Spotlight Reviews

VERMONT

T.W. Wood Art Gallery/ Montpelier
www.twwoodgallery.com
NOBODY EXPECTS: WORKS BY TORIN PORTER AND JOSHUA REIMAN

Joshua Reiman, Outside the Battle of Trenton.

Nobody Expects is the provocative title for the dynamic work of sculptor Torin Porter and photographer Joshua Reiman. The work is both conceptually and technically strong. The unifying link in this two-person exhibition is the use of color and humor, not to mention the underlying themes found in both artists’ work.
     Reiman’s work was represented by two photo groups. The Washington Series (2001) features a team of Caucasian young men gallivanting in gleaming white basketball uniforms, high tops, and 17th-century wigs. Jackass Series (1998) portrays a group of Technicolor, oversize donkey heads worn by a motley bunch of young men while roaming about local hot spots in New York City. In both series Reiman uses titles to draw attention to setting: Crossing the Delaware, Pumped Up at the Colonial, Times Square, etc. The scale of the photographs (about the size of a standard family portrait) is a nice change to the supersize tendency of color prints seen over the last few years. The photographs feel like stills from an unknown movie; the many layers of action and meaning are left to the viewer to decipher. Comical and a bit tongue in cheek, both series explore the age-old archetypes of sports prima donnas and the slippery slope of affluent white men’s clubs.
     Porter’s sculptures are refreshing. His use of humor, similar to Reiman’s, is like a bit of sugar for the medicine. Reiman’s work is both social commentary as well as a formal investigation of color, space, and form in Porter’s work. The use of color is straight out of a comic book, alluding to pop art and commercialism. Vibrant hues of industrial paint fight for viewers’ attention in stellar pieces such as The New Tomato, whose painted and inflated steel references minimalist sculpture of the ‘60s. The content of the piece, a bright red square tomato standing on six pink leg/arms, hits the viewer instantly. Is it cute? Is it ghastly? The tension of the piece produces a tremendously thoughtful debate with references to Monsanto and genetically modified food. Another stunner is Speaking Out: An oversize baby-blue head lying on the floor laboriously blows from its open mouth a three-tiered bubble. What is the head saying? Is it drowning in its proclamation? Will anyone hear its message? One cannot help but wish for more exploration with scale, as each piece seems the same in size.
     It was a pleasure to see this kind of work at the T.W. Wood, even though its placement in the tiny, out-of-the-way South Gallery was an unfortunate oversight. Work of this strength surely deserves room to breath—especially when what the world really needs is art that does more than sit in a gallery looking pretty.

Lucinda Masson

Also reviewed in this issue:

Constructions at Studio Place Arts
Sylvia Safdie: The Testimony of Trees: Meditations on Art and Nature at Firehouse Gallery
Henry Isaccs: Vermont Paintings at Doll-Anstadt Gallery