Reviews: Connecticut

Lisa Hoke: The Gravity of Color
The New Britain Museum of American Art • New Britain, CT • www.nbmaa.org • Exhibition ongoing

One of the fascinating dynamics of contemporary art is its amiable capacity for dialogue—its determination not only to represent, but also to participate in the ongoing cultural conversation. Certainly, this seems to be true with Lisa Hoke’s lively installation, which manages a pirouette halfway up the Sol LeWitt staircase in the airy, new exhibition space at the New Britain Museum of American Art.

This vivid eruption of paper and plastic cups comprises a wall-hugging mini-metropolis of crisp cylinders, percolating from the highly saturated color of the cups that were likely purchased from a massive iParty clearance sale.

At once childlike and vivacious, geometric and bubbly, cagey and insouciant, this exultant Cirque du Soleil extravaganza stands somewhere between LeWitt’s own sharp-penciled, graphite wall drawing (which greets visitors at the door of the museum) and such chunky surface amusements as those in the fantastical Watts Towers, or—equally beguiling—in Antonio Gaudi’s mosaic benches at Parc Guell in Barcelona.

The Gravity of Color gathers upon a bend of walls, flirtatiously wrapping its architectural, ceiling-to-floor arm around a dangling, cobalt ganglia of blown glass by Dale Chihuly, cocking a thousand popping eyes irreverently (in paper-cup fashion) at his fancy, jewel-like incandescence.

Divided like a pinwheel, Hoke’s wall relief is impossible to take in at once, but must be read in 360-degrees with the turn of the landing. Its strategy (again, mindful of LeWitt) is two parts architecture, two parts sculpture, two parts color theory, and two parts orchestration—with a dollop of the commonplace for good measure.

Hoke’s multiple effects call up special affinities to LeWitt (who grew up in New Britain and maintained a lifelong affection for the museum)—not only to his ideas, but also to his matter-of-fact considerations about art-making. Without arrogance or artful self-consciousness, Hoke provides an exuberant nod to that generous artist who died last year, but not before rewriting the definition of what constitutes art.

—Patricia Rosoff