Sunday, November 07, 1999
'Cute' sculptures are dignified art
BY OWEN FINDSEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Sara Joseph is taking a big chance, making sculpture that's cute. Too easily such art can decline from the serious level to become a decorative object, gift item or clever collectible.
Ms. Joseph's work proves that serious art need not be deadly serious. Her little objects (she calls them “Capricieux Sculptopus”) maintain their dignity in spite of their wit. The artist, who lives in College Corner, Ohio, is showing her work at the Carnegie in Covington.
The objects are little painted spheres or gourd-like shapes with wire appendages that become feet, wheels, hats, giving personalities to the shapes. Imagine the odd creatures in the paintings of Joan Miro come to life. The artist uses paint, gesso and metal patinas for their rich surfaces, which make them look like more than toys.
Ms. Joseph thinks of each object as having a very specific personality. They are fanciful animals or people from a Surreal dreamscape.
Groupings become communities of interacting creatures. Some hang on strings. Some stand on tables. Each has some kind of movement. Two together become a conversation. Three or more make us imagine a situation or scenario.
“I intend to engage the viewer in a narrative,” Ms. Joseph says. “I wish to bring a world to life.”
Also at the Carnegie, Chris Plummer creates narratives in a series of woodcut scenes of domestic life. Like Ms. Joseph, Mr. Plummer, a Covington artist, combines a keen sense of humor with excellent skill. And like Ms. Joseph, he cares about making art that communicates with a broad audience.
“I depict commonplace environments,” he explains, using “distorted perspective and quirky details.”
The other three exhibitions at the Carnegie are photography.
Cincinnati artist Anne Reilly has a one-woman show. She takes photography “beyond the mechanical act of mirroring an image” to convey the emotion of “what is seen or unseen.”
Her technique is the device of transferring a partially developed Polaroid print onto paper, creating soft, posterized images that look like paintings.
The problem is that the transfer process is a mechanical act itself, and one that can become a gimmick. Ms. Reilly uses it skillfully and artistically, but is a technique that has more limita tions than advantages.
The Carnegie's main gallery is shared by two group photographic exhibitions.
Vision Quest shows work by members of the Images Center for Photography in the Pendleton Art Center. The One and Only Item Show is organized by the American Society of Media Photographers to challenge members of that organization to show work focusing on one item, in this case a tire.
Most of the work in the Images show is amateur. It is a display of the kinds of subjects photography amateurs think are worthy of photographing: sunsets, kittens, etc. Except for Barry Anderson's clever self-portrait, the show is a lesson in what not to do.
But the tires! What a clever challenge for a professional photographer, and what a terrific response.
Magazine and commercial photographers from throughout the Midwest have delivered a lesson in originality, using the idea of the automobile tire as a trigger for inspiration.
The variety of solutions to the problem is fascinating, and should serve as a lesson in creativity to the photographers in the other half of the gallery.
At the Carnegie Galleries through Nov. 12. 491-2030.
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