When most people hear the term “heavy metal,”
they think of hard rockin‘, guitar-laden anthems
screamed by big-haired dudes dressed in women’s
clothes. Or is that just me? Heavy metal can also be a
powerful, gritty term, of course, and it’s in this
vein that the dA Center for the Arts’ new show finds
its own raw, rockin‘ beauty.
Taking the term literally, the dA exhibit is filled to
the girders with all types of metallic offerings—welded
sculptures, hammered signs and objects d’art that
are both shiny and coarse. One of the more philosophical
and striking pieces is Eric Ward’s Emergency Broadcasting
System, a completely trashed-out and decaying metal TV
casing, the screen gone and insides filled with a pile
of what appears to be multicolored globs of discarded
acrylic paint. A length of black rubber tubing is attached
to the side of the rusted set and connects in the back
to a bullet-ridden propane tank, creating a most intriguing
post-nuclear viewing experience.
Bob Zoell has installed a series of street signs based
on those “No Parking” annoyances we encounter
daily, but instead he’s changed the letters around
to make pointed remarks on “poverty, misery and
death,” as one signs reads. The best of the bunch
is War, with the letters broken up in various ways, ending
up in the Orwellian line “War All the Time.”
Less revolutionary yet actually more aesthetically pleasing
are Zoell’s two brushed metal wall art pieces of
flat chairs and a picture frame in various positioning,
called appropriately enough, Picture Over Chair and Table
over Picture.
Curator Rolo Castillo also has three of his own works
in the show: Ouch is a life-sized owl with a motorized
buzz saw blade poking out of its chest, illuminated by
an interior blue light; and a large piece of corrugated
metal in a fancy vintage frame called Corrugated Metal
Makes You Look Thinner is hilarious and true, actually.
Finally, the kitschy oddball of the group is Poem Booth,
which is, in fact, a real telephone booth with a modern
phone inside. Dial 1-877-EAT POEM and you can either listen
to a previously recorded poem, or you can record a line
or two to add to the mass poem project. The inclusion
of the booth in the show is legitimate because it is made
of metal—but even if it were made of marshmallows,
a poem booth is a damn genius idea and there should be
one on every street corner.
Over at the Bunny Gunner, Sioux Bally-Maloof heads off
in a new direction, adding another layer to the artistically-distinguished
Maloof family dynasty. Originally concentrating on traditional
art—oil pastels and paintingsthe "The WOW Show"
of Native Americans and naturalistic landscapes—Bally-Maloof
is now branching out into the abstract world with this
new series of monoprints and monotypes that are meant
to elicit a response similar to that of the show’s
title.
And it might. Bally-Maloof’s departure from her
usual routine is an incredibly clean break, and it’s
a welcome direction. While her oils are skilled, they’re
also things we’ve seen before; safe and traditional,
and probably passed over by those in search of something
more thought-provoking.
The new works are splashy, graffiti, street art—wild
swirls and splatterings in red and pink, with images of
wheel gears, blurry passages from manuscript pages, metal
grates and handmade paper. Some of them even have the
word “Wow” imprinted on them, a reminder of
this artist’s rebirthing into a new medium.
While they are all fun and fanciful, one piece stands
out among the other hip, magazine-type art: Neighborhood
is a monotype of soft primary colored blocks stacked together
as if they were, indeed, a row of houses or buildings
one might see through foggy eyes or from the passenger
seat of a quickly passing car. They are stark and clean,
and for some reason made me think of The Brady Bunch.
Of course, the Bradys were a nice, friendly family, and
that neighborhood was always bright and clean, so perhaps
it makes sense. And here’s hoping to see more of
it in the making from Bally-Maloof’s newly expanding
palette.
Sioux Bally-Maloof: “The Wow Show” at Bunny
Gunner, 266 W. Second St., Pomona, (909) 868-2808; www.bunnygunner.com.
Open Tues–Sat, 10AM-7PM. Thru Oct. 6. Free
“Heavy Metal” at the dA Center for the Arts,
252 S. Main St., Pomona, (909) 397-9716; www.dacenter.org.
Wed-Sat, noon-5PM; Thurs, noon-9PM. Thru Sept. 26. Free. |
