Melissa Pokorny
Art that eschews beauty, seeking to confront rather than soothe, goes back almost a century, to the dadaists. Falling into this category, Melissa Pokorny’s six sculptures at Bodybuilder and Sportsman are “often vomitous” (in the words of the gallery’s press release). Simplicity Inc. (Silver Lining) seems a drunken builder’s nightmare, its only sense its own nonsense. Gray “cement” oozes from between six boxes covered with faux-brick paper stacked on top of one another. What looks like a latticework fabric (actually cut from a craft material called “Wonderfoam”) is draped over part of the top one, a yellow and blue “awning” hangs from the side of another, and a resin “rock” inscribed with the word “spirit” sits on top of the stack. But even as Pokorny’s works seem to be coming apart at the seams, they mix forms and undercut expectations in ways that are oddly sensual and pleasurable.
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The two main parts of Glister Glam (Crevasse) are boards covered with fake-wood patterns jutting up from the floor and meeting at different angles. A cloth draped over one of the boards has three holes in it–the result of a mouse chewing it to build a nest while it was rolled up in her garage, Pokorny told me. The other board holds a big mound of resolutely ugly, almost fecal polyurethane balls that Pokorny cast. Sticking up between them are tiny flags she made of floral drapery fabric, recalling the pennants conquerors plant on the tops of hills or the banners businesses fly. The fabric’s nature pattern suggests beauty amid detritus–the way plants can reclaim rubbish piles–while the flags parody phallic conquest and patriotism, and the mouse holes more generally undermine human assertiveness.
Pokorny’s incongruous awnings and faux surfaces address the way symbols in mass culture are often decontextualized for shock effect, as in the clothing-boutique window display I once saw based on a slaughterhouse motif. By making pieces incorporating both formal contradictions and contradictions in content, Pokorny foregrounds our current cultural chaos.
