Joey Fauerso at Women & Their Work

Wide Open Wide @ Women and their Work Austin, TX October 5- November 11 2006 Reposted from Cantanker.com from "Wide Open Wide" by Joey Fausero Of all of our technological advances, one of our most fascinating and downright metaphysical is our ability to capture moments of time like butterflies in a net; to pin them down and examine them in depth at a later date, as many times as we’d like. It’s sheer magic and science; an alchemy of time if you will. I remember when my family bought our first VCR and how amazing it was to capture images from television and watch them over and over and over. That one episode of Laverne and Shirley will forever be ingrained in my memory. Our alchemy may have begun with pigmented scrawling on the walls of caves, but became oil paintings and photographs, then motion pictures. The work of Joey Fauerso at Women & Their Work deftly interweaves painting and animated motion pictures to bring us a thought provoking installation that delves into the metaphysical in different ways and meshes the science with the spirit. Faureso’s Wide Open Wide takes the viewer on a ride from conception to release, creation to enlightenment from part to whole. As you enter the space you are confronted with Into the Blue a small watercolor on paper depicting a person standing on the edge of the cosmos. They are about to enter the gaping maw of the unknown. Later, you realize that you ARE that person upon entering this show. Progressing into the space, the story unfolds. It begins with Flock, another watercolor on paper whose title concisely describes its massing, flapping subject. The most arresting sight is two walls with what appear to be repetitive prints of a shirtless man. Upon closer inspection, they are actually individual paintings in oil and acrylic. Each one is sculpted with broad brushstrokes that still capture details and nuances in rich skin-tones. The figure, Tommy, slowly changes from frame to frame eventually opening his mouth in a scream and falling out of frame then returning and eventually walking off the page. Fauerso wisely mixes some of the frames to prevent predictability and too much of a “flip-book” feel to the walls. The part to whole, creation to enlightenment and conception to release is realized as you make your way around the room and see the video work that combines images from all the other pieces. It is the Wide Open Wide from which the show gets its title. The projected video begins with the familiar flock from early in the show that is doubled and tripled in a spiraling effect as they flap across the wall. As expected, our friend Tommy comes into the frame and smiles at the pieces of himself on the opposite walls. The video of the paintings captures what seems to be self-conscious shyness, perhaps at being shirtless or on display; those minute gestures and fleeting feelings captured in paint and then in video. The soundless scene culminates with Tommy opening his mouth to scream, revealing Open, varying embouchures of the cosmos or night sky in oval mouthed shapes. The cosmos expands from his mouth behind his head in a dark blue and starry halo. Then again, as in the wall-mounted paintings opposite the video, Tommy gets up and walks out of the frame leaving an empty chair to contemplate what has transpired. The importance of Fauerso’s work is that it not only catalogues the aforementioned path from creation to enlightenment and conception to release, capturing those moments in multiple mediums to watch again and again, but that it also brings into it the actual process of creating the work itself. It speaks of steps, both in the creation of the idea, paintings and installation as well as the steps on a path to finding a universe within. Pure alchemy. •

video killed not only the radio star, but my appetite as well (for the most part)

@ Women and Their Work, Arthouse, & O.K. Mountain Austin, TX September 9, 2006 I have to admit, it very well may be my own damned fault. I over-inundated myself with too much of the same (but not exactly the same) at pretty much the same time. I attended three shows, count them THREE, featuring video as a medium. One at Women & Their Work, one at Arthouse and another at O.K. Mountain. It was kind of like having Thai food for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. And as much as I love Thai food.... Let me start off my saying that W&TW is probably my favorite Artspace in Austin. They consistently have well curated shows with very talented artists. That being said, their show about different ideas of marriage, didn't show me very much that I wasn't already expecting from the title. But, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of the work. The one piece that really spoke to me was "Conversations" by Marianela Vega Oroza in which she edited an audio recorded "letter," sent to her by her mother. The audio of her mother speaking about marriage and family, is interwoven with old family photos that Oroza received along with the audio tape. The artist also includes footage of herself as she has a dialogue with/ about her mother's recording. There are parallel's drawn between her own age and the age at which her mother was not only married, but giving birth to the artist herself. Vega seems to question her own life through her mother's eyes and as the video ends, we learn that her mother is leaving her father after all these years, and Vega is taking a photo of herself; the camera timer sounding very much like a biological clock. There were also memorable pieces such as "Marriage is for White People" by Cauleen Smith which was multi-split screen video representation a la Brady Bunch, in which different people espouse their views of precisely what the title says. Also of some interest is "Fifty Brides on a Fire Escape." Although it's title much like the title of the show itself gives it all away before you even see it. collage contains image from Daniel Bozhkov's "Darth Vader Tries to Clean the Black Sea With a Brita Filter." Next, I walked over to Arthouse and was able to catch a portion of artist Daniel Bozhkov's presentation to a packed house of attentive audience members. Even if I had not been able to do so, each installation in the show has more than adequate documentation on each offering, which are documentation in and of themselves. Bozhkov is all about research and process. Mind you, his work is much more interesting than that last statement sounds. In fact, I enjoyed his work so much, my whole Thai food analogy has to go out the window. Even though, in my opinion, the whole show is successful on many levels, there were two performance/ installations that stood out and elicited something in me..what was it... oh yeah, interest. One was a photo documentation of a performance he did entitled "Darth Vader tries to clean the Black Sea with Brita Filter." The photo, which is displayed in the front window of Arthouse, is of the Bulgarian artist himself dressed as the Star Wars villain attempting to do just that. The largest installation was entitled "Learn How to Fly Over a Very Large Larry." The Larry being a large crop circle formation in the shape of Larry King. Bozhkov says that the act of making the large Larry as well as the large Larry himself are but the pebble that caused the ripples that are actually the piece. And, the ripples are included in the space. There are paintings of individuals involved, as well as a specially made couch which depending upon where you sit, changes your perspective, literally. On one side you seem like a giant, on the other, an incredibly shinking...well you get the picture. As you sit on the couch, you watch multiple televisions displaying the aforementioned "ripples", i.e. Larry King himself discussing the crop circle, local news coverage, as well as footage of the making of it. The artist referred to the titles in the show as "wishes". There is a latent hopeful environmentalism in his work that doesn't grab you by the throat, but then again, if someone grabbed you by the throat would you be prone to really listening to/ taking on their views? Finally, I ended up at O.K. Mountain to wrap up the day. And low and behold, video art! Although, again I was over-saturated with video at this point, so I probably didn't give this show as much of a chance as I should have. I have been working on my personal art web site quite a bit lately, and in the process have been re-examining my older works, some of which are early attempts at video. It's been painful swallowing their clunky awkwardness and too, too serious nature. I've found myself probably unfairly, using those old pieces as comparison for what I saw at O.K. mountain (and not seeing too much difference.) Granted, the show was titled "Videoperformance", so I was also expecting a bit more live physical interaction by the artists with the video, so yet again, that could be my fault. By far, the most intriguing thing I saw was Laurel Nakadate's wall projected piece in which older men were in strangely "sexual" situations with her. I remember being so enthralled when I first encountered video art in college through the work of Nam June Paik . It was both his amazing manipulation of the sacred medium as well as his transformations of the monitors and sets themselves that captured my attention and would not let go. Somehow, I didn't feel that at O.K. I will have to go back when I've had a break from the tube. I'm just hoping that will be enough to keep me from grabbing the remote and switching it off again. Is it all me? Could be. Great, now I'm craving Thai. •