Transcendence seems like such a good idea. And Lele Barnett had her reasons for choosing it as a theme for the group show she was organizing at the Wing Luke Asian Museum. Reason one: Barnett, who’s Asian-American, thought the museum already had enough displays mired in the muck of racism and internment camps and anger; she wanted to choose contemporary Asian-American artists who would look forward rather than back. Reason two: Barnett’s bailiwick as a curator, back to her days at the now-defunct McLeod Residence, has always been digital media—the material transcendence of physical limits.
The show she put together, Cultural Transcendence, is five installations by five artists: a video game that continually plays itself, a cartoon bird responding to a hand-cranked music box, video portraits projected on a curtain of silk flower petals, an animated video directed through a bell jar, and an electronic jacket that lets you control sounds and lights in a dark room. The artists—Robert Hodgin, Brent Watanabe, Horatio Law, Heidi Kumao, and Eunsu Kang—are pleasantly unhinged from the conventions of what art mediums are “supposed” to be (finding and featuring this kind of artist is Barnett’s strength). They weave together two and three dimensions, sew, tell stories, string together tin cans, and provide instructions for how to interact with their art.
But the show teeters between delicate and limp. The way the bell jar contains and refracts the light from Kumao’s video is exquisite, but the animation itself—made by applying effects to knit-together live-action video and historical photographs of interned Japanese Americans planting gardens—never rises above the level of anonymity to become affecting. It reaches for the haunting quality of the introspective, repetitive films of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, but lacks their gut punch.
It’s easy to transcend your way right out of being interesting, floating up and away into vagueness and insignificance—or worse. There’s a blank, beatified look on the closed-eyed faces of young Chinese daughters and their adoptive parents, who flash, one by one, on Law’s curtain of colored silk petals. This lack of expression is echoed in the simplistic rhetoric of the work’s label: “A new kind of family has developed in today’s world: one in which social relationships and interactions transcend biological connections.” Why transcend, or leave behind, the important condition of being female and Chinese? (Who benefits from that?) That sounds uncomfortably close to Chris Matthews “forgetting” Obama is black during his State of the Union speech. It’s simply too easy. (The best view of Law’s curtain is on the wall behind it, where you can’t make out the faces and only see the shadows of the petals, punctuated by the changing colored light of the portraits.) Meanwhile, Kang’s jacket contraption that enables a body to manipulate its environment—you can “swim” in light by moving your arms and legs—is overwrought (and also functions clunkily). Its claim: “You connect, melt, and finally expand yourself through aural dissipation. May you fathom the ocean.”
The strongest works seem not to propose transcendence, but instead to refer to the wobbliness of the whole concept. After all, despite its promises of liberation, transcendence in its Platonic/Christian form is a metaphor that describes separate realms, one better than the other. If art teaches anything, it’s William Carlos Williams’s (less Western) mantra: No ideas but in things. It’s down in the dirt of imperfect stuff—language, paint, history, tin cans—where transformation happens. And transformation is an alternative to transcendence. It’s not a jump in levels, but a move through materials. It’s godless, but it can be divine.
The little cartoon bird by Watanabe is living in that buzzy place where transformation might happen, staggering comically across the gallery wall along one of the building’s exposed pipes. Watanabe knits together two dimensions and three; you don’t have to choose between material and immaterial planes, because they’re linked. Best of all, despite the intelligence of the work, the bird doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s a parody of neurosis. He calms down if you crank the music, and a set of tin cans “send” the music box’s sound from your hand to his needy ear.
In the next room, Hodgin’s video game meanders through a computer-generated bamboo forest of fog and sparkling lights. It’s an homage to a childhood memory of visiting Mount Fuji, the ur-symbol of Japan and a symbol of connection with an essential part of his identity (Hodgin is half Japanese). Except, his mother told him later, Hodgin never did visit Mount Fuji. Hodgin presents his transcendent memory as just what it is: a very beautiful lie.
Across town in an unfinished basement-cum-gallery called TARL, there’s another artist breaking down the trickery and lure of transcendence—but in very solid mediums: chunks of sulfur, sheets of royal-blue Plexiglas, strands of nylon rope, and long black quartz crystals.
Locrian Invocation, a woo-woo new age record by harpist Joel Andrews, was the inspiration for Eugene artist Rob Smith’s sculptures at TARL. The album cover reads, “LET LIGHT AND LOVE AND POWER RESTORE THE PLAN ON EARTH,” and there’s a composite image of a man’s face combining the godly figures Andrews channels in the music, from Christ to Kuthumi. (You can see and hear the record in the living room above the basement.)
Locrian Invocation is ridiculous in many ways, but Smith doesn’t ridicule it. He tries to present its longing for salvation in more workable form. He’s scratched the album cover’s image of the male face in reverse on the back of a sheet of Plexi (using the quartz crystals as his pencil), and the result is pretty magical: The face appears to hover on the front like a shifty hologram, and you can barely believe that the minimal scratches on the back produced this powerful image. Between front and back is a teeny leap of faith.
The craggy yellow sulfur he uses is earthy, while the blue reflective Plexi is skylike or heavenly (the colors are taken from the album cover), and they work together to create something that’s both still and moving. Two of the pieces amount to bondage performances: Hunks of sulfur are roped to the sheets of Plexi, bowing the sheets and casting reflections onto the curved surfaces. The reflections distort as you walk around, popping into clarity and sliding out of it. Smith wants to get at the yearning for transformation, not a “PLAN” for transcendence, but he gives himself a challenge: Do it through the cheesy materials, not by going around them (the colors, the godly face, the Plexi curved and strung with rope so it can be plucked like the harp). Smith makes his own, unfinished invocation.
In a talk at the opening, the artist, who’s also a drummer, said he turned to visual art so he could finally leave the room. He hopes the materials continue to vibrate, and they do. 
“A new kind of family has developed in today’s world: one in which social relationships and interactions transcend biological connections.”
This statement is pretty vague, and I cringed a little reading it; but I disagree with the way you compared it to a “forgetting” of gender or race. That’s reading a lot into what he didn’t write. Instead I would be more critical that the statement is overly vague.
And “thinking that the museum already had enough displays mired in the muck of racism and internment camps and anger” holds shaky ground. While I agree with Lele’s (or your) point, there are not many museums with the courage to display strong exhibits. I can’t think of any other Seattle museums that take a clear stance on any issue ever. Why should the Wing Luke catch flack for doing what other museums are scared to do?
“A new kind of family has developed in today’s world: one in which social relationships and interactions transcend biological connections.”
I agree this statement is vague and confusing, and I apologize. Please know that it is not part of Horatio Law’s statement about Lost and Found. I added it myself. No one is trying to transcend the important condition of being female and Chinese. I myself am both of those things, and both are worth celebrating. What I meant to convey is that the new family ties are strong; in them, we transcend being lost/abandoned and celebrate being found.
I disagree that Kumao’s exhibit lacked gut punch. People who spent a little time absorbing it were very affected. Perhaps that is a feature of the Asian experience – quiet observation and reflection, not just a quick glance. In Law’s exhibit, lack of outward exhibits of expression is also in line with Asian reserve. The entire show reflects its Asian heritage.
Lucas, that’s a good point. (re: your last paragraph.)
Lele: So glad you commented here. I know it wasn’t your intention to leave behind such important considerations as gender and race (hello!). What I was trying to do in the piece was to point out how certain dominant metaphors and rhetorics connected to the concept of transcendence are easily coopted by those with very different intentions from the ones you have. For this reason it’s the concept itself, and not your show, that I take issue with, if that makes sense. In some ways your show dovetailed with my complaints, but in some ways it deviated–and I tried to explain both.
Lucas, I actually agree with your last paragraph as well, though I am also aware when I say that that I come from a particular (non-Asian) perspective. I don’t know how I’d feel differently or not if I were part of the community that is expressing and processing that legacy of anger.
Hi Jen,
Another very interesting review but maybe curiously split between two venues with the latter maybe getting somewhat short shrift, I presume accidentally, because the Asian thing may have a way of holding the lead. The tie-in between the two venues seems to be a theme on ways in which artists are executing the concept of transcendence. Words and concepts are cut from the same cloth as is the very stuff of our thinking and awareness. Word meaning and therefore reality are forever multiplexed in a kind of word fog that sometimes seems to let us see and yet forever hides the ultimate prize drifting in the haze. The TARL evening was full of alchemy beginning in a household’s backyard in the light of a bonfire surrounded by a substantial ring of art folk. You and I were there to drink the substance of that evening and the essence of those young art people. And, yet, you are one of the young ones, aren’t you?
I was curious if your notes on that tiny note pad of yours taken in the dark of night a couple of weeks ago would show up in an article. It has showed up sort of tacked on the end of more extensive text on the Asian thing and a bit in its shadow. All’s the pity, maybe.
I wondered what would be impressing you on that evening as I clearly had responses of my own. My experience was working on several levels. One was my continual possible false memory (fitting here) of a moment in Ingmar Bergman’s film, Wild Strawberries, were the old man is in the presence of a couple of traveling youth who are ever so caught up, as youth can be, in discussions about the deeper questions about life. The ring of people around the evening fire featured a fixed minority of males delving deeply into the meaning of life for the artist raising many of the themes that one finds in the most recent decades of contemporary art including questions about the significance of the object and the act of showing the work. From my old perspective I found it kind of funny but have serious respect for the young men and their talk. There’s a time in our lives when we seem more prone to such energetic discursions and I’m sure it’s a foundation for the production of art regardless how it is tied to it. I also was deeply moved by the humanness of the community, the presence of a very young baby of a couple, and the comradery and intense commitment to art within this crew
I was surprised that no women spoke up and expressed themselves about the art issues. There are plenty of women capable in the art world and ready to speak at the drop of most anything. So I then thought of whether there was a social gender issue going on here. It was so funny that just these young men were going on and on and no women were part of it. And I thought of you (because you are clearly a woman) and wondered if there is some kind of role thing or gender difference in these matters. This, I know, is very dangerous territory for me to mine but it is always interesting. In the sixties one wouldn’t dare suggest there are differences but we seem to have become more nuanced about the possibilities. I wondered if your writing was female in some way-not lesser- and a voice within said, “wow, interesting, but stay away from this one.” Our culture has a great problem with this subject and I certainly think of your writing as being equal to anyone. But why was it guys only? Interestingly curious. Your writing is importantly discursive, I think. Is it unisex? Is it an open question? Can we even go there? You do point out that, “certain dominant metaphors and rhetorics connected to the concept of transcendence are easily coopted by those with very different intentions from the ones you have.” Is there traction here?
