Art in Review

Astral Week

carlier / gebauer
4.29 - 6.03.2006
(photos courtesy of gallery.)

This installation places photos of objects like a computer monitor, a tv, and a common tupperware sculpture into a context of cosmic reflection. Paired with B&W photos of curious everyday natural phenomena
it creates a meloncholic feeling of the artist's distance from nature. There's
a longing to understand why these curious Universal structures reconsituted by industrial product designers become so commonly known, yet their purpose and mechanism are seldom understood. The black and white photos and wonderful felt pen drawings point towards Moulène's wonderment with the heavens, but the products (both photographed and shown) perhaps best demonstrate how our consumer gadget-crazy society has pulled the wool over our eyes. Mondex, 2006 (the tupperware piece) is the most direct at navigating this "copy as orginal" artist's gaze through the mucky-muck to the mysterious universe he knows nothing about (but longs to) on the other side, but still requires the audience to make the jump past "it's just a tupperware bowl" to get to this interesting place. A place where Moulène has left several well positioned clues in his installation without
leading us like a herd of sheep, a well received message.

If the the artist is looking for more to explore in this work, maybe creating bridges between the consumer mythos and the "nature" mythos, the intersection being that these petrochemical plastic objects were composed out of and will one day return to the elements at the base. Our ideas about what they represent and how they can be used to either explore or distract from searching for answers are all that will remain. From a cursory glance at the gallery's website it looks as if he has plenty of work to fill in the edges, the balance between giving the audience enough direction that they can navigate the territory without playing a tour guide has always been delicate, this artist shows an awareness of this balance.

# posted by Ryan : 5/09/2006 11:53:00 PM