Not Forever Blowing Bubbles
by Arthur L. Fagan
"Travels in Hyperreality," Bonnie Clearwater's seductive assemblage of 22 local (and transplanted) artists, which recently ended its run at MOCA, was a labyrinthine wonderland that aimed to make some sense of upstart Miami as a cultural outpost.
Robert Flynn's sugary and wondrous bird paintings and Eugenia Vargas' sublimely lyrical bubble-blowing chamber set the scene.
Around the corner was a region of landscapes, suggested first by two somewhat enigmatic canvases about transition and transcendence by David Rohn. If these hinted at the journey before us, then the green and blue island sculpture/installation by John Espinosa, which looked not inappropriately like a topographical golf course green, was our paradise defined.
Annie Wharton's lyrical paper doll/cookie cutter patterns on Plexiglas punctuated the area opposite with a subtle light effect. They were paired with Gean Moreno's quasi-Aboriginal-Central-American dot/pattern paintings.
A large central space was dominated by Robert Chambers' motorcycle-meets-bike, wherein a cycle and a bike shared a face-to-face front wheel. The suggested conflict of motorized vs. mechanical, simple vs. complex, worked well as a metaphor for the self-conflict and ambiguous transition from adolescence to adulthood, and seemed an apt one for an exhibition of a young and energetic city coming of age.
Nearby were the scattered references of Weston Charles' piece: Squared-off bowling balls, a fake fireplace and a bunch of other paraphernalia, including an animal trophy head. The work seemed to ruminate on a kind of death - in this case the death of Miami Beach as a retirement venue brought about by its rebirth as a year-round playground for the young.
Mark Handforth's fallen street lamp, its noteworthy sculptural qualities notwithstanding, reinforced the "nature morte'' sensibility of Charles' piece. No less appropriately placed were the nihilistic photos of Adler Guerrier, which took us from "nature morte" to "living morte," to Naomi Fisher's riotously glossy photos. Her exaggerated tropical foliage and ironic sexual references seemed to mock the images of marketing that bombard all potential tourists. A sardonic Bosch-ian mood eventually overpowered the initial seduction and spoke of trouble in Paradise.
Elizabeth Withstanley confronted us with her many faces: a series of portraits rendered unrecognizable by the cream-pie-in-the-face beauty treatment. A sharply ironic commentary on fashion, beauty and individuality, the portraits suggested that Withstanley could cackle over the same jokes as Bruce Nauman and Paul McCarthy.
William Cordova offered his up-close-and-personal images of everyday life through a childlike, poetic and terse series of drawings.
Brian Cooper laid out an extensive assemblage that included a motor home, a floor strewn with straw, a speed-racing uniform and a sound bubble for experiencing the drama of motor/mobile culture. It all seemed to be about motorized mobility, although the equation was hardly succinct.
In her truly powerful still videos, Beatriz Montaevaro presented her superhero images as symbols of power, machismo and myth. The inherent humor paralleled the sense of resignation adopted by many people who shrug off Miami's political silliness.
Nearby are more hero(ine)-related images - those of Luis Gisbert. His cheerleaders, suspended on a field of green, appeared to be holy virgins being lifted up to heaven.
Norberto Rodriguez's furniture pieces were rather more indecipherably personal. Looking more like furniture design prototypes than art, they left us to assume that they were meant as a comment on the creative process: the personal in artistic creation vs. the public agenda.
The final space included Hernan Bas and Jorge Pantojas. Bas' cut out figures in languid poses and a washed out color palette seemed to be wasting away before our eyes. They were subtly powerful and beautiful reflections on self doubt and self denial.
Pantojas' meditative studies were clearly the product of a transcendent sensibility, the brief drawings presenting reduced reflections of a material world as signs of a greater significance.
All in all, the exhibition was as seductive and fun as is the sun 'n' sand party town that spawned it.
Seduction, leisure and humor are the wiles of the young, and Miami and its fledgling art community are certainly that. Young can also mean self-absorbed, which could be the reason for the noticeable lack of hard-core socio-political concern in a town that doesn't lack such material.
The MOCA show was structured in a way that reinforced the work of each artist and, in a more tenuous way, their philosophical/aesthetic relationship to each other. After all, Miami is anything but monolithic in its cultural expression. ; "Travels in Hyperreality," was about what is shared in a town that puts a lot of emphasis on separation. It thoughtfully documented a moment of great energy and - let's hope - a great point of departure in Miami's cultural development.
Making Art in Miami: Travels in Hyperreality was on view through January 28 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami; 305-893-6211. Museum Hours: Tues.-Sat. 11 am to 5 pm; Fri. 11 am to 5 pm; Sun. noon to 5 pm; Mon. closed. http://www.mocanomi.org
