Clever, Funny and Disturbing

Ever since Richard Linklater’s 1991 film Slacker defined
Austin, Texas, as a mecca for eccentrics and people more interested in
“living life” than advancing up the career ladder, the city has
experienced an identity crisis. Eager to wear the weird costume while
cultivating a professional reputation in the entertainment and
technology industries, the city’s “too cool for school” vibe has gone
from feeling charmingly genuine to alienating and forced.

But the tide appears to have shifted. Over the years, Austin’s
exposure in popular media seems to have blunted its once-sharp edge,
and the music and entertainment industry’s presence (even Linklater
himself) casts a mainstream shadow on Austin’s alternative heyday. It’s
a good thing, because the influx in population and interest has caused
a reactionary reaching-out, a desire to export talent past its
supportive local base, and that can only be good for the city’s art
community — especially the visual arts.

DiverseWorks Artspace is hosting the third edition of the Austin
Museum of Art’s triennial series “New Art in Austin: 20 to
Watch,” and the results are definitely encouraging. For a Hill
Country region known more for fine craft than fine art, it’s especially
surprising to see so many concept-oriented installation works rather
than single-media pieces. But then, it makes sense, given the narrative
nature of installation and Austin’s wealth of creative output in the
storytelling forms of rock music, theater and film.

The exhibition focuses on emerging and lesser-known artists living
within a 50-mile radius of the Capitol and was designed to introduce
their work to the general public. Several artists from past
incarnations of the series have been featured in national museum shows,
including the Whitney Biennial.

Upon entering the exhibit, one gets a taste of the
Slacker-era, subvert-authority version of Austin with Jen Hirt
and Scott Webel’s nose-thumbing work that distorts the meaning of
historical objects. Calling themselves The Museum of Natural &
Artificial Ephemera, Hirt and Webel mount antique bric-a-brac, like
medicine bottles and old stereograms, in museum fixtures to, it seems,
confuse the viewer into assigning a cultural significance to them.
Their approach, though, is too halfhearted to really resonate. I love
old stereograms (two-dimensional photos which, when viewed through a
stereoscope — or by crossing your eyes — take on a 3-D
effect), and Hirt and Webel display some nice hand-colored ones, but I
can see those while standing in line at Goode Company Barbecue.

Buster Graybill’s Come Along Johnny, an upended “Jon boat”
that juts out from the gallery wall, displays perhaps the most
regionally influenced commentary in the show. A twisted, mangled mess
of inflated inner tubes bulges from the boat, suspended by a yellow
strap. Inspired by trips from New Braunfels to Austin, the work
cleverly reimagines materials to create a wholly different and bizarre
function from its compositional elements.

Alyson Fox alters meaning and conveys dark narratives through her
decorated book covers mined from thrift stores. One, The Death and
Rebirth of Psychology (the book’s actual title), is a bare,
text-only cover upon which Fox has drawn three women doing pushups
underneath the names Freud, Adler, Jung and Rank while a figure dressed
in a band or soldier’s uniform watches. Fox achieves a mysterious
tension between nostalgia, critique and humor.

Jill Pangallo’s video and installation Note to Self is a
funny and disturbing portrait of obsession and mental illness. Playing
an alter-ego version of herself, Pangallo encounters a note on a
magazine ad for the 23-inch-tall “My Twin” doll that reads, “Jill,
thought you might appreciate this.” Did she write the note herself?
From what follows, it’s quite possible that the woman is crazy and
deluded enough to trick herself into ordering a childlike doll
custom-made to look exactly like herself. The “My Twin” doll seems to
bring Jill the joy she seeks until we witness her on a coin-operated
supermarket ride with little Jill, dressed in an identical outfit. Big
Jill wears a creepily blank expression, as if the reality of her
psychosis has taken hold, metaphorically taking her for a ride. Footage
of Big Jill smothering the doll’s face with her mouth follows, and
Note to Self veers into Andrea Yates territory. Pangallo’s video
explores identity — we’re never sure about Jill’s motivations or
whether the doll represents a child, a sister or Jill. Also on display
is the actual doll along with its wardrobe, photographs and toys
— all in all, a wonderful actualization of the world
onscreen.

Photographer Sarah Sudhoff, who recently made an excellent solo
debut with “Repository” at the Art League, displays large-scale photos
depicting antique medical jars containing specimens of female
reproductive organs. As in “Repository,” the photos resulted from
Sudhoff’s exploration of medical environments following her experience
as a survivor of cervical cancer. She includes a tension-filled
split-screen video in which she undergoes a Pap smear procedure.

There’s more wonderful work here by Raymond Uhlir, Yoon Cho and
Shawn Smith, among others, but the standout piece goes to Kurt Mueller,
who delivers the most emotionally stirring installation of the lot.

For American Dream, Mueller sets up a familiar assemblage of
components: microphone, amplifier and television screen. Riffing on
American Idol and karaoke culture, Mueller stripped Martin
Luther King Jr.’s voice from the famous “I Have a Dream” speech,
leaving only the cheers of the crowd audible. And instead of song
lyrics flashing on the screen, we get the full text of the speech,
highlighted bouncing-ball style across the words as we’re meant to
speak it. It’s a fantastically simple and elegant work. For one thing,
it’s an educational tool. Recent generations know the speech only as
sound bites and video clips, so it’s a new experience to encounter it
in full. For another, it’s a profoundly moving call to arms. Mueller is
prodding us into action. “How brave and how willing are you to step up
to the mike?”

It’s a fitting statement for the show as a whole, and a fine
representation of Austin’s contribution to the Texas visual art
stage.