JON FRUM ART FOUNDATION

A PLASTIC MANIFESTO

2010-04-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

A PLASTIC MANIFESTO

Plastic people have the plastic spirit of their time.
They're against strictness. Not only: also beauty, art galleries and marina abramovic.
They only understand the temporary.
They know the end has already passed, and they're freed from any history.
They're indifferent and believe in alcohol.
They're against any kind of birth. They ask for the beautiful melancholy of the desert.
They just want to pull down the pyramids and build new cheap condos.
They simply want to be president, and finally take the parliament out of hollywood.
They're rumored to be able to fly and sing with their bare feet.
They only want to judge every judge.
They stand for reality shows, lady ga ga and - of course - plastic surgery.
And they're particularly against manifestos.

Andrea Monti 2010

PLASTIC PEOPLE REVIEW

2010-04-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Jack Zoltak: Plastic People Exhibit Review

While the world is busy burying itself in superfluous packaging, much of it plastic or some version of plastic, creating a major ecological problem that of course has become political, because of course it will cost lots of money to find solutions to the problem-- and god knows no one is responsible, especially not those that promote, sell, and manufacture it-- a handful of artists are exhibiting work created from the much beloved and much maligned material. And just as plastic can be fabricated into just about anything we can plug in(including the plug), wear, contain, encase, sit on, stuff into, wipe, insert, zip up, launch, anything our imagination can conjure, in the hands (and minds) of these artists exhibiting at Jon Frum, plastic becomes the stuff art is made of also.

The initial element all these artists have in common, if you have not already guessed, is that they all work with some form of plastic. For the most part, that is where the similarities end; because far from being a restrictive element, I was pleased to see how expansive the medium could become when sincere artists use it as a means of personal expression. As you view each artist’s work individually, you see that each has his or her own vision and sensibility, and the possibilities are as infinite as their imagination, and I was pleasantly surprised to see work that broadened my appreciation, made me think, and was even beautiful to look at.

At the opening, as I entered the space, the entryway contained the work of Matt Miller. There is a feeling of dark humor to this work, like things that survived an urban meltdown of some kind. And his work is indeed melted and painted polystyrene. The two floor pieces, boxlike sculptures, made me feel as I if were looking at something’s birth, something being unwrapped or exposed: vivid white polystyrene emerging from a four sided object painted with abstract expressionist energy, a powerful and beautiful combining of painting and sculpture. On the wall was a fascinating, small piece that reminded me of an old radiator heater, or a portion of a bellow, small rectangular plates fused together to form a horizontal sculpture also painted, the color range reminding me of snow cones, cotton candy, and urban wall painting, each section adding to a joyous and playful whole. The colors and textures of this piece, and its intimate size make it a striking work of art.

When I entered the next section of the space I spoke with Sardar Sinjawi, an artist in the show. Sardar is Kurdish, and is quite passionate about his pieces, and they obviously have very personal meanings for him which he talked generously to me about. The important aspect of his explanation was his conviction about what he is doing and his connection to the process of discovery during the process of his work. His work is a mixture of altered objects, such as plastic cups subjected to heat or fire, and minimalist sculpture which serves to house or frame the pieces making them objects apart from their function. His titles, like the series “After a Beam of Light,” attest to a spiritual quality that is evident when he speaks of his work. One of Sardar’s pieces, is a woman’s scarf encased, or trapped in plexiglass, like a rose saved between pages of a book, as a remembrance of some kind. In an offhanded way, the element of encasement, entrapment, and other elements inherent in the material are found in the work of Andrea Monti, Ismael De Anda.

Andrea Monti encases, or “frames,” commercial plastic bags used by the millions everyday in supermarkets and drugstores in plexiglass, like an ironic joke—the half life of the bags themselves not bad enough for the environment-but now as a work of art “framed” in more plastic it ensures the customer that the purchase needs no warranty and will survive us all. The bags involve wordplay, visual puns, slogans, trapped-ghostlike images that appear to be bleeding, and symbolize the merciless bombardment of advertising and indoctrination we experience daily. Prominent are the series of “Rite Aid” bags arranged in trios that “Thank You for Shopping Here.” The work is as cryptic as it is revealing.

Ismael De Anda’s contributions to the exhibit are two large pieces that resemble plastic shower curtains, complete with grommets for installation, that reminded me of Matisse’s Jazz paper cutouts. “Parrots” and “Mosquitoes” are ambitious pieces where the artist has taken blue plastic and precisely cutout and composed shapes so that the blue is the negative space and the silhouettes are transparent “positive” shapes of the imagery. Each of the two pieces, one 6 ‘ x 8’, the other 10’ x 12’, are then enveloped in transparent plastic(there’s that word again). Like Matisse’s paper cutouts, it takes a lot of work and skill to achieve what appears to be simplicity.

Tamara’s Mendel’s work relates to Matt Miller’s in the sense that, to me, they are closest to pure painting and sculpture; that’s not to say they lack in ideas, any more than Sam Francis or de Kooning did. In fact, she says part of her process is what is eliminated and what remains with the application of the white areas. The pristine white grounds or fields on which images sit, or do they co-exist, begin to ask as you view the work, “what lies beneath?” The forms that do remain are like spills of mostly primary colors hearkening back to pop art in their shininess, but some like individual organisms separated from the tangle of a Sam Francis painting. The shapes are Ms. Mendel’s own, however, and though they are quite playful, they are bold and complex in their irregularity. There is much beauty in this work, not only in color and shape, but in the craftsmanship and the elements of the accidental and control at the same time. The work is powerfully decorative at first glance, but there is something primal about the shapes that speak to the subconscious the more one looks at them, not unlike the sensations found in Miro.

The interesting thing about the work of these artists is although they are all different, the more one considers the work the more one sees common ground, and by appreciating that fact, one can come full circle and begin to simply enjoy the results of their creativity.

Notes on Nicholas Pike’s Exhibit at Jon Frum

2010-04-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Notes on Nicholas Pike’s Exhibit at Jon Frum
Jack Zoltak

The first thing one sees, the first thing that registers upon entering Nicholas Pike's exhibit at the Jon Frum Foundation space are big, bold red letters on canvas: the style of letters that recall a makeshift sign on plywood nailed to the entrance of an abandoned mineshaft that warns you of DANGER. At first, because once in a while, like everyone, I look too quickly, I saw only the words. But don't jump to conclusions; take the time to savor and experience these multi-layered, beautifully- textured enigmatic paintings and you will realize that this artist really knows what he is doing. For instance, the repetitive use of red for the lettering acts as a cohesive element even though the paintings themselves display a deft diversity.

The source material for the text comes from Pike's experiences chronicling the contemporary drug culture, which he has also filmed extensively. To my mind, the work grows in presence the longer one sits in front of it and appreciates the pure painting of it: one sees an artist at once creating something beautiful and at he same time passing something on of a human drama outside of aesthetics, using his abilities to connect vastly different worlds of art and the "street."

It takes conviction to take a large canvas and use it to convey three words, such as "klein, aber, doctor," for instance. In this same titled painting, these three words sit boldly upon a field of ghostlike washes of light ochre and white, with patches of Guston-like thick strokes of gray paint that appear metallic dispersed throughout. The words and expressive background vacillate between complimenting and contradicting one another.

In the painting "a little speed and some housework turned out to be special k," Pike's connection to Abstract Expressionism is evident. Present is what Richard Diebenkorn spoke of as the struggle and discovery of the artist that takes place on the canvas, the decision making and revision that made painting interesting and vital to him. This piece has a frenzy of energy and color and controlled graffiti imagery where the brush effectively evokes spray paint.

There are paintings in the show that do not include words, and they are also executed with great care and skill and a true painter's sensibility.

Here is one last thought that evolved from thinking about Nicholas' work. It is difficult enough to transfer ideas into words, but ideas into images seems to be even more Herculean a task. To do that a visual artist needs to use elements of pictorial drama, Goya and Beckmann come to mind, and symbols whether classical or personal. And there is always, in the case of words, the danger of them overpowering the images. This does not have to be viewed as a negative, as I used to think. Perhaps the non-word images add to the whole by being subordinate to text. That is something subjective decided by the viewer. Words "cut to the chase," so to speak, but in these paintings the words, out of context, are as abstract as the surfaces they inhabit (except for "datura" and several other paintings with plant imagery). But that too, becomes part of the struggle of the artist: the power and speed of the word versus the aesthetic satisfaction of creating a beautifully painted surface. The struggle and result both have their own uncertainties and rewards, and in Nicholas Pike's paintings both are worth experiencing. This work is both provocative and beautiful, and the longer you look the more they entice and fascinate.