The Heartland Machine and Other Concepts from the Future

Parked inside in a small gallery of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art is a Heartland Machine. Heartland Machine is a mobile sculpture that began as a speedboat.  Conceived by Detroit-based Design 99, over a period of ten days the boat was dragged around the mid-west and interacted with independent arts organizations based in Minneapolis, Detroit, Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago.  The final sculpture included videos, printed materials, metal signs and other objects from the boat’s journey, assembled inside the Smart Museum.  In addition to the work’s title, cartoon-esque speeding lines affixed to the back of the vehicle evoke the animated trail left behind Doc Brown’s famed time machine as it disappears in Back to the Future.  The notable difference is, in place of a flux capacitor, Heartland Machine is fueled by artistic fusion across communities.

Design 99, Heartland Machine, 2009, mixed media installation including audiovisual equipment, fiberglass boat, found materials, silkscreened posters designed by Nina Bianchi and printed by Tim Eads; ephemera and video (color, sound) supplied by regional independent cultural infrastructures. Courtesy of the artists. Image from the Smart Museum.

Heartland Machine is part of the Smart Museum’s (whose Adaptation traveled to the Henry Art Gallery last year) group exhibition Heartland, a collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum that focuses on artists working from and responding to the center of the United States.  The simple concept behind Heartland is what makes it poignant. The “region” of this exhibition was based on the course of the Mississippi River as a geographical guiding force; in the exhibition catalog, the curatorial team describe the area as “…heart drawn on a map of the United States with its point in New Orleans, extending up to Minneapolis in the northwest and Detroit in the northeast” (Esche, Niemann and Smith 12). This selection, based on the curators’ series of road trips across America from 2007-2009  bypassed the traditional “Midwest”  or “Bible Belt” definitions of region, suggesting the arbitrariness of such boundaries in this context.

Regional exhibitions are commonplace, but in the field of contemporary art, rural America in particular can be something of a persona non grata. Although they may have migrated from elsewhere, many of this country’s well-known artists are based on the coasts, with limited exceptions for the larger (Chicago, Minneapolis) or particularly arts-friendly (Santa Fe) cities. The middle of the country is more often seen as a place to escape rather than a focal point for creative inquiry.

In the Chicago Reader’s recommendation of Heartland, Noah Berlatsky writes,

“I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the installation by Carnal Torpor, a KC art collective that makes klutzy, burpy grindcore music when they’re not creating collages indebted equally to Pushead and Day of the Dead ofrendas. The group…has an aesthetic I appreciate not so much because it’s weird as because it seems familiar and right. But then, I live here.” (Chicago Reader, “Fall Arts Guide 2009“)

Carnal Torpor’s installation Purifications of the CalmDome is comprised of a white, plastic pod approximately ten feet high, similar in shape to a deformed soccer ball with overlapping circular patterns inscribed in its surface.  Viewers can remove their shoes and enter the structure through a small hole in the back.  Once inside, the space becomes isolating, the smallest of sounds shut out, the only light coming from the entry hole and a small, silent television near the top of the dome.

Left: Cody Critcheloe, BOY, 2009. Right: Carnal Topor, Purifications of the CalmDome, 2009. Courtesy of the artists. Installation view at the Smart Museum of Art. Image from the Smart Museum

I did not want to like Purifications of the CalmDome.  Its proliferation of the desire to escape from one environment into another seemed too easy. Yet whenever I try to conceptualize Heartland, I keep coming back to the experience of climbing into the dome. As a former resident of the midwest, something about this piece articulated my determination to escape that part of the country at my first opportunity.  Stepping inside the installation feels like a direct connection to the mind of the artist, or maybe to anyone frustrated with the monotony and absence of personality in places like the suburb in which I grew up (Naperville, IL).  There is not much to be found inside Purifications of the CalmDome, but there is a sense that the interior is at least distinct from the exterior, if nothing else.  As Berlatsky suggested, Purifications of the CalmDome was highly familiar and exactly right.

Carnal Topor, Purifications of the CalmDome, 2009, Mixed media installation including architectural elements, electronics, paint, soundproofing materials, and video. Image from the Smart Museum.

The northernmost and southernmost boundaries of Heartland are Detroit and New Orleans.  The connections between these two damaged cities are readily seen within the photographs by two artists in the exhibition. Slovenian artist-architect Marjetica Potrc portrays scenes of the Lower 9th Ward against the backdrop of New Orleans’s vacant businesses; Scott Hocking documents series of pyramid structures within Detroit’s Fisher Body Plant building  as they crumble into their surroundings over time.  Seeing these works in the context of Heartland, an exhibition largely focused on the communities of their region, begged the question of why a relevant exhibition like this was not selected to be on view in place of the highly controversial Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio at NOMA.

Scott Hocking, Ziggurat—East, Summer, Fisher Body Plant #21, 2008, Archival digital print. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, MI.

