Rolando Castellon
at Feigen Incorporated, through April 19
In its use of materials and its tunic shape, Found Object IX recalls the traditional art that Castellon’s work constantly references. But the artifacts of pre-Columbian cultures were mostly made for use; Castellon’s pieces are firmly rooted in the modernist art world, in which art is made only to be exhibited. No one would, or could, wear this “tunic.” Its lack of functionality, dense and dark surface, and mixture of irregularity and symmetry give it an inwardness, a hermetic air, linking it to contemporary art while suggesting that it sprang from a lost culture that will remain forever obscure to us.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The specter of the latter is raised by the exhibit’s provocative title, which is underlined by Castellon’s statement in the accompanying booklet that “there does not exist an autonomous Latin American art,” because all its forms and aesthetic concerns are “derivative of the inevitable and permanent European influence.” While “Jane Doe, Ph. D.” suggests “these works do not signal a return to an indigenous art of the past, but rather point toward an emerging culture”–one, presumably, that Castellon himself is creating out of whole cloth–I could never see them as original in themselves. Their style is calculated, with similar forms drawn repeatedly from natural materials; this imaginary culture is incomplete–its pseudotraditions are haunted by absence. These are a lost people, going through the motions of art making almost as if they were sleepwalking, forgetting any larger purpose, forgetting even content. If pre-Columbian cultures frequently mapped out their cosmos in art, these objects are all mannerist dances around an empty center, an idea embodied in the elegant “Frame of Thorns” series–frames made of thorny wood with nothing inside. Though Castellon’s theme is compelling, his depiction of loss and lack results in an exhibit that is less than satisfying as art.
Indeed, Johnson’s title is no more revealing than his dark and fuzzy forms. Perhaps the most revealing clue is concealed: the face. Nearly identical triangles on the sides and the snake at top give the piece an almost theatrical grandeur and symmetry, but all pretensions are denied by its lack of content. Johnson’s clusters of small cardboard panels placed atop each other create a layering that is hardly architectural. Instead, these separate panels–diverse in shape, size, color, and design–seem like the stacked fragments of an impossible-to-assemble jigsaw puzzle. Johnson is often compared to the great maker of enigmatic boxes, Joseph Cornell, whom he knew. But Johnson’s work also reminds me of the puzzlelike collages of Jess, a reclusive San Franciscan of similar age.
Fascinated by stardom in the movies and in the arts, Johnson resisted it not only for himself; he resisted anything that would give him a fixed identity, and the late collages stand as brilliant and affecting testaments to this “in-between” state of mind. Johnson was famous for cutting up and reusing his collages in other works; it would be comforting to think that there’s a reason why he saved the works we now see. Their mysteriously complex patterns ultimately provide no answers and reflect a profound ambivalence about being itself. These are works that never settle down, never define themselves. They provide a deeply moving response–though in no way an answer–to a key question of our century: how can a person find an authentic identity amid the cultural chaos that divides us from each other and threatens to rip our world apart? o
