His name is Jeremy Newton, and he's a graduate student at a university where I used to teach. He was invited to participate in a group show at Centraltrak in Dallas. The opening was tonight. That pink scumble of stuff above is a detail of a carpet of Pink Pearl eraser rubbings Jeremy made last year. The guy's a natural. He scattered a layer of eraser rubbings on a gallery floor before he'd ever heard of Barry Le Va. Maybe he still hasn't heard of Le Va. I don't know.
The trouble with what I saw tonight, though is that idiot gallery visitors don't look where they're going. Jeremy told me that his initial installation with the piece humbly and simply lying on the floor didn't work out because oblivious folks kept stepping on it. He had to set it on a low pedestal for the opening. Much was lost. Confining his oddball material to a raised platform took away some of its stubborn, mute factuality and made it only "art."
I've seen it in other contexts, and it's better than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment