I haven't heard much from Dearraindrop lately, but four or five years ago, that quintet of Virginia-based artists rode the crest of the wave of so-called "bedroom shows" that took over the art world for a minute. Generally the idea seemed to be to gather up as much crap as you could, cram it anarchically into a single room, and then sit back and watch the sensory overload. And everyone from Cory Arcangel to Michael Velliquette to Assume Vivid Astro Focus was doing it. The artistic impulses at work seemed to be (in descending order of importance) obsessive compulsion, democratic idealism, contagious generosity, and rank sadism. As a friend of mine said at the time about one of these shows, "It looks like a homeless man, a crazy old lady, and a teenager all moved in together and became roommates."

That trend faded as quickly as it emerged, but the strategies of accumulation, information overload, and dross elevated to the status of art have stayed with us, if somewhat toned down from its giddy 2004 highs. Three Atlanta artists are making use of this aesthetic right now to very different effects.


The Gospel Truth #2, Danny Bruce Campbell, 2008

Allusion
Danny Bruce Campbell, the clear standout in the Hammond's House Praise Songs trio exhibition seems to willfully carry the entire weight of history on his back. In "The Gospel Truth #2," his accumulation is not the accumulation of a lifetime over years, but the accumulation of an entire race over centuries.



His encyclopedic, 2-wall installation includes: an old sewing machine, a Bible, license plates, quilts, kuba cloth, "whites only" signs, family photographs, cooking utensils, food packaging, a model ship, an American flag, and that portrait of Jesus Big Mama had hanging over the TV set.



Here, meaning is made through allusion; to a complex and rich set of intertwining histories of blacks, whites, and everyone else in the peculiar American context. The risk is that all these ready-made objects function as easily manipulated symbols, but Campbell avoids that risk through brute force of volume. It's as if historical memory itself has erupted through the walls and left us to wonder, given the millstone of our collective past, how we ever got from there to here.

More photos from Praise Songs here.


A Shrine to Nothing, Squanto, 2008

Metaphor
If Campell's installation is the eruption of history, Squanto's "A Shrine to Nothing" in MINT Gallery's Employee Picks show is the eruption of a hallucinatory psychotic break. Color is everywhere. Glitter, books, toys, religious icons, stickers, flags, all manner of paint on paper, on photographs, on collages, and just about every other surface imaginable.

There is a recurring motif of Native American-related imagery, but the motif seems to punctuate the work rather than unify it.



The work is fun, but hard to consider. How to look at Squanto's shrine to nothing after seeing Campbell's shrine to everything? The differences feel generational to me. The kind of breezy flippancy that my generation pioneered was institutionalized by the next generation, but this sort of lurid pop cultural anarchy already feels slightly dated. (By the way, I have no idea of Squanto's age; I'm talking about the work, not the artists.)



Here, metaphor makes meaning, such as there is. The collected dust and dross of culture become a metaphor for the leveling effects of kitsch. Everything is reduced to the importance of a disposable McDonald's figurine. This could be an interesting explosion of the language of kitsch, but I did not get the impression that the artist was entirely in control of this exploration. I'm looking forward to giving her work a second try; rumor has it she's coming back to MINT at Thanksgiving.

More photos from Employee Picks here. (Side note: a first-hand experience of Joy Prasavath's lyrical "Up on the Roof" alone is worth the trip to MINT.)


Junk in My Trunk, (detail), Emily Maxwell, 2008

Synecdoche
More successful was one of Emily Maxwell's works in Welcome Home at the new Art House Gallery in Castleberry Hill where Romo used to be. Maxwell is a young artist (a SCAD student?) who's still finding her voice, but her work is unfailingly honest and what my old painting teacher used to call "felt through."



"Junk in My Trunk" is Maxwell's careful, catalogued excavation of her own personal space (or at least what appears to be). Unlike both Squanto and Campbell, the work is deliberate, confessional, and unmannered. Arranged in a near-grid, Maxwell includes personal notes, cigarette cartons, sunglasses, advertising, CD cases, snapshots, ticket stubs, and a tinny radio playing a barely-audible song.



Each item is available for inspection and consideration, almost like an anthropological dig on her own life. This is synecdoche; each item stands in for a whole story, and it was fascinating to imagine the entire life that was built up around these objects. Emily Maxwell is quite good at this kind of unflinching self-examination; and I expect her to go far.

More photos from Welcome Home to come.

Looks like I had your exact same reaction to Squanto's piece.

(proclaimitlost.blogspot.com/2008/06/squanto-shrine-to-nothing.html)

I asked her about it, and she pointed to a few framed pieces (and sections of the shrine) that were inspired by "automatic writing," with others, she went with a more deliberate approach.

That's the second reference I've heard to automatic writing in the last few weeks. Richard Sudden cited the same thing in "Waters of Lethe."

Thanks a lot for linking these exhibitions together. It gives a lot of nice context, and I actually wasn't aware of Hammond's House... I'll have to go sometime soon.

"Automatism" - the idea that's always present but not always said aloud. Spontaneity is important in all types of creative expression, painting, and writing included. But I think there's something to say about "good editing." Although an artist doesn't have to have solid reasons for what they do, I think that they should acknowledge formal decisions (or the lack thereof): an area of solid red was chosen to complement red lines at the other end of the composition; shadows were blue to offset the lack of color elsewhere; etc.

And it depends on your personality too. Artist like Em Kempf say they work the best when they don't edit:
http://notaglumlot.blogspot.com/

At least for Em, I can see it's helping her grow and experiment, but I wonder if at some point she'll have to make solid "decisions" about what she wants to do...

Yes, an artist is always editing by virtue of the fact that in any given work, you can't do everything. If you choose blue, you've chosen not to use red, orange, green, or black. That's editing. I think you get it write when you talk about "good editing" because editing is going to happen one way or another; it might as well be good.

Very interesting. Makes me want to keep looking and then make up my own historical review. Anyway.... to write a thesis about the person who lives here and their ancestry... pretty cool.