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Visual Arts CHEAP THRILLS
Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch Gallery, New York Chen Qiulin, “Ellisis’s Series No. 2,” 2002, digital c-print Desire and denouement on the waterfront By Jeffrey Cypers Wright What is desire? What do we want? And what do we have to pay? These are the questions a lot of artists are asking these days. Whether it’s love or stability, prestige or pleasure, our desires are our masters and exact a toll. As the Swiss poet and critic Henri-Frederic Amiel noted, “to desire to know the art of living… make use of suffering.” Sounds like there’s a lesson here. In her seductive pictures bathed in Jezebel red and libertine lime, Lisa Kareszi snares us with the tawdry enticements of desire’s allure. Her subjects are the emblems and portals of our fantasies, from a stripper’s pole to a DJ’s booth. What makes these iconic images really snap is the bold geometry and vivid color of Kareszi’s vision. In “DJ Booth, South Florida” we look in on a symmetric sanctuary of twin mics, turntables and speakers that frame an empty space. A relish-green light proclaims this to be otherwordly, a place imbued with cool. Kareszi metonymically portrays other examples of showbiz, in which theater steps or a gold curtain evoke all the glory and excitement while admitting the loneliness and banality. “Thrilling, Exciting, Spinetingling, Niagara Falls,” refers to a neon sign in a window. Close examination shows that the black paint used to conceal sections of letters are spidered with age and neglect. Cobwebs adorn the X. Faceless reflections mill in the blue background. For all the cheapness, you still want to go in.
Courtesy Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York David LaChapelle, “Job,” digital c-print In a final, farewell image, “Cruise Ship,” Kareszi shifts from close-ups to focus on a gleaming, golden crown on the horizon as night fills in. Over the black ocean blue clouds conceal a bright moon as the magic vessel pulls our imaginations far away. Staying at home can fulfill a different kind of desire. Chen Quilin tries to keep her roots in a land that is disappearing. Her hometown of Wanzhou has literally disappeared underwater as part of the Three Gorges dam project. Using a combo of performance, documentation and sculpture, Quilin calls to mind the self-referential work of Ana Mendieta and Colette. In a block of rubble Quilin sits behind a makeup desk painting herself and the mirror. A crowd of onlookers becomes part of the spectacle. A chance Dalmation puppy echoes her black and white palette. The incongruity of her private act in public is reinforced by the disparity between her beauty and the bleak, polluted backdrop. A film of this outdoor performance, spliced with regional images, is showing in the gallery while stills from it are blown up and hang on the walls. Without being didactic or accusatory, Quilin questions where we are going while celebrating where we have been and who we can make ourselves up to be. Making up people is a game David LaChapelle excels at. In “Awakened” he stands his familiar world of models and glitz on its head. Imitating the machinations of power through scale, one whole wall is a thirty-foot triptych. Three score mostly naked people emerge from a flood seeking salvation. Quoting religious paintings in a mannerist way, LaChapelle blends the trappings of Gomorrah into the mise-en-scene. Ceasar’s Palace crumbles. A Gucci banner falls to one side. A Starbucks sign peeps out from the detritus. A buff dude with Jesus tattooed on his tummy hangs from a telephone pole reaching out to a supplicant. On the other three walls of this morality tale, are thirteen life-size photos of floating bodies. Some of them stare ahead and seem almost normal. Others are suspended in murky water with clothes disheveled or revealing, dangling like puppets whose strings have been clipped. Was it their desire that did them in?
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