It would have been a stronger show.
As it is, The Old, Weird America is a hell of an accomplishment. Its curator Toby Kamps proved that folk themes encased in stereotype can become fluid when reconsidered by contemporary artists.
The 18 featured come from around the country, everywhere but here. Kamps had no responsibility to include all regions. His goal was an alchemical series of relationships, each building from each to enrich the complexity of his themes. Most of what he delivered is magnificent, but there are a few artists hitching a ride on the accomplishments of others. They’re good but not great.
Exhibits are not infinitely expandable. Anyone suggesting an addition needs to propose a deletion.
I’d delete none of the following, the exhibit’s A-list heart and soul: Eric Beltz‘s cobwebby drawings of founding fathers; Jeremy Blake‘s video miasmas of memory and loss; Sam Durant‘s revolving stage set that upends a foundational myth; Barnaby Furnas‘ explosive paintings; Matthew Day Jackson‘s Spiritual America collage; Margaret Kilgallen‘s Main Street; McDermott & McGough‘s gay history; Brad Kahlhamer’s lost roots drawn as a stream of consciousness; Aaron Morse‘s woozy scale shifts; Allison Smith‘s self-portraits as Civil War corpses, better in this context than they’d be on their own; Kara Walker’s ecstatic recreation of this country’s original sin, and Charlie White‘s collage photo, revealing everything important about a pivotal American year in the mid-20th Century.
There’s nothing awful about the remaining five, save that their work doesn’t measure up. Had Kamps been aware of what’s going on in the Northwest, he would have made stronger choices. In terms of this show, stronger choices litter the NW ground.
Instead of Deborah Grant’s Where Good Darkies Go (after Bill Traylor), a wall of Marita Dingus’ glass heads would have served the purpose. Next to them, Grant’s work looks academic.
Grant:
Sometimes Dingus’ sculptures have a burrowing mole feeling. Glass gives her focus a point of light, a contrast that functions as an intensifier. Discards are metaphors for Africans who were used as slaves until they were used up and died. Her reuse of their images delivers a powerful new life.
Instead of Cynthia Norton’s Fountain, how about Eli Hansen’s I’m not paranoid because I’m high or his Jack Pepsi? Norton is Hansen all cleaned up. Hansen comes out of Northwest glass and blows his own antic spirit into the medium.
Hansen:
I’m torn about eliminating Greta Pratt’s affecting portraits of Lincoln impersonators but don’t think they compare well with Justin Colt Beckman‘s portraits of his face photo-shopped into a variety of various Wild West poses:
If Kamps wanted Lincoln, we got Lincoln:
Instead of David Rathman’s shadows of wanted posters, some real wanted posters from a paper bag painter would have had more impact.
Chris Crites: Yes, being Rosa Parks was against the law.
That leaves Dario Robleto. Through fetishistic processes he arrives at the commonplace wrapped in religious iconography. How about the iconography of old Hollywood instead?
If that’s not weird, I don’t know what is.
One extra: Entirely missing from The Old, Weird is an examination of can-do delusions masking the reality of America’s economic class system.
Dan Webb could have helped with that.
Webb’s Mr Fixit:
Matthew Day Jackson is not from the NW?
Yes, he is. And there’s a strain in his work that’s pure NW handyman aesthetics. But being from here isn’t the same as being here. In other contexts I’d be happy to claim him, but this one with this particular work, no.
When I first started reading, I thought, provincialism is so annoying. But you convinced me. I don’t know anything about the Northwest aside from what I read from you and sometimes Jen Graves. However, there really do seem to be alot of weird musings on America going on out there. So why aren’t Northwest artists better known? These are sick good, and I’ve never heard of any of them. Any NW artists in the last Whitney Biennial? I can’t remember. Maybe it’s because that show was so unmemorable.