No matter how grounded any particular piece of art may be in the authenticating experience of any one viewer, art is, in the end, a leap of faith. While I was not willing to take it for Ben Waterman when he graduated in 2009 from the University of Washington with an MFA in clay (Elizabeth Bryant called his work at the time, sympathetically, half-baked), a year later, it looms large, and the leap is effortless.
He makes mud shine. Despite the title of his installation at 4Culture Gallery, The Grand Rooms, those looking for finish won’t find it. If he’d called it, Laboratory in a Corridor, we’d have truth in advertising, but he isn’t interested in advertising, truthful or otherwise. 4Culture Gallery is a long corridor that hooks left and continues. And Waterman’s material experiments contain in their shoddy manifestations a suggestion of grandeur around the corner of his next effort. (We can’t go on. We’ll go on.)
He fails. Attempts to graph the vigor of wild plum with the sweetness of the domesticated do not hold. His thumbprints on bits of unfired clay do not add up to a bloom. The joints of his efforts swell and leak. His plans collapse under the weight of their execution.
Nevertheless, he sets the table…
…and sets the floor on fire with his desire.
The Northwest has a robust tradition of handyman poetics, from Buster Simpson to Elias Hansen. Waterman stakes his handyman poetics after the fall, with no possibly of making it work. And yet he goes on, shouldering the weight of never-say-die America. While in search of a true thing within the bare, ruined choirs of bombastical idealism, he leaves behind him a rare and vulnerable beauty.
Through Sept. 30.
Uhhhh….WHAT?!?!? Or should I say “what the f # % k??? Ms. Hackett you are truly deranged in your advanced age. That show not only sucked it was an insult to the artists who have at least accomplished a baseline of quality and craft excellence in their medium-let alone the great ones. Mr. Waterman has never been able to accomplish anything but “hipster chic” in his attempts and this show is proof. Rumor has it he has quit the “artist thing” for organic gardening and I must quote Gore Vidal upon hearing of Truman Capote’s death in this instance-“wise career move”. Stop trying SO damned hard and get your act together. Between you and the other idiot-Ms. graves-it’ s almost too much to stomach
Well…
Oh my. How did I miss this? Hibrow Gorilla has his jock
strap in a twist. He seems to feel things so verrrry intensely he got a tummy ache from the review. Sad. Very sad.
How did you miss that Miss Marple? With your AMAZING and legendary detective skills it is truly a mystery! Oh well must be your advanced age. Pray tell-HOW is it that youU also missed the fact that Hibrow Gorilla is not a male of the species…uh oh..-WRONG AGAIN!!! Tisk, tisk, And for the record-bad is just plain old bad-’nuff said.