ART REVIEW
Museum's 'Escape' exhibit showcases a little of everything

By Virginia Wageman
Advertiser Art Critic

Dennis Oppenheim's "Upper Cut" exhibits immense dentures with art books for teeth. The sculpture, created in 1992, was built from steel, plywood, hard plastic foam and plaster wall board. Photos courtesy of The Contemporary Museum

Yasumasa Morimura's 1996 portrait of Marilyn Monroe is based on a self-portrait of the artist in drag. Escape from the Vault The Contemporary Museum 2411 Makiki Heights Drive 526-1322

Imagine a picture shoving aside another with, "I'm better than you." Or a sculpture, such as Robert Arneson's wild head in "Up Against It," staring down Judy Fox's elegant terracotta "Courtesan."

Dennis Oppenheim's wry "Upper Cut," a sculpture that represents immense dentures with art books for teeth, was no doubt sitting at the door, champing at the bit to get out.

The museum owns roughly 1,800 works, of which fewer than 80 are hung in the current show. The selection was made by chief curator James Jensen.

What a job it must have been to decide what to bring out. It would be like opening a jewelry box and deciding what to wear to a party. One wouldn't want to select the most brilliant jewels if they would be too flashy for the event or the clothing worn.

The selection includes excellent complementary groupings, with works in similar styles hung next to one another. One wall in the downstairs gallery is devoted to portraits: an artist's conception of a young George Washington by Geoffrey Chadsey; a young Abe Lincoln, also by Chadsey; Alex Katz' portrait of his wife, Ada; Marilyn Monroe by Yasumasa Morimura, a self-portrait of the artist in drag. Especially provocative is Robert Arneson's "Special Assistant to the President," a portrait of Willie Horton, the black man freed from prison by former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, most certainly contributing to Dukakis' demise as a Democratic presidential candidate — aided and abetted by a GOP ad campaign.

Robert Motherwell's abstract "Untitled," 1963, is displayed near a sculpture by another well-known abstract expressionist, Mark DiSuvero — also near Mark Tobey's watercolor "Little Wall," an example of Tobey's "white writing," a style he developed while abstract expressionists were emerging.

One nice touch is that works exhibited in shows during the past year have been hung again, evoking all sorts of layers of memories of the previous shows. Examples include Enrique Chagoya's "Old Toy," a bracelet by Peter Chang and a necklace by Kiff Slemmons, Nancy Grossman's "Collapsing Fire Field II," Bill Jacobson's "Song of Sentient Beings No. 1617," Vik Muniz's "Youth from the series 'Pictures of Soil,'" small porcelain forms by Toshiko Takaezu and the month of November from Thomas Woodruff's "Apple Canon."

Current art-world buzzes are evoked by certain works, such as David Hockney's drawing "Ray Charles White," which he made to advance his theory that the Old Masters must have used some sort of camera lucida device to paint their "perfect" portraits.

Andres Serrano's "Ecce Homo" reminds us of such conservative politicians as Jesse Helms and Rudy Giuliani, who would shut down art exhibitions to prevent others from seeing works that they consider offensive.

Serrano's photographs often depict souvenir reproductions of religious icons that have been immersed in a tank filled with various body fluids, including urine, blood and semen. He then enlarges the images to reveal brilliant colors derived from the fluids, as in "Ecce Homo."

Serrano has said: "My intent (is) to aestheticize Christ. Beautiful light, I think, aestheticizes the picture: visually, it doesn't denigrate Christ in any way. ... I think it's charged with electricity visually. It's a very spiritually, I would say, comforting image, not unlike the icons we see in church, you know. There is, I think, a very reverential treatment of the image. At the same time, the fact that you know there's a bodily fluid involved here ... it's meant to question the whole notion of what is acceptable and unacceptable. There's a duality here, of good and evil, life and death."

Also controversial have been the works of Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, who explore sociopolitical themes in their sculptural collages like "The White Cup," in which two black men gaze at photos of their faces, held in mirror frames. One man holds a broken white cup, signifying that for the black man, the cup can be neither half empty nor half full; the other man holds a serving tray, intended to suggest the servitude of black people. Kienholz and his wife have made many such assemblages, like Serrano, to comment on absurd or outrageous aspects of American life.

Works that presumably will be included in forthcoming shows are included here, such as Lesley Dill's "Voices in My Head." There will be a Lesley Dill exhibition at the museum at the end of this year.

The museum recently has announced plans to build an addition that will include a 4,000-square-foot gallery for rotating selections from the museum's permanent collection. That will be a truly welcome addition to Honolulu's art scene.

Note: In last week's review of "Taisho Chic" at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the word "slippers," in reference to the footwear of a girl in one of the paintings, was changed during editing to "rubber slippers." This would be totally inaccurate. What we know as rubber slippers, the ubiquitous "flip-flops" from Longs, would not have been worn in early 20th-century Japan. Rather, footwear known as zori were worn and are depicted in the painting.

The Human Family

A reminder that the video series "The Human Family" continues to be shown in the video gallery at The Contemporary Museum. These films serve as a powerful reminder that people worldwide have similar concerns, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, Arab or American. For details, call 526-1322.

Reach Virginia Wageman at VWageman@aol.com.