EUTOPIA

Carolyn Sortor

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Carolyn Sortor
Position + Permeability
(infrathin 32.782083 x -96.766809 [Beefhaus])
Beefhaus, 833 Exposition Ave., Dallas

Although Sortor began this work in 2015, I equate the antiquated google map program to our current political situation. The pixelated-mapping image expands/recedes with the red arrow appearing periodically to indicate, “you are here”. It is impossible for the viewer to “see” the location, rendering the map non-functional. This abstract non-space functions as a smoke screen to cloud our vision. To further politicize the work, Sortor incorporates audio of Hispanic laborers working and talking in the background and an LED feed of Supreme Court Rulings regarding interstate travel; both leave us with a feeling that freedom has become more elusive.

~ Colette Copeland
images courtesy of Carolyn Sortor and Ben Britt

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Dennis Maher

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Photo: Tom Little, courtesy of The Mattress Factory

Photo: Tom Little, courtesy of The Mattress Factory

Dennis Maher
A Second Home [2016]
architectural salvage, construction materials, antique furnishings, toys, architectural models, video projections, audio
The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh [link]

Maher’s immersive installation transports the viewer into a miniature, magical world of curious inventions and constructions. Utilizing current trends in architecture and design, repurposing and salvaging are key strategies of the project. However, Maher’s work goes beyond reuse. By embedding objects from the Mattress Factory’s original inhabitants and building a parallel, kinetic world inside the historic site, the three-story evolving structure poses questions about the role between history, site and object. Rather than creating architecture with specific form and function, the artist challenges the viewer to conform his/her body and viewing perspective to adapt to Maher’s “Second Home”—one that is disorienting, but miraculous to behold.

~ Colette Copeland
 images courtesy of the author, photo credit: Colette Copeland
images courtesy of The Mattress Factory, photo credit: Tom Little

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Scott Hilton and Bryan Wing

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Scott Hilton and Bryan Wing
Project Barbatype [link]
Beefhaus, Dallas, Texas [link]

Scott Hilton’s and Bryan Wing’s tintype photographic portraits of bearded men and women competing in international beard and mustache competitions examine notions of masculinity and fetishistic desire. Using a 19th century camera and wet plate collodion process, the photographs harken back to early daguerreotype images of soldiers before battle. The images’ beauty seduces, while simultaneously evokes sexual tension. Departing from the traditional “freak” portraits by photographers such as Joel Peter Witkin and Diane Arbus, Hilton/Wing venerate their subjects’ flamboyant facial coiffures. In beauty culture, where excessive $$ is spent both removing and implanting hair, it is refreshing to see hair celebrated–hyped to runway fashion extravagance.

~ Colette Copeland
images courtesy of the artists

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Kathryn Andrews

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Bozo the Clown Runs for President, 1984 Photo: Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation

Kathryn Andrews
Run for President
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [link]

Juxtaposing objects from popular film culture with political images, Kathryn Andrew’s large-scale sculptural installations wryly examine the relationship between media culture and political power. Lethal Weapon/Oval Office features one of the actual guns from the 1987 film hidden inside a large polished steel cylinder resembling a garbage can. Peering into the “peephole” viewers encounter the barrel of a gun pointed directly at their foreheads. The sculpture reflects the viewer placing them inside the oval office. The gun is the least lethal weapon, rather the self-aggrandizing fame and ego necessary to assume political office becomes the danger with potential global repercussions.

~ Colette Copeland

photos courtesy of the author

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Amarit Chusuwan

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Amarit Chusuwan

Amarit Chusuwan
The More I Get to Know Men, The More I Love My Dog
Museum of Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand [link]

In a museum heavy with Thai surrealism and religious allegory, this work stood out for its contemporary humor and media, albeit low tech video. What prevents this from remaining a didactic one-liner is the ever-shifting political context: history has no shortage of misuse of patriarchal power. The emasculated figures raptly watch TV monitors, yet instead of news feeds we see endlessly looped panting dogs—a self-portrait perhaps, pointing to mind-numbing obedience training. After a week’s news filled with Trump’s views on abortion, the Stanford rape trial and the Orlando shootings, I tend to agree with the artist’s viewpoint.

~ Colette Copeland
images courtesy of the author

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PLURAL: Doris Salcedo

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Doris Salcedo
Plegaria Muda
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [link]

Meticulously crafted, long, narrow, wooden tables topped with earth and another upended table crowd the gallery. Viewers carefully wind their way through the maze-like, sacred space. The intimate proximity to the sculptures prevents distant, passive viewing. Sparse, straggly shoots of green grass sprout from the tabletops. Resembling coffins, the installation references the thousands of youth killed on the streets of L.A., as well as youth murdered by the military in Colombia. Rather than a somber memorial focusing on the dead, the grass symbolizes resilience and perseverance. Plegaria Muda, translated as “silent prayer,” suggests hope and a collective call to witness.

~ Colette Copeland

Conflating poetics with the politics of victimization Salcedo contextualizes her work with exhumation of the dead. Metaphorically and literally fecund, the dark platitude of survival through hardship physicalizes loss as symbolic graveyard. Plegaria Muda references Columbian youths found in mass graves, while mentioning 10,000+ youth deaths on the streets of LA. Disturbingly, the work offers no specific voice to the victimized voiceless of LA, relying on its powerful, universal vagueness to co-opt any tragedy. From a stratospheric art career the strategic franchising of the distant dead becomes questionable as empathy, yet highly valuable as cultural capital.

~ Ryder Richards
images courtesy of Colette Copeland

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