Have you noticed the avalanche of memoirs on bookshelves? A memoir examines an event or a specific period of time in the writer’s life; an autobiography is his or her story of the whole enchilada. A safe assumption is that a memoir writer thinks his/her childhood was especially unique, h/h brush with death/illness/addiction unusually traumatic and h/h hometown full of the funniest, quirkiest characters. None of this is to be kept secret. The silent, stoic type has been replaced by the victim-who-has-lived through-pure-hell-and-needs-to-share-the-story-and-cry-with-the-world.
(This probably says something about the times we find ourselves living through but I’m not here to pick through that particular pile of existential trash.)
Have you looked through the movie page lately and counted how many blockbusters are stories of apocalypse, Armageddon averted at the last minute by….TA! DA! …MR. AMERICA or some other cartoon/fantasy character? I wonder when cartoonists became so revered?
These are two very specific and easily observable trends. So does art predict or follow popular culture? Is art merely another arm of the cultural body or are it’s eyes on a different landscape? Keep this in mind when you walk through the current Finger Lakes exhibition on view (through Sept. 25) at Memorial Art Gallery. I like unraveling networks to see connections. In this show, you can keep a scorecard and make a game - "Spot the Trend" - of it with your kids.
When a piece stands apart from the script, does that suggest the artist is receiving different signals? Maybe. PAY ATTENTION.
This exhibit is full of really bad stuff…photographs that look like pages from a cheap calendar, drawings that look like an Art 101 project, watercolor that looks like wallpaper. It's always true with this kind of juried show and that's half the fun of walking through it. But there are some thoughtful pieces too. Here are a few random pictures I've copied. I do like Frank Petronio's photographs and this one particularly (Rand Street? Looks more like Germany or gritty Liverpool.) and Marissa Turin's "home..." drawing is memoir raised to a most inventive level. As for the rest of the show, you decide.
For more, visit the MAG web site: http://mag.rochester.edu/exhibitions/63rd-rochester-finger-lakes-exhibition/