Questions of finances and ethics aside, one of the most unfortunate aspects of Dreams Come True is its irrelevance to a city struggling to rebuild itself. As a museum limited on staff and resources, the easy solution may appear to be the all-inclusive Disney exhibition that comes at no financial cost to the institution.  Yet it still comes at the expense of staff time, gallery space and marketing efforts, among other resources.  In place of Dreams Come True, NOMA could have found an alternative solution more similar to Heartland, smaller in scale but providing more content and ideas that are meaningful to the city rather than artifacts from Disney productions associated with with the false promises and imitations of life that led to the term “Disneyfication”; it is difficult to imagine the opportunities for dialogue princess movies bring to a city striving to create a sense of community.

The corporately-created exhibition is particularly disconcerting in a time when the focus should be on recognizing the importance of local culture and creativity to the city of New Orleans.  Although not everything in Heartland is equally provocative, the resonance of particular works suggest the show’s more community-based model is successful and something that should be considered more often in place of the impersonal (and often irrelevant) traveling blockbuster exhibitions so common in museum practice.  In this regard, Design 99′s Heartland Machine may be seen as a mode of thought, rather than a mere device, sent to us from the future.

These Objects are Loved

“Vortexhibition Polyphonica” is an intimidating exhibition title.  A vortex is a swirling mass, coming from the Latin vertere, meaning “to turn.”  A polyphony is a vocal texture derived from multiple independent voices.  How this could be applied to an exhibition was perplexing.  It sounded like it could be a psychedelic journey of sorts (at least metaphorically), or a perhaps just a concept impossible to grasp.  My biggest concern was this title sounded impersonal, something an exhibition of a museum’s collection should never be.

E.V. Day. Cherry Bomb Vortex (detail). 2002. Red sequin dress with monofilament and turnbuckles and stainless steel base. Image from E.V.Day.net

But, I went to the Henry, wandering into the galleries knowing only that Vortexhibition Polyphonica (V.P.) is a collection-based show in which objects will change periodically. When entering, I used the large, cascading staircase overlooking the space.  From above, the exhibition was noticeably interdisciplinary and immediately felt robust: photographs, paintings, dresses, an historical rug and red stilettos were among the curious objects filling the Stroum Gallery’s vast landscape.

At the bottom of the stairs, I was expecting exhibition text; instead, I immediately was drawn to a curtained video gallery and encountered Gary Hill, emphatically throwing his body against the wall.  Pained, disjointed sentences physically combine with an intense strobe effect (both a filmed strobe in the video and a physical light the room of the installation), heightening the impact of the repeated collisions in Wall Piece. The work can be seen as a direct confrontation and dissolution between the artist and myriad forces: the creative process, language, the mind, the physical being.  All the while, the altercation is displayed prominently on the wall for us to see.

Gary Hill. Wall Piece. 2000. Single-channel, video/sound installation with strobe light, 2 min. 17 sec.

In a video created by SFMOMA , Hill discusses the active role of the viewer in Wall Piece because of the nature of the images in the video as what he describes as “verbs.”  While this idea is certainly essential to experiencing this particular work, it is also an idea that V.P. as a whole appears very conscious of, in the best of ways.

Modern Art Notes recently examined questions related to permanent/semi-permanent collection displays in contemporary art museums.  Collections-based, temporary exhibitions are similarly complicated in that a museum’s permanent collection is more than a series of objects; there is also a community of people who are invested in the objects, often in a highly emotional regard.

In essay “Collecting: Body and Soul,” Susan Pearce notes,

“A number of studies carried out in America unite to demonstrate how significant possessions are to the self-image… and interestingly, these [studies] tend to suggest that the critical factor is the extent to which we believe we possess or are possessed by an object: control, one way or another, is what makes an object become more a part of the self.” (Museums, Objects, and Collections 55)

Although a museum’s collection is not a possession of the public in the traditional sense, individuals can feel a certain sense of ownership and intimacy with the objects as resources within their communities.  As Pearce suggests, the feeling of ownership can include a desire for control. Vortexhibition Polyphonica excels in its reverence for the relationship between a museum’s collection and its community by incorporating interesting shifts away the standard format of an exhibition during its “polyphonic” moments, which come through the exhibition text as much as they come through the works on view.

Curator Sara Krajewski’s voice is acknowledged in the text she wrote through the use of bylines, which has become standard practice in many institutions as of late. However, Krajewski also incorporates the subjective “I” in a way more forthright than most wall text I have seen.  This approach highlights the way exhibition text in general is written from someone’s point of view rather than from “the institution,” with a greater call for active viewing among visitors as they consider and compare their own perspectives.  The subjective statements also emphasize the more emotive aspects of art, including a curators’ close relationship with the organization’s permanent collection, which can be put at a distance by the “institutional voice” of standard text.

