Ohio State faculty display diversity of ideas in cutting-edge forms
Through inventive, diverse and opinionated installations, 21 Ohio State University art faculty members are proving that the conditions of the natural, political, social and cultural environments are clearly on their minds.
The artists put forth their ideas in “Transference” at the OSU Urban Art Space, the university’s large satellite gallery located in a suite Downtown in the old Lazarus building. True to the title, the artists have imparted a variety of ideas to viewers taking in this dense and often challenging exhibit.
Todd Slaughter’s three works include “Little White Guys Prepared for a Fight,” a humorous if slightly depressing sculpture of two animated, angry-looking white males — the bottom figure in a suit and the figure perched on his shoulders in shorts and T-shirt. In the panel accompanying the piece, created of wood, paint, chalk and graphite, Slaughter says it reflects a “radically self-centered world view.”
“Only recently have I realized in a visceral way that those seeing themselves at the center are, in fact, almost always white males like myself,” he writes.
Equally introspective is Alison Crocetta, who has struggled to create a wall sculpture that doesn’t contribute to a carbon footprint. She has attached a friend’s Soap Box Derby-style car to a pulley attached to a sand-filled glass ball counterweight, adding an inclined plane and hoisting the whole contraption upwards. Her accompanying text explaining her failure to be a sustainable artist is hilarious.
Ann Hamilton — who along with Ohio natives Jenny Holzer and Maya Lin is currently featured in an exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts — contemplates the animal-human relationship in her installation “sideby-side,” 21 wool coats combined with sheep fleece
“side-by-side,” by Ann Hamilton
and hanging next to each other.
Michael Mercil writes that he was inspired by Italian journalist Italo Calvino’s essays about works that can “escape the limited perspectives of the individual ego.” Mercil combines drawings, cardboard boxes and Shakermade objects such as a shelf, a chair and a ladder to create an installation that defies meaning.
Jared Thorne references Edward Ruscha’s 1963 book “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” — a book filled with images of service stations — with “26 Planned Parenthoods,” digital prints of the organizations across Ohio.
Among the most fascinating interactive installations is Roger Beebe’s “Lineage,” in which a motion sensor, triggered by the viewer walking around the equipment, creates electrical impulses that are converted to grinding sounds. Equally entrancing is Amy M. Youngs’ “Grasping Permeability (Flushing Meadows Corona Park),” a circular installation of hanging foliage that invites
At a glance
• “Transference,” works by Ohio State University art faculty members, continues through Nov. 16 at the OSU Urban Arts Space, 50 W. Town St., Suite 130. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, until 8 p.m. Thursdays. Call 614-292-8861 or visit www.uas. osu.edu.
viewers to don headgear and hand controls to investigate the Queens, New York, saltwater marsh that suffered from dumping and intrusive water engineering.
There are many more distinctive pieces, including Carmen Winant’s “The Red Parts,” food-color-dyed images that consider healing through self-touch; Steve Thurston’s crumbling three-dimensional models of America’s founding fathers; Suzanne Silver’s “Painter’s Ladders” that explore color, geometry, space and language; Carmel Buckley’s delicate watercolor silhouette paintings of hands and leaves; Ken Rinaldo’s real-time clock that tracks global warming and contemporary insistence on fossil fuels; and Kate Shannon’s digital inkjet prints of 16 “lonely figures” standing in a drizzle during the Trump inauguration.
Then there are three large oil landscapes by Ed Valentine. His “I Make Paintings You Can Dance To” incorporates designs, drips, smudges and painted birds, and he encourages viewers to make connections between these components. “That,” he writes, “is where the dancing begins.”
The exhibit shows that the faculty members are more interested in cutting-edge themes and techniques than in following traditional expectations in painting and sculpture. Their works are nevertheless accessible, sometimes self-deprecating, usually intense and always thought-provoking.
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