SHOW REVIEWED: “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror”

“Threshold” as it appears in “The Island Beautiful” and then “Mortal Mirror”

Two mirrored spaces

I got yelled at during casual conversation for referring to “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” as two shows. Therefore, I will start by clearing up that misconception; the exhibition under discussion is one art show in two places. Half of the show, “The Island Beautiful” is at extra extra (newly relocated to 1524 Frankford Ave), and “Mortal Mirror” is at Bodega (located at 253 N. 3rd). I should say “was at” because the exhibition is now closed. Don’t fret, if you missed it (as I almost did), you can read about it.

Distance equals speed times time

Taking the straightest route, that puts the two pieces of the single exhibition about 2 miles apart from one another, in terms of time that means 7 minutes in a car, 11 minutes on a bike, 32 minutes on foot, and 12 minutes by public transport if you caught the bus just as it pulled up. The fact that we have one exhibition with 2 miles between one part and the other is not the only complexity that “The Beautiful Island / Mortal Mirror” dishes out. There are, instead, several.

Translating

If “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” were less complex I would be able to simply state that it showcases new works by Alex Da Corte. Instead I must struggle with how to properly explain a concept that was coined by the artist as “translating”, which seems to mean–in the simplest language possible: using another artist’s work as a part of your work with their permission. Alex himself got the term from books on dream interpretation and a quick Internet-based study into dream translation reveals an interesting duality that may be the key to interpreting “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror”. Most dream translations depend on items in your dream being symbols for things in your real life, for instance crossing a river in a dream-scape might mean you are entering a new career choice in your life. There is the dream and there is what the dream is trying to convey to you about your reality.

Translating differs from appropriation in that you are directly using the actual visual work as it was created by the artist, not referring to it, or riffing on it, or using an image of it, etc. There is also a difference in the parts of culture Alex is borrowing. When we appropriate we are using a part of culture bigger then ourselves that has a meaning for a broader audience, when Alex “translates” he is basically using the work of his friends or colleagues that may or may not be known to anyone else.

The artist’s whose work has been translated as a part of “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” are:

Anna Rosen, Alexander May, Rory Mulligan, Brendan Lynch, Jayson Musson, Nick Van Woert, Andy Maas, Kate Greene, Alexi Kukuljevic, Edward Carey, Christian Holstad, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, and David Muenzer.

A quick googling of the names I don’t recognize reveal that many of them are recent Yale grads–similar to Alex himself, or persons of some notoriety in the Philadelphia art community. They are all artists who keep a current practice.

“The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” is not a group show and Mr. Da Corte is not curating, the work of other artists has become one of his own materials, an ingredient for sculpture. Yet he does not wish to swallow all the individual pieces into a unified whole–the separate parts have been carefully listed and identified. A single piece may hold just as much weight as the thing in itself.

Where/when does a work of art exist?

The ingredient list for “Threshold”– which sits in the entryway just inside the gallery space at Bodega– and at first glance consists mostly of a large enough photograph to block the view of the rest of the installation, a live-size cut out of Severus Snape, and a ouija board looking thing made of sticks–reads as follows:

Severus Snape Xeroxes, insulation foam, pony hair, plastic wrap, glue, Diet Coke mini can, Rory Mulligan’s “Disturbia Cat”, weaves, plastic finger hooks, fingernails, nail polish, satin ribbon, fringe, packaging tape, dowel rod, clamps, drywall, plywood, joint compound, latex paint, fiberglass, epoxy resin, sweatshirt, scarf, flannel shirt, glow-in-the-dark- skeleton gloves, wig, enamel paint, plastic sword, netting, straw, pins, jeans, mannequin parts, Nike SB sneakers, thread, hardware, Alexander May’s “Twenty Three Plural”

It is not unusual for a title list to also tell us what media the art we are looking at is made from, but it is a bit unusual for every last item to be spelled out instead of settling for “mixed media”. We must consider the media as a part of the message (ha).

But what exactly is the message?

The announcement card for “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” sports the picture that is currently the only image on Bodega’s website for the exhibition. (extra extra has several installation images along with this image but their site is down at the time of this writing.) The image is of Alex Da Corte with a stripped knit hat covering his face, flipping the bird.

The invitation to the show is a giant fuck you. It is not just any giant fuck you either–it is a giant fuck you in which the person giving it is hiding–one can imagine that they do not want you to take their picture, they don’t want to know you–they want you to go away.

This image became more peculiar to me as I walked through one gallery installation and then hiked 2 miles to look at the second. It gave me pause as I leaned down under Alex’s various nebulous low “Island” sculptures that doubled as pedestals for sculptural objects to discover that the forms were supported by different varieties of soda pop– (Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi at Bodega, Throw Back Mountain Dew and Caffeine Free Diet Coke at extra extra). It toyed with my mind as I began to contemplate the similarities and differences that exist between the two installations. “The Island Beautiful / Mortal Mirror” is an ambitious exhibition that asks the viewer to not only contemplate an overwhelming amount of imagery but to transverse physical distance in order to see it–and the artist is giving you the finger.

It’s a lot to take in.

Which is not meant to be dismissive, but the work is the type of unmonumental sculpture that could be interpreted to mean everything and nothing. As the viewer you can open up your mind to explore the infinite possibilities and appreciate the unexpected materials or you can shut down because there is no hope of actual understanding. The installation at extra extra is bright, the installation at Bodega is dark. In both shows there is basketball, soda, and plastic Halloween ephemera. If this is meant to be a dream I want to care about the dreamer.