BY SUZI STEFFEN
Otherworldly
Thoughtful MFA show takes many a journey
W
orldbuilding: That’s what science
fiction and fantasy writers do, and
if they’re good, they bring their
readers along. In the current terminal MFA
show up at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of
Art on the UO campus, the artists perform
similar feats, reflecting our world’s absurdity
or creating new worlds from within their psy-
ches, using various materials to transport the
viewers. Though the show is uneven, some of
the work is good, some is superb, and all of it
is worth some time.
To begin with the flat (as in, on the wall)
work: Robin Cushman’s playful digital photos
of a Seattle garden bring wry commentary to
the show. Cushman notes in her iTour, avail-
able on the J-Schnitz’s five iPods (bring your
driver’s license for a deposit), that garden
shows are peculiarly American because
they’re held “indoors, in a space where noth-
ing can actually grow.” Suburban Swank
points up this contrast with plastic-covered
chaise lounges settled bizarrely in the midst of
fluorescent-lit lawn, martini glasses and bowls
of nuts perched on a little table. Did we just
walk into a set from the 1999 movie Blast from
the Past? I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sissy
Spacek emerging from the cinderblock win-
dow to take in the water feature, the tulips in
boxes and the neatly mown grass before wan-
dering off along the cement paths of the ware-
house to another location — perhaps the one
in Afternoon Delight, where she could gaze
out over neatly labeled plants at a photo of the
Seattle skyline. Cushman’s work shows spark
and whimsical enjoyment of the contrasts in a
culture consumed with the fake representation
of the real.
Painter Robert Adams, who has exhibited
tirelessly in the Willamette Valley, also seems
interested in digging up layers of meaning. His
Selective Memory shows strata of conscious-
ness, working inward from an outer pop art
the ghosty world of “residual media” like a
thoughts, Adams shows the nesting levels that
Mac Classic near reams of hard-shelled floppy
form human consciousness.
disks residing in a flip-through disk container.
Adrian Freuen, a printmaker, creates
The desk on which the tiny-screened com-
woodcuts that at first glance deal more with
puter rests contains motherboards, dismem-
physical science than with inner worlds. The
bered cell phones
two
largest,
and other e-waste,
Disseminate 1 and
and the whole
Disseminate 2, re-
thing is part of
sembles an ab-
Diehl’s elaborate
stracted Wizard
Paranormal
Island at Crater
Machine display.
Lake. But the
With old-school
pieces also look to
Dymo labels stuck
memory, learning
all over the place,
and abstract ideas.
instructions firmly
Pangeisis mixes
telling viewers to
18th-century
slip some of that
Linnean precision
“DAMNED
with the micro-fas-
DATA” on the
cination of a mod-
floppies into the
ern Swiftian world Clockwise from upper left: Hoa Lan Tran’s 11 am;
Beth Greene’s Untitled; Robin Cushman’s
open drive or to
— tiny figures Suburban Swank; Adrian Freuen’s Pangeisis.
“TAKE ONE” of
swing from para-
the CDs that con-
chutes in the mid-
nect to Diehl’s websites, the display wanders
dle of a greenish ovoid that gives associations
in a self-referential world of classification and
of snakeskin, red blood cells and ribbed paper
organization that threatens to destabilize what
figurines. It’s a potent mix.
humans know about the “progress” of technol-
Two of the strongest pieces in the show
ogy. I deeply enjoyed this work with its walk-
stand down the wall from Freuen’s composi-
the-line-of-insanity techno ghost world.
tions: Patricia Wyman’s “nullus titulus” and
Yvonne Stubbs’bloodline is a performance
Beth Greene’s Middle Ground. Wyman’s
piece that she’ll recreate Wednesday, June 13,
piece combines with her Fragments of an un-
but her disembodied red dress shines with in-
told narrative to unfold precise, brilliantly col-
terest as it waits to fulfill its purpose. Listening
ored new thoughts on stability and repetition.
to her voice on her iTour gives some idea yet
Greene, who’s getting her MFA in metals and
fails to convey the full meaning behind her
jewlery, podcasts a quote from Czeslaw
work. I hear she’s often around the museum
Milosz to say drawing can sometimes seem
and can be convinced to create the perform-
“as if taken from a shelf, already existing.” In
ance sometimes — just ask!
Middle Ground, a world does seem to exist:
Finally, to mention two other lovely works:
The huge scale of the background white paper
Hoa-Lan Tran’s Waking Life/Dreaming Life, a
combines neatly — if eerily — with the trac-
woodcut-acrylic-gold leaf-watercolor-chine
ings and projections of fine wire forms. The
collé thing of beauty, with long scrolls for each
forms make shadows, but some of the shad-
hour of the day set up in an open circle, colors
ows have been transcribed into two-dimen-
shining for daytime hours and muted for the
sional forms with a pencil, pen or other imple-
night. Images (a crown of thorns, a butterfly)
ment, and some of the paper projects outward,
float in various scrolls, but sharply defined
in tiny, neat rips that mirror the wire. Greene
squares near the top of each hanging connect
seems to be recording a world, a tiny world
every hour to the next. And Amelia Raley’s
with people or creatures so complete in them-
charming Oh My! This Screen Reflects My
Sky: Vintage Vivants in the Digital Age show-
cases her fascination with “time traveling” and
adopting some of the past, a time she says runs
from 1920 to 1948. The black and white pho-
tos of film stars, the carefully recreated piece
of furniture and the velvet hearts lead to the
world of elegance celebrated by, say, Cole
Porter.
Visiting these artists’ worlds (plus more I
selves that our looking closely at the work
didn’t have room for) is easy: This show
only confirms the existence of planet Greene.
(more like many mini-shows, to quote a stu-
And what of planet technology?
dent at the exhibition) runs through June 17 at
Multimedia artist Carl Diehl is more than will-
the JSMA.
ing to bring visitors from the land of the new to
ew
The artists reflect our world’s
absurdity or create new worlds
to transport the viewers.
rectangle, Lichtenstein-like in execution, then
to a snapshot-like black and white layer, with a
heart-red rectangle jumping out of the center.
Inspired by Josef Albers and perhaps Jo Baer,
not to mention his internal motivations and
MAY 31, 2007
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