It happens every year, so it really shouldn't be a surprise but, like puking as a result of mild alcohol poisoning or waking up in an unanticipated state of sexual arousal, the post-summer explosion of ass-kicking local art always makes me think, "Hunh. Where'd that come from?"
It's not lack of faith; for all the derogatory intimations of provinciality put forth by jaded visitors and cynical citizens alike, I'm a firm believer that the basic quality of artwork being produced here is on a par with that of any city on earth. Still, after the lit fuse of spring, when the visual art scene builds toward what is becoming a precarious crescendo of July-centric activities and
a generally explosive annual summer of exhibitions, performances, lectures and creative cauldron cooking, the quality and integrity of local work always astounds me when it gets its real due each autumn. Obviously locals get out and represent during the high season, but in the muddied smear of cosmopolitan pretense, see-and-be-seen events and cocktail conceptualizations, it never shines as much as after we've kicked out the culture tourists, dilettantes and high brows and gotten back to the business of getting our art on in earnest. Evidence of this quality was freakishly cornucopian in its abundance over Fiesta weekend in at least four exhibitions.
First, the upstartish and occasionally mobile Bang! (717 Canyon Road, 577-3070) unleashed a day-long, eye-yanking and crisply prepared grouping of four photographers, Jarrat Applewhite, Joe Picard, Molly Wagoner and Larry Wang. Each artist bristled with independent strategies for capturing images-from haphazard, sudden and poetic Polaroid snapshots to austere, pulse-calming saturations-and also distinctive presentation styles, from jumbled salon assemblies to rigid, high-tech and linear. This last certainly characterizes Applewhite's large minimal prints, mounted with sexy, industrial hardware, but rather than feeling institutional or rigid, the work capitalizes on compelling texture and composition with light-handed manipulation to create a powerful sense of aching presence on the walls; an unexpected harmony between the oldness of his architectural subject matter and the shiny now-ness of his digitized perspective.
At Linda Durham Contemporary Art (1101 Paseo de Peralta, 466-6600) Richard Hogan-one of those artists who appears to work without the benefit of popular culture, but through sheer personal commitment, investigation and force of will-did not disappoint. Still, his work is far from hanging in a vacuum. Hogan's large canvases appeal especially to other painters and those with a keen eye for history, formalism and reductivist aesthetics, while his smaller works with tighter color and composition draw praise from a more proletariat crowd (i.e., me) given to gawking at how a flat, abstract anything could appear so simple, so obvious, so wrong, yet clearly be so calming, so perfect and so just-right. It's strange that, at times when all seems easy and right in the world (always an illusion) artwork that operates more by omission than inclusion is open to skepticism and theoretical doubt, whereas in other, more obviously challenging times it suddenly brings focus (and cuts illusion) to muddied pain, to wild confusion and to intimate, pressing despair.
Hannah Hughes, exhibiting at Phil Space (1410 Second St., 983-7945) embodies and elaborates on what must clearly be the natural world's basic state: paradox. Difficult to access immediately and operating at a relatively proud level of discourse, Hughes contrasts-with mirrors, glitter and baubles-banality and flash, physicality and spirituality, aestheticism and absurdity. For all the overt discourse behind Hughes' work, however, there is something deeply, intentionally and universally human and flawed about each work, a sense of accidental poetry, as in one image of a window partially coated in paper scraps, an industrial roof disappearing in the background; there is composition for Hughes, yes-there is intended content, if only opaquely implied through titles, but mostly there are simple ties to common experience, reabsorbed through each viewer's personal synesthesia; an ongoing party of our partly remembered, partly shared pasts.
Finally, there is Mass (Re)Production, hosted by the College of Santa Fe Fine Arts Gallery (1600 St. Michael's Drive, 473-6508) and curated by Joslin Van Arsdale and Tim Jag. Not confined to artists working regionally, as the well-presented exhibition features several artists working in the bellies of various urban metropoli around the country, the re-po show drives home not only that all the work is on the same level, but that dialogues, concerns and even whimsies are comparable across the board. This is easily the best exhibition CSF has hosted in recent memory (including the SFR-sponsored BLOC-BUSTA event) and probably the most significant indicator as to the natural health, vitality and possibility of contemporary art in Santa Fe. Most critical to its success, however, was the easy blend and communication seen during the opening between visual artists working in many media (and too numerous to list-if you're curious, don't bother waiting for name drops, just get thee to a gallery) and the music, performance and fashion fabric of the cultural scene.
Although the show is up through Oct. 9, the announcement card circulated in advance of the opening, designed by Luke Dorman and Mission Control Graphic Design very much in the brainstorming, rapid-fire haphazard conditions in which Van Arsdale and Jag hatched their masterpiece, warns ominously: "Do Not Come Too Late Or You Will Miss Something Amazing!" Well, I did and I did. But not seeing the show at all would be like, well, like living somewhere else. Seeing the show, on the other hand, is like suddenly having your birthday tomorrow or waking up and, well, you know.
