A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL… ERIC NAUMAN: TERRAFORMING PARADISE

A quiet gallery comes to life as viewers enter, triggering a motion detector that sets o a chain reaction. Flat, pools of synthetic fabric inflate into bulbous cubes. One is green and one is yellow. The yellow cube appears to be wearing khaki pants… Cement figurines huddle in a line along the gallery’s windows, seeking shelter from the cube monsters.

Eric Nauman’s conceptual installation uses tropes in popular video games such as Super Mario Brothers as an accessible entry-point to the exhibition’s concept. His screen-printed wallpaper recreates a classic role-playing game (RPG) experience. You know: the one where the sky is cyan and the coins are yellow and suspended in the air, and you, Mario, jump around, dodge enemies and collect coins? It’s hard not to hear the Mario theme song playing in your head. Nauman’s many fabrication techniques –including silicone mold-making, cement-casting, machine-sewing and screen-printing– pair well with his application of computer programming and robotics to fine art.

The reactionary quality of the exhibition begs passersby on the sidewalk to enter Nauman’s world and invites them to stay. The sculptures are so like characters we know, but abstracted to the point of generality. SpongeBob SquarePants is easy to recognize in the big yellow cube, if you know him. Mr. Krabs is then not hard to imagine in the bloated, gold, glittering dollar-sign that spins, mounted onto a blood red ampersand (&) on a stack of yellow gold bricks, all rotating on a platform supported on the backs of four stationary cementfolk.

Terraforming is a trope in science fiction in reference to transforming a fictional alien planet into a habitable environment for humans. Nauman’s exhibition succeeds as a conceptual installation at a time when new media and installation artwork has become the thing to do. The installation is centered around what the viewer can recognize immediately as a piece of traditional screen-printed canvas wall art, hung at traditional gallery height among the screen-printed wallpaper that transforms the space into a virtual world. These canvases function in contrast to the wallpaper. The canvas begs, “Collect me!” while the floor-to-ceiling paper background asks, “Am I recyclable?”

The viewer leaves the gallery –confused or satisfied– the synthetic fabric cubes will deflate and the glittering gold icon will stop spinning with nobody to stimulate the computerized motion detectors. It’s impossible not to laugh at the idea that the cast cement people have anything to fear from the inflatable SpongeBob or his envy green friend, fabric and fragile computers as they are, and completely indefensible to 30 pounds of cement to that end. Nauman’s installation suggests that people are afraid of inflated, cartoonish nightmares that consist of weaker substance than humankind.

The screen-printed paper backdrop features not only floating coins and rings and clouds, but also headless creatures, hybrid between a cow’s udder and a bumble bee, many of which buzz around in the repeating expanse of sky. If traditional game tropes apply to Nauman’s terrain as they do in other ways, this creature could be assumed to do your character harm with its sting as you pursue the coin treasure floating in the sky, but could they also give you milk during 10% of gameplay? They are udders.

Looking down at the cement figurines that support the spinning, glittering dollar tower, one can only wonder why they bow down for the bloody dollar icon--and what is it that seems so unsafe to them in this fantasy? Nauman suggests that we give the cube-monsters and dollar-icon their power over the cement people masses. Our very presence in the gallery chamber activates them: energizes them. Without us, you could say, these ideas hold no power.

In a way, this metaphor translates as well to a criticism of internet age global capitalism as readily as it can apply to a critical view of the art world. The art is propped up by people, the art is activated by people, the art is feared by people (well, by cement people). Not to mention, the art’s value is superficial: dripping in attention-grabbing glitter and electronics.

As a criticism of capitalism, Nauman’s installation fairs best for the contrast the artist creates by using an assortment of media. At once, a viewer can find several items that they can qualify as “fine art” or “other” in a way that motivates the viewer to organize the exhibition into a hierarchy of objects.

The coins printed on paper seem impermanent, multiplicitous, and cheap. The rotating dollar sign seems useless for any purpose other than the ridiculous and iconographic purpose it serves to an art venue, the screen-printed canvases seem to “save” a memory of the exhibition itself, and the cement casts with a single flower hand-painted on each one’s back seem authentic and priceless. In all, the sculptures and prints transform into capitalizable objects only if you decide to play the game.

Eric Nauman: A Deal with the Devil ... Terraforming Paradise

KRANZBERG ART CENTER

review by Katryn Dierksen