350 words for David Adey
by Kevin Freitas
"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth." - John Heywood
And I'm not. I'm just sayin' despite the re-writes, the emails and the stress and uncertainty of whether or not a review will be published, can make art criticism a real bitch to do. It's not easy, at least for me. 350 words good or bad and an excellent artist like David Adey doesn't go very far, just a handful of short paragraphs to cut my teeth on. But it isn't about me, it's about bringing to the public's attention the work of a very fine artist. Sometimes, I think we forget what sort of cause and effect a review not published can have on an individual artist, writer, gallery and public, which it is destined to help promote and instruct. While I am sad that a review may not be printed, it is felt to a much larger degree, especially here in San Diego where arts coverage is next to nil, by the artist whose work slips by un-noticed and un-read. The stakes are higher here, given that there is so little, it actually ends up hurting the arts community it is supposed to be supporting. (We end up covering the arts I believe, not out of any real moral or societal compunction, but out of laziness)
I applaud the recent initiative by CityBeat to feature local artists on the front cover of their weekly paper. But while I am grateful for the opportunity to have my reviews published and beautiful covers to look at, I recognize the necessity for more arts coverage by more diverse writers, and implore CityBeat and the Reader to expand their output.
Please find below the review of David Adey's exhibit, I've got a river of life flowing out of me, published in today's CityBeat, and on view until November 20th at Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects.
click for larger image
PUZZLED PIECES
The art critic Peter Plagens has referred to a lot of artwork these days as “postart,” fabricated by “postartists” who create works “post-” - after - the known art-history lineage without ever referencing the masters or the movements that have brought them to where they are today.
Plagens’ point is that artists nowadays are no longer interested in their predecessors. The problem is it’s not that simple, especially when you run across an artist like David Adey, whose work is historically tied to its influences. But you might not fully understand this by observing what he creates.
You could call Adey a postartist; he’s simply more interested in the process of making art. Using hundreds of craft punches in various sizes and shapes, from hearts to hand rakes and everything in between, he punches out only the visible flesh tones of figures from People magazine and Bebe publicity posters.
The result is a tightly organized collage, pieced together like some forensic puzzle and pinned to stark, white Styrofoam backgrounds. It is less about where the fleshy specimens come from but, instead, how they fit together. If beauty is only skin deep, then it is also paper thin, and Adey demonstrates this flawlessly in his use of high-profile celebrities and top models, dissecting them and then resurrecting them into ghostly lugubrious shells of themselves. But why?
This is harder to answer. Certainly, you can find some wry commentary on pop society, see some humor in how he uses a baseball-bat form to define a woman’s cleavage and recognize a subtle Christian theme of life, death and resurrection. If what Plagens says is true, it doesn’t matter where Adey starts his artwork, where it takes him and how it ends. What matters is that the work is not as disingenuous as it seems, but full of life, beauty and the passion of making things. Something Adey does extremely well.
Comments
Well said. This is another artist's work that needs to be seen in person and we encourage everyone to get to the gallery and take a look. If you miss this show, you can see David's work in the Noel-Baza New Contemporaries II exhibition in February as one of this year's emerging artist nominated for the SD Art Prize. Kudos to Luis de Jesus for taking this artist and several other locals to the Miami art fair scene this year in December.
Patricia Frischer, www.SDVAN.net
Posted by: Patricia | novembre 13, 2008 09:07 AM
Ohh...I love Dave Adey!!
Given time, I think the San Diego art scene will slowly be crawling out from it's cocoon.
Posted by: Mel | novembre 13, 2008 08:52 PM
Beautiful show, very attractive work. I enjoyed reading the review, but why does it have to be SO short?
In the same issue of the San Diego CityBeat ("Best of San Diego"), I did not find much about Visual Arts in the "best" list. The closest category is "best art supply store". The MCASD is first for the category "best museums".
"best gallery" and/or "best alternative place to see art" are nowhere to be found.
If I am not mistaken, there are 149 categories of "best in San Diego" listed in this special issue.
Posted by: Michele Guieu | novembre 14, 2008 09:25 AM