Byline: Barbara Morris

“How to Fall in Love in a Brothel” offers a mix of the experiential and the conceptual, expressed as an interactive sculptural installation and an HD video. A collaboration between artists Ellen Sebastian Chang, Sunhui Chang and Maya Gurantz, the idea of a “brothel” takes on a larger definition as an arena where relationships and intimacy may only be possible within the bounds of a culture based on commerce.

The Shoji Room (2019) is a physical manifestation of, and a metaphor for, the idea of intimacy, the full expression—and entrance—only available to those who purchase “Intimacy Hours.” Ritual floor cleaning, cot making and the consumption of corn tea and Hershey’s chocolate are all detailed in the Intimacy Kit (2019). Cell phones are prohibited, the artists curating an experience where a couple interact solely with each other within this small space for sixty minutes, a luxury, or perhaps a challenge.

Beautifully constructed of Baltic birch plywood, walnut and Kozo Shoji paper, the room is bathed in hues of red or purple light. Small holes are created in the paper as per the artists’ instructions, allowing viewers to peek into the interior space—referencing a rural tradition in South Korea where newlyweds consummate their marriage in a room with shoji panels, where villagers silently create peepholes in the paper with wetted fingers. Peeping in while a reclined couple whisper together definitely feels transgressive.

The video piece and the entire collaborative project were inspired by a script written by Sunhui Chang in 2017, a fictionalized memoir of his family history in Korea. In it, a couple meets in an abstracted 1950s shoji room, where a girl has prepared food. At one juncture, the young man says “I don’t like the idea of you pleasuring other men.” She replies dryly, “Do you think I cook for just anyone?” A Hershey’s chocolate bar, a type of currency in Korea at the time, provides a moment of rapture.

BOX BLUR programming, in its fourth year at the gallery, extends ideas into performances held within the exhibition. Dance and spoken word performances one evening were by dancer/choreographer DaEun Jung and the multi-disciplinary Maya Gurantz, the latter’s punctuated by impassioned ripping of her clothing as her narrative intensified.

What is most compelling about the exhibition is the way it teases out a response from the viewer, the allure of the forbidden creating desire. The exhibition is also remarkable in its ability to evoke a nostalgic sense of time and place, that of mid-20^th century Korea, while simultaneously exploring 21st-century concerns couched in an ironic tone. What, indeed, is the price of privacy?

When Ann Weber began working on her current series of monumental sculptures made from recycled cardboard, vitriolic rhetoric about constructing a border wall dominated the news. Trying to grapple with the idea, her research led her in a surprising direction, to Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock concept album which addresses fear and domination, The Wall. A song about abusive schoolmasters appears on the album, and Weber adopted its title, “Happiest Days of Our Lives,” for her recent exhibition at Dolby Chadwick Gallery.

Weber presented large scale freestanding and wall-mounted works created by using her unique technique of bending, twisting, weaving and stapling thick strips of cardboard. The artist mines alleys and trash heaps for interesting boxes, and has taken her dumpster-diving routine on the road to locations such as Rome and Beijing, where she has held artist residencies. Weber draws ideas from the architecture and scenery of the San Pedro area where she now lives. The area has recently provided inspiration for murals and walls covered by the ornate shapes of Gothic-style gang graffiti.

Gothic on Grand (Stick ‘Em Up) (2019) features a pair of sculptures standing about human height, the voluptuous forms of one countered by the angular forms of its more monochromatic partner.  Weber always begins with a 2D shape, using the corresponding negative shape to construct the following work, so connections and intersections are a logical result. Weber’s work, with its woven, hand-made quality, springs from the foundation of craft, yet also inhabits the realm of formalism, Brâncusi’s spare modernist sculptures come to mind. The grid pattern created by the voids also speaks the language of Minimalism.

In the wall-mounted work, Weber expands this pairing into a multiplicity of connections, suggesting bonds to heal, rather than barriers to fracture. Happiest Days of Our Lives #22-27 features flowing, organic shapes, negative spaces of oval and teardrop shapes, flanked with spikier, more assertive forms ending in conical protrusions. Letters and fragments of text emerge. In HDOOL #18-21, Weber emphasizes color, stripes of brick orange, pumpkin, and turquoise, along with  green gold, creating a joyous, heterogeneous, vibe.

Personages Poetry (2016), a pair cast in bronze, dominates the back room. With an economy of means, Weber suggests the tenderness and fallibility of human relationships, the bronze casting lending the work an element of greater gravitas. Still, the cardboard works retain the endearing marks of the human hand and glow with a warm patina of sun-baked cartons. Weber’s mastery of her unusual medium is so complete that each piece conveys a sense of irrefutable logic, that somehow it was destined to emerge in just this way. Her work reflects a belief in the power of the spirit to overcome adversity and divisiveness, and her enduring optimism is infectious.

Ever since man created robots, there have arisen ethical and moral questions regarding when and how they should be used. Isaac Asimov created the concept of the Three Laws of Robots in his 1942 short story “Runaround,” the first of which stipulated that a robot was under no circumstances to ever harm a human being. With sophisticated robotically controlled drones as an increasingly ubiquitous element of contemporary warfare, that idea didn’t quite take root. Thankfully, the flip side of the coin exists.

