Review: Never Let Me Go – Curated by Terry R. Myers

Intro:  Chicago Art Magazine is now publishing selected exhibition reviews in which the curatorial success and failure of the show is examined, rather than creating a laundry list of good vs. bad artwork. We chose this exhibit at Rhona Hoffman Gallery because of the notable artists and ambitious theme of this group show curated by Terry R. Myers, an independent curator, critic and Associate Professor of the School of the Art Institute.

Lari Pittman

Robin Dluzen: When we received the promo for the group exhibition, Kathryn and I were intrigued by the concept, though for different reasons. On the one hand, the incredible line-up –André Butzer, Folkert de Jong, Lari Pittman, Rona Pondick, Jeni Spota, Nicola Tyson, John Wesley—was the main draw for me, while Kathryn jumped on the show’s title and namesake novel, “Never Let Me Go.” Seeing as how we’ve connected to the exhibition in different ways, this review will be a two-part conversation, with my discussion of the formal elements of the exhibition, while Kathryn focuses on the ambiguous content assigned by the title.

Formally, I don’t think the connections between and conversations amongst the works in the show could be clearer. The press release explains that the show illustrates works in which the “‘figure’ [is] inextricable from ‘ground’ (and vice versa).” Here, the age-old dialogue of the figure-ground relationship (one in which an object in a visual field is distinct from its background) is challenged by both two- and three- dimensional works. I often see the challenge to the figure-ground relationship happen through the flattening out of the illusionistic space, which happens here in works like Pittman’s, Butzer’s and Tyson’s, for example; but, this annihilation of the figure-ground also happens in the opposite sense, as not a flattening, but an exaggerated three-dimensionality, in the case of some, like Spota and de Jong.

But what I had found surprisingly clever and fresh was the “figure” of the figure-ground being complicated by the fact that the “figure” also was literally the representation of human figure in various forms, from the precarious, out-lined figures of Tyson’s, to Butzer’s graphic, ‘de-skilled’ black creature, to the disembodied faces escaping in relief from de Jong’s three-dimensional tree.  I appreciated the double meaning of the “figure” here, and was pleased to see an exhibition address the human figure in a way I had never seen before.

As for the show’s other intention, the allusion to Kazuo Ishiguro’s famous sci-fi novel, I had been worried about how such a specific reference would play out in an exhibition of visual art, especially a group exhibition of artists whose artistic concerns are varied and separate. After attending the show in person, I realized that this reference was ambiguous enough to not seem heavy-handed to me in any sense, and was much more of an undercurrent of potential interpretation than anything that could possibly over-power the works on display.

So this is where I, as a painter, leave off, and Kathryn, as a novelist and word-artist takes over.

Kathryn Born: My New Year’s resolution for 2011 was to avoid wall text and curatorial statements and seek art in which the meaning of the work is embedded within the art itself.  Yet in this case, where the curator is also a critic (writer), the text appears especially, directly connected to the exhibit.  In actuality, the more I saw the exhibit in relationship to the book, the more the exhibit held together for me.

That said, if the key idea behind the statement is that the subject of the artwork can’t be separated from background, and you apply that to the book, (SPOILER ALERT) which is about people who have so internalized the class system that it doesn’t dawn on them to try to escape their societal role –which entails donating all their organs while still in their youth– this “figure-ground” relationship is clearly illustrated. Breaking from the system is simply never considered by anyone at any point in the narration.

Therefore if you stretch the book’s concept  –figures that can’t escape their context within the imagined society– and extend it to the exhibit, then, as Robin elaborated above, it’s coherent. However, the curatorial statement also mentions the seven participating artists who are “withstanding alienation” and I can’t find a way to tie that into the artworks, theme or book.

From a view of flatness, and an inability to separate ourselves from the context in which we exist, we can also look at the work as a view of the figure not as human, but a concept of disconnected parts being valued more than ourselves, and our ruined state as the one with the most value.

 

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is located at 118 North Peoria Street, Chicago, and “Never Let Me Go” is on display until July 8, 2011.