February 28th - March 25th 2001
H. Lewis Gallery
1500 Bolton St.
Baltimore, MD 21217
410 462 4515
hlewis.com

Dichotomies
Study One Through Seventeen
by Jack Livingston
from peekreview.net

Prelude:

     Merce       Cunningham's        father        delights
                                            in        gardening.
     Each        year
                         he        has        had
       to        move        the        shrubs        back
           from        the        driveway
                       to        protect        them        from
     being        run        over        when        Mrs.
             Cunningham        backs        out.
       One         day         Mrs.         Cunningham
           in         backing         out
             knocked         down         but
       did         not         hurt
      an         elderly         gentleman         who
      had         been         taking         a
          stroll.
                              Getting         out         of
           her         car         and         seeing
          him         lying         on         the
       sidewalk,
                     Mrs.         Cunningham         said,
          "What
          are         you          doing          there?"

 - John Cage from ``Indeterminacy: new aspect of form in instrumental and electronic
 music'', Silence, p.272

Big shots and burn out

As an art, photography in all it's century of progressing glory is all of a sudden to a gaseous free-fall. It holds much the same position, has many of the same problems, as painting did about 50 years ago. It is ubiquitous, overwrought, and generally reaching critical mass in the cliche department.

Both Warhol and Raushenberg used photography, through screenprints, to reinvigorate that fifties problem in painting. Then conceptualists as varied as John Baldissari and Sol Lewitt(etc. etc.) lugged it through the muck in new, fun and subversive ways. Photography rose to full power in the late seventies and early eighties as painting wheezed out its last expressive gasps. Leading the triumphant photography brigade were Cindy Sherman (faux-cinematic fables) and Robert Maplethorpe (velveteen transgression). Since then, the medium has spread like wildfire ­ and now the fire is mushrooming atomic, 'tis this digital age.

Maplethorpe died the tragic death befitting his myth. Sherman is still cranking out the work from her neofeminist prop shop, and now she's joined by the blurry lexicon school, the snapshot esthetic, the voyeuristic memoir. The famed ex-victim Nan Goldin emerges victorious relapsing at appropriate intervals, while the "is it real or is it not" diorama is so "in" it is over.

At the other end of the esthetic spectrum is photo rococo, staged and art-directed to the hilt. Art stud Matthew Barney orchestrates lush, over-the-top, hyper-sugar-rush tableaux that accompany and enhance his "art" film productions.

Which evolved from and leads back to MTV.

MTV provides the most spectacular of all photo stills. Stealing from one and all (especially the works of contemporary photography), young filmmakers cut and jump like orgiastic chimps on a meth binge, with isolated images leaping around in deliberate ultra Mac synched behemoth chaos. Form has utterly replaced content.

The once humble and intimate photograph is endangered in these rittlin' rattled A.D.D. days.

Neo-geography lesson

Dianne Jones is a young photographer from the West Coast who spent a big chunk of last year traveling around the country via Amtrak, seeing the USA (instead of flying over it). She also scouted places to exhibit her work.

Baltimore's H. Lewis Gallery was one she marked on her list, and when she sent slides, they responded. Finally, some willingness from a smallish gallery to bring in unknown talent from the other side of the continent. Enough regional squabbles already. Time to go at least coastal and; I hope global. If all these weedy ragtag bands can do it, why not visual artists?

Jones makes a strong case that regionalism may be interesting, but ultimately less important than strong individual vision intent. A lesson often lost in this city of urban-envy, sunk in self-pity about being ignored as the kid that's not as smart or successful or pretty as its siblings, NY and DC (even Philly or Pittsburgh for Gods sake). Jones also makes the case, much as the folkie types of previous generations, that one small instrument utilized with passion and precision can still yield sublime and remarkable results in the face of the world machine.

Twin infinities

Jones handles the issues raised by the current photographic debasement by, wisely, ignoring them. Avoiding MTV slickness or Barney baroque or faux-documentary story-telling, she uses the simple representative aspect of photography to create resonance and echoes in the viewer. She's assembled 17 pairs of images into quietly expressive diptychs.

Not so bit a deal ­ linking two connecting or contrasting images or fields is a common strategy in today's artworld, a nod towards the complexities of cinema and narration. But Jones work has a special quality, a quality that elevates it.

Unlike the gigantor bus-sized prints now infesting the cityscape (and galleries), these works are relatively diminutive & shy; 12 by 24 inches or so. Everything is gained from this intimate viewing. The scaling-down reflects the quieter, homemade esthetic of the music the artist admires, and also the more introspective contemplation the artist hopes the viewer will engage in.

