New Neighbor

This morning, I ran into this fellow  on the Cambridge Common.  When he tried to pick me up,  I gave him the cold shoulder, which he seemed to enjoy. Oh, well.

It was cool to come upon the whimsical snowpersons  that seemed to guide my way  along the paths covered in deep snow by yesterday’s fierce blizzard …especially after President Barack Obama’s thoughtful talk, last night, about the importance of civility, the American national family and the need  to move forward in a positive way after  the horrific shootings in Tuscon. [ Here’s a link to the speech, in case you missed it: http://pol.moveon.org/azobamaspeech.html?id=25807-6209466-EecNh0x&t=3]

In fact, despite all the awful things going on the world–or maybe because of them–I’m finding that my neighbors–like whoever made the snowman–seem to be more considerate these days. After the last big storm, I ran into someone from the building next door (who asked me not to use his name) who was clearing snow, water and ice at a crosswalk so that people would not have to wade through deep water to reach the curb. And my downstairs neighbor, who doesn’t have a car, sometimes just shovels out other peoples’ cars for the fun (and exercise) of it.

Actually, I’ve felt that many people have been more neighborly, nicer, since 9/11…tho this group does not include certain Republicans and pundits who seem to get nastier as time goes on. I was shocked to learn that Ben Quayle, Vice President Dan Quayle’s son, who is now, unfortunately, a Congressman, actually said in a campaign ad that Barack Obama is the worst president this country has ever had..and don’t get me started on Sarah Palin’s trigger-happy “mean girl” rhetoric.  Rather than engage in namecalling and derision,  I’ll quit now –and simply  thank whomever built Mr. Snowman for your neighborliness and sense of fun. You really brightened my day!

–Anita M. Harris

Anita M. Harris is president of  the Harris Communications Group, a public relations and marketing firm in Cambridge, MA.

This month, Charles LeDray and Evelyn Rydz at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston,  and Leonardo Drew, at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA, share a common theme–all focus on decay and the passage of time.

DeDray makes small items–men’s clothing, thousands of tiny ceramic pots,  sculptures in stitched fabric, carved bone, and wheel-thrown clay. As ICA materials point out, the smaller-than-life formal suits, embroidered patches, ties, and hats, as well as scaled-down chests of drawers, doors, and unique, thimble-sized vessels–and even facsimiles of used clothing stores complete with dust, make the viewer feel large and encourage thought about the content of the constructions. For example the coat in the photo to the left encompasses all sorts of other clothing–bras, pants, tops–making the point that individuals are composites of their experiences and other people.

My friend E liked the exhibit–because it elicited people no longer with us.  S, who tends to save things, found it interesting.

Nearby, in the galleries housing winners in the ICA’s Annual Foster Prize Exhibit, Evelyn Rydz’s “intricate drawings of beaches, based on her own photographs–focus on objects she finds washed up on coastlines worldwide. ”

According to the ICA, this work explores ” the site where sea meets land”…and shows “characters with long stories to tell.” She “references the journey and transformation that these objects have undergone, illuminating their role as castaways in foreign landscapes.”

At the DeCordova, Drew’s show, “Existed”  highlights  “the cyclical nature of creation, decay, and regeneration through a selection of large-scale sculptures, installations, and works on paper.

Built from rows of stacked cotton and wooden boxes, stuffed with rags, covered with scavenged objects, and caked with rust to suggest degeneration, Drew’s sculptural work is made to resemble the detritus of everyday life.

The artist often ages his found and fabricated materials, employing a process that is physically and conceptually steeped in memory, history, and the passage of time. These disparate materials are often composed within a grid that organizes the chaos into an ordered structure.

 Not exactly the pleasantest of subjects.

And  I suppose it’s good to be able to find beauty in decay–or to make beauty of  it.

In pondering the  decisions to highlight these artists,  I can’t help but conclude that  the curators are  making  statements about the current state of civilization, politics, and art.  All of these artists are highly skilled at what they do. But  I ask, after exploring and commenting on decay and loss, what is left for them (and us?) to do?

Anita M. Harris

Anita M. Harris, a writer and photographer, is president of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA.

Roni Horn AKA Roni Horn is a must-see restrospective by painter/photographer/sculptor/poet named…you guessed it:  “Roni Horn.” 

At Boston’s  Institute of Contemporary Art, the show, the first to compile such a large body of her work,  explores the changing nature of identity and perception.

In several galleries, the show  does so through photographic portraits of the artist and others at different stages of life.  

On the ICA’s first floor, photographs of the artist juxtapose images of her looking  traditionally masculine with others in which she appears “traditionally feminine–” from early childhood to the present.

On the fourth floor,   large portaits of her niece, also taken at different ages,  show slightly different expressions, moods, attitudes– are repeated, Warhol-like, in photo after photo.

Another gallery features pairs of seemingly identical photos of the heads and necks of owls and other birds taken from behind. 

Yet another includes two identical? photos of a white owl on a black perch.

Dead Owl, 1998

An ICA brochure explains  that many of Horne’s works are  “composed as pairs, series or with multiple sides, inviting us to notice subtle yet infinte difference between their parts. ”

I was particularly intrigued and impressed with Horn’s large format photographs of water in nature–roiling, calm, on rocks, with glints of sun–many taken of London’s River Thames–and Horn’s accompanying poetic commentary on the changing nature of water and our perception of it. 

Still Water, 1999

The “water” gallery  also includes two glass sculptures–one largely clear and white, the other mostly black–which, at times,  appear to be receptacles filled with water but have surfaces that seem to change shape. 

  Through a doorway in this gallery, the viewer can see out onto the water in Boston Harbor–highlighting all the more our involvement in/relation to/changing perception of the substance that is part and parcel of our existence–but can also destroy us.  

I also enjoyed Horn’s colorful glass sculptures–one, entitled “Pink Tons” , is the largest chunk of glass ever cast; the other, a  red  hassock-like piece with a squished-in corner that reminded me of a gigantic “gummy bear.”

Pink Tons

Both appeared to change in form and texture depending on the viewer’s vantage point. 

“Peer over the top of Pink Tons’ opaque cast sides into a seemingly liquid center that reacts to the atomsospheric changes of Boston’s light and weather. This five-ton glass cube is at once imposing and inviting, brutish yet pink, ”  the  brochure explains.

“Integrating difference is the basis of identity, not the exclusion of it,” Horn writes. “You are this and this and that….”

Not only is each work beautiful and provocative in itself–but the show as a whole,  which integrates a multitude of media and art forms,  is a brilliant expression encorporating the artist’s multiple talents and perceptions –and our own.  

—Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group. We also publish HarrisCom Blog and Ithaca Diaries Blog.