Art

Richard Bassett “Options”, Jack Fischer Gallery

I usually focus on modern and contemporary art’s ability to give the mind space away from emotion and shift focus to the textures, shapes, colors and concepts of the pieces themselves. Options, Richard Bassett’s current solo show at Jack Fischer Gallery, however, does not give the viewer that luxury. One is forced to make a choice between ironic detachment or complete emotional engagement.

Bassett has made several series of handmade needlepoint pillows over the years for various shows. It is an object and medium more associated with craft than fine art, something that while visually pleasing is more likely to be sat upon than gazed upon. Bassett subverted the expectations of pillows in previous exhibitions, depicting violent crimes such as convenience-store robberies. The series featured in this show is of cats and dogs, images that are quite common on pillows (indeed, I suspect many readers may have cat or dog pillows at home). But these are not the happy, tender, images of animals we are used to seeing in domestic decor, but rather photographs of abandoned or abused animals at shelters.


[Richard Bassett, SH_F_BL. 15″x15″x4″ wool, linen, and down, hand needle pointed, 2012. Image courtesy of Jack Fischer Gallery.]

In our culture, animals are bred for the purpose of serving human needs. Domesticated cats and dogs are dealt the difficult task of providing comfort and company, making them utterly vulnerable to human whim. This becomes especially clear when these animals end up in shelters.

Putting distressed animals or surveillance footage of crimes on pillows can seen as typically post-modern and ironic, and perhaps it ultimately is for the majority of people who view these pieces casually or critically. But for me, it is hard to look at the faces of the animals behind bars (especially the cats), and not feel a sense of empathy for them and thus a sense of pain and sadness. The images evoke feelings for the particular cats pictured, as well as for the plight of shelter animals in general.


[Richard Bassett, DSH_M_B/W. 15″x15″x4″ wool, linen, and down, hand needle pointed, 2011. Image courtesy of Jack Fischer Gallery.]

Adding to the poignancy of this show is the fact that Richard Bassett passed away days before it opened in early February. This was a sad loss for his family and friends, as well as his admirers in the arts community. It is hard not to view the exhibition in this context as a memorial and a retrospective. Interspersed among the needlepoint pillows of “Options” were several works on paper under the simple title “Drawings”. Among these drawings were images of enlarged braille supposedly depicting gay porn from the 1950s. I have no means to declare the artists’ intent in either these braille drawings or in the needlepoint images animals. But I feel that he is posthumously challenging me to do exactly that.

The exhibition will be on display at Jack Fischer Gallery through March 9. I encourage readers who enjoy art, or love companion animals, or both, to see it.

Taraneh Hemami, Resistance, Luggage Store Gallery

Through our Thursday-night experimental music series at the Luggage Store Gallery, I have seen quite a few art exhibits on the walls (and the floor, and the ceiling). The current exhibition, Resistance!, is notable for both its theme and its presentation, and worth an article of its own separate from our musical exploits.

Resistance, a solo exhibition of work by artist Taraneh Hemami, is about “the visual culture of protest.” More specifically, it presents a history of dissent in Iran and among the Iranian diaspora through reinterpretations of elements from the archive of the Iranian Students Association of Northern California (ISANC). Art shows about resistance and protest are a dime a dozen in these days after the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. This one is notable for being visually strong, with a very stylized and minimalist presentation that in some cases belies the violence of its subject.

This can be seen most clearly in Blood Curtain, in which a curtain of red beads hangs quietly in an empty corner of the gallery against monochromatic walls and curtains. It is at once beautiful and also uncomfortable with its obvious depiction of blood.


[Taraneh Hemami, Blood Curtain, 2013]

The curtain is made from 8mm glass beads and suggests a hand-crafted artifact, a theme that reappears throughout the exhibition. In Theory of Survival, portraits of martyrs from book covers are reproduced in glass frit on large panels, again in black and red. From a distance, the texture looks like carpeting, but when one looks closely the glass becomes apparent.


[Taraneh Hemami, Theory of Survival, 2010-2013]

More traditional craft can be seen a series of rugs that at first appear to be an elegant wall decoration but take on additional meaning when one realizes that these designs were from images of rugs created by prisoners. Other pieces were less subtle in their message, such as Notes from Evin Prison, named for the notorious Iranian prison that still appears in headlines today. Here, laser-cut metal is used to render both a harmless looking sign with the piece’s title as well a large and explicit figure in black and red being tortured. There were, however, more hopeful images as well. In People Power Revolution, the laser-cut metal forms depict throngs of revolutionaries. The main image of violence in this piece, a security guard being skewered, is almost cartoonish.


[Taraneh Hemami, People Power Revolution, 2013]

The prevalence of red among the pieces suggested an association with 20th century Communism in addition to blood and violence. The Communist motif was reinforced by the frequent appearance of five-pointed stars. I thought this was odd at first, because I was using the 1979 Iranian revolution and the recent protests against the Islamic regime as my reference. ISANC was actually active from 1960 to 1982, and thus its archives mostly predate the 1979 revolution and document earlier periods of resistance and protest when Leftists symbols would have been in wide use. Nonetheless, the images seemed like they could have been from the protests since 2009.

Resistance will be on display at the Luggage Store Gallery through February 28, with a closing reception that evening.