Cigarettes, ‘Pills’ and solitude
More than 200 pieces at Lawndale’s ‘Big Show’ represent ways artists dealt with the pandemic
Having viewed 212 pieces of art at “The Big Show” at Lawndale Art Center, I arrived at the last, No. 213, “Smoke & Mirrors,” Deasa Turner’s striking series of wood panels from which project ashtrays and other tchotchkes, many of them with cigarettes protruding. The pieces exude a sense of playfulness, so a few moments passed before I realized the panels derived their interesting bamboolike texture from a tight grid of cigarette butts. The piece’s humor remained intact, but the volume of carcinogenic sticks lent it a darker tone.
That viewing experience mirrors that of taking in the totality of “The Big Show.” The gallery walls are bountifully dressed from knee height to above one’s head. The works course the perimeter of the space, curl around both
Resistance is one of eight themes for the juried selections in “The Big Show” at the Lawndale Art Center.
sides of a new interior wall and upstairs. Following a year off because of the pandemic, “The Big Show” returned this year with a really big show. There’s a certain joy in watching people migrate through the gallery: Each set of eyes finds different works that beguile or intrigue.
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill served as juror for the exhibition. Her selections have been organized into eight themes: Abstractions, Deferments, Embodiments, Identities, Landscapes, Materialities, Nature and Resistance. She wrote that so much of the work on view “reflects the intense experience of the COVID pandemic and the recent political and social turmoil through the eyes of an intersectional group of exceptional artists.”
The breadth of pieces — a few from 2019 but almost all from 2020 and 2021 — illustrates different mechanisms artists use for working through this era: outrage, resilience, humor, comfort, provocation.
In some cases, works could have found their way into multiple thematic spaces. Grouped with Embodiments, photographer Cressandra Thibodeaux’s “Pills” is an arresting portrait of her mother, her hair pulled into curlers. A closer look reveals the curlers to be the familiar translucent amber pharmacy bottles — a commentary about a post-op prescription that led to awful withdrawal symptoms.
La’Toya Smith’s “Let Freedom Reign” — one of several pieces to receive awards in the exhibition — casts two Black children under a Stars and Stripes umbrella with rain and bullets falling around them.
One of its neighbors is “I Dissent! James Baldwin,” Romeo C. Robinson’s portrait of the writer and activist. Baldwin’s eyes are presented with such mesmerizing gravity, I failed to notice the collection of his thoughts and writings on the periphery of the piece: “You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not its idea of you.”
Eddie Filer Jr.’s “Voice of Reason” also stuck with me. Filer’s oil on canvas presents one Black man three times: in profile speaking, in profile listening and standing at the center of the frame, his head backlit with a halo. Befitting the title, the piece exudes a sense of calm.
Sanjay Sharma’s “Absolutely Nothing” was another awarded piece. Sharma created an intriguing textural tension with an oxidized steel panel, one corner draped in a piece of burgundy velvet. Pivot 180 degrees, and a very different awardee makes use of found materials: Roslyn M. Dupres “Home, St. Louis #3” presents a model for a house from interlaced scraps of found blue jeans, the different washes and shades of denim creating a lovely matrix of blues.
Geraldina Interiano Wise’s “PAST INCOMPLETE” intrigued for its mix of materials. Interiano Wise’s piece is among the larger ones being shown, as she used a tarp as her canvas. She worked some ripples through its center, suggesting the movement of water. Befitting a work that connects the ancient to the present: In one corner is a small piece of a woven Mayan textile, and a little trickle of used rubber gloves trickles down.
Victoria Nguyen submitted three photographs from her “Seeking Comfort in Confinement” series, its title, naturally, a reference to the difficult pandemic-influenced year in which the photos were shot. Each is quite small: roughly 8 by 6inches, so the trio can get swamped among the hundreds of other pieces. But they also possess an undeniable pull and a quiet but devastating energy. Nguyen frames herself as almost faceless, her hair providing a mask.
The photographs are fairly spartan as far as details go: the photographer, a mostly empty room and often a single object with which she interacts. A sense of solitude drifts from the images like a ghost. Nguyen appears to invite the viewer into these strange isolated moments of communion with a doll or a lamp. On one hand, the spareness of the images feels almost uncomfortably remote. On the other, by sharing her own discomforts, Nguyen finds a way to translate an undesirable state of being into something relatable, a moment of connection.
Those photos take up a miniscule amount of space compared to many of the other selected pieces. But they very much speak to the benefit of taking “The Big Show” slowly.