ART + ARCHITECTURE
Katey Crews’ “tactile assemblages”
examine the manner in which nostalgia can be leveraged as propaganda.
Her manipulation of fabric echoes the
“manipulative nature of historic imagery”. Kate Nartker confronts nostalgia
by investigating our attachment to
remnants from the past. In a laborious
process, she deconstructs video footage shot by her father, “renders out
frozen stills, and weaves the images
on a Jacquard loom.”
Other standout shows at REDUX have
included Andrea Stanislav: Nothing
is New, Everything is Permitted, Sinisa
Kukec: From Void to Void, Lauren
Kalman: Spectacular, and Keith Lemley:
Ecstasy of Knowing.
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary
Art is another enthralling arts venue in
Charleston, and one recent exhibition,
The Paternal Suit: Heirlooms from the
F. Scott Hess Family Foundation, was
particularly compelling. The show
ostensibly explores the lineage of Los
Angeles artist F. Scott Hess through
a collection of seemingly disjointed
artifacts. Tracing his American heritage
back four hundred years to puritanical New England and the antebellum
South, the exhibit “tells Hess’ story
through more than 100 paintings,
prints, and objects created by Hess,
but presented as legitimate historical
artifacts, and supported by photographs, documents, and historical
ephemera. Each object and artwork
bears an artist’s name and detailed
provenance and has been executed in
the style of the century from which
it supposedly originates. Sculpture,
ceramics, furniture, toys, newspaper
clippings, historic photographs, guns,
and costumes advance the story. Hess
does not claim authorship for the
works on display. Instead, he ascribes
to them fictional artists, referring to
himself as the Director of the F. Scott
Hess Family Foundation.”
The subtext here is clearly the ruse of
history…query if there is ever a way
to objectively present the past. There
is also a psychological tension driving
the work, as Hess suffered an absent
and disconnected father. The fact that
the artist’s research into his lineage
also revealed that his ancestors were
slave owners deepens the fraught
psychology of the work. The exhibition
as a whole is sweeping in scope yet
intensely intimate. “Through the prism
of his ancestry, Hess examines the
impact of false history and deception
within each generation and throughout
society as a whole, and questions these
perceived truths.”
JUNE JULY 2014
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