FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Jerkin' Off the Dog to Feed the Cat
Ugly but Fascinating Drawings of a World Theory
by David GarneauAlastair Mackinven
The New Gallery
until July 31.A stuttering male voice rants a dyslexic world theory in alternating monotone and passionate pleas. These are the thoughts of an urban, almost intellectual, disenfranchised, Dostoyevskian male anti-hero. A man fallen from privilege to degradation, unsure if his exile is self-imposed, a deserved punishment, the unjust result of social conditions, personal failure or the only morally tenable position available in this corrupted age. With informed disgust, he describes a world and performs a self gone incoherent and yet, at the same time, tries desperately to patch together a new order or mythology from forgotten or marginal and incompatible theories.
The voice issues from an acetate disk on a turntable atop a jerry-built wooden tower in the center of the gallery. Surrounding the tower are nine enlarged photocopied drawings mounted on cheap plywood. The use of retro-tech (an acetate record, turntable and photocopying) in this age of art exhibitions that use multimedia computers, video projection, etc., is a self-conscious gesture that both saves money - calling attention to the artist's impoverishment - and is a refusal of high-tech art's implications in corporate and capital culture.
This is not a pretty show. From the depressing and disgusting title to the crummy wood supports and poorly glued photocopies, the exhibition makes few concessions to civility, craft and esthetics. It looks less like an exhibition than a sketch for one. It is and is about degradation, making do, scrapping by, lo-tech, barely existing, and dependance on the kindness of strangers.
The drawings are collaged enlargements from Mackinven's sketchbook. A document, were it included in the show, that might have filled in some of the gaps. As it is, the exhibition is heir to the post-hippy punk thing that happened on the West Coast in the late '70s early '80s, the sort of thing you'd find in underground comix, zines, band posters and Dead Kennedys record sleeves. An amalgam of vague political and social commentary, interest in white trash culture, evangelical and cult religion, pop and mass culture collage, RE:Search magazine, and young adult angst that comes from being educated in an insulated system run by '60s idealists and being sent into a world run by '60s realists. Lots of nice weird ideas unsuitable for the world outside schools and art, no application, no job. The result has been toothless perversions.
Unlike the punk collagists, Mackinven translates his sources. Every image and idea passes through his hand and becomes a drawing, which creates some cohesion. The drawings are often witty but mostly a barely coherent semi-private language, a visual free association from an interesting mind. Among the images are recognizable bits of worn out socio-scientific theories and sadly funny plays on racism, conformity and 12-step programs.
It is difficult to know if Mackinven wants us to laugh or cry, take this seriously or not. He seems to be acting as a clearing house for the absurd, the sad and the nearly plausible, but there is no uniting idea or desire, and that may be his very point.
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