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Where's the art?
(by Dickson Beall - May 28, 2008)
This art review is about nothing — nothing except maybe the big question: “What is art anyway?” John Armleder and Olivier Mosset slyly ask that question, and offer provocative clues to the answer, in a brilliantly conceived exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum.
Across the way from the museum entry desk is a gallery called The Front Room. Looking in, the viewer is likely to conclude that the curator is preparing the space for the next exhibition. After all, this is a museum and things are always in transition.
Passing all that debris getting in the way of seeing art, the viewer comes to the three main galleries and — what’s that? There’s even more stuff creating obstacles to seeing art.
The first gallery is filled with so many cardboard boxes that you can’t see the large painting without backing into them. No matter. It’s just a big, white canvas with a grid of many circles.
On the other side of the gallery, it’s the same thing. To back up and see the nine paintings, the viewer bumps into those big, oddly shaped boxes.
But what’s the difference? All nine of the paintings are exactly the same — a black circle that looks very much like a giant washer against a dirty, sloppy, white background. Where’s the art?
The second gallery is wallpapered with gold, silver, bronze, haliographic Mylar and aluminum samples, just waiting for an interior designer’s modern selections. Two paintings with grids of big dots hang suspended on canvases, which must provide their own gallery-wall white background. Stashed in the corner of this gallery is a bunch of silver metallic Christmas trees awaiting decoration for next year’s spending spree. Again, where’s the art?
Once inside the third gallery, the viewer might ask, “Where am I now — at the makeup counter of an upscale department store?” Against an orange wall splashed with now-I’ve-got-your-attention cartoon bubbles hang six large, glittery paintings: smeared samples of the latest metallic lip gloss colors to go with lime green shaved-into-a-pattern hair, in-your-face tattoos and through-your-nose rings. That’s the third galley. Hold it. That’s the whole show? Come on, where’s the art?
And that’s the point.
John Armleder and Olivier Mosset are conceptual artists. For them, the idea is more important than the aesthetics or the material from which the artwork is made.
The idea behind the works of these two Swiss-born friends, whose art fills all three galleries, is one big Hamlet-like question: To be art, or not to be art — and what is art anyway?
Along with this big question, there are other things to ask.
If Mosset is to be believed — there is nothing to look at, but everything to consider — another not-so-revolutionary question is raised, a question that is at least as old as Cezanne: What is the relationship of man and nature?
And, if a clue to understanding Armleder is to be found in the title of his recent international tour, “Too Much is Not Enough,” another question is raised: What are the methods and materials to best understand space and time?
Mosset confronts the viewer with blank abstraction. Yet the fact that those cardboard boxes are copies of concrete anti-tank obstacles used by the Swiss army, signals that Mosset is up to something beyond placing abstract sculptures as obstacles to seeing art. Mosset may be quietly saying something about what man is doing in nature.
And, surely, Mosset’s long-time friend Armleder is loudly saying something, too, in removing nature to fill space with more and more man-made glitzy stuff — suggesting a future when there may be plenty of metal Christmas trees but not much else to celebrate.
Both artists raise other questions — too many to address here — about the myth of progress, consumerism and the place of art in a commoditized world. Not to mention questions about the personal obstacles, biases and judgments the viewer brings to the art experience.
Now, back to The Front Room gallery — the gallery that looks as if it’s getting ready for an exhibition. Old records — not CDs, but vinyl — are strewn across the floor. Attached to the wall is brown wrapping paper with marks that may be from spray paint. Masking tape hangs from an aluminum chair and outlines sharp angles on the floor, where something is about to happen.
A performance art event has already happened in this space. On opening night of the exhibit, Japanese-born, New York-based artist Ei Arakawa semi-choreographed a group action having to do with art-making. My guess is that this performance suggested something about the relationship of man and nature — and what is left behind is a trashed room.
The Contemporary Art Museum is presenting a cultural event that is not to be missed. It is an important show and a terrific inaugural exhibition for Chief Curator Anthony Huberman and his new curatorial staff at the Contemporary Art Museum.
John Armleder and Olivier Mosset’s art remains on display through Aug. 3 at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 3750 Washington Blvd. For more information call 535-4660.
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