Performance is alive and well—and, of course, made more enduring through technology at Area 405’s exhibition Hive, which showcases the talents of Oliver Street Studio resident artists and Area 405 volunteers. In Touch Glass, Timothy Nohe and Shannon Young investigate the sounds of water, wine glasses, flickering candle flames, everyday gestures, and the occasional flourish of musical instruments. Listen here to the eerie, yet soothing sounds of this performance.
Not far away, you can experience another of Shannon’s performances, In the Middle—the result of her residency at Art Farm in Marquette, Nebraska. There she pushed an abandoned shopping cart down empty asphalt roads and over muddy, rutted cornfields, completing a 28-square-mile walk. She resolutely clattered along, left in the dust by a car, then by a roaring piece of farm machinery.
The high (or low) moments of this agrarian odyssey can be savored on a small TV screen that rests in the upper compartment of a shopping cart. Dry Nebraska soil – the resource the work seeks to protect— is piled high in the cart. Shannon’s recorded performance is as much about social responsibility and politics as it is about art. I’ll never push a shopping cart at the Giant without remembering her trek. I won’t buy the Chilean blueberries ever again, Shannon, I promise.
With David Page’s sculpture, Dominion (2008), I feel compelled to touch and pull the beautifully crafted handle of a wooden cart that holds what must represent the perfected remains of a slaughtered animal elegantly stuffed. The carcass is headless and its hoofs have evolved into hooks and clevises, the better for the animal to transition from life to material—food, leather, whatever—useful to man.
Two installations create magical built environments. In Model House (2010), Laura Shults Stella monumentalizes a house from the game Monopoly to cover it with pages and covers from The New Yorker. The house’s interior appears darkened and empty. Childhood game-playing meets adult intellectual pretension here. How many subscribers really read The New Yorker? How many use it as coffee table decoration?
Thomas W. Dixon presents a more mysterious installation, the White Rabbit Consortium (2008-2010), which has the air of a fairytale gone mad. As the artist explains it, “It’s also about the characters who have populated the landscape of the imagination, who come around now and again to participate in the new story.”
The piece takes its name from the small stuffed bunny mounted on the front of an old-fashioned vacation trailer, here miniaturized, and driven by an enormous cartoon-like black rabbit. The whole operation advances toward a carved and painted wooden version of The Last Supper that looks much like a souvenir from an Italian pilgrimage in 1958. I knew before I read Thomas’ biography that he was the product of Catholic schools! (It takes one to know one, Thomas.)
“The forms in MGD could be human orifices or organs, mold or amoeba, but most of all they are beautiful reminders of the role the drawn line plays, always, in art.”
New walls have been built in the back gallery at 405—this compliments of the fantastic “confetti grant” program launched by the Baltimore Community Foundation in December. The new walls possess a clean, fresh finish that’s perfect for delicate work, which might otherwise be overwhelmed. The walls make a wonderful contrast to the otherwise raw space.
Ruth Bowler’s Untitled (2010) is one of these quieter pieces that benefits from 405’s recent physical improvement. Ruth has painted a pure white rectangle on the wall and mounted used typewriter correction tape on five pins. Her random corrections create a pleasing pattern of words, numbers, and symbols. I couldn’t help but search for familiar words and I found some . . . “siDJcurator@))) . . . web . . . workwitheRI . . . oldmasterpain . . . inking . . .” Take a close look at this one.
There’s more, much more, but I can’t sign off without mentioning a terrific multi-layered drawing by Sarah Laing, MGD (2009). Two layers of semi-transparent Mylar are mounted one on top of another, without the interference of mats or glazing. They move gently, organically within their frame, bulging, sagging. Each is covered with ink drawings that you can view a little differently each time you approach them. The forms in MGD could be human orifices or organs, mold or amoeba, but most of all they are beautiful reminders of the role the drawn line plays, always, in art.
So, catch this show if you can before it closes. Hive’s final hours are:
- Friday, March 26, from noon to 3 p.m.,
- Saturday, March 27, from 7 to 10 p.m. (for the closing reception),
- Sunday, March 28 from noon to 3 p.m.,
- And by appointment for the next week; email info@area405.com if you’re interested.
Filed in: Area 405.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 