Hysterical Pastoral
Mixer 03
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In the “Hysterical Pastoral” show at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, nature and references to it are character-ized by a strange, often humorous displacement. Dan Attoe sets up tents in the gallery for three works he calls Tent; their curved forms evoke the curves of a landscape, making them seem weirdly out of place but reminding us how removed our urban world is from nature. Amy Hauber includes real plants in Ovaries and Advanced Degrees, which she says concerns, among other things, “beauty, feminity, desire”; an accompanying book on the therapeutic uses of “artificial sunlight” and a sign that repeats the phrase “grow or die” also suggest an interest in human self-improvement.
In the bird-themed “Mixer 03” show at Monique Meloche, asianpunkboy’s Untitled 4 (Owl) includes a plastic owl hanging upside down from a shelf, with cubic-zirconia stones for eyes–another comment on nature as kitsch. But atop the shelf are two ceramic bowls, one containing birdseed, the other water: these natural substances imply a preference for the real and, like the milk and cookies kids leave for Santa, suggest an absurdly optimistic hope that the owl will come to life or that some real bird will stop by to drink and dine. In Cindy Loehr’s installation In Memory of, Songs for Birds, an enormous vine rises from a pot on a table and snakes over virtually a whole wall, framing two photos of birds–two of 10,000 images taken by Loehr’s grandfather. Though the vine itself is irregular and organic, it’s arranged rather symmetrically.