As to Rob Smith’s show in the understated basement with the prominent furnace in place, I tended to marvel at it. What a people’s gallery space! I was impressed by how this art community was carrying on art in the humble basement of a private home and reaching out to significant artists they embrace. The impulse reminded me of that breakthrough Whitney show so many years ago when the curator actually went out to the artist’s sanctuaries and discovered what they respected and recomended. Here was a show that seemed highly non-commoditized. Some kind of art SOUL was at work. This includes the possible history of the venue. There has been talk of “a new kind of family developing here” and I was blown away how this community was respecting art and keeping it alive even without the Royal trappings of the traditional gallery market scene. I was told this group of people is somehow connected to a provenance with the Craw Space gallery in which serious artists support other artists who are carefully selected.
Yes, I was impressed with Smith’s display. One thing that struck me was the use of physical tension in his pieces. Speaking of metaphors, it kind of reminded me of the use of tension in the work of Sol Hashemi’s and Jason Hirata’s use of bungee cords at Greg Kucera’s. This use of physical tension intrigues me. You probably know of many examples of this but I’m kind of out of that great knowledge loop. On top of this was a whole night of magic realism, not just in the basement gallery, but around the bonfire and with these wonderful young people keeping art alive and well. In magic realism there is the wonderful tension between the modern world and the primitive. A bonfire and tribe surrounded by a restless contemporary metropolis.
As to transcendence examined or visited and deflected, the doing of art today can be quite remarkable considering art’s history. Coopting the essence of things by way of different intentions than the ordinary certainly can reveal something new. In this sense contemporary visual art often reminds me of poetry and its renewal by examining the everyday to find new awarenesses. Controlling the language, visual or not, often reminds me of riding bucking bull.
I was going to keep it short, but damn, you know!
@GWFinholt, thank you for your thoughtful musings, support and for making the trek to the TARLhouse! Please come again.
I wanted to quickly address why no women spoke at the fireside chat. It was designed to be artist Rob Smith ‘in dialogue’ with Matt Browning and Rebar Niemi, 2/5 TARL founders. In the future, we will be more clear about the intended format of our conversations.
@GWFinholt, what interesting issues you raise! especially the thoughts on gender.
I wasn’t there at the TARL event, but from your description it almost sounds like a kind of young-male-artist rite-of-passage ritual. Very interesting! I’m sorry I missed it.
@GWFinholt: So glad you wrote more here; a coda to add to what I couldn’t say due to lack of space. I could have gone on at length about both of these shows, but especially the one at TARL.
What’s funny about your question about gender around the fire is that I absolutely noticed it myself. There was another guy who talked quite a bit (not just the artist and the two moderators), and so to me it very much had the feeling of an open conversation. I felt like there was plenty getting said, and I just was happy to see it go by. I also didn’t really want to join the talk before seeing the art–I didn’t get the sense it was open until afterward.
But what’s also funny is what I felt myself wanting to say, which was that so much of what the artist was talking about–creating something communicative, leaving the room, letting it vibrate–is what parents hope to accomplish by having children. Before the bonfire, I’d just come from my godson’s third birthday party, which was crawling with little people, their parents sort of standing at the edges of the rooms, contemplating leaving versus overseeing.
After the fireside chat, I spent time with the art, and then the artist and I got into a conversation about this question of reproduction and production, and I told him about the baby party and the lineup of my day, and we spoke for a while. I guess in those moments I did feel somewhat gendered, but in a comfortable way.
I’m glad to see discussions around this show. I do see cultural transcendence happening in many different ways in this exhibition among art works, between work and audience, among space and visitors, also the net woven by all artists’ unique journey’s though through their life and works. Most of all how it’s transcended into this museum space and to visitors… ( hm… i should leave writings to critiques haha )
By the way, It seems my piece was not friendly to Jen that day. It’s not a kind of creature that can stay alone for 10 months so it needs to be taken care of or at least some patting. 🙂 Yesterday my assistant checked it so hope it’s all fine now.
This made me realize that I haven’t seen any review mentioning our performance although this piece is an interactive performance + installation so it cannot complete without it. Dear readers, this is just a brief documentation but hope it helps. http://kangeunsu.com/shinm/video.htm
Though you only can experience its spatial sound movement/extensions only at the site. I hope you enjoy exploring Shin’m space!
– Best, Eunsu Kang
hm I don’t know how I can change my typos on above writing. I’m certainly not tech savvy enough on Stranger website. ( I love this paper title “the Stranger” by the way ) 🙂