Jason Foumberg

While film reviewers are decrying Eli Roth’s new bloodfest "Hostel II" as an unnecessary expense of gore—that is, objectified violence barely taking into consideration a viewers’ intelligence, citing meager ticket sales as an example of the public’s distaste for the purposefully distasteful—there is no equivalent lack of a moralistic dimension in the arts. Even the most depraved acts of violence, once introduced to an art audience, are polished into a reflective surface of cultural significance. Personally, I am certainly willing to consider fictional violence on a level beyond instant entertainment, as metaphor, as critique, as anything intellectually productive so long as I can make myself believe in the worth of fiction. Does this make me a zombie who preys on the galleries for my next quick fix of smart art, devouring brains, as it were? If so, artists have no trouble supplying me with fresh kills, as the dark arts are, everywhere, being offered up in rituals of sacrifice.

There is a fine line that divides bubblegum gore from high-art gore. A tactic used by artists to avoid being the choking fish caught up in that line is to introduce a fantasy element—such as supernatural characters—thus providing a point of ridiculousness beyond the constraints of real terror where no one can question the strength of one’s metaphor. Supernatural and fantastical characters, from prophesizing witches to satanic baboons to sadistic snowmen (all present this week) in art need not make recourse to rational acts of violence (but what, exactly, is a rational act of violence?). These animals, beings and creatures embody the desire for uninhibited creative and destructive forces, the will unleashed, freedom and power.

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair," famously declare the three witches in Shakespeare’s "Macbeth," now brilliantly interpreted by the 500 Clown troupe. The spoken incantation releases a cycle of violence fed by greed. Kings fall and blood pours at the flick of the witches’ tongues. The play, and the players, are damned. In the 500 Clown production it is difficult to see the line between fictional pain and real self-destruction. "Come with uncle and hear all proper!" says Alex in "A Clockwork Orange." "Hear angels’ trumpets and devils’ trombones. You are invited!" Alex is merely inviting us to listen to his beloved Beethoven, but it is under that spell that he conducts his "ultraviolence."

You are invited: the entreaty opens the gates for us to enjoy a mad and mythic world. Fantastical beings often propel us into an otherworld by mere suggestion. Deeply hidden truths and treasures reveal themselves without struggle. A touch, a glance, an utterance—these are the tools of agency that incite blazes and floods with the least physical effort. King Midas’ fingertip turns all to gold; Death’s finger bone drops all to the ground; witches chant for evil; parishioners pray for good.

The artist PST (short for post/send/tell, a function in on-line fantasy games) has created a portal space into a netherworld. Perhaps it is a foyer to hell, replete with dirt floor, sacraments on the walls written in blood and two baboons stuffed in uneasy repose. The viewer enters the dark space and is immediately overcome by a suffocating heat, as the room is lit by crowds of candlelight and closed from exterior air. The scene is set for ritual—devils await your next move. This space is the translation of the adolescent’s dungeon-and-dragons game into a total environment of fear and evil-mongering. This is not a scene, but a place for action, ripe with all the elements for a successful rite, sacrifice or satanic orgy.

The French art critic of surrealism Georges Bataille once wrote, in response to a painting by Salvador Dali, "Violence is often quite brutally hilarious." This was supposed to be an insult to Dali but we know that horror works in strange ways, often quite well in communion with humor. Comic gore, that is, true disgust seamlessly blended with an urge to laugh, an art mastered by John Waters and today best expressed through film, is becoming a rare practice on the static canvas. To contend the brute power of humor and horror, environments such as the one by PST errs to the side of fright. Although it effectively frightens me, it takes itself too seriously.

The painted scenes by Donald Owen Colley sit at the other end of the spectrum, forcing fright with an equal amount of ridiculous humor ploys. A couple of snowmen and a jack-o-lantern gather in "Sweat Lodge" to torture a straw man. It’s a familiar story of information extraction using a cast of non-human characters in order to be applicable to any sort of excruciatingly painful and contradictory act of violence (the torturers, the snowmen, are also melting in the sweat lodge as they begin to light the fire under their victim’s feet). This and many other paintings in Colley’s current exhibition scratch at allegorical narratives and are successful at provoking discomfort.

You are invited.

PST shows at GARDENfresh, 119 North Peoria #3D, (312)235-2246, through July 7. Donald Owen Colley shows at Carl Hammer Gallery, 740 North Wells, (312)266-8512, through July 7.

(2007-06-26)

Also by Jason Foumberg

Eye Exam
Packard Jennings’ art operates within the public sphere yet outside of official sanctions, showing us that public art can be vital and communicative without playing parlance to so-called "good taste" delivered from above
(2007-06-22)

Eye Exam
The pleasure that we derive from optical illusions is first through experience and then in knowing how they work. Unlike a magic trick, optical illusions continue to fool and to deliver wonder well beyond the revelation of their construction. Some familiar illusions include Joseph Jastrow's duck rabbit, a head that is both animals, but never both simultaneously. Although it is a static image, the duck and the rabbit alternately appear and disappear, sometimes flicking back and forth in what seems like a dozen times in one second. Another favorite is the Necker cube, a two-dimensional drawing of a three-dimensional box. The effect is of a cube that springs upward or juts to the right. Both perceptions of the cube are available to be seen. Both perceptions are correct, but never simultaneous
(2007-06-12)

Eye Exam
The Peace Tower is a collection of two-foot square panels, essentially protest signs, assembled along a fancy scaffold. Each panel contains an original message by a participating artist regarding the war and the hope for conciliatory efforts. The monument to peace was first constructed in Los Angeles in 1966 as a protest to the Vietnam War. It was re-erected once in New York in 2006 in response to the current war, and now will be on view at the Chicago Cultural Center for four months
(2007-06-05)

Eye Exam
Can art survive a similar reality-flavored marketing infusion? What happens when an artist or an educator issues instructions for viewers to become active users of art and culture? Two exhibitions now on view seek to shake us out of mere observational mode and into participatory agents of culture
(2007-05-29)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-22)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-15)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-08)

Eye Exam
(2007-05-01)

Eye Exam
(2007-04-24)

Eye Exam
(2007-04-17)

Portrait of the Gallerist
(2007-04-10)

Tip of the Week
(2007-04-10)

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