ival Lackovic Croata). This acceptance of the process of painting allows the drips and stains of the developing work to contribute to the palimpsest of imagery, and resonate well with Pierce's themes of environmental shift and the marginaliazation of human existence within a world both fecund and wasted.

Ryan Pierce, Havasu, 2009

acrylic on canvas over panel

When considering Pierce's subject matter, it is hard to not be struck by the oddly blasé view of mankind's future that he presents. In Havasu a wrecked motor boat has been consumed by desert and surrounded by equal parts cacti and plastic water bottles. Arizona's aquatic playground has become naught but sand and refuse. Only a fire pit outside of the capsized boat and a sleeping bag (which may or may not be inhabited) grant any evidence of continued human existence. The boat has been draped to provide the sleeper an escape from the sun, but the drape is more a funerary shroud for the former Havasu than it is an expression of human survival.

In fact, most of the references to humanity in the show are references by way of necessity; by which I mean that Pierce wishes to convey to the viewer that some semblance of humanity will survive the impending environmental upheaval, but he does so only to point out that our role will be that of any other creature trying to scratch out survival in an ultimately ambivalent environment. We'll have no divine spark. We'll feel no sense of entitlement. We will not recognize the tools of our own fall.

Ryan Pierce, Umpqua, 2009

acrylic on canvas over panel

Umpqua, which is hung next to Havasu, is even more overtly narrative, depicting a wood paneled trophy room that has been attacked by the very woods it used to victimize. Deer graze off grass growing atop the floor and the trophy heads of boars mounted to the wall leeringly sprout tufts of green. Books slide off hardwood shelving and a snag has fallen through the ceiling to crush the wooden dining table. The deer have accessed this former interior through broken plate glass windows that are now simply reminders of the former separation between inside and out. The narrative is clear— so clear as to be almost patronizing, and therefore, in my mind, the least successful work in the exhibit.

Ryan Pierce, Comet, 2009

acrylic on canvas over panel

If you contrast Umpqua with the magnificently painted, and far less pontific, Comet (which hangs on the opposite wall of the gallery) a sense of how Pierce is also working towards a much more subtle exploration of Nature's intrinsic power can be gleaned. There is no evidence of the human figure in this turquoise lagoon, no sleeping bag amidst the massive blue pumpkins or abnormally green ferns. Comet dangles a smoldering oil drum over cereleun blue water. The drum is lashed to a tree limb that looks as if, at any moment, it will lever forward and extinguish the flame in the lagoon below. The surrounding environment may already look irradiated; it may suffer even more from that final infusion of burning chemical, but ultimately it continues to put forth life. The vines adorn the tree limbs and the ground cover works its way around the remnants of a barbed wire fence. The eradication of man's folly is inevitable. Mother Nature, through dent of her longevity and our extinction, is granted the TKO.

It is not without cause that Pierce's most arresting paintings are the ones that show the least evidence of human activity. The apocryphal presence of the roosters pull far more conceptual weight than the allegorical thicket that makes up Easter Island (pictured on the show card for the exhibit). Easter Island's cautionary tale about capitalism, fascism, religious dogma and environmental control, while beautifully rendered, just feels too similar in its over-loaded presentation to the inane quantities of goods, ideas, and beliefs being critiqued.

Despite the few ups and downs I encountered in Written from Exile, I feel that Ryan Pierce delivers an impressive show. It is for good reason that he is one of the more talked about artists in Portland right now. As was true all those years ago in our painting classes, he is at his most poignant when he's pursuing his themes without resorting to the explicit narrative. In the future, I hope that Pierce treats his paintings as the stenography of environmental possibility, not the moralizing indictment of an irredeemable mankind. That doesn't necessitate that he dilute his direction, only that he question when enough is truly enough.

*Written from Exile will be on display at Elizabeth Leach Gallery through October 31, 2009. All images copyright Ryan Pierce.

Spoiler Alert!

Photo by Edwin Aldrin, Apollo 11, July 16-24, 1969

Courtesy of NASA Image eXchange (NIX)

Hasselblad 70mm transparency

Ariana and I went with high hopes to see Moon the other night. Our hopes were dashed.

Here's what I hoped would not be part of a movie about the moon that had been billed as quiet, contemplative, and spiritual:

1. a talking computer with questionable motives— Talking computers may be the future, but after HAL, there's really no way to cast a computer without it being an obvious play on HAL, and that means that everyone will assume the computer is evil, heartless (if you have a hard time with the word evil), or susceptible to devastatingly literal programming by emotionally stunted programmers. Unless of course some clever auteur were to subvert our expectation of a HAL-like computer and give it a heart, hmmmm. . . didn't see that one coming.

Happy and sad face computer displays as an empathy device don't go over so well either; especially in a mostly monochrome movie of moon dust and plastic surroundings.

2. another clone movie that explores what it means to be human— Let me just say that there is not one moment in this film that comes close to the emotional resonance of Rutgur Hauer's justification for his right to life in the final scene of Blade Runner. Which isn't to say that Sam Rockwell does a bad job, because he doesn't. But he has a hard time really getting to a the low we would expect of a man left alone to die— a man whose whole world view has been shattered— because there's another, more vivacious him, to play off of. This ends up making it more of a surreal buddy movie rather than a reflection of selfhood.

Or, as my wife put it: it's hard not to just get Weird Al's "I Think I'm a Clone Now" on a loop in your head for the last hour of the movie.

3. lots of talking and even a few jokes— Clearly somebody didn't read their Making of an Epic Space Tale 101 Handbook. If the objective is to make a profound film set in space make sure everyone says very little.

Sure, Moon has the weird unexplainable visions part nailed. And it was adapted from a short story into a long feature length film, so those are some instant credibility points. But ultimately, the movie is awfully heavy on dialogue and woefully light on sweeping desolate vistas to truly enter the ranks of the memorable space epic.

So let me offer a suggestion for round two, because the sequel to this film could be awesome. In the final shot of Moon there is a bit of voice over that alludes to the reaction on Earth after Mr. Rockwell returns to tell his tale of clone woe. If you want to make a truly good science fiction movie, how about a genre-bending court room drama about a clone who falls to earth and explodes an international debate about what makes a human being human, coupled with an exploration about how immigration policy must be reconsidered in light of the cloning capacity of nefarious mining corporations.

I'll write it for any studio in Hollywood for, say, half a million dollars.

Call me.

Lawrence Lessig and the Remix Culture

I've been reading Lawrence Lessig's book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. Lessig is a lawyer and law professor who has been at the forefront of questioning copyright controls in the digital age. He presents a number of ideas about how the internet, crowdsourcing, and artistic remixing are the modalities for economic and cultural development in the 21st century.

Unlike other books that I've read about the digital revolution,* Lessig comes down squarely on the side of technological innovation and all that it has spurred: presenting a picture of the internet as a vast frontier of fodder for art, music, activism, education, and altruism. His primary objective with Remix is to demonstrate why 20th century copyright law and the uncompromising definition of property serves neither company nor consumer in the 21st century.

In Lessig's "hybrid" economy consumers are not just consumers, they are empowered to take an active role in shaping and advancing the things they consume. Images, music, movies, text: all are easily rendered into binary and therefore easily mixed up (or mashed up, for those of you who prefer more contemporary lingo) into a potentially cross-cultural and interdisciplinary form of new creative expression. This "remixing" is taken on by the very people who formerly just bought such entertainment to be entertained. It is, in some ways, the ultimate triumph of fan fiction** (just applied to every art form in addition to writing).

But Lessig isn't espousing a world where passive consumers simply become more active consumers and the wheels of the free market just fall into the fresher ruts formed by the digital world. Lessig believes that remix culture is a means by which democracy is enriched and ensured because it honors the way a new generation has learned to "write." As writing was fundamental to formulating our democracy (July 4th is ultimately about a written document, not beer or fireworks), democracy can only be ensured so long as a culture continues to be free to write. It's his definition of writing that is so intriguing:

Text is today's Latin. It is through text that we elites communicate . . . For the masses, however, most information is gathered through other forms of media: TV, film, music, and music video. These forms of "writing" are the vernacular of today. They are the kinds of "writing" that matters most to most. (68)

So, in my reading of Lessig's definition, it isn't an issue of the modern world becoming less text based so much as redefining what we mean by text. Like so much in contemporary life, access to more information and more context forces the critical mind to accept broader definitions for previously accepted ideas. At heart, that is a very democratic thing to do.

Whether or not you should read Lessig's book depends on your interest in contemporary culture or if you're in the profession of projecting business models into the future. It isn't a difficult text to read but it can be a bit dry and, for those of you who've subscribed to Wired magazine for the past ten years, you might be disappointed by the lack of material that hasn't already been a part of information-age-discourse. Thus far in my reading, the most salient points in Remix have centered around the need for an updated approach to copyright law. As this is Lessig's area of expertise, it only makes sense that his best moments are devoted to the ways in which new forms of copyright could benefit both artist and audience. As a founding member of the Creative Commons he has already done much to prove that he practices what he preaches.

* Such as Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture or Sven Birkert's Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

** I recently read a short little article about the birth of fan fiction by Scott Brown. It had some real resonance after watching J.J. Abrams' Star Trek film the other night.

If I Turn This Off Now We Will Go Into Darkness

Image courtesy simonfilm at morgueFile

Andrea Zittel rocks. 

I think that will serve as commentary aplenty for her lecture last night at PSU's Shattuck Hall.

There are undoubtedly finer writers with more nimble minds who can provide a comprehensive, heavily syllabled, dissertation on the work she presented over the course of the evening. I have opted to put my energies towards a low-brow rant instead.

I've been attending artist lectures since the days when humming slide projectors glowed hot in the back of darkened halls. With a couple exceptions, I can safely say that very few of the lectures in those days suffered from one tenth of the technical difficulties that plague modern presentations. Fancy laptops and digital displays may be the norm for every new speaking venue today, but you can tell that as a society we take for granted our mastery of these new technologies. Plug-and-play (which, by the way, was a concept that couldn't be realized until 1996, roughly ten years after computers entered the middle class home) continues to be about as easy as changing your oil— which is to say that anyone can do it, but few can do it without some unforeseen difficulty. 

So after some fresh-faced Portlander bumbled through what might be the most painful introductory speech I've ever encountered: rife as it was with "ums," random shout-outs for local artists, feeble fundraising plugs, and frequent confusion about which canned biographical tidbit he was meant to be reading, Andrea Zittel took over the podium. The audience visibly relaxed, and the fear that we might all have just been represented to a preeminent contemporary artist as West Coast bumpkins dimmed in time with the overhead lights.

Then the real trouble began. Ms. Zittel immediately realized that the image ratio of her slides was wrong. Such an observation is expected of a visual artist, although I doubt many of us in the packed lecture hall would have noticed. She started fussing with the settings and the screen went blue. Then it went black. 

The narrative ground to a halt as Zittel attempted to work through the technical difficulties and then, in slight frustration, she picked the narrative back up without any projection. Instead she hoisted her computer up and turned the screen toward the room. The artist lecture with 200 odd audience members became an inane library story-hour wherein only the ten closest people to Zittel were able to see the images on her laptop monitor. Despite her gently swinging the monitor in an arc to show the image to the entire crowd, it was impossible to make out any detail on a 15" screen when seated 12 rows back in a lecture hall. Was there no one who could resolve this aspect ratio debacle? 

Enter PSU IT guy (well, enter his speaking role anyway, as he'd been poking about at the podium for a few minutes at this point). Oh higher educated IT guy, explain to us simple art enthusiasts why things have gone so wrong: "Well, the old projector had this button you could push that fixed this problem and this new projector doesn't have the same buttons."* 

Phew! A wave of relief flooded over the room as the root of the difficulty was so brilliantly exposed. Granted, none of us grasped how to resolve this fundamental problem of button absence, but we felt better knowing that the foibles of our technologies could be quickly assessed and diagnosed.

Eventually things got back on track and Ms. Zittel was able to turn her attention to the task at hand— outlining a decade of artistic inquiry into an aesthetic of manicured simplicity. Those of us concerned with Portland appearing like a quaint artistic backwater slowly forgot the pathetic gaffs of the first half hour as we sat back and admired the prodigious output of a woman who might be better described as a fierce individualist rather than an artist. Had Zittel come of age in a time prior to Duchamp, she would have just been considered a kooky community eccentric rather than a purveyor of contemporary domestic aesthetics. 

In America today, where individuality is no longer a construct of idealism, but a marketing tool for moving cheap commodity, I suppose the only place a character as unique as Zittel might be appreciated is in the ivory tower of the art world. I was in the midst of considering this idea when Zittel came to a close and, with the slightest trace of hesitation in her voice, proclaimed with a slight nod towards her computer, "If I turn this off now we will go into darkness." 

I don't think she was afraid of the dark, she was simply afraid that we wouldn't be able to find the lights. And that might be the best metaphor to come out of her presentation. Obviously, she would be fine— 

We were the ones who needed some help.

*OK, this isn't a quote verbatim, but it is certainly close enough to be considered the gist.

I Heart Analog

I miss my hi-fi. To be honest, the iPod* has been a woeful substitute despite its space-saving allure. I realized the depth of my regret at having relegated my audio components to the closet only after purchasing a few albums this month. I came home, used cds** in hand, flush with the excitement of shopping in the midst of financial catastrophe, ready to throw them on and bliss out. But life isn't that simple now.

First I must load the tracks into my computer and then I must plug my iPod into the computer and allow the songs to trickle onto the music player. Then the iPod demands more juice if it's to deliver a continual stream of music for longer than sixty minutes, which leaves me sitting about waiting for the battery to charge. 

It is at this point that my interest in listening to the albums begins to wane. I wash the dishes or sort the recycling. I add items to my TO DO list. I contemplate the exact date when JP Morgan will slap their branding on all of WAMU's printed collateral. I look up the word collateral and realize I'm not applying it correctly in the previous sentence. I check the iPod. Still charging. . .

When the earbuds are finally wedged into my ears I'm subjected to a very tinny sounding Cee-Lo. The Cure suffers from an aggressive treble and half the tracks on Bjork's Telegram are bogged down with mushy bass. I think back to the first time that I heard Massive Attack's Protection on something other than a boom-box and how the quality of the sound seemed so expansive and engulfing. Exactly how I managed to stray again from that experience I'll never know. I fell victim to the hype. I chuckled at those silly Mac and PC commercials and I lay my money down on the shiny counter of the Apple store. 

Now my ears often ache from the pressure of formed plastic and I can't remember what it was about the album art of OK Computer that affected me so much in my teens. My hi-fi collects dust in the closet, ashamed of its bulky cases and thick speaker cables. The CD collection has also entered the closet and is only briefly perused when a new album has been loaded onto the computer and needs to be stored out of sight. 

Meanwhile, the iPod travels about with me, delivering far more storage than sound. I watch everyone on the train nod their heads half-heartedly to the music being drowned out by the screech of the wheels on track and I think that we've all been fooled yet again. Now we own music; because experiencing it doesn't sell albums with the same frequency.

*I would put a TM symbol after every instance of the word iPod because I respect the Apple and do not wish to anger the Apple, but I cannot find this feature on Blogger, so let this serve as my disclaimer that iPod is a registered trademark of Apple. I understand that I have no rights to type the word iPod without a TM symbol but I respectfully submit that it is Blogger, not I, who has violated international intellectual property rights by not providing the appropriate typography to legally credit copyright and trademark holders.

**For those of you who care, the purchased cds in question were:

Gnarls Barkley- The Odd Couple

The Cure- Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

Bjork- Telegram

Peter Gabriel- Peter Gabriel

MC Solaar- Paradisiaque

Massive Attack- Danny the Dog: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Underworld- Pearl's Girl

The Week

GERALD FIGAL ON FLICKR

I ran across this image the other night on Flickr. It was part of a collection of pictures taken in the Edo-Tokyo museum by Gerald Figal and his images served as a catalyst for me to consider my own fascination with the conceptual implications of the miniature in contemporary art. More to come on this topic at a later date.