Alan Rath’s “Virtual Unreality” at San Jose ICA is a testament to the allure of the robot—it’s the most well-attended exhibition the ICA has mounted, ever. A retrospective sampling of Rath’s robotic sculptures fills two large gallery spaces with whirring, blinking and spinning contraptions. Rath migrated to the field of fine art from a background in engineering; he holds a BS degree from MIT. He has been making robots since the 1980s, and his enthusiasm for the world of wires, circuits and video monitors of assorted types is infectious.

Many of the works incorporate imagery of human features, lending them an anthropomorphic quality. Eyes or mouths hover on LCDs, or in earlier works, cathode ray tubes, bathed in vibrant shades of green, pink or violet. Optical Cylinder V (2016) stands 6-feet 6-inches, roughly human height; the trio of stacked LCD screens conveying a benign, vaguely space-aged presence. The increasing issue of surveillance in our lives is prevalent in many of these mechanical creatures. Rath displays a similar aesthetic to New York-based sculptor Tony Oursler, and to some extent with another notable engineer-turned artist, San Francisco’s Jim Campbell.

Birdcage (1985), the earliest work on display, houses a minute cathode ray tube in an old rusty cage. Unexpectedly, at random times it springs into action, making a loud, startling sound as it jerks down. The uncanny way in which the robots respond to motion creates an illusion of sentience. These robotic constructions are all an interesting blend of high- and low-tech, the futuristic elements and computer-driven electronics meshed with the funkier and more organic elements—feathers, plywood, found objects. Rath’s humor infuses other pieces with charm: a hot-pink feathery creation evoking a fan dancer, or pulsing electronic bouquets comprised of throbbing speakers.

In the larger room, the robots have an opportunity to command the space. The most dramatic of these, Absolutely (2012), at 15-feet-tall, features a circular configuration of elongated pheasant feathers, their tips nearly brushing the high exposed beams of the ceiling. The brown and white striped feathers lift, vibrate and quiver as we approach, once again seeming to come alive.

The enduring popularity of the horror genre demonstrates how much fun it is to be frightened, and certainly with the larger robots, as well as in the darker implications of the smaller ones, there is an underlying element of menace. But with Rath’s propensity for fun, using brightly colored components and whimsical allusions to nature or toys, these objects ultimately share elation and delight with the viewer.

“Inter-Natural,” the title of Patricia Piccinini’s solo exhibition, links two ideas, “inter” implying spaces between, and “natural” the realm of unspoiled nature. For over two decades, the Australian artist has been exploring just this liminal space, where nature meets nurture in biology lessons that are part obstetrics, part Frankenstein’s lab.

Entering the gallery, the first encounter, Unfurled (2017), is dramatic. A young girl in a blue denim dress sits, legs tucked under, in an upholstered chair. Her startled expression is echoed by that of a large tawny owl, perched on her shoulder. These figures are disarmingly lifelike, and one remains on edge, half-anticipating them to spring into motion. The hyper-realist sculptures of Duane Hanson, similarly unnerving, may certainly come to mind.

Throughout the exhibition, Piccinini returns to themes of fertility, sexuality and emotional attachment. She displays a particular obsession with the primal relationship that exists between mothers and children. In The Bond (2016), this devotion transcends obstacles up to and including difference in species. Here the “baby,” appalling yet endearing, has a human face, albeit with enlarged nostrils, seemingly runny nose, moist lips, wisps of blond hair trailing across its forehead. Rolls of baby fat under the chin morph into a grotesquely flabby, misshapen body. One’s mind may race to construct a backstory, envisioning scenarios in which such beings might actually gestate and come to life. Perhaps not so far off: while transgenic animals—ones genetically modified through recombinant DNA technology—have been around since the 1970s, it was just in 2018 that Chinese researchers announced the creation of the first genetically modified human embryo, causing quite an uproar over the ethical and moral implications.

Most striking, and intimate, is the tour de force installation The Couple (2018). The viewer enters a large tent to find a humanoid pair embracing on a small cot, beneath a sleeping bag. Both figures have elongated faces and snout-like noses, suggesting muzzles. Their fingers and toes bear wicked talons. The male, with profuse reddish hair, and a bit like a werewolf, nestles in the crook of the female’s neck. Her eyes are wide open, with a preoccupied look. One may identify strongly with the creatures, with their failure to fit in, a potentially tragic circumstance. But in Piccinini’s world, perhaps the human beings are the monsters.

The Naturalist (2017), resembling a small sea lion, features tiny feet joined at the base that splay to form flippers. These minute appendages may evoke disturbing thoughts of the practice of footbinding. Perhaps the resemblance is unintentional, yet the impact of man’s persistent desire to “improve” his fellow beings, often those who are powerless to object, lies at the heart of the matter. Clearly, among the numerous challenging issues raised in Piccinini’s work are ones of standards of beauty and cultural acceptance, her resilient mutant models consistently triumphing over adversity. In a more homogeneous future, perhaps the sci-fi dilemma of inter-species or anti-cyborg prejudice may someday become a fact of life. Piccinini’s remarkable work certainly makes such a vision believable.