Jason Meadows, "No Survivors," 2001, wood, aluminum,
paint, hardware, 69" x 83" x 84"
Off the Wall is a group exhibition of non-conventional contemporary
sculpture. The eight included artists from across the country incorporate
multiple figurative, abstract, narrative and fantastical references into
destabilized combinations. The artwork challenges the conventions of an
artwork's autonomy and contingency.
Often suffused with humor and a provocative visual presence, this loose grouping of sculptural works resists facile categorization. Even considering any single artwork on its own terms, one discovers that it defies most suggested criteria. In works by Danielle Gustafson-Sundell, Melissa Pokorny and Rachel Harrison readymade objects collide with industrial or "crafty" materials resulting in truly mixed media.
The notion of free association and the ambiguities of connotation and denotation actively operate in many of these works. Although a work seems representational, it oscillates between what is suggested and what is not. In pieces by Bonnie Collura, Jason Meadows and Brad Tucker familiar references are made, running the gamut from baroque sculpture to a plane crash to vinyl record albums. Yet, in collapsing distinctions, these artists suggest that the literal and visual translation of their pieces are inseparable.
When scale is greatly reduced, the works in Off the Wall ostensibly present a rare and sometimes disconcerting self-sufficiency. Ben Stone's and Vincent Fecteau's small-scale works made from cardboard, foam core, balsa wood and collage elements abstract their figurative and narrative sources: for Stone, the dungeons of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons and for Fecteau, involved architectural perspectives. Despite their diminished appearances, these "sets" assert a surprising autonomy. Bigger is not always better.
What is remarkable about these irreverent works is that they are neither motivated by a single source nor are they centralized, geographically or conceptually. Off the Wall brings together artists from across the US who appear to be tapping into similar interests in which sculpture is approached as a proposition rather than as fact.