THE WORKS OF CLAUDIA ANGELMAIER IN APERTURE MAGAZINE

The lastest issue of Aperture features an article about the reproductive artworks of German photographer Claudia Angelmaier. Her meticulously composed collections of open books turned to the same reproduction of a famous art work succeed on a number of levels: they comment on the fallibility of mechanical reproduction, critique the experience of educating through second-hand experience, continue the post-modern preoccupation with originality born of mimicry, and manage to reference the sparse spirituality of Modernist abstraction. While the addition of the replicated artworks contributes a greater conceptual depth to her work, the photographic compositions that feature only obsessive compositions of white space and colored lines are no less beautiful for their minimalism.

THE FIRST UNVEILING OF SMALL WILD THINGS (SWT)

Last year's artistic collaboration was laid out in its entirety for me this week on the floor of the new Disjecta exhibition space. This sparked an intriguing dialogue about: the longevity of hierarchical relationships, color aversion, classifying artistic "style," breaking and obeying imperatives, the totalitarian grid, and the spiritual implications of reproduction. 

BIG SPACESHIP PROFILE ON LYNDA.COM

With two gaping holes left in my skull from the extraction of pesky wisdom teeth my energy level hit negative numbers and I sought interludes of distraction from the pain at lynda.com. This website is an absolutely fantastic software tutorial site that, for a monthly fee, walks you step-by-step through the intricacies of most major software programs available today. It has been indispensable to me as a graphic design student. Until yesterday, I had limited my viewing to movies related to programs that were stumping me, and not bothered to delve into the interviews and exposes of well regarded companies/individuals. 

Big Spaceship has been a company reverently referred to since my first day in PNCA's graphic design certificate program. The major player in the field of new media, or interactive media, or integrated design, or whatever moniker of the moment that connotes a mixture of web, film, graphic design, and information design. There's no doubting that they are very, very, good at what they do and, while it's light on specifics, the lynda.com expose of Big Spaceship does give a general sense of the culture and structure of the company.

Sadly, without a subscription you can only watch the three introductory videos, which are heavy on the fluff, but you can follow links to some of Big Spaceship's more notable projects and see what all the fuss is about.

Poisoned Apple

The French have a saying for that moment when you’ve had enough; it translates into English as, “My bowl is full!” Tonight, my bowl is full of Apple. I’m tired of Apple’s veneer of utilitarian design. I’m fed up with the constant optional software upgrades that render my system obsolete before I’ve even started exploring under the hood. In short, I’m more than a little cross with Apple for succumbing to the Capitalist pitfall of blatantly pandering to stock rather than customers. Honestly, have they watched their own Ridley Scott commercial lately?

For two weeks I’ve been unable to easily load new posts in iWeb (and no, this does not ‘serve me right’ for using iWeb). My program frequently crashes, taking all my most recent witticisms with it. The Oz-like fellows over at Apple Core send nice emails saying they’ve fixed all the problems so that I’m lured back to clicking the Publish button yet again, only to have it malfunction.

iMad. iFrustrated. And tonight I’ve decided, after yet another game of nebulous run-around with the poorly implemented MobileMe, that I’m going to move this blog elsewhere.

So pay attention my three readers, because soon I will be leaving, and if I don’t take you with me, I’ll have to bribe other people to read my posts.

www.stain-drop.com

It’s open! My wife’s online store of handmade plush creations and unique fashion accessories has entered the electronic ether and I was quite pleased to use this auspicious event to guide the aesthetics of my final project in Photoshop Essentials at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA).

What’s that? You ponder how I might also be taking classes at PNCA while working full time as both artist and educator? That makes two of us. Or three of us, if I count the entire readership of this blog and myself. But it happens to be true. I’m enrolled as a Certificate Student in PNCA’s Graphic Design program (which is apparently going to be renamed the “Communication Arts” program this fall when PNCA decides to add some direction and objectives to this cash cow).

I’ve had a mixed experience with the Certificate Program thus far, having joined it (as is often my fate) in the midst of a major overhaul in structure and cost. Having had both inspiring classes and profoundly frustrating experiences I would say that the jury is still out on whether I will ever recommend it to anyone. Had I not been the product of an exceedingly rigorous and well-considered art program I might be less critical but the truth remains that OCAC will be a hard act to ever beat.

The final assignment for Photoshop Essentials required that I fashion a multi-layer image composite from a variety of images. Clean selections and believable integration into a single image seemed to be the primary criteria for the instructor. I went so far as to add a criterion of my own: the resulting image had to accurately portray the inherent charm and charisma of my wife’s creations. After all, I wanted to please this most important of clients. Isn’t that what a degree in graphic design should really emphasize— customer satisfaction.

Maybe I should let PNCA know that.

iControl

A friend of mine once joked that he often expects a pop-up widow to appear on his iMac desktop informing him that his desktop is cluttered and unaesthetic: Would you like to aestheticize your desktop? Aestheticize. Don’t Aestheticize. Cancel.

While working with iWeb (the program, I’m embarrassed to admit, that currently holds my web site) over the past year something has caught my attention that I’ve frequently mulled over. Apple has always marketed itself as a provider of creative ease— a manufacturer of tools devoted to the advancement of individual expression. With the current versions of Mac OS Apple has reached a pinnacle of marketing to the ego: iWeb provides a concrete example of this. Nearly every page of every template contains the word “Me” or “My.” A pronoun and a possessive adjective. Individuality and the ownership of that individuality. My photos. My favorite songs. My trip. Me.

But does the Mac, or any computer for that matter, truly foster more personal creativity among the masses or simply promise a potential audience? Is it the inspired act or the hope for attention that fuels the digital revolution?

I’ve been trying to formulate a theory about passive creativity in the digital ear ever since computers became a fixture of my daily life. That theory is, in part, powered by a Mac.

Richard Deacon at PAM

Internationally lauded sculptor Richard Deacon spoke at the Portland Art Museum last night and watching the admittedly brilliant artist struggle through his lecture (given at the behest of the museum, who just purchased a major work by Deacon) seemed to pain all but the overly-perfumed elderly art patrons who sat behind me and gasped at the genius of every image to appear on the screen.

Deacon was clearly an uncomfortable speaker; primarily reserving his eye contact and explanatory gestures for the laptop before him rather than his audience. Evidence of his thought process was primarily gleaned from the chronological narrative that slowly played out on screen.

His formative years (early 1980’s) were given a considerable amount of time as he attempted to express how simple construction materials like galvanized steel, linoleum, and wood eventually were brought together in an open exploration process that resulted in a sculptural architecture of constructive technique. The resulting pieces were both inviting and exclusionary depending on the viewer’s vantage point. At one point Deacon also tried to express how the exposed hardware and joinery created “a sort of anxiety” among the viewer who were being made privy to the structural underpinnings of the artistic work. This is still a common theme among artists of many disciplines as they continue to react to the public perception that artists are material alchemists; capable of skills that the viewer will never understand or possess.

These early years, where much of Deacon’s artistic thinking was freshest if not always aesthetically appealing (forays into flimsy narrative yielded pieces such as If the Shoe Fits which lack all the refined grace that his process-oriented works demonstrate) slowly gave way to a mixed bag of large scale exhibitions which seemed more about meeting the demands of a rising market for work than refining thematic ideas planted at the outset of his career.

Nevertheless, a topological exploration of form took root in the 90’s as Deacon grew fatigued with rectilinear construction. As the geometry of his sculptures began to embrace complex curves and three dimensional twists of materials like wood and plastic an awe inspiring aesthetic of contorted form took hold. What Could Make Me Feel This Way seems to slip and wrap around itself: from one angle seeming almost intestinal despite being fabricated almost entirely out of bent wood slats. In this case the narrative is more open-ended, and thereby more successful— the title following the form rather than vice versa.

Throughout Deacon’s presentation I found myself alternately awed and dismayed at works he chose to display. His decisions for the Venice Biennale in 2007 seemed remarkably incisive, while gallery works of monolithic monochrome ceramic work seemed a bungled reaction to visual memes in globalized consumer culture. As an artist I am somewhat aware that I may not be able to differentiate which of my works are more successful, but I also grant that the failures help inform and spur on the greater successes. Such is obviously the case with Deacon, and perhaps my surprise was that I couldn’t be certain if he actually viewed the weaker work as successful or just maquettes for the breakthroughs that have earned him his standing in the art world.