"We're Not in Kansas Anymore" is, of course, one of the most famous lines from "The Wizard of Oz." It's also now the title of an intriguing, highly entertaining Project Room exhibition by Bill Radawec that uses the film as a launching point for its series of tiny tableaux set in small wooden boxes.
Populating the tableaux are "little people," a takeoff on the Munchkins from Oz. But it's not the Frank Baum story or its filmed version that fascinates Radawec. Rather it is the tales of debauchery by the Munchkins at the hotel where they were housed during the filming of the movie that has drawn his interest.
Whether those tales of orgies and drunkenness are true is beside the point - Radawec's narratives in a box mix fact and fiction, blending references to real people and events (including the Parma, Ohio, artist himself) with imagined occurrences.
The narratives take place in a series of small, smoothly sanded wooden boxes, no more than 5 or 6 inches long, 2 or 3 inches wide and about 3 inches deep. Viewing the handpainted "little people" (actually HO model train figures) and their constructed world comes from above - which means you have to get next to the work and to the wall to see inside.
The world they inhabit is primarily the art world, specifically galleries where work is on display and a very odd mixture of patrons is doing all sorts of things in the space around the art.
One tableau, for example, finds a busty woman in a Santa outfit sharing the space with an Orthodox Jewish man and a monk in a robe. What would bring such a group together and what are they doing? That's left to the imagination of the viewer, but the juxtaposition of the "people" and what they represent is all Radawec.
Even stranger is a scene in which a man is holding a woman hostage with a gun pointed at her head. In front of them stands another female figure, lifting her shirt to flash her breasts. The questions of what is going on, etc., in that little grouping are heightened by another, more practical query: Who knew that model train figures were so violent and sexual?
A couple of the boxes make direct references to contemporary artists. One reproduces in tiny fashion the giant butterfly paintings of Damien Hirst, a very tempting target. There's a man being videotaped there - perhaps a shot at the publicity-obsessed Hirst - along with a trash bin (more commentary?) and, at the end of the tiny gallery, a naked man and boy and a chimpanzee. You figure it out.
Another box makes a nod to Richard Prince, a man on a horse galloping through the space referring to his Marlboro Man series, while Radawec reproduces his own work in two of the tableaux.
Those tiny blue- and- white "contrail" paintings were part of "Act or Observe," a January show at Project Room. While they could be random views of the jet contrails against the sky, they are based on the turnaround of United 93 above Parma on Sept. 11, 2001 - another story in an exhibition full of stories.
Even the boxes themselves are art references - first to Donald Judd in their smooth-surfaced minimalism, then, in a way, to Joseph Cornell, who filled boxes with complex imagery. Radawec, however, adds narrative that wasn't presented by either Judd or Cornell.
"We're Not in Kansas Anymore" also includes three laminated wood "drawings" that mimic the boxes and, thereby, emphasize the minimalist connection and some "studies" for the boxes that remove three of the four sides to place a figure against a wall.
While they're likely necessary for Radawec to figure out how to place the little people and small paintings, the studies feel like architectural models and almost detract from the boxes because they contain no narrative or visual challenge.
Even so, "We're Not in Kansas Anymore" is an exhibition that is as entertaining as it is challenging, both fun and smart, and, if you get all the references, a good-natured critique of the art world that comes out of "The Wizard of Oz."
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com
No comments:
Post a Comment