By Arlene McKanic
The Sculpture Center is in an unreconstructed warehouse on a dead end street in a lonesome part of Long Island City down the street from the imposing Citicorp building.
Once inside you encounter “Interval: New Art for a New Space,” part art exhibit and part fun house. The artists used the building as an integral part of their work, and some of the displays on the main floor don’t look like art at all; you look at a piece of shrapnel hanging from the wall and wonder if it was put there intentionally, until you learn that it wasn’t.
Other exhibits you seem to stumble upon by accident. The first thing you might notice is the video installation “The Hole, Shoveled In” (2001) by Karin Campbell. You sit on a chair and watch a video about a hole being filled in while a woman’s voice drones above the non-action. You read later that the hole was to be in the shape of a person who’d fallen from a great height, but that the artist was too horrified by the World Trade Center disaster to continue this, so now it’s just a plain old hole.
After this you discover Robert Fischer’s “Untitled (Small House)” (2001), made of plywood, glass and other things needed to make a little dwelling. You have to step away to see the two-story installation clearly and you see it’s a little house with little furniture in it, a less sophisticated version of that cutaway house on Times Square used to advertise a real estate agency.
Nearby hangs Ron Baron’s “Extrusion” (2001) made of rubble and junk, that extends into the basement. As you come close to it you notice that the rubble looks more like coprolites mashed together with tools, broken bottles, dead basketballs and other refuse, like the dung of Godzilla. I wasn’t surprised to learn that this odd thing is dedicated to the World Trade Center victims.
Across the space is Julianne Swartz’ “Signal,” (2001) a cage full of construction work stuff such as paint cans and floodlights. Yet the artist also added a child’s pin wheel and wisps of tinsel to lighten up what would otherwise be a rather prosaic scene.
Jan Baracz’ playful “Swing” (2001) hangs from the ceiling, and at one point a woman hopped into the leather harness to be pushed energetically by her boyfriend.
Nearby is the most whimsical and colorful work, Peter Gould’s “Scandia, Back Nine” (2001). A red formica bridge crosses a blue formica stream. Green formica bushes stand in the corner and the whole thing is lit by pink and green spotlights. You can actually cross this bridge, and be deposited into the dark room that holds Barbara Gallucci’s “DO-IT-YOURSELF” (2001). You will hear this work before you see it, for in the background is the sound of people screaming at each other.
The main installation is a tracking low-angle shot of a Home Depot store, and the screaming you hear is Willie Loman and his son Biff from Arthur Miller’s “Death of A Salesman” — I theorize that the work contrasts the Home Depot shoppers, who are determined to make something themselves, and Loman, who failed at being a self-made man.
Nearby stands an oversized replica of George Nelson’s “Platform Bench.” When you leave the room you find Caspar Henselmann’s “Cloned Interval Frieze” (2001), which you wouldn’t notice if there weren’t a sign beside it because it looks like an unfinished wall of a house. It’s made of pallets of plastic polymer.
Danielle Webb’s “Taking Up Space” (2001) is a huge crumpled wad of drawing paper, and a video that shows the artist creating it. I’m really not sure whether the beetle I saw stuck to a piece of tape was supposed to be part of the work.
Nearby is Samuel Nigro’s “Polishing Granite” (2001), where a big chunk of granite is caught in a vise of steel and plywood that’s attached to a rope. There’s the requisite video of the rock as it sits out on the street and then is dragged from Manhattan to Long Island City.
By this time I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Well, this is all very charming and certainly the artists went through a lot to put these things together — I can’t imagine what the guy who did “Extrusion” had to go through — but what’s the theme to this pudding?’ The feeling persisted as I saw Michael Joseph’s “Spotlight” (2001) which is a piece of paper on which “Signal” is fuzzily seen.
But the exhibit truly comes to life downstairs, which is the funhouse part. As you walk down into the dank cellar you become aware of hysterical, idiotic laughter coming from a place you can’t see. But first, your eye is caught by Yoko Inoue’s “Fair Trade/Child Labor/Do Not Leave Your Child Unattended” (2001), which is a long room full of amazing stuff for kids: unglazed ceramic balls and cats, a Donald Duck kiddie ride, laughing Buddhas, bottled water, glass gazing balls, ceramic Pokemon characters, bassinets, walkers, crocheted rugs, cast-iron funnels, enameled shopping carts, and flaccid pillows stacked on shelves. At the back of the room, past boxes full of hundreds of little bones surrounded by offering bowls and ceramic flowers, a glazed ceramic Donald Duck ride sits like a totem. The work is awe-inspiring and masterful.
Behind it is Zack Hadlock’s “Still” (2001). This work was set up in a long, bright corridor with a barrel vaulted ceiling. On the floor is a nearly Islamic pattern of swirls made out of sand that repeat to the far wall. I learned that a building inspector had carelessly stomped all over it and the artist had to do the work over again. More, another viewer admitted to a wicked desire to muss the whole thing up anyway, and this reminded me of the elaborate, multicolored sand paintings done by Tibetan monks. After hours of working on it, the painting is destroyed when it’s finished. Hadlock’s work, like the monks’, is a testament to perseverance and impermanence.
Paolo Arao’s “Escape Plan Part Two” (2001) is a shelf built into one of the cellar’s dead ends. Part I is on the main floor; a large pipe leads from there to the shelf. The installation is full of spider webs; again, I didn’t know if these were intentional or not.
A walk down a narrow hallway and a left turn takes you into another room, where you find the bottom part of “Extrusion.” This room is especially creepy, the wall set with niches just about long enough for a human body, like the catacombs. But in another little room at the end of this one is Donna Nield’s amazing “Tornado” (2001), a vortex of air and water vapor that reminds one of that scene in “The Ten Commandments” where God appears as a pillar of fire, though Nield’s pillar is white and cool and harmless. Stick your hand in it and it disappears, step into it and it begins to form and swirl around you, and you don’t even get wet.
Rina Banerjee’s “Cellar Reach” (2001) is a little room with a floor of real, sodden grass. A grotesque object of egg crate Styrofoam and other things hangs from the ceiling. The grass is sprinkled with glitter and daffodil heads and a ladder leads up to street level.
Byungwang Cho’s “Electrification” (2001) is a narrow hall lit with fluorescent red and blue threads and black light that seems to stretch into infinity.
After this you at last find the source of the crazy laughter that’s been following you all around the cellar, and it’s Ligorano/Reese’s “Laughing Man” (2001). At the end of a very long, dark tunnel sits a tiny TV screen with a video of a man laughing and laughing as if in some Dantean circle of Hell where you’re condemned to laugh for all eternity. The scene is chilling; you don’t want to get any closer to it. At a time of war, what better commentary is there?
The exhibit continues outside in a little lot beside the warehouse. Michael Bernstein contributes the lovingly tended “10 yards of … (10 yard forest)” (2001), where trees and shrubs have been planted in a 10-yard long dumpster.
Austin Thomas offers “A Personal Perch” (2001), a little platform approached via a white gravel path. I didn’t dare climb it, but just going outside was something of a relief after being in the warehouse.
“Interval: New Art for a New Space “is at the Sculpture Center, 44-19 Purves St., Long Island City, through Oct. 28. The gallery is open Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and it’s free.
Go if you dare.
Reach Qguide writer Arlene McKanic by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 139.
