Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Soft Epic or: Savages of the Pacific West

Ice Box
Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib
March 22-April 13, 2008

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I never make it to "Second Thursdays", which is when most of the north holds their gallery openings, for the simple reason that I play quizzo at The Lost Bar on Thursday nights and some things are more important then art. So, while I believe everyone else in the world has already seen this video, and I'm only getting to it as it's about to close, I'm going to "review" it anyways.

Starters: I am amazed at the ambition and scope of this project and applaud the use of large-scale projections in a large-scale space, I hope many artists take note of this use of the space at Ice Box.

The projection itself, which reminds me of a video game background or a screen saver for a computer, seems like a really good try from a collaboration that also put together Black Hole (currently on view at Vox Populi and better rendered then it's monumental brother) but Soft Epic, a project I know for a fact was put together on a time crunch, falls a little short of the scale it is projected on. I have to say that because that's what I think, but I also think very highly of Matt and Nadia and expect them to strike oil sometime in the near future.

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Also in the Grey Area (The front gallery of the Ice Box) is a simple and elegant piece by Michael Grothusen, Scale Model, From Memory which is pretty much what the title suggests. A scale model of the house the artist lived in from 1973 to 1977, created from memories. As I used to (and still do sometimes on the train) draw memories of old TV shows, I really feel this work.

2 comments:

David S Kessler said...

oh man, quizzo at the Lost Bar! now I'm conflicted. Thanks a bunch.

Ben Will said...

I agree. Good attempt but not really as good as it should have been. Its just a bit sad that in Philly a piece that can only be described as slightly successful can receive some much press. The standard must be raised higher.