Disorderly Conduct, OCMA

Disorderly Conduct, OCMA

I could say a lot about this show but here’s the short of it. It was an ok show over all, some of the work was great, most of it was acceptable, and a couple pieces were bad. This however, is usually the way that multi artist shows seem to work at museums. Over all, the work didn’t seem terribly cohesive but some was interesting. Then I started reading the placards and the statements about the artists and the curatorial direction of the show.

For a Show titled: Disorderly Conduct, the work seemed pretty predictable and in no way disorderly. Perhaps pieces lampooning Dr. Condoleezza Rice and the war in general (Karen Finley) felt provocative for the board of directors of a small museum in Orange County, but fails to bring up any points the rest of us haven’t already considered. The statement for the show claims the work is about conflict, war, violence, racial tension, urban strife and environmental disaster, which one might think would make for a grotesque, visceral, and perhaps even offensive viewing experience. The work however, while it does address these omnipresent issues, does it in the most orderly means imaginable, creating a feeling of the predictable and almost polite.

The show comes off less like the sum of its parts and instead like a bunch of parts lacking a summation. So I chose to view the show as a lot of individual works that just happen to be temporarily housed in the same location. Here’s my break down of the artists:

Robin Rhode’s digital animation is a quick read, which is unfortunate because it moves slow enough that one quickly loses interest but not before wondering why there was so much use of the Ken Burns effect from iMovie and longing for the aptly filmed pixilation of Jan Svankmajer instead.

Karen Finley got a chuckle out of me, just one.

Pilar Albarracin is the Spanish Cindy Sherman.

Pearl C. Hsiung, I enjoyed standing very close to her paintings, I wish they were abstract. I also liked the irony of her “Site Specific” installation which was small enough to be specific to almost any location.

Glenn Kaino deftly combined intrigue and disappointment with a very cool one-liner of a chess board piece and his apparently related “One Hour” paintings which I think was intended to illustrate the point that it doesn’t take long to figure out you are not proficient at something, or perhaps that we all spend a lot of time on things we should either give up or never show to people. His spinning rock and house piece is a great metaphor for missing the mark or just going around and around and never getting to the point. Which I think is what this show is all about.

Mike Kelley was interesting as usual and managed to get his own room (don’t miss it, it’s removed from everything else)

Martin Kersels knows something you don’t; you should try to figure out what that is.

Daniel Joseph Martinez takes up a lot of space with very little.

Rodney McMillian didn’t inspire me to write any notes.

--Snowflake