print October 1993

Catherine Wagner

Although Catherine Wagner is known for studies of public environments—schools, a World Exposition, a convention center—her current body of work systematically explores a more intimate terrain, focusing specifically on the American home. In each of the 34 pieces included in this exhibition, three 16-by-20-inch views have been smoothly juxtaposed to create a long horizontal rectangle. These tripartite compositions, dramatically spotlit in a darkened gallery, present us with large-format views of opulence and simplicity, comfort and chaos, from one end of the country—and the spectrum—to the other,

print March 1993

Lauren Elder

Although billed as “environmental theater,” Lauren Elder’s immensely ambitious multidisciplinary performances encompass far more than mere drama. Like her earlier work Off Limits, 1989, Surrender is a sprawling, archetypal story with a narrative thread that twists into knots at times, guiding the audience from event to dream to memory, but always wandering back to the story at hand. This temporal movement is echoed by the frequent physical relocation of both players and audience in and around the hangar-sized space of the theater. Surrender also shifts from spoken text to singing, chanting, and

print January 1993

OPENINGS: RACHEL LACHOWICZ

Does a woman’s sexuality correspond to what she looks like?. . . Does it bear any relation to the way in which commercial images represent it? Is it something women need to buy like a product? . . . Does all this mean we can’t wear lipstick without feeling guilty anymore?
—Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, 1990

CAMILLE PAGLIA MAY DENY it, but most intelligent adults acknowledge that a backlash against feminism has taken place over the last decade, making its presence felt in a variety of unfortunate ways. Media manipulation of everything from statistics to photographs has led many women born in

print December 1992

Maria Fernanda Cardoso

On first acquaintance, Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s simple arrangements of materials gathered in her native Colombia present themselves as exoticized appropriations of formal inventions and ideas from earlier decades. Cardoso’s rectilinear piles and stacks of hand-formed soaps, raw sugar, and guava-paste candy, for instance, instantly suggest arte povera–like materials framed in Minimal/Conceptual forms: a tropical party-mix composed of equal parts Carl Andre and Richard Serra, Joseph Beuys and Eva Hesse, so to speak. These pieces, however, are a lot more than just clever gene-splicing. Instead,

print September 1992

Andrej Roiter

Since the late ’80s, the greater part of Andrej Roiter’s work has been painted a shade of brownish-green, ubiquitous in his native Moscow, where countless gallons of this drab olive have been used to cover everything from hospital walls to military hardware. As if to emphasize the way in which he carries his own world wherever he goes, Roiter—a nomadic expatriate who divides his time between Europe and the United States—had the main wall of the gallery painted a dark, mossy hue, creating an environment that reflected the color of several pieces in the show. Most of the work on view also featured

print May 1992

Stefan Kürten

The 25 works included in “Mundus Symbolicum” present Stefan Kürten’s own private Wunderkammer of significant objects. On each canvas, Kürten has painted a neatly arranged collection of several images of a particular genus of thing, including leaves, bones, condoms, potted cactuses, crowns, hand tools, and hats, to name just a few.

Although something about these works recalls Sigmar Polke’s disarmingly straightforward depictions of consumer goods (or maybe Bernd and Hilla Becher’s endless cataloguing of various kinds of water towers), they stem directly from Kürten’s boyish enthusiasm for a very

print April 1992

Michal Rovner

Unlike many historical “birthdays” (Pearl Harbor Day, Independence Day, Columbus Day), the first anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War, on January 15, inspired few commemorative exhibitions, In “Decoy—The Gulf War,” Israeli artist Michal Rovner reminds us why that is, despite the overwhelming popularity of Operation Desert Storm and the “victory” it brought about. The seven works in this show were made by photographing videotape images of the war as it appeared daily, even hourly, on television. Enlarged substantially, these pictures show shadowy figures in an almost nonexistent landscape,

print March 1992

John Randolph/Bruce Tomb

John Randolph and Bruce Tomb’s collaborative architectural installations point toward the eradication of the traditional separation of “fine” art and functional, workmanlike aspects of architecture and design. In Randolph and Tomb’s most recent installation, entitled Prima Facie, 1991, art and life met in an elaborately engineered, gallery-sized device. If houses are the metaphorical equivalents for bodies, then stepping into this installation was like entering a brain. Seen from the gallery door, the structure suggested an immense wooden camera; like a set of stereoscopic lenses, two identical

print January 1992

Jeffry Mitchell

In Jeffry Mitchell’s sprawling installation of gleefully goofy objects and drawings, his pantheistic preoccupation with art as a vehicle for the expression of religious faith reveals itself in objects and images derived from wildly diverse sources. These include a 3-D version of Ensor’s famous painting of Christ’s entrance into Brussels; a mandala of Mickey Mouse–like images called The Jesus Flower, 1991; and two truly amazing tableaux, the forms of which are loosely based on Buddhist devotional sculpture. These last two, My Pond and Joy in Repetition (both 1991), are each composed of hundreds

print November 1991

May Sun

In a linked series of graceful visual metaphors, May Sun’s installation at the Capp Street Project presented a lesson in history, both local and international. Titled FUGITIVE LANDING: a revolutionary at sea, 1991, it told the story of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s little-known visit to San Francisco in 1896. (A political exile, he came to California to gather support for the eventual overthrow of the ruling Manchu Dynasty in China.)

Dr. Sun was a pivotal figure in his nation’s political development—first, as a leader of China’s national independence movement and, later, as the president of the new republic

print October 1991

Susan Martin

A large part of the appeal of Susan Martin’s floor piece Sprinkle, 1990, resides in its enchanting combination of mysteriousness and sheer sensual beauty. Although plenty of art being made these days resists easy reading through the use of enigmatic or peculiar materials, such work is often unabashedly repulsive in one way or another. In contrast, Martin’s transformative manipulation of quirky materials heightens their seductive appeal. Consisting of a seemingly haphazard pile of waxy, dark gray disks, Sprinkle’s friendly scatter almost invites an investigatory caress (as its fingerprinted

print May 1991

Mildred Howard

As immune as we have become to the media’s grim recitation of violent events, the death of children still shocks and saddens most of us. Although almost fifteen years have passed since the summer day in 1976 when South African soldiers gunned down black children in Soweto, the memory of that event still has the power to move us—particularly as it has been invoked in Mildred Howard’s installation Ten Little Children Standing in a Line (one got shot, and then there were nine), 1991. Simultaneously a memorial and a plea for the end of racial violence, Howard’s piece is centered around a powerful

Maria Porges