Art Attacks
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 12, 2002 9:00 p.m.
“Conversations” Museum of Contemporary Art
at California Plaza Showing indefinitely
“Conversations,” one of the three current exhibits
at the downtown MOCA location, has taken pieces of art and shown
them in concert with works of similar topics. This method of
display helps museum patrons explore relationships between works.
While some of these aesthetic, intellectual and formal
relationships are easy to recognize, other associations are deeper
and vague.
An interesting example of the effect of this juxtaposition is
Jasper Johns’ “Map” and Robert Frank’s
photographs of Americans. “Map” is a large canvas
depicting a stylized map of the United States. Frank’s
photographs ““ ranging from a Southern cafe to a New York
window ““ flesh out the “Map” providing a
back-story for many of the states in Johns’ dark and shadowy
work.
One of the museum’s newer acquisitions is Adrian
Piper’s “Concrete Infinity Document Piece” from
1970. Piper recorded details of her everyday life, including how
much she weighed and her temperature, on pieces of notebook
paper.
These notebook entries, and contemporaneously taken pictures of
Piper, are tiled across one wall of the MOCA, allowing audiences a
window into Piper’s habits. The more whimsical paintings and
sculpture surrounding Piper’s piece contrast her stylistic
dryness showing the many faces of everyday life.
“Conversations” is an interesting form in which to
see MOCA’s collection. However, it may be best suited for
those with previous experience with the works who are up for the
challenge of looking for a new way to see old pieces.
-Kelsey McConnell
Sam Durant Museum of Contemporary Art at California
Plaza Through Jan. 19
Mixed media and popular culture combine to record and recreate
some of the most pivotal themes in American society in the first
museum survey devoted to Sam Durant.
Durant, one of the most respected and influential young artists,
takes on subject matter like the death of Kurt Cobain, Southern
Rock and civil rights.
While the exhibition displays four older works , it also
includes a newer piece, “Upside-Down: Pastoral Scene,”
which is a haunting exploration of America’s social politics.
Twelve up-ended tree stumps are placed on large mirrors and wired
for sound. Music ranging from artists like Billie Holiday to Public
Enemy echo through this “forest” creating an intense
and forbidding atmosphere.
All of Durant’s pieces allow audiences to move around, but
“Proposal for Monument at Friendship Park, Fl” allows
for some audience participation. The “monument”
includes a to-scale model of a wooden front porch complete with
rocking chairs. In front of the porch is a rock garden with a trash
can at its center. Two crates of records sit on the porch and
museum-goers can pick a song from the Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marshall
Tucker Band albums to play on a nearby record player. The sound
then comes out of the trash can and the stones to create a very
literal interpretation of Southern Rock.
Durant’s work is keenly creative and fun with an
inescapable edge. By rejecting modernism and tying together
seemingly disparate media and subjects, Durant shows his wit and
intellect and puts an emphasis on art’s greater context.
-Kelsey McConnell
