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After about three beers I moved on to the video and installation and sat behind a girl I’d seen often but never spoke with. Emboldened by Grolsch I leaned forward and demanded whether it was the beer or whether the video was difficult to understand. She laughed and replied she’d only had one but was also finding it difficult to understand. It is a shame that video so often gets the shaft at openings. The shorter, more pithy a video work, the better chance it has competing with the social clamor of the opening. And Nudashank was clamorous this past Friday. The gallery itself is very persuasive– situated on the third floor of the H&H Building it is well-renovated and attractive without being stiff, and it seems to attract a beautiful crowd, too. The walls look white and strong and the floor is shiny.
The curatorial acumen of Seth Adelsberger and Alex Ebstein is no less savvy. The last show I saw there was Knit Wit, a general collection of new works following the fibers tradition, articulating in familiar ways that kitsch craft can also be painting or sculpture or both. The new show Lordz of the Flyze shows painting-oriented works from two Brooklyn-based artists, Matthew Craven and Julian C. Duron. These two very amiable gentlemen hail from SVA and Parson’s, respectively. Residing in what is considered to be the center of the art world, both artists are understandably dealing with visual themes that may seem familiar from other contemporary works, album-cover art, even tattoos.
In an effort to locate a more precise axis around which to discuss this show, perhaps we could tease out a relationship with William Golding’s thrilling novel Lord of the Flies, which shows us the how hideous a body politic we might create if we let go of reason and follow more primal impulses of fear and superstition. The correlation might be the found then in the tumultuous, dystopian space within Duron’s paintings, or perhaps in the strange new gods that Craven conjures through his meditative doodles. Or maybe we the gallery goers are the flies buzzing around the art on the walls (the decaying pigs head on a stick)? It is not clear what the show has to do with Golding’s allegorical critique of society. Perhaps it is not the duty of a title to give us too much information, especially since maybe the title was just an excuse to use that hip-hop trope where one substitutes Zs for Ss.
Both artists kindly took the time to speak with me a little about the show. Duron spoke about challenging himself to work larger and looser. In this respect he seems to be well on his way– his full-wall painting installation with its psycadelic colors and its concussed field is a fantastic affront to the eyes. Craven talked with me about the way in which he allows his themes and his process dictate the direction of his new work and how working in that intuitive way doesn’t always allow him to deal explicitly with content, even though his strategy–detourning old-timey photographic portraits of patriarchs and American Indians– seems to suggest some sort of political stance.
I am thrilled to welcome Brooklyn energy to Baltimore. Both artists are cognizant of their process and willing to engage in dialog. For this I respect them, even if they are still a little unclear why they are doing what they do. In this instance and in general I would like to see greater attention payed to the visual tropes that constitute current trends that we are all seeing now everywhere. I sat and watched Duron’s video a second time. I realized it was something like a parody of the art school critique. But then there were these psychedelic elements– day-glow colors, hallucinatory spaces, and people wearing Buddhist monk-like garments. I asked that girl, “What is it with the psychedelic stuff? Is it spiritual? Is it sincere?” She replied no, she didn’t think it is sincere, she thinks it’s kinda mocking it. We weren’t sure.
Lordz of the Flyze
Nudashank
H&H Arts Building
405 W. Franklin St.
3rd Floor
Baltimore, MD 21201
http://www.nudashank.com/
January 8 – February 5
Tags: Alex Ebstein, Julian C. Duron, Lordz of the Flyze, Matthew Craven, Nudashank, Seth Adelsberger
Filed Under: Feature Sights
Looks like it was a good show. Thanks for posting photos.
January 11, 2010 12:44 pmPeter Boyce is an excellent art critic! Keep up the good work!
January 18, 2010 5:10 pm