R E V IE W E D
Each arti§t skillfully joins individual details and
moments into penetrating vignettes, with marked
contradictions o f form and content.
Right:
Christyl Boger
Sea Toy
, 2007, glazed
earthenware, gold luster,
28 x26 x16 m.
•> £
V.V*
f
À
^
\
t b
*■£
A
\
f
. - 7
1
V J
J
J L
Staged
Stories
By Sarah Tanguy
Renwick Craft Invitational 2009
Renwick Gallery
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Aug. 7,2009 - Jan. 3,2010
Washington, DC
american art. si .edu/Renwick
F rom the glistening sensuality of Christyl
Boger’s earthenware nudes, to the existen-
tial limpness of Mark Newport’s knitted
superhero costumes, the fluid interplay of
life forms in SunKoo Yuh’s porcelain sculp-
tures and the ethereal musings of Mary Van
Cline’s glass tableaux, the Renwick Gallery
chose four disparate bodies of work for
its fourth Invitational. As the title, “Staged
Stories,” indicates, the exhibition maps
a narrative trend with theatrical underpin-
nings. Rather than using a traditional sto-
ryline with a beginning, middle and end,
each artist joins individual details and mo-
ments into penetrating vignettes, with
marked contradictions of form and content.
In Boger’s fantasias, the forms of aquatic
inflatable toys disrupt the idealized perfec-
tion of her figures and hint at their vulner-
ability. The natural poses—whether reclining
or crouching—and fleshy surfaces lend an
erotic realism to the neo-classicized bodies
modeled through the coil and pinch method.
At the same time, the additional surface
decoration of gender-coded, pink and blue
passages and floral and bodily accents in
gold luster evokes the delicate intricacy of
Baroque porcelain figurines. But their scale,
slightly under life-size, and their simultane-
ously inward and outward gaze remove
them from the conventional realm of status
symbol and decoration and thrust them
onto the viewer’s stage. In contrast to the
sculptural ensembles of Bernini and Michel-
angelo that inspire her, her figures can only
aspire to the gods and their entourage ca-
vorting in Baroque fountains.
Male stereotypes meld with childhood
memories and daily realities in Newport’s
brightly colored, hand-knit re-creations.
Here the driving force is the comic book
superhero,which he turns into an ambivalent
symbol of adult protection. At once humor-
ous and spooky, some outfits draw directly
from comic books, like
Batman 2,
2005,
while others, including
Evety-Any-No Man
,
2005, are Newport’s inventions. A femi-
nine touch—that his grandmother taught him
complicates his decision to knit, as does
knitting’s association with women’s work-
replaces notions of invincibility. The medi-
tative practice, along with the use of cheap
acrylic yarn and acnelike bobbles, further
deflates the action-figure fantasy. Dangling
from hangers, the costumes offer instead
the promise of warmth and disguise.
Yuh’s ceramic totems reveal inner mus-
ings and psychological states. Often rising
from low platforms, tight stacks of cartoon-
ish fauna, flora, humans and objects suggest
both daily frenzy and symbiotic connection.
In
False Start
, 2006, a critique of the Iraq
War, jumps in scale heighten the suspense
of a machine gun-bearing soldier unaware
038 american craft dec/jan 10
Find more magazines at www.magazinesdownload.com
Boger, Newport, Yuh photos Gene Young / Boger collection of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson.