Jones is meticulous in her selections and production. She develops all her own prints, getting the clarity of color exact for each one. The care she takes shows; the lines and colors of the binary images intersect with a structuralist beauty that's never contrived. The work escapes language as it wings into that particular poetic space of communal otherness.

Indie terminancy

Jones says one of her main artistic influences is John Cage, the man who used a heightened sense of the everyday to transform a common symphonic experience into an orchestra of smiles, snags and elegy. Cage's taste for the dignified exaltation of quiet now mixed with a sense of wonder is clearly present in Jones' current work.

Many think of John Cage's breakthrough mid-20th century style as chaotic and utterly random. Actually, he used randomness and chance to infuse his carefully structured work with a sense of the natural. And Jones' work too, her careful choice and organic engineering, is anything but random or chaotic. She finds her artistic alliance within the values and ultimate esthetics of Cage and his Westernized adoption of certain tenets of Eastern philosophies.

Another, and probably more important, influence on Jones is current independent music. Here the connection is direct, of her time rather than the historic past, and thus the effects are in constant flux. What music does she listen to? "Nothing that would be on the radio" she says, smiling. She reels off a list of favorite bands covered in the purist fringe indie rag Puncture, and hardly anywhere else. She has a passion for this music, knows the musicians, photographs them in San Francisco and is well-versed in the culture's current folklore. This music isn't just background music for her work; instead, she relates her process directly to her colleagues' process. Jones shares the same psychic arena.

Heavy pet sounds and structural engineering

Jones' photo diptychs work as short song compositions; much like those produced by the bands she admires. Juxtaposed 'movements' produce new and fresh moments, both for the artist and even more so for the viewer/listener. When writing a song it is just this kind of clashing but similar situation that creates the central spin and drama. The similarities create the rhythm (structure) that binds it together, while the lyrics or melody break it apart in weaving texture.

Almost as if underlining this connection, local twin guitar driven 'soundscape' band Sonna and the venerable powerhouse of waltztime cinematic high wail Will Oldham performed for an hour before Jones' opening. The two acts performed short sets of approximately the same length, back to back, a parallel to the binary images presented.

Like the best music, Jones' photographs are complex and seductive without being overtly controlling. Her image of a vast bowling ally next to a slick airport luggage line has obvious structural and color/texture connections. Yet the pairing further plays out other deep complex human textual narratives, reflective and open to interpretation. Travel, games, movement, interior open space and the lone dark suited figure waiting like an actor in the wings of a schematic cultural stage.

There are no images of faces, no full frontal portraits, and only this one body makes a stark appearance. Yet Jones manages to portray a fully humanistic world with a wide breath. The very absence of people enhances our thoughts of their role; our role, in the world portrayed.

Grounded (live)

Many of this younger generation of artists and musicians seem tired of proving how tough, smart or smart-ass they are. Instead, they want to connect. Pop-culture irony has failed them; they are ultra wise to its marketing and have moved beyond its Disney/McDonalds clampdown. They instead choose to lay low and keep some form of integrity through their work. Bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control live communally in Athens, Georgia, cross-pollinating and turning out dense, lush albums that need numerous listens to decipher and fully appreciate. These bands and artists like Jones finally fulfill the early promise of the San Francisco commune esthetic of ;music/art making.

While talking to me, Jones made numerous unselfconscious references to the spiritual nature of her work. It was very refreshing and very real. Most of the time artists skitter away from the word, as if uttering it was akin to admitting to having some dreadful disease. And often when they do mention the spiritual one fears the worst, sticks strung together in a wooded section of some backlot park, or faux-naïve retablos by hipsterish white boys just back from Mexico.

Not Jones. Within all her works the spirit of nature meets the spirit of the artificial indoors. The modern world is treated with equal awe as the leaf-strewn ground. The most effective of the photograph pairs are the interior/exterior combines, linking the rooms we occupy with the landscapes we plod. Never cliche, Jones always manages to be subtle and surprising, exhibiting an attitude that's not frightened or despairing, but instead expresses a gentle reverence. The best example of this is the Study Number 9. The rainy gray sky and powerlines allied with the cornfields evoked an updated and more enriched less alienated Robert Frank.

I'm happy to see young artists moving beyond their home states, making their way and showing us their vision. We're used to indie music gypsies traversing the country in worn Econoline vans. Maybe we can look forward to the day when groups of young visual artists hit the road in the same way. As a local art community, we can go a long way towards making space for them. H. Lewis Gallery is to be commended for leading the way.