There are no bets to be made or won in New Contemporaries II and the recent fiasco concerning Kim MacConnel’s arrogant choice of an artist outside this year’s nominated pool, has narrowed the odds even further. However, Omar Pimienta might be the one to watch, even though I sincerely doubt Richard Allen Morris would ever consider him as his running mate. More on Pimienta later.

So what is it about NC2 that makes it so peculiar? First, the works on view are markedly diverse (what you would expect in a group show) but strangely insular in their very narrow range of styles, mediums employed, and taking risks. Kimberly Tomney’s exquisitely beautiful aluminum amalgam and ink drawings on paper are like UFO’s that have landed in a freshly tilled row of artist farmland. I own one of Tomney’s pieces and they demand a certain amount of private contemplation and adequate light, of which they have neither, hanging amongst an installation by Marisol Rendon. Tomney’s use of motel and outdoor pool imagery just might have more to do with Southern California than a whole room of San Diego artists.



Kimberly Tomney - "Pool Lounge Chair"


Two other artists, David Adey and Yuransky, made choices to show work previously seen or hardly seen as is the case of Yuransky. He has a gallery filled with his “Zedist” style works in Normal Heights (more info here), but chose only to show a portrait of his daughter. Adey on the other hand, fresh from a solo exhibit at Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects a few months back, opted to show older works that would not be in conflict with De Jesus just blocks away from Noel-Baza. You may not think this is important enough to mention and I would argue their choices have not impacted the show’s outcome in any way, it does however, potentially limit these artist’s public appreciation and understanding of their working methodologies. They deserve better scrutiny. Like Tomney, both Adey and Yuransky have strong personal styles that may not tell us about our contemporary times but nonetheless make decisive works that are also strangely out of place in this exhibit. Another level of dedication to their craft puts these three artists, even though I’m not always a huge fan of Yuransky’s, into another category beyond what is being done by their contemporaries.



Yuransky - "Knitting Machine" (panel 2)


Finally, Tara Smith could learn something from Tania Alcala about color and surface when it comes to using large swaths of pigment in an open field of canvas. Alcala could also learn something from Smith that could give her paintings a more graphic, bold, and convincing look. But more on Alcala later. Smith for the most part, is not a very good painter. She is somewhat deft and technically proficient with watercolor, but like her large canvases, they remain stiff, clichéd illustrations of what the artist refers to as “political and social geographies that challenge our relationship to our environment”. This is manifested through juxtaposing recognizable landscape imagery, architecture, semi-diesel trucks, figures, soldiers and pretty pastel colors into a hodgepodge of conflicting scale and contrasts that add nothing to their interest and content. I was not convinced by her recent showing at the Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad nor am I now with this body of unenergetic painting.



Tara Smith - "When You Are Lost"

But then, things started to get interesting…





Daniel Ruanova - "Defend" (detail)

Daniel Ruanova and Gustabo Velasquez are both art prize nominees who also have a show together in the aforementioned Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects as part of a number of satellite exhibits, designed to market and promote the art prize and its artists throughout San Diego. Ruanova creates an interesting dilemma that has more to do with his work’s placement in the context of the two galleries, then any conceptual underpinnings and metaphors implied in his bold yet harmless manifesto titled “DEFEND: SECURITY - Constructs Of A People Fearing Society”. At Noel-Baza, we are greeted with an amputated metal sculpture that is a precursor to the larger one you’ll see at Seminal Projects. Next to this maquette is a very large painting emblazoned with the words “FUCK OFF” in bright red on top of a painted version of these prickly constructs in metal – actually, they’re sheet metal studs used in construction.

The word “fuck” has certainly lost its ferociousness over the decades - less offensive I doubt it - but it certainly is over used and over rated as an expression of venomous hatred against someone and for anything deemed cool. George Carlin’s classic and iconic skit from 1972, “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV,” is far more subversive, repugnant, and disturbing by what it says about society than it does about the words it uses. Something Ruanova will never be able to claim with this painting. Ruanova’s works in both galleries depend so much on context and a contrast of readings that they are unable to survive as individual works of art. It brings to mind my own personal experience of living in France and hearing the word fuck used abusively and out of any cultural context – I think we can acquaint the word with America – which was downright shocking and offensive to me. The word had nothing to do with France’s culture; it was simply imitating someone else’s. So is Ruanova’s painting, an imitation of outrage, violence, and fear presented in all its non-offensive quaintness. Being told to fuck off in a gallery is like being told to believe in God while attending Mass – both rather uneventful experiences.

Ruanova may have redeemed himself at Seminal Projects though with a large canvas painted in grays and blacks in an Op Art style of crystalline like shapes that form pyramid structures interlocked together, rhythmically propagating across the surface reminiscent of some of Ruscha’s best atmospheric word paintings. And indeed, perhaps Ruanova did take a page out of Ruscha’s play book by incorporating into the fractured surface a barely visible, camouflaged guardian of sorts, by painting the word SECURITY in the same manner as the painting’s background. It is a stunning work that is much more effective than his one-liner Fuck Off. However, Ruanova may have other problems that are made apparent in this show. His mammoth metal sculpture entitled “Defend” is nothing more than a parody, a jungle gym of a mess that would have been much more effective in the cramped quarters and low ceilings of Noel-Baza. It wouldn’t have fit, but it sure would have been menacing instead of comical.



