Concept/Focus-The Luminary St. Louis

[10 Sept]

View of exhibition's layout in the main corridor; a wide range of sculpture,
interactive environments, and paintings–sometimes all at once.

The Luminary's Concept/Focus triennial exhibition represented a variety of works from St. Louis artists and partnered with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition to showcase four artists from the Sooner State.[1] The show encompassed many pieces that were explicitly designed to be interactive. If you like art about IPads, domesticity, headphones, and citizenship, this is definitely the place to be. Foster's sculptures pictured here even depict some larger than life common objects in a crooked way. Altogether the show seems to present more thoughts about communing than it does viewing. Materiality is another significant force, combining common objects of both technology and nature. Many artists did employ the use of popular paint media, or in some cases, the allure of such materials. Passing by Ouyang's female sarcophagus figure Ophelia reminded me of the sense that "larger than life" works speak very directly to the soul; as Newman said, "It is human scale that counts."[2] Now, the content in question here may differ greatly from Newman's zip paintings, but on the whole the show seems to denote such an interest. 

Ouyang's kittytuna (Ophelia) – the location of this piece was moved by
curator after printing of the program to the front of the gallery

Catalina Ouyang's kittytuna (Ophelia) – 2016, Extruded Polystrene,
Fiberglass, Aqua Resin, Gypsum, Resin, MDF, Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint

Glenn Herbert Davis' broods – 2016, mixed media

The titling of the show certainly leaves much to the viewer to interpret an overriding question, and even the program itself has no detailed curator's statement. Davis's broods is one of a few outliers on display, reinforcing the sheer variety and apparent ambiguity of choice. A meticulous construction for some type of large bird house sat atop wheels in the main window toward the sidewalk. Even the description of the piece does not provide a list of materials. Both the interior and exterior of the work invites viewers to stick their head inside or view into, even through its openings. Whatever the purpose of this illustration's relation to nature, wood, and animals, Dzegede's installation on the adjacent wall strangely complements its form. 

A view of one interior from Davis' broods

Addoley Dzegede's Everybody You Know is Here – 2016, mixed media

View of same interior hanging, Davis' broods

*note in program: Please touch and look through the books,
but not the other items. Please use the headphones for the video.

Everybody You Know is Here presents a dynamic view of home life, and gives us the feeling that we are sifting through someone's personal belongings. The experience is quite intimate, although the content on the IPad has somehow been removed. Some failures of interactive pieces normally create unexpected questions, and in this case I simply turned to what other inanimate objects I was allowed to touch.

Side view of Foster's Neither Here Nor There – 
2016, Digital Prints mounted on Lumber

Detail of Foster's Neither Here Nor There

Partial view of exhibition's layout in the main corridor.

Foster's digital prints and Ouyang's paintings were a practice in illusory images from distance. Particular angles in relation to the pieces or the lighting gave each series a unique intimacy unlike the perceived intimacy through commercial devices. Each of these artists also represented a breadth of work through their sculptures. While Ouyang seems to have an inclination for enlarging and distorting recognizable things, Foster on the other hand neutralizes material into gradations of color and patterns distinguishable only from far away. Both of her pieces depict a landscape, either through a mimicked topographic model or by pixelated photograph. Drift seems to allude opaquely to some political or social issue by evoking the "remains from prairie burns," a common sight in Midwest agriculture. What remains to be determined, though, is the artists' intent to create a representational field or a conceptual one; is this a pile of sifted material or a miniature terrain? 

Detail of Catalina Ouyang's Character Exercises–2016, Acrylic

Paint, Cotton Duck Canvas, Enamel Paint, Resin

Catalina Ouyang's Blue Boys–2015-2016, Extruded Polystyrene, Gypsum,
Resin, Plaster, Steel, Enamel Paint, Spray Paint, Pastel

Meredith Foster's Drift (MO/OK)–2016, Sifted Ash and Charcoal (made from
invasive woody plant material and the remains from prairie burns), Flour

The show's sole "performance" piece was, in fact, the only apparent political commentary to be found. What's more, the performing was to be carried out by the willing viewer; instead of performance this may have been more accurately labeled a participation, census, or survey piece. I think that the simple choice of words has much to say for this continued work by Nguyen; performance matters greatly when a person comes to take a citizenship test. In this setting it is assumed that viewers have never seen an official version of the exam before, and so the progression in the series seeks to inform each person with a method for achieving citizen status. Whether or not it is satirical or strictly factual as a social experiment remains to be seen. The setup acknowledges the physicality of taking such significant tests but also includes a way to make it your own by emailing the artist. Viewing the pass-fail ID cards is enjoyable and yet provokes us to think about the rhetoric of our country's immigration policies; is this a wall of shame, fame or something else?

Anh-Thuy Nguyen's Citinzenship–2016, Installation and Performance

Anh-Thuy Nguyen's Citinzenship–2016,
Dye-Sublimation Print and Plastic

Anh-Thuy Nguyen's Civics Questions–2016,
Screen Print (set of 5, edition of 4)

The final series of outliers on the day was Lu's neon 'signs.' While it may have been a signal for our long walk back down Cherokee Street, Lu brought Odds and Ends an interesting fixture for fluorescent light installations. Once again we experience a piece that thwarts commercial use of materials, and depicts an intimacy through cartoon illustration, casualness through its relation to the ground. Although not inviting you to grab the work itself, its revealed power source makes one feel as if it could be contained in our home as well, that it is meant to reside in something beside a gallery. In fact, much of the show is an invitation to step into an environment and disenchants the viewer's expectation.

Cole Lu's Odds and Ends–2016, Three Pieces of Neon Tubing
with Metal Suspension Frame

Gabbie did not seem to enjoy the other show on view. In the far right
backgrounded is Cole Lu's Thinking the word "somewhere" meditatively
as both placeholder and ends (self-portrait)– 2016, Digital printed fabric,
c-print in light box, "wooden" ionic column, marble Lazy Susan, fortune
cookies, bamboo chair.

Next day's breakfast at Blueprint Coffee in Delmar Loop.