A Deflated Status Symbol
There is an element of pleasure that can be enjoyed through
the inventive humor and wit in the work by sculptor Linda Fitz Gibbon. Her
exhibition Not your grandmother’s Wedgwood
on display at B. Sakata Garo Gallery playfully challenges historical notions of
high culture.
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| Linda Fitz Gibbon, Not your grandmother's Wedgwood, hand built ceramic, n.d. |
Fitz Gibbon utilizes the style of pastel colors and
porcelain figures designed in the eighteenth century by Wedgwood, which in turn
was inspired by classical Greek and Roman pottery. The Wedgwood design was an
exclusive delicate ware popular amongst the English royalty and its elites.
Fitz Gibbon adopts this style of pottery as a motif from which to explore and
subvert ideas of refinement, status, and tradition.
In Leda & the Swan, Cup Runneth Over Wedgwood Series, a hand built ceramic, Fitz Gibbon quotes the
classical myth of Leda that is ravished by Zeus in guise of a swan. Leda is
depicted as submerged in the vessel with only arms and legs in sight, embracing
a plastic swan. The vessel references ancient Greek calyx-kraters of red and
black design, adorned by figurative narrations. Fitz Gibbon duplicates the
tradition however in the fashion developed by Wedgwood. The early industrial
fabrications are then exacerbated as Fitz Gibbon creates a pastiche of
eighteenth-century interpretations of classical pottery. Fitz Gibbon’s krater
overflows with reconstructions with a comical nature, which eventually deflates
the original meaning. Here, Leda and the swan now embody a
twenty-first-century, fatal expression of semiotic entropy.
Indexical Prints
One of the powers of photography is the potential to offer
contiguity with cultures, geographies, even ideas through its indexical print.
The photography currently on display at Viewpoint Gallery, Beyond Borders:
Immigration Images and Stories brings
people, communities, and the grappling issue of immigration to the fore.
Beyond Borders features the work of established photographer
David Bacon and the studies of Fulbright Fellow Kathya Landeros. Both
photojournalists have dedicated their efforts to access and address the
transnational experience of immigrants predominantly between Mexico and the
United States. Landeros
states: “If one can accept that the history of migratory policy toward
Mexico has been complicated as we negotiate between our demands for labor and
our need for cultural sovereignty, then we can acknowledge that the migrant
communities that have developed in Mexico are a manifestation of these
complexities.” These images and texts of immigrants constructing community
throughout their journey express the fluidity of human adaptation and survival,
while highlighting the stymieing nature of political processes.
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| Kathya Landeros, "Carnaval" when many migrants return home from the United States, silver gelatin print, Jalisco, Mexico, 2008 |
Landero’s image “Carnaval” when many migrants return home
from the United States, a sliver gelatin
print taken in Jalisco, Mexico in 2008, captures a season of celebration. Past
and present are highlighted in sepia contrasts, as we see the modern American
car transposed against colonial architecture. The print allows us to catalog with
exactitude a historical trajectory of the present day Carnaval. The event not
only offers an opportunity for migrants to return home and participate in a
rooted community but also contribute to the transformation of the local.
Iconography
The whimsical woodwork by John Buck dazzles with fine precision as
well as critical commentary. The exhibition Iconography at the Crocker presents
a comprehensive collection of the array of methods in which Buck utilizes wood,
mastering the unique properties of his medium for an individual language that
is accessible to a universal audience.
From woodblock prints to sculptures and an array of
shadowboxes, Buck arranges symbols and icons to communicate poignant
criticisms. One such icon is the dodo bird, a figure Buck uses as the central
focus on a series of prints. Rendered with fine lines behind the bird are
monumental structures of religion, education, and government. As the dodo has
come to symbolize something that is or will be out of date, Buck draws
parallels of this notion with current social and political institutions.
Other works are not as clearly defined however they offer an
equal weight in meaning with their suggestions. Nine Quarter Circle from 1996 involves a large square panel against the
wall with a freestanding, headless female figure positioned front and center. A
bare branch lays across the figure’s shoulders balancing a shadow box on one
end and a hanging head in profile on the other. The box on the branch holds
delicately carved figures, the large square panel contains recessed boxes with
miniature geometrical sculptures, while the hanging head in profile is hollowed
out with a box of its own, displaying eyes and possible organs. The entire
construction is carved in unfinished wood, and only a quartered circle drawn in
graphite unities the arrangement. The composition is surreal, but nonetheless
expresses a tension, a teetering, perhaps displaying how our current humanity
is trying to hold itself in a balance.
