2008 Woodie Awards
What Does It All Mean, Brian Shaw!?
Current graduate art exhibit showcases the "stuff of our collegiate 20s," artwork that isn't "asking to be reviewed"
Travis Diehl
Issue date: 2/7/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Downstairs grows a whimsical carnivorous garden. Little pads of fake neon grass sprout these bulbous, protruding, earth-colored stalks that terminate in bright, toothy mouths. They face inward, to themselves, like the five round petals of a forget-me-not. Playful, vaginal, abysmal, to what agonized impetus do they owe their creation?
This is, after all, the UNCG graduate show. In Greensboro, North Carolina, student artwork gets no better. These artists will improve, will aspire, but will do so elsewhere--will begin to sign their names on thin acrylic placards beside their work, will proclaim their sly titles on more venerable walls than these. But this is the McIver Gallery, and things are different here. This is an unassuming place. There are pastel handprints on the walls and scuffmarks on the white tile floor. And it fits. It all makes sense, because where else would such imperfect art be safe? It's ok, we're all learning. We're all in Greensboro. We all do the best we can.
A long red-orange rectangle recalls the panoramic insides of a grad studio. A collage builds a reiterating abstraction from bits of masking tape and thread. Oils on panel, pinned and unadorned, depict a hanging coat on bare white walls and a flimsy door, or a contorted pair of jeans. This is the stuff of our collegiate 20s: tape and fabric and furniture.
An iron mass decorates the ground floor, a pile of rust-colored metal with round white feet. Stove parts and bed parts and car parts fit together into something resembling a ten-ton lunar lander. The sculpture roves the gallery like a buggy in the linoleum basin of a dustless, brilliantly white crater. They're not asking to be reviewed. They don't deserve to be. These artists deserve instead a pat on the back, an awe-struck laugh and a shake of the head, as we wonder admiringly what the hell they were thinking.
Why go? Because it works. The display is cohesive the way few museum showings are. Even in the Weatherspoon's main gallery, you get the sense that maybe the art would be more at home somewhere else. And indeed, most of the work has been elsewhere, will move on to bigger and better things--does not, ultimately, belong. But back in the tiered downstairs of McIver, it all comes together: the walls, the floors, the building and the classes humming above, the view of the moss-covered concrete courtyard, the lone student passing through, not looking. Downstairs somewhere in their studios or down the street or across town in their apartments or around the corner having lunch are the artists, in Greensboro, someplace. And all of this circumstance and proximity and sincerity comes together in the artwork, hangs in the McIver Gallery along with it, and makes the artwork real.
Tacked behind a sheet of Plexiglas, Brian Shaw's Tape Drawing I occupies the center wall on the bottom floor. It's an accretion of tape on paper--masking, scotch, electrical. It's art on a shoestring budget. Shaded tape-orbs hover over an electric black expanse. A mysterious rectangle dangles from red webbing. But there's something else. The evidence of hands makes the piece. You sense each small tear and smoothing-down. You see the artist's penciled asides. The surface, more so than even the surrounding paintings, appears worked. MFA smugness has no place. Tape Drawing is homemade, homely, and sincere.
So do you feel like this is where you need to be? Can you see your Tape Drawing somewhere else? A museum in New York? The floor of your bedroom? The McIver Gallery falls somewhere in between. The space is as formal as our gritty, angular circumstance allows. The half-light of creative sunrise renders it pristine. Tape Drawing dominates the mood, feeds upon and crafts the atmosphere of the dusky gallery, is every inch and scratch the perfect piece of art for its place and time. Nice work, Brian Shaw, wherever you are.
The current graduate exhibition can be seen in the McIver Gallery until March 2.
This is, after all, the UNCG graduate show. In Greensboro, North Carolina, student artwork gets no better. These artists will improve, will aspire, but will do so elsewhere--will begin to sign their names on thin acrylic placards beside their work, will proclaim their sly titles on more venerable walls than these. But this is the McIver Gallery, and things are different here. This is an unassuming place. There are pastel handprints on the walls and scuffmarks on the white tile floor. And it fits. It all makes sense, because where else would such imperfect art be safe? It's ok, we're all learning. We're all in Greensboro. We all do the best we can.
A long red-orange rectangle recalls the panoramic insides of a grad studio. A collage builds a reiterating abstraction from bits of masking tape and thread. Oils on panel, pinned and unadorned, depict a hanging coat on bare white walls and a flimsy door, or a contorted pair of jeans. This is the stuff of our collegiate 20s: tape and fabric and furniture.
An iron mass decorates the ground floor, a pile of rust-colored metal with round white feet. Stove parts and bed parts and car parts fit together into something resembling a ten-ton lunar lander. The sculpture roves the gallery like a buggy in the linoleum basin of a dustless, brilliantly white crater. They're not asking to be reviewed. They don't deserve to be. These artists deserve instead a pat on the back, an awe-struck laugh and a shake of the head, as we wonder admiringly what the hell they were thinking.
Why go? Because it works. The display is cohesive the way few museum showings are. Even in the Weatherspoon's main gallery, you get the sense that maybe the art would be more at home somewhere else. And indeed, most of the work has been elsewhere, will move on to bigger and better things--does not, ultimately, belong. But back in the tiered downstairs of McIver, it all comes together: the walls, the floors, the building and the classes humming above, the view of the moss-covered concrete courtyard, the lone student passing through, not looking. Downstairs somewhere in their studios or down the street or across town in their apartments or around the corner having lunch are the artists, in Greensboro, someplace. And all of this circumstance and proximity and sincerity comes together in the artwork, hangs in the McIver Gallery along with it, and makes the artwork real.
Tacked behind a sheet of Plexiglas, Brian Shaw's Tape Drawing I occupies the center wall on the bottom floor. It's an accretion of tape on paper--masking, scotch, electrical. It's art on a shoestring budget. Shaded tape-orbs hover over an electric black expanse. A mysterious rectangle dangles from red webbing. But there's something else. The evidence of hands makes the piece. You sense each small tear and smoothing-down. You see the artist's penciled asides. The surface, more so than even the surrounding paintings, appears worked. MFA smugness has no place. Tape Drawing is homemade, homely, and sincere.
So do you feel like this is where you need to be? Can you see your Tape Drawing somewhere else? A museum in New York? The floor of your bedroom? The McIver Gallery falls somewhere in between. The space is as formal as our gritty, angular circumstance allows. The half-light of creative sunrise renders it pristine. Tape Drawing dominates the mood, feeds upon and crafts the atmosphere of the dusky gallery, is every inch and scratch the perfect piece of art for its place and time. Nice work, Brian Shaw, wherever you are.
The current graduate exhibition can be seen in the McIver Gallery until March 2.
