ICA Fall Exhibition

by Andrea McGinty

Though the R. Crumb exhibition is the ICA's heavy hitter this fall, I focused on the works of the three other artists featured in the exhibition, all thought provoking and well worth considering. But of course, when you go see the show, check out the comprehensive retrospective of R. Crumb's underground comics.

Stepping into the first gallery we are greeted by a massive open space whose perimeter is lined with photo-collage and framed photographs. The first floor houses the work of artist Douglas Blau. The wall text available before entering threw out phrases to make my art historical mouth water: "narratives unfold across sequences", "mechanical reproduction", and "power of association". Luckily for the viewer, the work delivers with dense collages of prints, photographs, film stills, and postcards, that depend on each other, and the viewer, to create meaning. The images mostly focus on a wealthy, upper-class lifestyle, and their work and leisure activities. Blau utilizes art history, design, architecture, historical and modern culture; combining objects and spaces with human emotions. His titles add a layer of depth to the works, twisting the meaning even further through association. In this installation, the title was posted to the right of the work, so as to continue the thought process after one takes in the images, both separately and as a whole. "Playtime", 2008, features images of children with dolls, women reading and writing, theaters, and men standing in the stairwells of their mansions. Image juxtaposition and meaning through association are far from new concepts, leading Blau's work to feel rather traditional, though his overall composition and the wit exhibited in his work are convincing enough to allow the work to standout.

The Third Space Ramp Project is home to Odili Donald Odita's site specific wall paintings. The murals cover the walls of the ramp space, extending from the ground to the ceiling, forcing the viewer's eyes to move through the entire space. His bold blocks of geometric, solid colors bring to mind "Western modernism and African culture", (as stated in the gallery notes), and are chocked full of color theory, and references to op art and digital culture alike. His influences are at once abundantly obvious and subtly integrated. Both Odita's work, and the work of artist Kate Gilmore, located adjacent to Odita in the Project space, share the theme of well integrated influences. The two exhibitions placed next to each other allow for dynamic conversation. Gilmore's videos and installations do more than hint to the endurance art of the 1970's, and generations of feminist work. In her video "Between a Hard Place", 2008, she is shown breaking through layered drywall, wearing heels and a dress. In Odita's work he fuses his traditional, contemporary, visual, and cultural influences, both glorifying and criticizing them. Gilmore takes her aggressively physical, conceptual influences and uses them to create formally considered videos, employing color, scale, space, and composition.

All of the work featured in the ICA's fall exhibition forces viewers to look, think, and make connections on their own, which should ultimately be the goal of the contemporary artists of our time. All of the works share in common the use of traditional references mixed with modern thoughts and practices, that and a bit of a new twist on old ideas. "Conversation" could almost be coined as the unofficial theme of the exhibit, and a perfect activity to partake in with your lovers and friends while visiting the ICA before December 7th.

[Andrea McGinty is a South Florida expatriate and artist living and working in Philadelphia]

Charles Burns Lecture “Black Ink, White Paper”

by Giaco Furino
"Black Ink, White Paper" Lecture at the ICA

Charles Burns, cartoonist, writer and illustrator of such graphic novel works as Big Baby, El Borbah, Skin Deep and Black Hole, presented “Black Ink, White Paper” on UPenn’s campus. The event, in conjunction with the ICA, was a lecture in which he “discusses his own work and that of R. Crumb.” (from www.icaphila.com). Though little mention was made to the work of the (in)famous R. Crumb (who’s retrospective “R. Crumb’s Underground” is on display at the Institute until December 7th), I found Burns’ lecture on his influences, practices and projects compelling and wildly informative.

Charles Burns’ iconic style and use of thick, ominous shadow consistently casts itself over the graphic novel genre. If you’ve seen his work once, you’ll never miss it again. His characters often look nervous, edgy, biting lips or staring apprehensively. His scenery looks winter-tired, worn down, and lived in. Charles Burns has, over the past decade (and more), been carving his name into the subconscious of American comic book art, and his magnum opus, Black Hole, took the genre by storm.

If you’ve grown up a generation X’er, Y’er, or are a (terribly named) Millennial, you’ve probably seen the work of Charles Burns. Maybe you’ve seen his work in the comic world where, along with his feature titles, he’s contributed to Art Spiegelman’s (Maus) comic magazine RAW. Or perhaps you’ve seen his work on television, where his comic Dogboy was adapted for MTV’s Liquid Television and where he’s just finished contribution to the film Fear(s) of the Dark. If none of that sounds familiar to you, then there’s still a good chance his work has seeped into your subconscious via pop culture, like his cover art for Iggy Pop’s Brick by Brick, or his work on Coca Cola’s failed soda line OK Soda (remember that?). Such is the work of Charles Burns, dark and brooding while remaining honest and charming, and seemingly everywhere at once.

The lecture took place in Meyerson Hall on UPENN campus, and the high occupancy lecture hall quickly filled with a mix of comic fans, curious students, and outside appreciators. Burns came with PowerPoint in tow and used it fabulously, projecting big, bright, vivid pictures onto the screen. The lecture focused, primarily, on his influences and the process he went through to get to where he is today.

One of the aspects that I found most insightful as a fan and follower of his work was his explanation of what inspires him visually. The laundry list of sources that have influenced his work were so direct that I was guessing how they affected his illustrations before he even commented. Steve Ditko-era Spider-man illustrations reflected the way he drew humans, especially women. Collections of his father’s collages of women in comics, arranged by the percentage of their face shown on the panel, helped in painting the picture.

Perhaps most intriguing was the way in which a Tintin comic’s inclusion of a voice bubble coming from a circular telecom confused him as a child. Before he could read, this circle on a wall speaking to Tintin was simply a disembodied mouth. Black Hole dealt, in some detail, with a character with a second mouth on the middle of his neck. These connections, brought forth by Burns, illustrate the myriad of ways an artist finds his inspiration. Which was, as a side effect, rather inspiring.

Finally, Burns led the group through his recent and upcoming projects. The audience was treated to production stills from his contribution to Fear(s), including pre-3D rendering, post 3D-rendering, flattening and shadowing. I’ve yet to see Fear(s) of the Dark, but the thought of an all black and white, mainly 2D animated horror film now seems too great a treat to pass up. We also saw slides from his newest work, a currently untitled full color comic (he’s calling it Nitnit because of its likeness to the Belgian boy hero), which sheds his shadow-heavy aesthetic for heavy, lush color.

Before the end of the lecture he opened the floor to questions. He confirmed that David Fincher (Fight Club) is in talks to direct a film adaptation of Black Hole and commented on making the transition from black and white to color in his comics. Throughout the lecture we learned what influences him, what makes him tick, what keeps him interested. All in all, this was an incredibly in-depth look at the underlying influences to Charles Burns’ body of work, and his friendly and communicable manner delivered the information with conversational ease.

[Giaco Furino is a poet and writer living and working in Philadelphia. His poetry has appeared in Main Channel Voices, The Mid Atlantic Poetry Review, and various litmags from The University of the Arts, his alma mater.]

Photos from ICA Fall Opening

VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA....8.5/10

by Aaron Mannino of Blue Key Reviews

"Everything I do affirms life" -Juan Antonio (Bardem)

When I think on Vicky Christina Barcelona I do not wallow in the mire of a pointless existence, even though there are underpinnings of this attitude in the finale of the film, which brings each character, principle and peripheral, in spite of their actions, right back to where they started, stifling their actualization, slave to their old moralities, emotional trends, and life decisions. It's a powerful note to end on, the futility of our efforts as emotional irrational individuals, but again, I don't remain on it too long. This feeling, intentionally or not, isn't made to resonate as deeply and lastingly as the films overarching elements of sensuality, complex love, the challenging of our moralized concepts of love (ie commitment, marriage, exclusivity, orientation, etc), and the vulnerability we experience in love being so close to the kind we experience in travel. However ironic, I felt affirmed of life after watching this film. And even though I sometimes have little sympathy for the woes of the wealthy, especially those that can summer in Spain without batting an eye, I'm continuously interested in Allen's dissection of the subject, and his career spanning reveal of the cross-class inevitability of emotional starvation.

Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), the empassioned, intrepid, and quite forward Spanish painter who boldly propositions single Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and engaged Christina (Scarlett Johansson), two friends on summer holiday in Spain, to join him for a weekend in his hometown, speaks of love and life as transient, and so this translates into the unfolding of the film itself. Things never feel constant. But no matter the brevity of experiences, they are still had, emotions are felt, and we are changed in accumulation, no matter how concealed we are about it. Vicky Christina Barcelona doesn't follow a straight narrative path. Rather it deviates and accumulates, allowing things to fall in and out of sync with one another.

Read my full review at http://bluekeyreviews.blogspot.com/ where I discuss the character complexity of Allen's newest film, and how VICKY... fits into his new and old cinematic stride.

[Aaron Mannino is an installation/video artist with a BFA from Tyler School of Art, who among many disciplines, is a fervent explorer of the cinematic medium through watching and writing.]