You don’t need a DSM to figure Adam Greener out, but it can’t hurt.  Not to worry—he’s not quite there yet, though there are indications that as post-pubescent hormones flood his bloodstream, he’ll be on his way in no time.  Adam is an American student aged about 10 going on 14 or 15, with no stopping in between.  I mean there’s no time!—too many problems both global and domestic (meaning at home or the neighbors) to solve.  Word problems?  ‘I don’t need no stinking calculator!’  Why ask who made how many of which cookies when it’s clear that they’re the wrong kind and there will never be enough?  At least not for the likes of Adam.  Leading off earnestly on a history topic, like Mr. Peabody in his way-back machine without his boy, Sherman to lend assistance, Adam loses patience with the factual narrative and segues without apology into fantasy—even sexual fantasyland.  Straight answers to square problems?  Adam is impatient but ingenious with would-be ‘hack’ solutions drawn from superhero comics, pop culture, neighborhood gossip and random lore and expects his teachers to be delighted with his workarounds.  Needless to say, they’re ready to throw out their red pens and blue pencils, and Adam is open about showing us his disappointing marks, the most consistent of which is “F,” with the comment, “See me after class.”  Also, occasionally, “Adam, you’re better than this.”  Though it’s unlikely detention sessions will help—evidenced here by punitive copying exercises:  “I will not bring scissors, matches/fall asleep/sketch superheroes/etc. to/in class—which, pace Baldessari, end up being the stuff of art-making.

Adam might or might not get the “Mr. Peabody” reference—he includes a “Report on Adam Greener” in these hand-drawn/printed facsimile “spiral notebook” pages that places him in school within a time frame not unfamiliar to me (I, too, once rooted for UnderDog)—in other words a time when parents/physicians were still slow to recognize their children’s ADHD (to say nothing of a raging graphomania).  Today, he would likely be fast-tracked to the right psycho-pharmacologist and art school, bound for the world of comics, graphics, animation, and manga.  Our respective generations had little patience for the ‘dramatics’ of ‘gifted’ children—whatever perceived stages of ‘delinquency’ might accompany them. (The consequences for some of us were potentially dire.)  Adam somehow managed to both survive this stretch of ‘spiral-bound’ turbulence and return his rocket ship safely back to Earth.  The only slightly delayed result is this ‘open spiral-bound notebook’ examination—I mean, exhibition—an emailed announcement for which landed in my email box on a hot, lugubrious day sometime in August and made me laugh out loud, probably saving my life in the process.  No—our parents wouldn’t have hung these pages up in their offices, not even the kitchen refrigerator.  But we can.  We needed the laughs then, and boy do we ever now.

Adam Greener opens his show, SEE ME AFTER CLASS: A SPIRAL BOUND JOURNEY, this evening, September 14, 2022 and runs through October 12th, at Art Unified, 1349 Abbott Kinney Blvd., Venice, CA 90291.