Daniel Ruanova - "Security" (click for larger image)

Here’s why: From the press release:

Violence has long been part of our way of life and, by many accounts, is one of the most obvious attributes of contemporary American life. Daniel Ruanova’s new installation, DEFEND: SECURITY - Constructs Of A People Fearing Society, speaks to a growing sense of insecurity—the constant threat and fear of violence, a state of continual crisis—and the idea that violence in the 21st century has permeated our individual lives, psyche and everyday world to such a degree that it shapes not only the way we live but may even define who we are. It has become a part of the status quo, an integral—albeit, subversive—characteristic and component of our normal way of life. Tragically, it has also come to define the Mexican-American border experience, one of the world's most trafficked international boundaries that is at the center of the global debate on immigration, free trade, human smuggling, drug-trafficking, and cultural integration.

Don’t forget homicide. It ends by saying,

DEFEND invades and occupies the space with a ferocious power and impenetrable posture. It is both an explosion and an implosion—a geometry of chaos, which, taking the form of a monstrous, multi-spiked barricade (or bomb frozen in mid-detonation) is a metaphor for the destructive forces and the institutionalized violence that converge under pretense of law or tacit consensus—that pits law and order against anarchy and revolution.

Daniel Ruanova - "Defend"


Hardly. The problem? - we’re in a gallery! A pristine, white walled cube of a space in the heart of one of San Diego’s most gentrified neighborhoods, Little Italy, trying to pretend we’re menaced and in harm’s way by an oversized Tinker Toy. I’m not even threatened metaphorically. It is a shame to see work that tries to be imbued with meaning and content when its context is so radically different from its intentions or verbiage. It might be too much reliance on art’s ability to communicate effectively that prevents “Defend” from being successful. For the future, Ruanova could take some clues from Vito Acconci: VD Lives/TV Must Die, 1978; Monument to the Dead Children, 1978; or Decoy for Birds & People,1979.

Gustabo Velasquez unfortunately, may have been short changed in both galleries through no real fault of his own. This is too bad whether he chose the pieces or not - a bad curatorial eye perhaps but nonetheless, Velasquez’s work does not survive very well as individual pieces, part and parceled as they are from larger installations he's mounted. It puts too much unnecessary focus on individual pieces and what I would call their “rag doll” aesthetic of abandonment and lost/reunited memories watered down by their shoddy and sometime arbitrary union of materials. The pieces are just parts of a larger whole, they shouldn't have been turned into a representative product or for sale. However, it’s obvious the works themselves are purposely and cheaply made – scrap wood, plaster board, refuse, discarded objects and materials, pipes, suitcases and anything that he can get his hands on it seems. His exhibit entitled “Pecador y Santo” (Sinner & Saint) at Seminal does not fit together cohesively enough at all, to warrant the extra attention either. It's clear by some of the larger installations he has done in the past and that can be seen on his website, that Velasquez is striving for a broader aesthetic and encounter with the public. I would have gladly flip-flopped Ruanova’s sculpture into the smaller space and given the larger gallery to Velasquez’s more subtle and intuitive works.



Gustabo Velasquez - "Imaginary Line"


Fortunately, one work holds up very well. “Observe the Observer” is a quirky and whimsical assemblage of a magnifying glass positioned over a circle of shiny and reflective metal thumbtacks with a large phallic and menacing pipe sticking straight out just below it. Reflective materials are not lost on Velazquez and can be found throughout his work: from salvaged lane dividers, to cheap Ikea imitations of 70’s decorations employing multiple mirrored surfaces molded in plastic. However, if you want a closer inspection of your image reflected back at you from the surface of the tacks, you need to confront the pipe that is targeting your throat while you move in closer. The piece is wonderfully simple and deliciously perfect! It is disturbingly violent and erotic at the same time. Velasquez is an artist who I think has some originality and can hopefully, survive the emerging artist branding and escape the confines of sterile galleries.



Gustabo Velasquez - "Observe the Observer"



Gustabo Velasquez - "Observe the Observer" (detail)

Q: Is Pop Art easy art?
A: Yes, as opposed to one eminent critic's dictum that great art must necessarily be difficult art. Pop is instant art.
-- Robert Indiana, quoted in Art News, November 1963


I would hazard a guess that the self-proclaimed founder of the Pop Zen Institute, Keikichi Honna, would agree with Indiana. In Honna’s Pop Zen Manifesto he claims, “… my work, as visual analogy and pun, can be my own accelerator, in which I observe the effects of collision of different things, concepts, and images”. Nothing more, nothing less it seems if we take a look at what’s presented by Honna in New Contemporaries II. So what does it say about the work? Well, while not being incredibly interesting, it can comfortably move between styles and supports, certain techniques, creating happy accidents of sorts – a collision of things – and doesn’t need to take responsibility for its final outcome. It doesn’t matter if the work is good or bad, it just is. While a certain amount of experimentation and “what if” is healthy in any art making process, Honna comes off looking like a jokester through his visual analogies that end up being a Pop blender of styles from Indiana to Fairey, Peter Max, Warhol, ad nauseam. Can’t we be done with this type of work? Laziness or nothing to show for the Art Prize, a quick survey of his website demonstrates he is more sophisticated than he is showing us. Thank Buddha.



Keikichi Honna - "Eagle-Fly II"

to be continued...