Blog

Michael Fallon on Anastylosis: Drawings by Mary Griep, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Mary Griep’s work begins with wishfulness. The title of this
exhibition, "Anastylosis," is a reconstruction technique in which a ruined
archeological monument is restored after careful study, using original
architectural elements whenever possible as well as supposition and guesswork
when necessary. No matter how rigorous the study, errors in reconstruction are
inevitable and original components will be damaged.

But I like the idea of anastylosis-the glorious and
beautiful hubris of the attempt to reimagine and recreate-because it’s
the only way we can even begin to realize unknowable mysteries.

In Griep’s work, this wishfulness reveals itself in the
impossible and highly obsessive-compulsive charting-brick by brick,
cornice by cornice, mosaic tile by mosaic tile-of one version of the
ruined sacred spaces, temples, cathedrals, and other monuments of the past. The
finished works, inevitably flawed, proudly wrong, full of absolute humanness,
are beautiful for the imperfection inherent in their execution. They are charts
of futility, mapping through guesswork and supposition an entire world of
possibility that simply cannot be known but we can’t help wonder about.

These drawings are like the maps made in the late 1400s,
after Columbus returned to Europe and rocked the collective understanding of
the global layout. In some maps, for example, Florida is in a strange place in
relation to Honduras-right at its shores, actually-and up until
about 1540 mapmakers imagined a place they called Arabia Felix. Griep’s images
are like Arabia Felix. There is something immensely poignant about such human
mistakes.

^{bobrauschenbergamerica, a production by SITI Company}

Jaime Kleiman
interviews Philip Bither, the William and Nadine McGuire Senior Curator
of Performing Arts at Walker Art Center

Do you see any fundamental differences in theater that is
made in North America versus theater that’s being made in Europe? Are there
similar themes, practices, or ideas threading through new work right now?

Regarding differences, it’s very difficult to generalize,
and this is a subject worthy of long essay or even a book. But here are a few
thoughts: In Europe there is greater tolerance for conceptual (both in content
and form) approaches and artists/producers feel less need to make performances
"entertaining." While this is mostly good-artists have a tremendous
freedom to experiment, even on the largest scale-at times it results in
work that feels insular or academic.

In the U.S. in recent years, ensemble and collective
theater-making seems to be more dominant than in Europe, particularly in
experimental and contemporary forms. Some of the ensembles that have emerged in
the past decade in the U.S. represent a significant and exciting development.
Our annual Out There Festival in January has, in particular, become a home for
the rising contemporary ensemble theater movement in the States. Groups like
Elevator Repair Service, Big Art Group, SITI Company, Riot Group, Richard
Maxwell’s New York City Players, Universes, Big Dance Theater, and many others
offer tremendous promise for the future of theater. They are willing to shake
things up in a way that most of the traditional theater company structures in
America don’t allow.

A much more recent trend I’m noticing in the generation of
theater/performance makers even younger than those mentioned above is what I
might refer to "the new sincerity," a rejection of an ironic, distanced, more
post-modern stance that has tended to define the work of their predecessors. We
will see several examples of this direction in several of the companies
appearing in this year’s Out There Festival.

^{Warren MacKenzie at work}

Mason Riddle interviews Warren MacKenzie in conjunction with his retrospective,
Warren MacKenzie: Legacy of an American Potter, at Rochester Art Center

Could you speak to the influences on your work?

The first influence was when Alix and I apprenticed at
Bernard Leach’s pottery in St. Ives, England. Because we stayed in his house,
we were around his collection of pots. We saw pots from China and Japan. It is
also where we met Shoji Hamada, the master Japanese potter who worked in the
mingei tradition. Through Leach and his book, The Potter’s Book, pottery became
more available. Hamada, who was influenced by Korean folk pottery, took a
tradition and gave it new life. I gravitated to his philosophy and how he threw
pots. It was a philosophy of "Don’t look at my work, but look at the influences
of my work. These influences are stronger [than my pots] as they represent a
culture." Koreans didn’t have a word for "good" or "bad," just mu, "it is."
Hamada’s work had tremendous breadth-it was an attitude-carried out
as well as possible.

I like the historic pots of China and Japan and Korea, where
the culture was more elemental when these pots were beginning to be made. Much
of contemporary Japanese pottery has become all too clever but fantastic in
terms of technical skill. The potters have gained incredible skills, but they
have lost an emotional reason to express. But this is only my personal opinion.

^{Untitled, by Jim Denomie}

Ann Klefstad reviews the work of Jim Denomie and Andrea Carlson in New Skins, at the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts

New Skins is big, in all ways. It’s an ambitious show that’s
highly successful. Jim Denomie and Andrea Carlson both use their positions
inside and outside the standard art world to brilliant effect. The artists’
work is very different, but the pairing works. Carlson and Denomie are both of
Anishinaabe ancestry, but more than that, they are fine artists with academic
training and fully developed personal styles. They use their media in
sophisticated ways, working out of both Euro-American and Native cultural
traditions.

What was most instructive about this show to me was how rich
the traditions of art are if they are approached not only from the inside, but
with the perspective of someone who can both take a tradition and leave
it-someone who can see it from inside and outside simultaneously. This
eliminates stale strategies of quotation and irony, and opens up new potentials
in the practice of painting. Both Carlson and Denomie are possessed of more
than one tradition, and that seems to be a rich and liberating condition.

^{False Flag, by Andrea Carlson}