Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005 Page: 116
128 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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NEW YORK( VIEW
Catch and Carry
Volume, Inc.Roy Stanfield
"Nature" is a messy word, and when it appears
in the body of any text, I question its usage.
However, it is undeniable that the opposite of
a human-altered landscape once existed, and
"nature" is the term most often used to denote
this. Rather than presenting an idealized natural
state, the works in Catch and Carry at Volume,
Inc., curated by C. Sean Horton, investigate what
happens when contemporary concepts of nature
and form collide. How do we depict landscape?
How does an artist's medium affect the distance
we place between nature and ourselves?
The works in Catch and Carry do not depict
literal landscape as often as they do specific plants
and animals. This could be interpreted as a sort
of shorthand-a part-for-whole substitution or a
kind of visual synecdoche. The use of plants and
animals as surrogates falls into a pattern, creating
a victim or object for our collective sympathy. The
artists in Catch and Carry train our eyes to specific
image-worlds, populated by flora and fauna that
have been removed from the landscape and are
controlled by various media.
Elizabeth Neel's ghostly Stand (After
Guernica)loops a few seconds of what looks like
grainy surveillance video on a small monitor-
a clip of a horse attempting to stand up. Due toMolly Smith, Untitled (Droplets), 2004
Ink on paper
11 x 81/2 inchesLarimer Richards, Tecolote, 2005
Video, black-and-white monitor
Dimensions variableBrian Burkhardt, Poppy adaptus halogen, 2005
Mixed media
Approximately 10 inches in diameter, 9 inches tallNeel's editing, the creature will forever try to do
so. Time collapses; the loop feels either very short
or very long, and either impression seems appro-
priate. In effect, Stand (After Guernica) functions
like a single image-a wildly beautiful painting-
though unlike any by Picasso, making the title feel
like an academic afterthought. The most shockl<-
ing aspect of the work is how fragile this creature
looks as it wobbles in its attempt to stand. One
feels the weight of technology-in this case the
heavy hand of the artist/editor-bearing down on
the animal. Its image is trapped, isolated from a
natural landscape and context, forced into what
we read as a painful, repetitive action that borders
on abuse. Stand (After Guernica) suggests that
the distance video creates between its subject and
audience operates as a form of dominance.
Catch and Carry frames Brian Burkhardt's
Nepenthus adaptus fluorescent and Poppy adap-
tus halogen, as well as Kyle Wadsworth's Custom
Carrying Case for a Domestic Plant, as playful
statements that expound upon the human need for
regular and controlled encounters with nature. All116 ARTL!ES Summer 2005
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R 1_II'
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005, periodical, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228012/m1/118/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .