Myles sees what he wants at an art show
Just this past Saturday, Myles and I went over to the Brewhouse on the South Side of Pittsburgh for an opening. My sister Megan's roommate works there, so she alerted us to this.
The group show was called "What It Is" and is about a new crop of urban artist in Pittsburgh. The Tribune-Review reviewed it, and since the Brewhouse has no webpage, you can read this to get more details. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I have had a beef with enthusiasts for "urban art" (and humorously mistype what I mean along the way). To be clear, my main complaint is that many of the artworld types who gush about graffiti tags as art don't normally live in neighborhoods where this is the status quo. Don't expect that a tag will be preserved and hallowed just because it is there; it will likely be painted over on an in-use building or demolished with a condemned structure. Street art is usually meant to be stealth, temporary, and very often experimental as I see it (but my usual disclaimer about art applies here, too---I really don't know anything about it). Competitive even at times , which is why it was interesting to see a group show of street art at the Brewhouse that was not that competitive. Not harmonious, but at least well-installed.
Anyway, this show was more Urban- and street-inspired than just street art. As with a lot of local artist shows, the level of artistic sophistication varied from artist to artist. I say this not with my usual criticism that everything stinks, but rather that it is somewhat refreshing at times to see artists in development. When I was doing a lot of gallery stuff in New York (purely social events, I tell you), most of the artists I got to see were mature in technique and had a pronounced vision or even "look." Commercial dealers like to see that. They can sell that. At a lot of the grant-sponsored art events in Pittsburgh, you can see mostly young artists still grappling with how to hold a paint brush, by exaggerated comparison. It's not just Pittsburgh; you will probably see the same things in Buffalo, or Portland, or Columbus, or.........
Two of the artists have stuck with me visually a week after the show. One was a photographer Jason Hendrickson. He asks regular people on the street to wear a hockey mask and he takes their picture. These portraits are incredibly creepy--the back-and fore-grounds are swirlingly blurred slightly, so all you can see that isn't distorted is someone in regular clothes, wearing the hockey mask, at a cross walk, or sitting on a granite wall outside a financial building. Really cool stuff that, unfortunately, I cannot find an image of online to show you.
The other artist whose work I liked best in the show was Alexis Covato. Coincidentally she was one of the curators, but she didn't assign herself the best spot, nor did the show feel like Alexis and her Do-Wop artists. In fact, I didn't realize that she was a co-curator until after I went through the show. I'd like to learn more about her, because this installation was of a city and people and ethos all her own invention. I liked her painting style--not very painterly, but not so arrogant outsider either. They seemed more like illustrations than paintings, if you know what I mean. Her mutant people are charming, funny, sad, engaging--ugly-cute like Troll Dolls but nearly as kitschy. She also had several post-card sized paintings with bunnies in them. That does lead me to a question that anyone can answer if you are still reading this far--why all the bunnies and rodents in urban and outsider art? At this Brewhouse show, there were Squirrels and Bunnies all over. Did I miss the irony train on this phenomenon? Am I not in on the joke?
Myles had a few paintings from Covato's installation that he loved. The bottom right painting has two bridges in it, as you can see, and Myles of course wanted to keep pointing out the bridges. "A bridge!" he said smiling up at me. If you look at the postcard groupings above that, you will see one of the little paintings--I think it is the one with what looks like in this image the yellow tear-drop on its side with white blobs around it? In real life it has more detail. Anyway, this was another one Myles kept coming back to and instead of understanding it to be what it was, I think "Bunny in the Storm," he kept calling it "the train." I mean, the context was already there for him with the painting of the bridges. The clouds to him looked like steam from a train. He was so excited to see a painting of a train. He also went through the show and pointed out various body parts--A face! A Belly! A Big Belly!--on some of the paintings and photographs, but he kept coming back the the bridge! and the train!
The group show was called "What It Is" and is about a new crop of urban artist in Pittsburgh. The Tribune-Review reviewed it, and since the Brewhouse has no webpage, you can read this to get more details. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I have had a beef with enthusiasts for "urban art" (and humorously mistype what I mean along the way). To be clear, my main complaint is that many of the artworld types who gush about graffiti tags as art don't normally live in neighborhoods where this is the status quo. Don't expect that a tag will be preserved and hallowed just because it is there; it will likely be painted over on an in-use building or demolished with a condemned structure. Street art is usually meant to be stealth, temporary, and very often experimental as I see it (but my usual disclaimer about art applies here, too---I really don't know anything about it). Competitive even at times , which is why it was interesting to see a group show of street art at the Brewhouse that was not that competitive. Not harmonious, but at least well-installed.
Anyway, this show was more Urban- and street-inspired than just street art. As with a lot of local artist shows, the level of artistic sophistication varied from artist to artist. I say this not with my usual criticism that everything stinks, but rather that it is somewhat refreshing at times to see artists in development. When I was doing a lot of gallery stuff in New York (purely social events, I tell you), most of the artists I got to see were mature in technique and had a pronounced vision or even "look." Commercial dealers like to see that. They can sell that. At a lot of the grant-sponsored art events in Pittsburgh, you can see mostly young artists still grappling with how to hold a paint brush, by exaggerated comparison. It's not just Pittsburgh; you will probably see the same things in Buffalo, or Portland, or Columbus, or.........
Two of the artists have stuck with me visually a week after the show. One was a photographer Jason Hendrickson. He asks regular people on the street to wear a hockey mask and he takes their picture. These portraits are incredibly creepy--the back-and fore-grounds are swirlingly blurred slightly, so all you can see that isn't distorted is someone in regular clothes, wearing the hockey mask, at a cross walk, or sitting on a granite wall outside a financial building. Really cool stuff that, unfortunately, I cannot find an image of online to show you.
The other artist whose work I liked best in the show was Alexis Covato. Coincidentally she was one of the curators, but she didn't assign herself the best spot, nor did the show feel like Alexis and her Do-Wop artists. In fact, I didn't realize that she was a co-curator until after I went through the show. I'd like to learn more about her, because this installation was of a city and people and ethos all her own invention. I liked her painting style--not very painterly, but not so arrogant outsider either. They seemed more like illustrations than paintings, if you know what I mean. Her mutant people are charming, funny, sad, engaging--ugly-cute like Troll Dolls but nearly as kitschy. She also had several post-card sized paintings with bunnies in them. That does lead me to a question that anyone can answer if you are still reading this far--why all the bunnies and rodents in urban and outsider art? At this Brewhouse show, there were Squirrels and Bunnies all over. Did I miss the irony train on this phenomenon? Am I not in on the joke?
Myles had a few paintings from Covato's installation that he loved. The bottom right painting has two bridges in it, as you can see, and Myles of course wanted to keep pointing out the bridges. "A bridge!" he said smiling up at me. If you look at the postcard groupings above that, you will see one of the little paintings--I think it is the one with what looks like in this image the yellow tear-drop on its side with white blobs around it? In real life it has more detail. Anyway, this was another one Myles kept coming back to and instead of understanding it to be what it was, I think "Bunny in the Storm," he kept calling it "the train." I mean, the context was already there for him with the painting of the bridges. The clouds to him looked like steam from a train. He was so excited to see a painting of a train. He also went through the show and pointed out various body parts--A face! A Belly! A Big Belly!--on some of the paintings and photographs, but he kept coming back the the bridge! and the train!
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