Art Lies, Volume 31, Summer 2001 Page: 82
84 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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BEAU MON DE: Toward a Redeemed
Cosmopolitanism
"Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism" is the fourth installment of SITE Santa Fe's biennial exhibition series.
It includes contributions by two Texas artists, Kermit Oliver and Nic Nicosia, and is organized by iconoclastic critic (and for-
mer Texan) Dave Hickey. "Beau Monde" is notable as a concrete expression of the distinctive ideas Hickey has enunciated in
books like The Invisible Dragon and Air Guitar. Perhaps just as importantly, it discards the template of exhibition-as-series-
of-scattered-artworks that marked former SITE biennials. Hickey worked with Los Angeles-based Graft Design and Director
Louis Grachos to completely redesign the SITE exhibition galleries, and their clearly defined architectural settings reinforce
and complement the different aesthetics embodied in works by 28 artists.
Artlies correspondents Kate Bonansinga, Frances Colpitt, Christopher French, and Janet Tyson offer four perspectives on
Hickey's project. Bonansinga locates the show's penchant for decoration in eastern approaches to beauty; Colpitt explores
its sensual approach to visual pleasure. French addresses Hickey's synergistic approach to art and architecture, while Tyson
touches on the allusions to landscape sprinkled throughout this largely abstract show. "Beau Monde" remains on view
through January 6, 2002.Legend has it that in the seventh century a Korean Buddhist monk
traveled to China to further his religious education. After many
adventures, and just prior to departing for home, he met a beautiful
woman who fell deeply in love with him. Committed to his Buddhist
practice, the monk ignored the passionate lady. She, after coming to
terms with her unrequited love, dove into the ocean, transforming
herself into a dragon. Swimming beneath the monk's ship, she cra-
dled and protected it on her back for the duration of his trip.
This story of commitment and transformation is a notable sub-
ject in Japanese art, and both the cross-cultural legend and its visual
translation festered in the back of my mind as I stood in front of
Gajin Fujita's painting South Cali, part of Dave Hickey's "Beau
Monde." Fujita was born in Los Angeles and is of Japanese heritage;
central to this composition is his interpretation of a traditional
Japanese ukiyo-e image of a man providing sexual favors to a woman.
The lovers float in a glass globe that rests on a platform; this plat-
form, engulfed by a lotus, is traditionally reserved for depictions of
Buddha. Flanking this central image, a fierce dragon charges from
the right, while a phoenix approaches from the left. Each of Fujita's
subjects can be interpreted as a symbol of regeneration, and each is
culled from the art history of Asia.
Fujita's animated style nods to tattoos of many cultures, includ-
ing Japan. His conflation of myriad subjects and styles and his secu-
larization of the votive art of Asia are significant to "Beau Monde"
for a couple of reasons. First, Asian aesthetics regard decorative,
graphic, and fine art as equals. Hickey is pointedly interested in
making his audience cognizant of the interaction between varieties
of visual culture. In this leveling, advertisement relates to pornogra-
phy; interior design directly connects to fine art sculpture. Secondly,
since Asian decorative arts are intend to fuse beauty with utility, they
idealize and embody Hickey's goal for beauty, which is to take us "
out of the comfort zone and into the pleasure zone" where we may
feel anxiously "guilty for liking something too much." Beauty, in
Hickey's view, is not passive or formal in nature, but entails involve-
ment and risk.
None of the art works that Hickey selected for the exhibition
are decorative per se, but many echo Fujita's penchant for using orna-
ment to convey content. For example, in the most successful of thefive photographs by Jeff Burton (who makes his livelihood as a still
photographer in the pornographic film business), the coupled figure
fragments are incidental. The focus of the photo is elsewhere: on a
checkered Afghan, or a porcelain vase. Darryl Montana's flamboy-
antly colorful and impeccably crafted Mardi Gras costumes partici-
pate as effectively as parade dress as they function as visual objects.
Marine Hugonnier's creamy flower arrangements, situated in white
vases on pedestals at the show's entrance and in a niche opposite
Fujita's South Cali, continue this conversation about physical attrac-
tiveness. They extend inward the joyful ambiance established by
Graft Design's Kissy Kissy Touchy Touchy, garlands of purple and
yellow plastic daisies that line either side of SITE's entrance ramp.
Kermit Oliver's exquisitely carved and painted frames, hung in a sep-
arate room decorated with silver-and-grey striped wallpaper, cap-
tured my attention, perhaps more than the painted narratives they
heralded.
Defined by pattern and color, "Beau Monde" is downright fun
to look at. Hickey invites us to relish in mixing media and genres,
cultures and influences, sounds and forms; in doing so, he asks us to
put aside learned expectations of what constitutes contemporary art
practice. "Beau Monde" celebrates the exuberance, beauty, and
usefulness of human-made things. Such cacophonous commingling
creates a world where much is possible, even if Chinese ladies remain
unable to transform themselves into dragons.
-Kate Bonansinga
Outside of the Frick Collection in New York or the Courtauld
Institute in London, it is rare to encounter an exhibition space
devoted to visual pleasure. "Beau Monde" provides just such a
longed-for opportunity; it is a scintillating feast for the eyes.
Although the exhibition itself is not unconquerably large-thirty-six
art works and six films-repeated visits bring new insights and per-
petually renewable delights.
Dave Hickey's curatorial thesis is clearly stated on the outside of
the Site Santa Fe building. Sheathing one side of the structure with
Jim Isermann's silver plastic interpretation of a moderne facade and
the other with Gajin Fujita's rococo graffiti is an explicitly decorative82 ARTL!ES Summer 2001
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Kalil, Susie. Art Lies, Volume 31, Summer 2001, periodical, 2001; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228061/m1/84/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .