Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave., San Diego, Ca.
It’s on view Jan 12 to Feb 16.
So, you think you know art.
You go to shows.
You mingle.
You drink a little too much free wine, but don’t eat enough crackers. You look at what’s on the wall and think ech! Or, maybe, possibly, Wow, that’s so cool. “Isn’t it?” she says or maybe he says. The television is going in the joint across the street, CNN (C No News). Then it is eyeballs back to the room, the gallery, the people, the hair, the scents, the bodies…Jesus, look at her. Or, he’s definitely going home with me.
Some bodies are better than others, you note for the umpteenth time in your life even if you yourself are sorely out of shape, the perfect b-shape, my brother.
Don’t worry. We were born to judge, to envy, to lust, to copulate, to go mystic from time to time, and to do art too. Too bad I missed this opening...
Thing about doing art is some is always better than most, like bodies, scents, copulation, and mystic notions. I prefer to view art after the party, away from what comes between.
Searching for the good stuff, I arrived in San Diego and surfed the web for art, for art authorities, for art peoples in the know.
And lo and behold, there it was: artasauthority.com.
What could be better? Click. Shows in San Diego, where I happen to be on business far from my Midwestern home. And what do I see on artasauthority.com, but a name from my boyhood town. Flashback. Barrett. Bret Barrett. Bret Barrett co-curated a show at Art Produce Gallery 3139 University Ave. with Bill Pierce of Radioactive future.
I find the Art Produce gallery. Closed at night, but I can see in the windows. This is almost better—a glass barrier instead of a people barrier between me and the work. No bodies. No temptation. No love in my heart and lust in my trousers, to quote Cheever. My own reflection in the glass is my only distraction. So there I am. What do I see? Not enough Barrett for one thing, not one of his sculptural contraptions, but I’ll move on. Lynn Susholtz seems to attract decent talent for the space.
The show "Endeavor" staged by Radioactive Future is a collection of work that may be a happenstance result of artists starved for places to show or a brilliant exhibit set up to illustrate an intrinsic struggle in Art today that dates back to Byzantine and Gothic periods and quite possibly predating that. Good enough to come back for a closer look when the place is actually open, which is what I do. The first work I am confronted with is Bill Pierce's. Judging from the show’s flyers featuring Andy Warhol, and seeing the loads of work Pierce has done under the Radioactive Future banner in the past, it is clear that Pierce is interested in Warhol’s work ethic but also his advertising and celebrity over art, marketing practice. Ah, the new church of art has been developing around Warhol since the 60's. This school of thought in recent years has done the same thing to Art and Artists that the church did over a thousand years ago, what art schools did 100 years ago, and maybe still do—all taking the Art out of the artwork.
The irony of the show is the "Thought Police" piece by Pierce. Art has always been a battle for human minds. When given the attention of a viewer, does the work assist the person into their own mind space or does it use the opportunity to impose a simple predetermined message? The church, before the Renaissance, had rules for artists to help spread their word to those who could not read (and no glorification of the body or mind with the beauty of paint, just the message). The Byzantine artist made art prescribed by authority of the church—flat simple messages. The Gothic artist remained in line with the requests of the church but worked to form his own inner idea of figures and objects, soon bringing reason and feeling into artwork for then and the future. Graphic work is the perfect medium for political propaganda and advertising as we in America have known for sure since the 1950's. Pierce once again designs the perfectly patterned ad for himself. Art has always either existed for the simple beauty and pleasure of the mind or it has been usurped and used to sell something. Either way, you can buy it or not buy it. When I buy it, I look for something "real" not an idea made exclusively to sell its trendy self. Andi Brandenburg's message comes across as political and has a much more meaningful use of design and graphic processes. It also has artistic appeal. The message is the meaning. The best use of reproduction method Art is when there is a bigger idea to the Art than just the artist. Next, the classic 70's Keep On Truckin' poster by Perry Vasquez and Victor Payan manipulated and displayed in 4 panel Warhol style with a new political twist, well done. It also helps to draw out my verbal thought train here...
At first glance from the window this show seemed sparse and haphazard. But the stark graphic work is quickly read through and the intermediary between graphic work and paintings are different kinds of collages. I notice a stack of three strong panels, a nebulous mix of misty spray and hard edged imagery by Acamonchi. I also note three beautifully constructed mixed media collage pieces by May Ling Martinez and three viscerally gripping collage/assemblage pieces by Barrett. (Not his work I'm used to seeing.) The clean precision lines of Martinez's intriguing works of the scientifically mystical remind us why hands are still better than computers and give way to the splashed, glued, poured, painted, grit of Barrett’s definitely hand-made "Arp-Types".
Funny thing about Barrett is he is a transplant here. But in this world, someone will always remind you where you come from. Barrett was the founder of an art barn in Riverwest Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Frequenter of Fuel Café on Center Street. Smoker smoking. Barrett ran Barn art shows. You got it. He ran shows that as far back as 1990 rivaled anything seen on my trips to New York, Chicago and LA. He ran a studio that was nothing more than an old barn hidden in the middle of a Milwaukee neighborhood. It was the epitome of "underground". But then, it was in Milwaukee. Barrett’s kinetic work was always a step beyond, yet profoundly real and hilarious. Barrett’s work was always the kind of thing that got people talking, made people nervous, impressed Milwaukee art critics. The last show I attended was in 2000. The place was packed. I never had the opportunity to meet Barrett. And then, Poof! No more Bret Barrett. No more art Barn. Barn 9, I think it was called. Barn9 had a website. The website went with Barrett. But then 8 years later, there’s Barrett's name on a flyer at artasauthority.com. I’ve been to Barrett’s website. I almost ordered a painting. When I was ready, he was sold out. Good for him. Bad for Bill Grey. Back to the show, Mr. Barrett.
The painting section delivers a flow of work that gets deeper and deeper into the endeavor of painting and universal mind-space that painting can excite...The most beautiful piece comes next. Paul Brog's Beavis and Butthead painting twisted the whole idea of the show upon itself for me when I viewed it close. It is a masterfully painted picture of two normally flat graphic cartoon characters. It introduces the painting section and concisely, conceptually for me, loops the flow of the show. Brog’s painting style does something that makes me think I have to watch this guy.
Nuvia Crisol Guerra's painting is at the precisely perfect intersection of the modes of expression in this show. Modeled paint with a flowing graphic flowery almost body art feel, which is enhanced by the centralized composition and pink background. I like skulls and girls. Girl skulls are super cool. All paintings are about light, since color is in fact light. To paint neon and pull it off is quite a conceptual feat. Two perfectly packaged paintings by Lara K. Tamalunas pulls off this feat.
Dave Miles ingeniously paints content that stirs science and art and myth and history and has to be one of the best painters in San Diego. The monkey blankly looking at the space-suited man is perfect. Humanity's helpless drift through the evolution of time and space. The evolution of art and thought. Macro-vision. Thoughtful. Life affirming. Zuri Waters shaped painting is wild and joyous, performing a visual balance of color dancing on the lines between painting and graphics and sculpture and man and woman, when you look close
Celene can paint. I've seen her work at Zedism Gallery a few months back, flowing, organically beautiful as the female in snow depicted. Her work brings back the feeling I get looking at some of the early 20th century German Expressionists, but painted even better. Mary Fleener presents a piece on black velvet and it's quite attractive. It surprised me to see this electric colored soft painting and not see her work in the graphic side of the show. I have seen her graphic style produced, not by computer or screen print, but the old school real way—with a brush and paint. Christopher Raymond presents imagery that caps this show exactly from my perspective. Painterly, with control, a tree grows brilliantly from the hat of a relaxed, contemplative, earth-shaped man, not telling you what to think, but skillfully presenting something for you to experience in your own mind's way.
The show is definitely worth seeing. It is an excellent showing space. Extremes in vision often lead to informative viewing. Part 2 opens Feb. 9th. I'll miss the party again...but will try to check in after the opening. If you like artist over art stuff and prefer marketing over art, there’s something for you. If you want to get close to the work of an up and coming artist that your great grand kids will be reading about in art history books, there’s Barrett’s work. And there is more. So, there’s something for everyone in the “Endeavor” show at Lynn Susholtz’s Art Produce gallery 3139 University Ave., San Diego, Ca. It’s on view Jan 12 to Feb 16. Catch it while you can. Bill Grey, January 2008.
