Surrealism meets Santa in ‘Psychedelic Soccer Dada’
BEVERLY — Wells Chandler’s “Psychedelic Soccer Dada” at Montserrat College of Art’s Montserrat Gallery is all about twerking, but it has nothing to do with dancing. The Germanic word means “twist,” and this artist intentionally invokes that etymology. Twist is a textile technique; here, it’s also a metaphor for queer.
This goofy, celebratory, at times overwhelming show ties netherworlds of psychedelic experiences and Surrealist art with queer ecology, which spurns strict binary classifications, such as man/woman or nature/culture. These themes all stray from standard constructs of reality. Psychedelia and surrealism focus on trips into the unconscious; queer ecology rejects hoary hierarchies.
Chandler’s frenetic, hilarious embroidered drawings of Santa Claus fill one wall. The exhibition brochure tells us the artist sees Santa as a subversion of “normative standards of decency and taste through craft and excess.” In other words, Santa is a sort of drag persona. Fair enough; he is a costumed icon of an over-the-top holiday season.
In these works, the artist’s style is almost childlike, and “Psychedelic Soccer Dada” pointedly strives to embrace artmaking at all levels as worthy of exhibiting. Chandler devotes much of his wall space to drawings mounted on cafeteria trays in giant grids. He made many of these collaboratively with friends, family members, and students, a practice recalling Surrealism’s exquisite corpse method, in which artists pass a drawing around, adding as they go. There are flying cars, prancing monsters, and comical genitalia. Some resemble works by elementary or middle school students.
One exquisite corpse can be a fantastical or provocative curiosity. More than a hundred leads to overload. I was relieved to walk away and relax in a tie-dyed beanbag chair, where viewers are invited to make their own drawings.
Drawing is a building block of Chandler’s practice, even when he crochets. The largest crocheted piece, depicting a hand holding a pencil, is the bright hero of the exhibition. Others are part-human, partsomething else. They’re installed high and low, spry avatars leading us from one place to the next. Some, such as “Andrew with a Panty Crown,” have a magic mushroom quality: twolegged but armless, squat, and capped.
It’s hard to quash hierarchies in an art world where tastemakers assign value. Even Chandler can’t be entirely democratic; he employs inclusivity with curatorial know-how. The riotous effect makes a decent container for many visions — until it overflows.