|
BY KATE BONANSINGA
"People who understand that mountains, streams, earth, plants, trees,
and rocks are all one with the fundamental self can make these natural
features part of their meditation; this is what gardens signify to followers
of the Way." Zen rock gardens, which reached the height of their aesthetic maturity about a century after Soseki's death, are a point of departure for Margo Sawyer's site-specific installation on the floor of tidbit gallery's gold room. Traditional Zen gardens, which viewers contemplate from the veranda of a monastery, are fixed, austere spaces, composed of large rocks (symbolizing land forms) surrounded by small pebbles (symbolizing water). Like them, Sawyer's floor sculpture also inspires meditation, rather than interaction, on the part of the viewer. In lieu of pebbles, shiny black slag, commonly used for sandblasting, covers the entire floor except for a narrow path from the entrance. The slag is framed by relatively consistent polygons of kiri (paulownia) wood crafted by artisans Sawyer met in Japan in 1995-96, on visits funded by a Fulbright Research Grant and a Japan Foundation Fellowship for Artists to study Japanese landscape design. The kiri strips more closely parallel the leading of stained glass windows in cathedrals than anything in a Zen monastery, and the gold walls and ceiling seem more Christian Byzantine than they do Buddhist. But it remains undeniable that such segmentation and repetition elicits spiritual reflection; after focused observation, the planar polygons seem to stand up, like cubes emerging from the black expanse. Mimicking the scattered boulders in a Zen garden, Sawyer places various elements within and around the polygons, including a 4-inch-high segment of gold-leafed and painted bamboo and a square red panel. The small, windowless room lends itself perfectly to what the artist says is her interest in "the power of articulating space and material to induce intimate expressions of spiritual elevation and emotional intensity." Sawyer's piece is tucked away at the back of the gallery, out of sight from the street entrance. But it shouldn't be missed, as it's the pinnacle of Spectrum, a three-person exhibition that also includes excellent work by Chicago artist Martha Gannon and Portlander Sean Healy. Co-curators Miklos Simon, a professor of culture at Notre Dame University, and tidbit owner Ovid Uman selected art that, in Uman's words, "has to do with a way of looking, with sight and light and also has a lot of grit and pattern." Gannon's In a Minute There Is Time is a matrix of steel rods connected by tightly coiled springs that suspend small, square steel frames of frosted glass over plants, leaves, hair and other organic matter, which are initially difficult to discern because of the opacity of the glass. Consequently, the structure is aesthetically paramount. Its seeming rigidity is deceptive; if one spring snapped, the whole unit would collapse--a comment on the importance of the individual parts in complex structures. The frames cast shadows on the wall, dramatic as vivid memories. Whereas In a Minute There Is Time formally relates to Sawyer's installation in its strong use of diagonals and its thoughtful design, Gannon's Roadside Flowers has a strong conceptual connection to Sawyer's piece because it addresses the fine line between illusion and reality. A long, narrow black-and-white digital print of a field of daisies is illuminated from behind and framed in thick steel. Between this and the glass are regularly spaced, pressed flowers (yet another type of "garden") that seems to become a part of the photograph: The actual is incorporated into the depicted. Below the frame is a steel trough of running water (for the garden that will never be irrigated?) that gurgles like a narrow creek and transports the viewer, by triggering his or her memory and imagination, to a more peaceful and natural place. Sean Healy's Frozen Memories also conveys the idea of memory through the transmission of light, a possible reference to enlightened realizations. Twenty glass rods hang from the ceiling on copper wire, evenly spaced and at exactly the same height; above each is a miniature bare light bulb that illuminates an embedded photograph from the artist's youth. Healy, like Gannon, suspends objects created out of cool, industrial materials--a reference to contemporary attempts at achieving suspended states of being. Unless the viewer is standing directly below the rod, the image appears to be bursts of abstract color bouncing off the interior sides of the rod. The photograph is both conveyed and abstracted by light in this layering of the illusory. The repetition of Sawyer's polygons, Gannon's small frames and flowers and Healy's glass rods, like a Zen koan, prompts a state of concentration that borders on a type of hallucination that is rarely achieved in everyday contemporary society. Today our escapes tend to occur in front of a television set, the new oracle that creates yet another type of illusion. The difference is that art such as the works included in Spectrum nurtures the spirit, invoking thought, imagination and recollections.
originally published August 5, 1998 |
