It's that time again. underCURRENT/ overVIEW — Tampa Museum of Art's summer survey of local artists, an event that's anticipated and critiqued by the arts community and probably underviewed by the general public. In this fifth year, Elaine Gustafson, curator of contemporary exhibitions, chose 15 artists from the widest geographic area ever, including Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties. More than 100 artists responded to the "call for entries." For emerging artists especially, selection means a feather in the cap, a notch on the resume and breathless expectation of exposure leading to the great art world beyond.
That outer art world is just my point. Viewing this exhibition from the widest possible angle suggests a paradox because half of these regional artists echo the kind of national trends that define the contemporary scene. Three little words — photography, video and installation, all deflect the myth of regionalism. Nevertheless, you'll see only a smidgen of cutting-edge art here — though just enough edgy stuff to appease the die-hard "Tampa's a cultural wasteland" crowd.
Right from the beginning, Gustafson sharpens the surface with two of the exhibition's edgiest works. First, in the small Focus Gallery, is Ryan Berg's large mixed-media installation, "Angel Finger," a pseudo-Disneyesque pedestal tableau with ceramic hybrid figures. Ironically, this is both the most and least accessible art on view. "Most" because we're seduced by forbidding visions of our collective youth, and "least" because it's a psychological place we may actually be loath to re-enter. Roughly textured and unsettling, eerie yet warmly compelling, it screams New York.
Behind the wall, six short videos by the Robin Voshart/Sven Humphrey husband-and-wife team are as appealing as any I had just seen in New York at Chelsea's Gagosian Gallery. If you have the patience to see these through (and often with video that's a tall order) you get a wide range of subjects connected to the artists' theme of "chronic anxiety." Clicking and tapping pencils. A choreographed hand repeating annoying motions until we begin to detect an inherent beauty in what I see as architecture of the hand. Also effective are the artists' metamorphosing faces and fuzzy inarticulate voices, all twists on the popular theme of identity. (Identity is also addressed more directly by Ric Savid's documentary-style photos of children in the other gallery).
Entering the large gallery suggests a completely different albeit satisfying exhibition dynamic. It's not so much a blockbuster in the sense that you walk in and are blown away, but a composition as a whole as if it were all part of a still-life. Its polite elegance strikes first, a balanced ambiance. We see it immediately in intelligent aesthetic differences between the dark woven textures of Monica Naugle's hanging sculptures, and in the distance, the composed order of Eunice Kambara's stilled hanging glass bowls.
Much of the art inside unfolds slowly: Leslie Fry's monoprints, Florence Putterman's symbolic realm, Roxie Thomas' sculptures and Mandy Greer's charismatic feathered creation. Contrasting forcefully on the back wall are Steve McCallum's explosion of color on canvas and Leslie L. Neumann's encaustic and wax landscapes. And, in an apparent token nod to mass-media imagery, there are Christopher Week's graphic letters with digital prints, which would be more suitably hung in an area of higher energy like the McCallum, or beside the edgier works in the small gallery.
I liked the contrast between Sabrina Small's large, dreamy illogical paintings and Edgar Sanchez Cumbas' small oils on board, both depicting emotional identities played out by their characters. Cumbas' psychological themes are wed to intuitively drawn characters — deriving from South Bronx graffiti, they inhabit (or are prisoners of) metaphorical pod-like vessels with layered fresco-like backgrounds. After seeing these pieces, plus his recent Covivant show — where an inner radiant light dazzled viewers — it's easy to see Cumbas as an artist to keep an eye on.
No critique could be complete without addressing Kambara's beautiful conceptual installation consisting of multiple small glass fishbowls with water, all hung perfectly from the ceiling in precise rows. Only one contained a small Betta fish in the center. On my last visit, the fish looked dead, but gratefully it wasn't. As it came to life, a young girl voiced her dismay (she used another word) at seeing a live fish imprisoned within an incredibly small space. Despite Kambara's elegant entry, the wise child is correct.
What's Mine Is Not Yours Two weeks ago, Bay area mainstream newspapers reported the theft of a public art work from the Tampa Museum of Art's outdoor display. The metal sculpture was attached to the wall near the entrance ramp to the museum where it "announced" the work inside. The dailies said the work was one among pieces in The Collection in Perspective, a group of 14 by Gainesville artist Richard Hiepp. That this lineup represents overkill and does little to enhance the museum is another column.
Now, what you didn't read. In the 1980s, the buzzword was "appropriation," generally interpreted as one artist borrowing the work of another. We're sort of past that now, though in fact it happens all the time. The trouble is that when TMA identified the sculpture's artist they neglected to state that the image had been "appropriated" from a 24-year-old living artist. An ill-advised precedent wouldn't you agree?
The image in question was derived from Tampa artist Kathie Olivas' painting installed in last summer's underCURRENT/overVIEW 4. Although columnist Steve Otto mocked the metal copy, the original was one that I suggested was the artist's best, among those I was familiar with. It's not that Olivas, also curator of exhibitions for Hyde Park Fine Art, minds having her original creation immortalized in someone's else's metal sculpture. I think she's flattered. The problem is the "don't ask, don't tell" scenario. Which means she was never told about the project, was never asked if she minded relinquishing one of her recognizable signature motifs, and was never notified that it was actually installed.
Olivas learned of her dubious "honor" when friends congratulated her on the museum's exterior installation. She was stunned. Along with hoping that the work is found, she'd like her name, along with all appropriated artists, to be acknowledged on the wall. It's only fair.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2001.