The rest of the polyphony stems from a letter from the donor of one of the objects, graduate student writings, external scholars’ responses and re-used exhibition texts (some with notation of the original author) comprising the majority of the extended labels.  Some of the writings are factual and lengthy while others display their objects’ histories in such a way that the texts seem to become part of the works rather than merely a form of presentation.  Even the physical way these objects inhabit the Henry’s building and its multiple entrances to the Stroum Gallery (center staircase, cascading staircase and elevator) is represented: the introductory text invites viewers to begin from any location, ultimately enabling them to take ownership of the process of interacting with the art.

This summer I visited a collections-based exhibition at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art featuring new acquisitions that happened to be seminal works from the last seventy years of art history. I expect to remember seeing some of those works for most of my life.  However, I do not anticipate remembering the exhibition: a white cube display of objects that relate to one another in terms of an institutional mission, as told through an institutional voice.  The art was impactful, but Louisiana itself kept a traditional role as the distanced keeper of this art. There is nothing wrong with this. However, there is a particular value in creating a dynamic presentation of a permanent collection in a way that contextualizes works of art within a greater dialogue of timely perspectives.  Exhibitions like Vortexhibition Polyphonica facilitate the rethinking of objects that are already loved by creating a “verb” experience and inviting the viewer into the conversation.

Community and the Honeybee Ballet

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is typically the first place I visit while in San Francisco. Small to mid-sized contemporary arts institutions often struggle to become part of their communities for myriad reasons. Some problems stem from preconceptions of Modern and Contemporary art and the inacessibility associated with these periods, which is perhaps unavoidable. However, this rarely accounts for the full problem, which often relates to a failure to directly engage the museum’s community. Bay Area Now 5, currently on view at the YBCA, is a very clear reminder of how well the Center succeeds at approaching and working within the San Francisco community.

Bay Area Now 5 is not flawless; it has highlights and misses. As an outsider to Bay Area art, I am not completely confident I left the exhibition knowing Bay Area art particularly well, but I did experience an overarching sense of place, as well as the sense that I, as an active viewer, was an important element to the exhibition. The visitor is invited into the conversation begun by Bay Area Now 5. The exhibition achieves this through the prominence of works with a community-oriented element. Overall, the art on view includes a broad sampling of different concepts and approaches that permeate the city. Unlike other exhibitions taking this approach such as the Whitney Biennial, Bay Area Now 5 uses the diversity of styles and media within its works to create an intimate connection likely best understood by those that live in the Bay Area.

Represented are examinations of contemporary art and faux sexuality (Edmundo de Marchena’s installation), environmental abstractions (The Au Layer/ Storm Reflecting in a Pool by Leslie Shows), political frustrations (Miniature Iraq War in Las Vegas by Brian Conley), and responses to the modernist traditions (Middle Sticks by Elaine Buckhholtz). Considering such timely values in contrast to the Chihuly blockbuster at the De Young provides a substantially different way for the general community of San Francisco to connect with art: through personal relevance and accessibility. Ultimately, in a way that less personal exhibitions can only strive towards through “targeted initiatives” and other approaches that can still be meaningful, but are often less direct experiences than what is found at the YBCA.

Honeybee Ballet, image from Bay Area Now 5, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Honeybee Ballet by Jonathon Keats (and its affiliated planting) embodies the value of Bay Area Now 5. Within the museum, the installation consists of an explanation of the project, a grid-like composition of flower pots containing cosmos plants positioned on a pier within the glassed-in center of the Yerba Buena Center and a Choreographic Map of the sites the Honeybee Ballet “performances” take place in San Francisco. This somewhat strange examination of the anthropomorphism humans thrust upon natural processes not only raises a plethora of questions about the relationships between control, understanding, and the general process of creativity; it also produces an unusual space for community interaction.

Jonathon Keats, Honeybee Ballet Choreographic Map, image from Bay Area Now 5, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Honeybee Ballet develops within the community through the plants’ and bees’ life cycles, which in turn, can be impacted by the state of that community. Though this and other projects including the Bay Area-focused tours Ground Scores, the YBCA makes the important move of bringing the museum into the community rather than trying exclusively to bring the community into the museum. While Keats’s project enables this through its inherent elements in a way that bringing a Goya “out into the community” would not be possible, there is something to be learned from the Yerba Buena Center’s endeavors. Perhaps works like Keats’s should be required of public institutions in some variable way beyond the offerings of abstract modernist sculptures that so many cities place in their urban centers as “public art” and that so often the non-arts educated public is not prepared to engage with in the absence of interpretive programming and materials. I am hardly an advocate for the dumbing-down effect so often witnessed in institutions, but Keats’s project demonstrates there is middle ground to be found when the value of such works is realized within a discipline so often buried beneath the desires for prestige and unapproachably narrow perspectives.