I must vent...
LA museums seem to be picking up the habit of calling exhibitions "comprehensive." It seems that "comprehensive" has become the hottest buzz word to make you think that an exhibition is important.
But here's the thing...
They are not comprehensive.
I don't like to be blatantly lied to for the sake of good press.
According to several online dictionaries, the primary definition of "comprehensive" means things such as the following: "inclusive," "including all or everything," "covering completely," or "having a full view." This adjective describing such a broad and all encompassing scope should not be applied lightly, and yet just this past month both the Getty and LACMA have been touting "comprehensive" shows in the media (Getty's California Video exhibit, and LACMA's Chicano artists show).
Please people...
I could name artists excluded from each...
Let's get off the self-important inflated jargon and just call them what they are (fantastic, extensive exhibitions) without trying to declare them as so important as to encompass all that is worth knowing on a subject... that's just straight up arrogant... STOP IT!
Now... done with my rant...
...and on to the 2 shows @ LACMA
Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement
April 6–September 1, 2008
Surprisingly, my initial feeling upon leaving the Phantom Sightings show was that it didn't feel strong, cohesive, or deep; but as I was looking back in preparation for this entry, I began to feel that there was more to this show than I had initially given credit. Here's a brief rundown of what I found most interesting...
On the subject of Borders and Boundaries...
Julio Cesar Morales' stunning Undocumented Interventions paintings depict illustrations of hidden compartments in vehicles and other objects actually used by people who were caught trying to cross the border illegally. Margarita Cabrera's facinating sculptures of southwest desert flora, created out of recycled U.S. Border Patrol uniforms. Delilah Montoya's photos of abandon camps and emergency water stops for immigrants in the desolate landscape of the border region. And perhaps most intreguingly, Ruben Ochoa's What if walls created spaces which is a complicated work, but probably the most interesting project in the show by my vote (included here is documentation of his photo mural's original installation on a freeway wall, along with the remnants of the original mural, and an audio installation of sound of the mural's removal).
On the subject of Aspirations...
Some interesting projects from Eduardo Sarabia about romanticized visions of outlaws and treasure in the local folklore of some regions of Mexico. The "pimped out" Rigor Motors caskets produced by Ruben Ochoa and Marco Rios, commenting on the tendancy of some to live fast and die young, measuring success by the number of tricked out features on your custom ride.
On the subject of Mixed Identity...
Mixed personal identities as represented by the self-portrait-ish work of Carlee Fernandez depicting herself as adopting her identity from others (sorta like Cindy Sherman... but not really at all like Cindy Sherman). Adrian Esparza mixes modern art practice with traditional folk art practice in an astract yarn "painting" created from a partially unravelled traditional Mexican serape. And Juan Capistran mixes high culture and low culture in works such as White Minority where he references the strict minimalist art practice of painters (Frank Stella, Terry Haggerty), while simultaneously adopting imagery and a title from punk rock (Black Flag).
Lastly... On the subject of Cultural Critique...
Photo documentation is displayed from several performances by the influential group ASCO. And the Erased Lynchings of Ken Gonzales Day vividly remind us of an American history of violence against minorities.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
May 23–September 14, 2008
This is a remarkably powerful show for the relatively small space allotted for it.
This covers several bodies of work by the noted photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia (aka "PL"). These bodies of work include the projects known as: Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, Lucky 13, and Thousand. But the exhibition largely intersperses the projects (with the exception of Thousand).
Hustlers and Streetwork are older projects working in varying ways capturing fleeting moments (often vulnerable moments), but approaching the work in two entirely different ways. In Hustlers PL carefully stages these moments in hotel rooms or on the streets of Los Angeles casting hustlers as his protagonists, and in Streetwork he captures these fleeting moments in a more candid way on the busy streets of major cities worldwide.
By contrast, both Heads and Lucky 13 take a much more systematic approach. In Heads PL sets up a system by which he candidly captures portraits of pedestrians on the New York City sidewalks. Entirely unaware of the photographer's presence, isolated and captured in extraordinary detail, and thus left vulnerable to our observation, these pieces seem to quitely speak volumes about their subjects. Lucky 13 on the otherhand depicts lone pole dancers in the midst of their seductive act... but this is project is far more than just T&A (see more below)...
To round out the bodies of work included here, Thousand is a collection of 1,000 Polaroid images produced over years of PL's art and commercial practice as a photographer. Though 1,000 seems somewhat unimpressive by today's digital standards, the idea of producing and exhibiting 1,000 instant images was huge at the time of this undertaking. This collection of images displayed somewhat randomly on several shelves extending across 3 walls, produces an unparalelled peek into the working practice of a photographers. Test prints, lighting trials, camera experiments, personal moments, random points of interest, and curious textures all share equal billing as the work product of an active artist (akin perhaps to a painter's notebook of sketches).
I have always loved PL's Heads. I am facinated by the people depicted as well as the complicated system derived to capture them in their most natural, unsuspecting, and vulnerable moments. As a photographer, I am further impressed with his technical acuity in all of the remaining projects, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so much of the "behind the scenes" work in Thousand. But honestly, most of the remaining bodies of work didn't resonate with me as strongly as Heads.... Until today....
This evening I attended an artist discussion with PL at LACMA, and while most of the discussion was entirely un-earthshattering, one huge revelation forever transformed my understanding and appreciation of Lucky 13...
Philip-Lorca diCorcia lives and works in New York. The events of 9/11 affected him deeply, but one image haunted him more than any others... The image of desperate persons diving head first out of the burning towers and flying through the air to their death. PL is deathly afraid of heights (afraid of falling from heights), and this image truly haunted him. Yet somehow, he was inspired to view these pole dancers as a related image, an allusion to flight, but infact a descent, often head first, spinning down to the floor.
Perhaps he sees these dancers as somehow reenacting the event, giving the victims' suffering a martyr's romatic allure. Perhaps by turning the violence of the original on it's head with the seduction of the latter, it allowed him to deal with the horror. PL didn't expound on this inspiration for the work... but it undoubtedly provided a compelling context to critically re-evaluate it.
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