Arts & Entertainment
‘Exposed,’ GLOBAL Inaugural Exhibition
by Dirk Gorre
Whimsical and elegant, Exposed, the inaugural exhibition for the Greater Long Beach Arts Lab (GLOBAL) opened the month of installations, plays, and musical events scheduled for October. Continuing until November 6, the show is featuring several artists who work and reside in southern California. Located at 4321 Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls, the Expo Building comfortably posits several of the works throughout a sprawling 25,000 square foot space that might have overwhelmed the 20 or so artists involved.
That the artists, who challenged the cavernous work space, were up to the warehouse design of the interior, speaks to the graceful elements that complimented the dark and unused portions of the temporary gallery.
The enormous hallway that fronts the Expo Building was colorfully gowned in Exposed, a work designed and created by architectural artists Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues and their award winning development and fabrication team at Ball-Nogues Studio. The constructed piece, aided by software developed for Echoes Converge, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy in 2008, filled the room with curves and lines. Each section of intricately cut strings, precisely hung, transformed the rather dull and looming space intimately.
Inviting the viewer, even before entering the glass façade of the entrance, the installation draped the room and its attendees with an architecturally converted environment. Their “…design process is a carefully orchestrated collaboration between partners – one focused on digital development, the other using a hands-on approach to fabrication research.” Invigorating the empty space surrounding the piece, Exposed conflictingly thrilled with seemingly simple complexity.
Several rooms, and a second floor space, fun lovingly beckoned viewers into utilitarian sections that possibly once served as storage and display space of the once furnishings retail store.
Artist Gioj De Marco continued the elegantly fun environment of Exposed. Two pieces created spontaneous engagement. Cinema Props, a set of dinner furniture, much like the type you might remember at your grandmother’s house, sat in a closed room, approachable by sticking your head through the door. Severed precisely at a critical line, the dining table and accompanying chair set, poised comfortably without legs or seats, invited serious investigation and giggles of amusement.
Trying Carpet, (which experienced some minor technical problems) connected the complex with whimsical elegance.
Positioned over a series of box fans, an Oriental rug hovers over the forced air. Much like a seagull dancing over a gentle breeze, the carpet undulates and simultaneously glides over the circulating air. A stoppage in electricity to the fans settles the fabric and then powers itself again, to elevate the flying carpet. Constant electricity, instead of the artist designed motif altered De Marco’s aesthetic, but not the politically infused statement pertaining to romanticized ideals of the Orient/Occident relationship. (A Google search for De Marco contained video of the artist’s intended operation of her installation.)
The second floor featured video installations including a single seat contained in a viewing space. Projected on the warehouse wall was a split screen that looped two oddly timed and repetitive scenes of situation comedies, Laverne and Shirley and Seinfeld.
Three’s Company divides the viewer’s attention to a sequence of Lenny, Squiggy, and The Big Ragu. (If these TV characters ring a bell you’re showing your age.) Each actor, mugging it up for the camera and slowed to excruciating speed, creates a framed triptych of emotion that elicits a grotesque expression of comic relief.
Answering with unity and immersed in oddity is the second piece of the divided frame. Elaine, Kramer, and George create a spatial environment, again aided by the altered pace of the footage. Shot in full frame, the three embellish human movement with comedic chops and the artists’ intention of a cloistered space of humanness.
Created by video artist Jean Robinson, each frame suggests dynamic use of time. Evident in the Seinfeld clip is the movement of each figure. The eye becomes attracted to the emptiness of space, despite the physicality of form that overpowers the exaggerated effect of the slowed motion.
Open Friday through Sunday from 2-6 pm, Exposed purports to invigorate with conflict, unity, and complexity. Able to accomplish, with tongue-in-cheek enthusiasm, the artists of GLOBAL have turned the corner on the darker aspects of post-911 and the economic depression that has followed.
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