Jana Napoli & Rondell Crier, Floodwall, mixed media, sight specific 2007
The use of installation art by contemporary artists has become a standard genre that categorizes itself apart from more traditional mediums like painting and sculpture. It seems almost ridiculous to attempt to define or label whatever it is, exactly, that artists do. Blurring lines of distinction is what good artists do best, and allowing them to branch out as they please opens up potential for experimentation that would be impossible to suppress. Of course, there will always be examples of failure and success. I suppose such a determination would depend on the skill of the artist to deploy their own set of standards and disciplines appropriately, while still expressing themselves freely. That is the dilemma for contemporary artists working within this fairly-recent development in art history.
Taking its descriptive name from the "previous" location of 617 Piety Street, the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans presents five examples of installation art entitled "Previously on Piety". Originally shown as a satellite group exhibition as part of Prospect.1, each artist in this show addresses the same topic. In New Orleans, Katrina was not just an event, its a mark in time that separates then and now. Cathartic in nature, its difficult to remove the physical from the emotional when viewing this show. For instance, Jana Napoli's Floodwall, which consists of over one hundred drawers collected from Katrina aftermath, projects a strong sense of loss when witnessing the mass scale of these objects that once belonged to other people. Its a natural reaction to wonder: Who did they belong to and what were they used for? A simple transformation where the everyday object becomes contemplative, emotive, and meaningful. All done by simply displaying them, allowing their tactile beauty to transcend their identity as household utilitarian objects.
Combining a video element with a wooden, actual- scale replica of his Honda Passport, Rondell Crier's On the Streets depicts a journey through the streets of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Again, the simplicity of presentation only emphasizes the trauma, where a ride down the street evokes incomprehensible devastation. An underlying theme seemed to pervade where found objects and images are the true medium. Rontherin Ratliff's tree made of reclaimed materials, aptly titled Rooted, is build up from a base of concrete substratum that rises into branches made from building refuse and rusted objects. Each limb was made of some piece of shutter, a window frame, an old chandelier, or a beat-up bicycle. Again, the origin of these things became the back story, like a family tree with a history only known by the owner.
This exhibition is worth seeing in person if you did not get to see them at their original location on Piety Street. The other two installations, Gerard Caliste's, Walking on Water, and Jan Gilbert's Biography of a House, are like like visual anecdotes that each give the artists' personal account of the storm in their own medium. Caliste's piece is like a 3 dimensional painting that you can enter, where Gilbert's personal collection of family photographs swirl up to the ceiling as if caught in a whirlwind. Anyone unfamiliar with installation art, in all its controversy, would benefit to witness this show in person. This group exhibition explores personal trauma, which allows the reservations of the viewer to seem insignificant, effectively heightening the genre to convey experience. Previously on Piety is on view until July 12, 2009 at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC).
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