visual arts
BY SUZI STEFFEN
Remains of Our Days
Bones, shells, eyes and ears at DIVA
B
First, the Spahns. Sara works with
ack in high school, my best friend
ceramics, some of which come off as a
loved to joke about humans
bit too precious (Big River or Tracks, for
“having a hundred percent
instance), but most of which mix ephemeral
mortality rate.” Perhaps he said it dryly
lightness with the strength and vulnerability
when we read Red Sky at Dawn and the
of fi red clay to create wonderfully allusive
main character fell face-fi rst into a decaying
images. Sundance and
horse; perhaps he
Dreams That Almost
said it triumphantly
Existed nudge at the
when Hamlet went
brain
to
consider
on for a bit too
bones — tossed bones,
long about Yorick.
perhaps, or an animal’s
We would raise
ribs in Sundance and
our eyebrows and
broken, reknit, stripped
give a little nod
and scrimshaw-carved
of appreciation at
bones in Dreams.
his wry yet plain
To Hear and See You
statement.
combines elements on
Then, we rarely
the wall and hanging
had to deal with
from the ceiling. The
death
or
even
hanging pieces call up
reminders of our
bones, too, but also pork
own mortality. I’d
rinds, tiny bee’s nests,
like to take him to
wrapped
bandages,
DIVA now to see
strips of skin or bark
two of the shows:
— and the interaction
“Sight and Sound”
To Hear and See You,
of their shadows with
by Sara Smith
by Sara Smith Spahn
the white wall elicits
Spahn and Kevin
a
pleasing
visual
Spahn, and “Thrown
complexity. Kevin Spahn’s sound design
Before,” by Jonathan Smith, in which
also alludes to other things — outdoor
bodies meet art, and what lies beneath the
noises, or maybe the sound of breath from
skin emerges as hauntingly attractive.
the inside of the lungs.
The visual and aural work
together well; each lends
more weight to the other’s
art.
In the next room,
Jonathan Smith’s “Thrown
Before” monumentalizes
objects even as the
photography reveals its own
process. One piece focuses
on a pine cone stripped by
squirrels (“They eat it like
an artichoke,” Smith says);
one an egg that Smith shot in
several different exposures
and printed, leaving his
tracks clear. Because I’m
lightly acquainted with
him, I’m not going to
review the show (though
if I didn’t know Smith, I’d
be writing my approval of
these moving, lovely pieces
that both turn away and
confront). Instead, he and
I talked about the show.
Here’s an excerpt from the
longer interview, available
at
blogs.eugeneweekly.
com
039_33-37,
by Jonathan Smith
and someone found a deer
skull. Bones specifi cally are
so close to what we are, and
to see a bone photographed
speaks to us. Something has
died; something has passed
on; this remains. We can
easily make a jump from a
deer to our own mortality.
Why make the photos
of bones so consciously
beautiful?
Art has to be beautiful
in order to be viewable.
I don’t necessarily agree
with art that shocks. I think
even some of the most
controversial art out there
is beautiful in the end, like
[Andres Serrano’s] Piss
Christ. Even a gruesome
project can be viewed in
a beautiful way. It’s like
sugarcoating in a way — it
goes down a little easier,
but the fact is that it goes
down.
ew
EW: Jonathan, how did
you get interested in
remains?
JS: We were on a hike
with a bunch of friends,
Both shows run through Saturday,
Aug. 30, at DIVA, 110 W. Broadway.
Summer hours are 10 am-6 pm
Tues.-Sat.
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© 2006 EUROPACORP – LES PRODUCTIONS DU TRESOR
BIJOU ART CINEMAS
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STARTS FRIDAY, AUGUST 22
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