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"Allegedly" review
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Roy Lictenstein? Allegedly
Man Ray. Jackson Pollock. Henri Matisse. Andy Warhol. Joseph Cornell. If a show featured all these artists… Well God damn, that’s a powerhouse line-up right there. “Allegedly” at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana features none of those artists, but it does feature Hugh Brown who has taken it upon himself to copy the style of each of those named above and then some. The results are quite magnificent.
The concept for the show supposes that Hugh Brown finds all these forgotten pieces of artwork that feature chainsaws in them from all these 20th century masters. On a conceptual level, it’s a little iffy. The reasoning behind the use of chainsaws (as opposed to some other object) is never really explained, so one has to assume that they are meant to be some sort of non-sequitur. As a non-sequitur it feels dated. Is the image of a chainsaw supposed to be shocking? In today’s day and age you got to do a lot better than that. Maybe a bloody tampon would have been more effective.
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Joseph Cornell? Nah.......
It’s possible that putting chainsaws in conjunction with replicating the works of the great artists of the 20th century is meant to make some kind of statement about art or something like that, but if that’s the case the message feels unclear and still probably dated. Ironic deconstruction is so nineties.
It’s a testament though to the sheer excellence of Hugh Brown’s execution of his concept that none of those concerns or criticisms matter. The replications are impeccable, and beyond that most of the pieces are just plain good even if they replicated no one. It’s quite a stunning collection to behold really.
I caught this show quite late (it opened May 2nd) and as such its closing is coming up pretty quick on June 14th. I highly recommend checking it out before it leaves.
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