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Pre-linguistic universal truth 'number one': 'Pinch
a loaf' too hard while defecating, and face the potential of a hemorrhoid-dappled
event horizon.
Pre-linguistic universal truth 'number two': Give
up and 'go with the flow', and meet the post-bathroom query "So, did everything
come out all right?" with an affirmative response.
These contrasting positions delineate the scope of a
scatological continuum that ranges from obsessive anal enthusiasm to apathetic
indifference. Recently, five emerging Winnipeg artists focused in on the
'apathetic indifference' end of this shit continuum and put together The
Brown Show at Ace Art from September 3rd - 26th, 1998.
 
Simon Hughes' display of large-scale, brightly-colored oil/acrylic abstract
paintings on 1970's-era deep-pile shag carpeting embraces apathy in a decidedly
direct manner. The titles of two of his works - I've Been Patient All
My Life And Now I'm Going To Live What's Left and Born To Lose
- indicate the artist's obvious commitment to apathy as subject matter,
but there is another way in which Hughesą work generates apathy which becomes
evident with extended viewing. When I stand in front of Hughes' work, I
feel like the artist has placed me in a space where the unreal is familiar,
bright colors feel dull, excitement is boring, and my perceptions are on
loan to me. Hughes has somehow loaned me the gaze of a kitsch-informed interlocutor
absorbed in the act of staring at the unmoving mouths of Gumby and Pokey
as they utter significant yet inaudible truths from the screen of a television
set with its volume turned completely down. What is this place, this unreal
familiarity of dull brightness and boring excitement? Of course - this is
the place where I 'live' when I watch TV. The interlocutor is the bright
scripted monotony of TV shows and advertisements that lend structure - the
programmed structure of 'buy this and feel that' - to the fluctuation that
is desire. Desire on a leash is apathy at its finest, and Hughes' work places
me in the center of apathy with great precision. Hughes' art speaks decisively
from the apathetic end of the shit continuum.
In comparison to Hughes, Paul Robles takes a less
direct but equally effective path to apathy. Robles uses colored photographs,
brightly colored paper, artificial-grass carpeting, and inner-tubing
from rubber tires to produce floor sculptures, wall-reliefs, and identity-politics
photos. His works present such a bright, optimistic, 'bathroom air-freshener'
visual ambiance that I cannot help noticing his omission of the fertilizer
that nurtured the rose, or the struggle that yields identity. The
think positive' presence of Robles' work appears to deal with apathy's
enduring tendency to reoccur by speaking from the position that 'apathy
is all in the past' - however, no amount of 'NutraSweet' eye-drops will make all the
bumps in the road, and the apathetic feelings that result from 'journey
jolts', disappear. This is because there is no one strategy that will
ever make everything okay all the time. Robles' work ends up speaking
from the apathetic end of the shit continuum by promoting a stratospheric
degree of optimism that increases both the distance one falls from
grace and the apathy one feels when idealism is handed a flat tire
by a 'hole in the road' of reality.
Cathy Kuryk's large-scale oil
paintings and acrylic-on-masonite cartoon panels resist the forces of apathy
indulged in by Hughes and Robles. A typical apathetic looks once at a task,
decides it's not worth doing, and uses the idea of that task as an apathy
signifier to justify more apathy. On the other hand, apathy is diminished
when tasks, situations, and events are considered beyond this 'once-over'
glance. Kuryk's canvases resist the 'look-away' strategy of apathy by mounting
an in-your-face analysis of flirting that is anything but passive. Lunch
Breaks Are For Sissies presents a cartoon image of a young woman swinging
a beer bottle into the side of a young man's head because this is the only
way she can admit that she likes him. Kuryk's choice to represent the serious
topic of violently-expressed affection with her decisively honest style
of cartooning promotes fresh examination of difficult subject matter. Kuryk's
art is anti-apathetic in that it sees bumps in the road as more than apathetic
signifiers.
Les Newman employs the full range
of the shit continuum with floor sculpture that resists apathy just long
enough to jump into it with both feet. Each of his five 3' x 3' x 3' cubes
are surfaced with road tar and bright yellow lines identical to the marks
on highways that separate opposing lanes of traffic. This two-colored surface
invites a 'two-lane' interpretation of Newman's work. In one lane, a clean
fresh asphalt surface and bright yellow lines offer the promise of an easy
ride along a new road. In the other lane, the flimsy Styrofoam with which
Newman's cubes are constructed guarantees a bumpy ride: step up onto these
strong-looking 'road blocks', break through the Styrofoam, and you're stuck.
Newman's 'first you're free - now you're trapped' strategy uses the appearance
of freedom to locate the viewer at the apathetic end of the shit continuum.
The untitled video/installation by Scott Hadaller monumentalizes
apathetic surrender by embedding a video monitor in a three foot high
pile of dirt and rabbit droppings and placing two large rings of rabbit
turds on the floor around the mound. A video of the artist ruminating
on certain events plays in the monitor on the mound. Hadaller gets the
last word in on the 'apathetic indifference' end of the shit continuum
by clawing his way to the center of a Jasper Johns-like art-historical
turd target, giving up, and navel gazing.
The Brown Show could be accused of equivocation
because it accepts apathy, resists apathy, and then turns around and accepts
apathy, but this blatant use of equivocation transforms imprecise interpretation
from a liability into a strength. By refusing to promote a one-dimensional
'pro-apathy is bad' and 'anti-apathy is good' value system, The Brown
Show finds a diamond in the rough (or a toonie in the outhouse). Poets,
artists, average everyday lay-saints, and plain old channel-surfers can
get as much out of gazing from the top of a pile of shit as they can get
out of cleaning up a pile of shit and/or making a pile of shit.
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