Curators / Ryan Berg and Mandy Greer

Means/Ends: Plaster

Ryan Berg, Christian Birnie, Dana Carter, Claire Cowie, Mandy Greer, Matt Greer, Jenny Heishman, Jerry Heniff, Ayumi Horie, Iza Jadach, Rachel Johnston, Laura Keil, Scott Mansfield, Maria Phillips, Susan Robb, Jodi Rockwell, Laura Shope

April 1 – 30, 2000

Location / 1205 E. Pike

From a review by Jill Connor, ArtPapers:

Plaster is dirt cheap (compared to marble, stone, or iron); and has a long history associated with fakes, copies, and imitations. The Victoria and Albert Museum has an entire hall devoted to plaster sculptures that were passed off as real, while Fred Meyer has cheap, kitschy, plaster garden sculptures painted up to look like stone.

Despite all of these "low" associations to the material, many of the artists featured in Means/Ends choose to use plaster because of these associations, referring to a larger vein in contemporary art that revels in the quotidian. This show features work by Chicago artist Chris Birnie, last seen in Seattle at the Henry Art Gallery and the Meyerson and Nowinski 1998 drawing show. One piece by Birnie is made up of tiny light boxes, constructed by pouring molds around individual Christmas lights, shaving down one edge paper-thin and inscribing minute images of Mount Rushmore. For Birnie, Mount Rushmore signifies a monumental endeavor turned into kitschy souvenirs by a society obsessed with mass production. His use of plaster molds references this mass production, while his meticulously executed but absurd routine points to an existential existence where boredom can lead to aesthetic pleasure.

As well as featuring new work by local favorites Susan Robb, Ryan Berg, and Claire Cowie, the show features documentation of performances by New York architect Matt Greer, where Greer shows the interface of architecture and the body through the visceral aspects of wet plaster. Other sloppy, abject uses of the material appear in the work of Polish artist, now working in Los Angeles, Iza Jadach, who creates molds of her body out of clay then fills them with plaster to verify the negative space the human body occupies.