Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A Couple of Quick Thoughts on Oliver Loaiza's 7th-Floor Show

Oliver Loaiza's show on the 7th floor felt like a beautiful counterpart to "One Liners by Two People" and it wasn't until later that I could see that the way in which the show deals with comedy is in such a different, but in some ways more effective, tone. By necessity (of the material, and of seeming persona of the artists) "One Liners" was large and noisy and crowded and a certain kind of elaborate showmanship fit with the structure of the show. Oliver, who I only saw at another show opening, was, like his show and like the work, quieter and less ostentatious.

Not that the show or the work doesn't stand on its own, and not that it has to be seen in terms of the sixth-floor show. The work in the show was in some ways correlated, but it didn't strive to stick to a theme, or to exist solely within the universe of the show. The golf club-pipes, the (cow?) tongue, the fittingly hard-to-hear drone of a woman speaking on tape—these pieces operated more quietly than the work on the sixth floor or the show and performance on the second floor (which also deserves time and thought) but thinking about them the next day, they seem harder to shake.

Henry

No comments: