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Joseph Siegenthaler

September 5 - October 4, 2003

Carl Hammer Gallery
740 N. Wells St.
Chicago, IL 60610
Tel. 312-266-8512
Hours: Tue-Fri, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.,
Sat, 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
or by appointment
http://www.hammergallery.com

Who are these creatures who twist and caper, like phantasms imprisoned in the computer screen? Why are they so like us, and what do they tell us about ourselves, our neuroses, our anxieties? These five works at Carl Hammer Gallery present a conundrum, and a fulfillment. Digitally displayed, Siegenthaler's 3-D, animated characters wobble, goggle, caper and grimace. They represent skill in digitally recreating the illusion of volume in motion, in designing realistic human features and personalities individual in both character and emotion. But is their appeal merely that of the lure of the television or computer screen, with its hypnotic novelty and entertainment, as in the 'dancing baby' 3-D animated video clip which made the email rounds in endless variations? Or is Joseph Siegenthaler drawing on some deeper current?

Images on a screen undeniably appeal, drawing the eye and mind into a hypnotic fixation. One need only enter a bar, workout facility, or certain department stores to see how readily a capture of the moving screen from even a corner of the eye draws, then consumes, attention entire. We have developed, in the years of TV and computer indoctrination, the habit of so easily slipping into a warm bath of passive, receptive viewing. It is an occupational hazard of the medium, and Siegenthaler's works are not immune. We watch to see what the curious characters will do next, at what point the clip will repeat, whether it randomizes or returns through the same range of actions. A viewer must ask whether the attraction of these works is more than the novelty of the animation, the lure of the moving screen. Is it a 'gimmick' -- or a natural evolution of still art into a newly available medium? It is a question to spark discussion.

Yet, there is content here. Siegenthaler's work appeals to our fascination with the grotesque, particularly with grotesques as represented by human creatures. It is hardly a modern fixation. In eighteenth and nineteenth century London, a Sunday trip to Bethlehem Hospital, 'Bedlam,' was considered an appropriate outing for gentlefolk, to view insane and deluded fellow-beings as in a human zoo. It was quite safe, the dangerous madmen secluded out of sight, with visitors able to stroll among the more harmless and colorful lunatics. Siegenthaler's animated clips, displayed on five computer monitors in the gallery as well as projected onto a wall-size screen, present a modern-day bedlam, an atmosphere of curious voyeurism, a 'There but for the grace of God...' flicker of self-recognition. The mental-hospital atmosphere is highlighted by the presentation of some of the characters themselves: a numb stare, a slack-jawed dumbness, the straightjacket-like wrap clothing the neurotically tormented and squirming Kweenee, a frizzy-haired fellow calling to mind Larry of the Three Stooges.

Mounted on the gallery wall next to the video screens are composites of animation stills from the each clip, composed as a large, central portrait framed by smaller portraits of the same character in different moments of expression. Where the video presents fluidity, rhythm, motion, the illusion of life, these prints, like individual time-sequence photographs, capture the verisimilitude of the discrete moments of the characters' 'being,' and allow a different, more leisurely examination of the particulars of expression. Captured and held in time, the wealth of expression is varied and fascinating. The emotion ranges from mildly peeved to deranged grotesque, the degree of 'humanness' from 'normal' to gogglingly deranged. From da Vinci to Hokusai artists have captured the characteristics of distortion, a ceaseless exploration of the variance in human physiognomy and expression. Rendering his characters digitally, Siegenthaler's work brings this study of caricature into a wholly modern medium.

Ultimately, a staying power that sustains repeated viewing is dependent on deeper resonances contained within the work itself. In using a medium most connected with entertainment, Siegenthaler accesses a host of associations connected with video images; and in part, creates the need to get beyond the simple, initial allure of 'cool stuff on a screen.' The fascination of his images, both video and still, is in the areas in which they bring resonances of traditional art into the present day. In probing the characteristics and content of these works, they do provide food for thought. The test of time may prove the staying power of these weird and wonder-filled visions; in the meantime, they do spark curiosity and conversation. Joseph Siegenthaler's five characters rendered in 3-D digital animation, and accompanied by large-scale stills, will be on view at Carl Hammer Gallery through October 4, 2003.

--Katherine Rook Lieber

Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual and Performing Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.