The Soft Epic or: Savages of the Pacific West

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



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.



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.

Am the Rhythm

Painted Bride Art Center April 4th-May 17th
Jeanne Jaffe, Isaac Tin Wei Lin, Jackie Tileston, Laura Watt, and Andrew Jeffrey Wright.

Curated by Shelly Spector


Andrew Jeffrey Wright's "X-Wave" paintings

The artists in Am the Rhythm were all brought together because their work seemed musical to curator Shelly Spector, or to paraphrase, probably badly, from Wendy Weinberg's (whose name is mysteriously absent from the artist roster on The painted Bride's site. . . ) documentary on the exhibition; the works seemed to Shelly like they might start moving or make a noise at any second. I'll give them that and qualify that almost every piece in the exhibition had to call on some sort of obsessive-compulsive, rhythmic line-making during its creation. Ms. Weinberg's video, complete with scenes of the artists installing their work, also does a good job of pointing this out.

Though I thank the downstairs for introducing me to the work of Jackie Tileston and for a wonderful monolith of boxes by Mr. Isaac Tin Wei Lin, I always find the upstairs of The Painted Bride's front gallery to house the heart of the exhibition. The upstairs of Am the Rhythm greets you with a wall of cardboard boxes painted to a high-gloss black (also the work of Isaac) which creates two rooms; one a screening room for Wendy's meta-video Am the Rhythm, and the other (first room) a small gallery to house six X-Wave paintings by Andrew Jeffery Wright and a TV displaying an animation of infinite X-waves. I would have been happy with Am the Rhythm if the only thing there were the six new paintings by AJW, Isaac's high-gloss wall was a playful, brilliant addition and I like the entire concept of a documentary on an exhibition being screened at the exhibition that was its subject.


A wall of card-board boxes by Isaac Tin Wei Lin


Wendy Weinberg's "Am the Rhythm"


The inside of Isaac's wall