When I circled the sixth floor on Tuesday night I carried a memory of Dennis Adams' voice—who was voicing Mies van der Rohe, or whoever—saying, "God is in the details." In a room full of well-made things, the joke in Tommy Coleman's exhibit, "Portraits of My Domesticity," comes in the details, in the little cracks and in the slight inconsistencies. Yes, I laughed, looking at the Laugh Now/ Stop Laughing signs, which gave the green light for stop and the red light for go. A drawing dented or ripped. A word mispelled. And what about that bed of growing grass with a corresponding picture of a different bed of growing grass? Maybe this isn't an entirely new joke, but Tommy's show does a good job of telling it.
But the title, "Portraits of My Domesticity," feels false. What does that narrative intend to say? Or add to the work? What joke is it trying to tell? It may not be hard to plug the imagery of lawns, marital beds and household notes into a strange story of domesticity, but that action feels just like that—a plugging in. Perhaps each individual piece would have benefited from having its own title. I always wonder why the standard for show openings on Tuesdays is to show work without titles, and I think here especially the work may have deserved names of their own, designations of their own, if only to survive being eaten by that nagging Domestic narrative.
Still, context matters, and coming after a week of unbearable visual noise, Tommy's thoughtful show, complete with its own mysterious and insistent sound, made refreshing use of the 6th floor.
Henry Chapman
2 comments:
Just to add: Henry's thoughts on the show's title are valid. A title that seems to miss the show or the viewer can nag, especially without the loop of individual titles for pieces to weave around or dip into, to escape the "theme." But what is interesting is that when I was in there, I and others were IN his Domestic Environment. Someone opened his dresser drawers, I ran my hand over his grass matress. We laughed along to his sign that may very well hang in the living room of his mind. He gives priviledge to enter the room, to touch and manipulate these fetish objects.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS - The "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996)
Post a Comment