Exhibition reflects uniqueness of interdisciplinary art program

By Kurt Shaw
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW ART CRITIC
Sunday, November 21, 2004

The exhibition "Wax," currently on view at the SPACE 101 gallery in the Brew House on the South Side, is something of a postcard sent back home for artist Carin Mincemoyer.
After living in Pittsburgh for 13 years, Mincemoyer moved to Buffalo last year to attend the graduate program in art at University at Buffalo. Now in her second year of the program, she has organized an enlightening exhibition of works by herself and her fellow classmates that not only reflect the uniqueness of the interdisciplinary program, but the conceptual muscle of the dozen artists included.

"The program is also very conceptually focused, and a lot of emphasis is placed on theory," Mincemoyer says. "I think the works in the show definitely reflect the focus on the conceptual, rather than the formal."
Case in point is Mincemoyer's own pieces, which at first glance look exactly like what the artist has intended them to look like -- plans for parks and public spaces laid out in green flocked paper. But in reality, the designs come from Styrofoam packing material: the molded pieces that appliances and computers are packed in, which the artist has laboriously traced onto and cut out of the same material that is sold in hobby shops for model train sets.

"To me, the shapes and patterns molded into the Styrofoam resembled landscapes," Mincemoyer says. "I liked the idea that this was a model of a landscape defined by consumerism, which is exactly what a lot of our larger landscape is."
Conceptual? Yes, but Mincemoyer is never without her patent wit. "I think the final effect is that they look like fairly seriously considered plans, but when you take a closer look, there's an element of the crackpot there."

The remainder of the class doesn't share her sense of humor, but what they do share is Mincemoyer's commitment to craft. That's obvious in Dietmar Krumrey's "Fluvial Models," which are topographical scale models of places that actually do not exist.

That's not so evident at first glance, but read through the six pages of fake journal entries that accompany the works, and you will catch on quickly. The details of Krumrey's fake expedition reveal such unbelievable scenarios as being set upon by a pack of wild dogs and enduring wildly changing weather conditions. "I'm trying to fool the viewer into believing in my fictions as if they were facts," Krumrey has written in a statement. "By making both the models and the journal entries resemble legitimate historical artifacts, I hope to draw attention to the seductive character of knowledge and its consumption."

Another well-crafted work with a conceptual bent that stands out for its completeness is Pamela Ybanez's "Passage." A box-like construction covered in fabric screen-printed with designs of fingerprints, Social Security cards and Residential Alien cards out of which a silhouette has been cut, it reveals even more about immigrant identity issues when one looks inside the box to find objects of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish origin.

Some works are not as direct, such as Steve Heil's "Swarm," a hanging piece comprised of two massive marionette paddles full of black and white model airplanes covered in grass seed. This swarm is not unlike bees collecting pollen, and yet one cannot help but wonder what the seeds represent -- the seeds of progress or the seeds of evil?

Just as subversive is Arzu Telhan's piece "Matter." Basically an innocuous-looking teddy bear arranged among coloring books on a coffee table, the bear comes to life when one presses the "Squeeze Me" button on its paw, revealing a blaring air raid siren.

Arzu, who grew up in Turkey and had the experience of hearing those air raid sirens regularly, is currently working on a line of Post-Traumatic Toys for children who have suffered through war and other traumas, something that this piece most certainly addresses.

Finally, Jennifer Lawhead pulls in the conceptual reigns, so to speak, with "Paradox." Contained by itself in one room, the installation piece is simply made up of two rope constructions that hang from the ceiling that begin as ladders and end as nooses.
"The ladder and noose connected together represent a narrative of life and death, a passage to the unknown," the artist writes in her statement. "It is escape as well as an entrance into the world, one that we have all endured of trauma and then repressed."
Now there's a concept. But even with all of those ideas floating around, there still is a fair amount of works that favor more traditional approaches to art making. They range from a delicate abstract watercolor by James Laker and two emotionally charged semi-abstract paintings by Geethanjana Kudaligamageto, perfectly executed prints by Rachel Hetzel and Kathleen Parzych, and smartly conceived photographs of wax mannequins -- one of a convict and one of a conquistador -- by Jay Ariaz.
In the end, the interdisciplinary aspect of the graduate program at University at Buffalo might be more obvious than the conceptual aspect. Either way, it makes for a really interesting exhibition.