Duncan R. Anderson at Kasia Kay Art Projects

Robin Dluzen

Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery opened its second solo exhibition of Duncan

Detail of Anderson's work at kasia kay.

R. Anderson’s sculptural works, New Work, February 19, 2010 at the gallery’s new location down the street from the previous space on Aberdeen and Fulton Market. The limited, though impeccable, space suits Anderson’s work, composed of tiny toys, trinkets and found objects, combined and/or manipulated to engage in dialogues larger than their tchotchke selves.
Accompanying the sculptures are often lengthy titles, descriptive or narrative, but which do not actually inform the setting or identity of the work to which they are attributed all that much. These titles often employ humor or sarcasm in their over-dramatized language, making clear the catastrophic or the monumental on the minuscule scale.

The artist and the gallery owner with visitors opening night.

Whether it’s a physical spacial or a formal decision, in addition to the usual pedestal presentation, works are displayed on mantel-height shelves mounted to the walls reinforcing the reference to the status of these sorts of particular objects. Also, the height of the shelves—just below the shoulder, or higher and right under your nose– allow for an intimate interaction with the sometimes minuscule settings. Resembling, or rather actually generated from, RPG-type painted minis, antique porcelain dolls, or kitschy fantasy statues, Anderson’s objects embrace the connotations; objects like these are things people love, keep, collect, preserve, or sometimes obsessively slave over and live vicariously through. Tchotchkes occupy a particular place in people’s lives, that’s both intimate and universal. And of that piece of ourselves, Anderson playfully tugs at our heart strings when we see that, for instance, two tiny men are isolated on either side of an insurmountable two-inch divide, or a little octopus figure with one of his tentacles just a stub ending with a teeny gauze bandage.
However, the flip side of the connotation is the low-art status knick-knacks occupy: the kitsch that is the stuff of post-war Greenbergian repulsion. Anderson uses this notion to question the assignment of value to

Anderson's work at kasia kay.

particular objects, the authority from which the assignment originates and where and when this assignment takes place. Does it have value once the artist conceives of his intention, or is it when he acquires the material? Is it after the artist is finished, or when he presents it to be viewed? Perhaps it receives its value upon being chosen by a curator for exhibition, or upon entering the hallowed white cube.
Though these are substantial questions, Anderson is not wielding any biting criticisms or accusations; people have been doing that for a long time. Rather, he has found in this investigation that these questions can be something for an artist’s toolbox, something like formalism or appropriation, and it can also create a space to operate a valid practice with ample room to play.

Duncan R. Anderson New Work
is on display February 19 through March 20, 2010
at Kasia Kay art projects 215 N. Aberdeen St, Chicago