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Space/Sight/Self
November 19, 1998 through January 10, 1998

The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
The University of Chicago
5550 S. Greenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL

Some times I can read a supposed "intellectual" text and be utterly facinated and enthralled with its words and phrases. Other times, I start to read and all my mind registers is "blah blah blah, blah blah, blahhhhh, blahblahblah." Space/Sight/Self is one of those times where the mind registers "blah blah blah."

It's not because the words are not recognizable or not understandable. It's because it is shear and utter nonsence. It's the type of text that the paragraphs will start out with an argument, but at the end of the paragraph that argument is self-defeating. For example, the introduction to this show states:

"The exhibition Space/Sight/Self is the culminating product of a seminar of the same title that was held at the University of Chicago in the winter of 1998. The curatorial project was designed with a two-fold purpose: first, to study the role of portraiture in contemporary art as a nexus of three issues -- identity, vision, and place; and second, to curate an exhibition based on that study. The goal was to produce a portrait, as it were, of contemporary portraiture.

"The idea for the course and exhibition developed out of an interest in how artists working in the genre of portraiture have responded to recent critical and theoretical investigations of identity. Richard Brilliant has written that 'conflicting views on the nature of personal identity have confounded the very concept of the portrait as a significant genre of representation because they affect the answer to a basic question presented by art works of this kind: 'Who is the who that is being represented?'"

Forget the fact that their two-fold purpose is a redundant statement. Forget that "contemporary art as a nexus" is pretentious writing. What is the purpose of the statement of the second paragraph other than to disprove that portraiture can even exist as a real genre? The result of this exercise has a purpose no less than to put in print that the conspirators of this show don't have a single rational brain between them.

What's so difficult in saying "The purpose of this exhibit is to explore portraiture in contemporary art?" The way the introduction puts it however sounds like, "there was an idea behind why this exhibit is up, but we forgot; here's a nifty quote we borrowed from so and so that basically spouts shit but it sounds good."

Likewise, the art in the show doesn't say much either.

It's more like someone chose a few objects out of Poop-on-the-Navy-Pier '98 that might say something about portraiture and identity, contacted a couple high-profile Chicago galleries, and slapped it all together.

There are a couple accidental contemporary portaits in the show such as Jurgen Mayer Herman's heat-sensitive canvas with polariod examples, Dawoud Bey's poignant large-scale polaroid portaits, and Alice Hargrave's Magnetic Resonance Imaging and other medical imagery. But the other pieces either don't apply to the general idea of the show (portaiture and identity) or are mental masturbation on display. Francesca Woodman's spiritually charged photographs are wonderful, but they say very little of portraiture or identity. Two large-scale digitally altered photographs by Inez vanLamsweerde of a seemingly normal, almost portrait-like, male images are titled "The Forest, Andy" and "The Forest, Rob" have nothing to do with portraiture; like the program states, these photos are about advertisement photography as a persuasive device.

An argument could be made that the exhibit looks to explore societal identity in portraiture, but how does a work like Brett Bloom's Forced Entry fit into any of these ideas? -- An installation of six motion-detecting lights in the two entry-points to the exhibit. All I got out of this was faulty lighting, until I realized it was part of the exhibit. Then, because I had yet to read any introduction to the exhibit, or the program, I thought this piece was the "Sight" part -- or that I should interpret the exhibit as an exploration of identity, being, and experience.

There is no discussion of how portraiture and identity are interrelated; how artists choose what to display and what to hide or how they choose their subject's visual context in the final piece. There is no dialog about symbolic meaning behind various types of portraiture (one that literally sits the subject in the image versus one that shows things the subject likes or collects). All that exists is text spouting philisophical theory with very little proof of anything. Talking heads with no body.

Good art does not need a program to understand it. Likewise, exhibits should be well thought out and have logical progressions. Instead, all that is here is a bunch of pretentious crap taking up space.

For a true look at how portraiture, identity, and self-image is represented in art, and that basically disproves all the idiotic brain-farting in Space/Sight/Self, walk a few steps around the corner to Weimar Bodies also showing at the Smart Museum until January 10. Instead of leaving the Smart Museum unfulfilled, you'll be richly rewarded with an exhibit that will speak many eloquent volumes than Space/Sight/Self's pathetic babble.

--Richard Donagrandi