Audio By Carbonatix
Walk through SMoCA’s “Seriously Funny” exhibition and you’ll be
entertained. But don’t expect every piece to make you, um, lol.
At first, I was disappointed with the show. I naively thought the
collection would make me cackle. But this exhibition is
seriously funny — not just funny. And once I gave that
concept more thought, a new appreciation for SMoCA’s 10th anniversary
exhibition emerged.
Comedy is subjective. It takes a magical alignment of a million
elements, catered to one individual’s unique referential mind, to pop
together just right to produce a smirk, snort, chuckle, or roar. We all
take turns either getting the joke or missing the punch line. So
curators Claire Schneider and Cassandra Coblentz took a different
approach.
“It’s not really about being funny,” Coblentz says. “It’s more about
how funny works.”
Schneider and Coblentz present a collection by 10 artists —
including the international famous as well as local talent (to
represent the diversity of artists SMoCA’s shown over the decade)
— who deal with less-than-funny topics. Some pieces worked for
me, and some didn’t. But I had to think long and hard as to why or why
not. Which is exactly what the curators want.
While I didn’t wet myself laughing, I found a few works funny.
Kjellgren Alkire is the only local artist featured, but I thought he
was one of the best in the show. He definitely made me smirk with
Cowboy Confessional. This structure towers over an entire
gallery filled with a makeshift congregation of tree stumps, a
shed-like pulpit, and outdoor camping scenes painted on the walls. Two
elongated outhouses are perched on an open-air flatbed single-axle
trailer. Viewers are invited to enter the confessional and sit over the
toilet holes. I encourage this activity because without the
exploration, you’d miss the cathedral-like feel when you look up the
towering walls and see a soft glow. Then, glancing to the side, you can
see your neighbor through a window — just like a confessional.
Poo-poo humor may not be the most mature way to make someone laugh, but
Alkire puts his viewers in a position to essentially take a dump on one
of the sacraments. Maybe I’m a child because I think that’s pretty dang
funny.
Alejandro Diaz’s Make Your Own Damn Tortillas was the other
hit for me. The installation sits on a series of platforms and is a
beautiful setup of tortilla-making items. It’s a stunning arrangement
of chili peppers, stone mashers, woven mats, gourds, pots and huge
wicker baskets holding dried stalks of burgundy, navy and sunshine
yellow corn. To the left of the setup is a dusty wood chair with a
cardboard sign that reads, “Make your own damn tortillas — I’m
outta here — Lupe.” This work is absolutely charming. Not to
mention, it’s a fantastic way to create a portrait of a modern,
assimilated Mexican woman.
Dan Perjovschi was the first artist to strike me as way more serious
than funny. But that’s not to say he wouldn’t be someone else’s
favorite jester. With a show like this, all I can do is explain why he
didn’t tickle my funny bone. And my reasons don’t come without a lot of
thought. Again, it’s this kind of investigation that Schneider and
Coblentz aim to inspire.
Perjovschi, a Romanian artist, has his run with the entire back west
wall of the galleries. He covers the white surface with his signature
black scribbles of sketchbook-style stick figures and cartoons. Each
vignette in this visual stream of consciousness makes social or
political commentary.
The sketch I related to most is a stick figure wearing a Barack
Obama T-shirt inscribed with “HOPE.” The stick figure’s head is bent
over, looking down at his own front as he yells, “YOU HAVE TO DELIVER.”
Perjovschi drew the sketch around last year’s presidential election and
I share his anticipation of an inevitable Obama backlash. Having so
much hope in one man is dangerous. Another sketch that hit close to
home was a crowd of round-bellied figures gathering around a SALE
window filled with thinner stick figures. The words “PERFECT PEOPLE”
are written above the image with an arrow pointing into the window.
Yep, that’s a social pressure I know very well.
Perjovschi uses stick figures to cushion these issues, but, though
charming, the figures just weren’t enough of a buffer to keep the
subject matter light for me — not enough distance. Then again,
I’m used to The Daily Show, SNL, or The Onion to keep
this kind of stuff funny. Nonetheless, it turned out to be the most
thought-provoking work, purely because I didn’t find it funny. I
now see that I need a lot of bells and whistles, via TV or Internet, to
make me laugh at social/political satire.
And then there were the sculptures by Maurizio Cattelan. This is
where the heaviness outweighed the humor. Frank and Jamie, 2001
consists of two wax figures — uniformed NYPD officers —
leaning against the wall. But they’re upside down: heads on the floor,
toes to the ceiling. One is a lovable buffoon. He’s portly with a goofy
grin. The other is slim and carries a stern face. This is Cattelan’s
commemoration of September 11. It symbolizes the total upsetting of
control, safety, and authority caused by the tragedy. The officers,
aside from standing on their heads, are extremely lifelike. And, in my
imagination, they come alive — but only for a moment. I see them
screaming as they are burnt alive or crushed to death by falling
debris. Again, it doesn’t offer enough distance from the heavy subject matter
to be funny.
Obviously, the curators found an element of humor in all the pieces.
It’s up to the audience to agree or disagree. All SMoCA is asking here
is to think about why. They certainly did that. And you just read about
a thousand words of proof.
