GINA BEAVERS: THE LIFE I DESERVE

In her alluring, provocative and often grotesque paintings, New York-based artist Gina Beavers transforms widely recognizable digital images appropriated from social media and the Internet into thickly layered compositions that border on sculpture – evident in her dense accumulations of acrylic medium or foam and imbued provocative colors. In particular, I was drawn to the artist’s #Foodporn series from 2014. This initial part of her exhibition concentrates on square format paintings of online food images, that glisten from afar – redolent of aesthetically appealing foodie pictures that many online users love to post/share. Up close, these pieces are suddenly three-dimensional with the combination of acrylic paint, foam, wood and other materials creating texture and gross materiality that breaches the presumptions of a flat plane surface. Personally, the depiction of a grilled steak – It’s a Beauty (2019) – is not as visually appealing as her glamorized take on Leftovers Days! (2015) purely because the smaller, lurid chops of beef bulging on top of each other is not as appetizing as a perceivably vibrant and freshly stuffed croissant sandwich. Moreover, the contrast in color schemes – with the grilled steak largely consisting of deep crimson and accents of white, whereas the croissant is made up of lighter, pastel colors that complement one another such as light beige, blues, and yellows – also, to some extent, affect the viewer’s experience by evoking particular emotional responses such as serenity and comfort or aggression and vulgarity. Therefore, tapping into our associations and/or relationships with these food items. Despite their compositional and stylistic differences, most often than none, the paintings appear better afar than up close. Upon closer inspection, the material no longer sustains the picture-perfect illusion; they become less appetizing, less delectable. The choice to use matte acrylic paint and the roughness created by the layered and harsh lines of Beavers’ brushstrokes transform the images, revealing the imperfections that are usually overlooked or well-hidden behind filters, alterations and other means of editing. Perhaps Beavers’ intention is likely to acknowledge the flawed definitions and perceptions of beauty online. Especially issues of ugliness and its implications towards the worth/value of a person, place or object.

JULIE BECKER: I MUST CREATE A MASTERPIECE TO PAY RENT

Embedded in the psychological, cinematic and material geographies of Los Angeles, her home city, Becker produced a fascinating yet underrated collection of installations, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and videos. These works speak to the language and mythology of the late 20th century American Dream turned nightmare, drawing from pop culture sources such as Stephen King’s The Shining, Disney’s fantasy The Gnome-Mobile, Kay Thompson’s children’s books Eloise and suburban “stoner myths” that suggest a similarity between The Wizard of Oz soundtrack and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Personally, her architectural displays and installations were what piqued my interest. As I took in her works, particularly the installation Researchers, Residents, A Place to Rest (1993–1996) and the open-ended series Whole, the interior spaces appeared psychically charged and provisional, conjuring locations for potential refuge and fantastical escape. According to the blurbs surrounding the works, Becker did so to construct altered narratives around other real and fictional lives. The details and personal touches within each ‘room’ indicated that Becker chose to reflect her direct experiences of spaces, such as when being in a single room occupancy hotel versus a broken-down building caught in the flux of real estate speculation. I noticed that despite her most powerful works alluding to the kind of transitory living spaces Becker herself inhabited; I felt that they most evoked a somewhat horror-movie-type menace, especially as most if not all of the spaces had no occupants, therefore encompassing an air of alienation and loneliness. Perhaps this may be why Becker was specifically drawn to Stanley Kubrick’s movie adaptation of The Shining, and why she may have chosen to create small scale reconstructions of iconic settings from the film. Moreover, I sensed a feeling or a fear of the unknown in her artwork, as the viewer would need to have prior knowledge or understanding of Becker’s pop culture references to fully appreciate the accuracy of her work. Overall, Becker navigated the formations of truth, fiction, and myth, evident in both her choice of materials and the symbolism present in her works. Thereby revealing both intimate and sometimes even eerie depictions of her notions of fantasy and reality.

SIMONE FATTAL: WORKS AND DAYS

Born in Damascus, Syria and educated in both Beirut, Lebanon and Paris, France, Simone Fattal is a multifaceted artist, known for both her expressive paintings and sculptural work. At the MoMA PS1, Fattal’s exhibition is a transporting retrospective of paintings, collages, and small-scale ceramic sculptures. Hand-modeled and glazed in earthy-tones objects are displayed in dynamic arrangements on grand cylindrical pedestals, bleachers, and a long L-shaped ledge. The vessels and figures, at once personable and iconographic, are highly stylized, with indistinct features and tree-trunk-like legs, suggesting mysteriously formidable archeological artifacts. In her art, Fattal’s personal experience of displacement entwines with myth and with a political critique. The works’ titles refer to characters from Arabian and Greek epics, and also to migrants and refugees. The statues stand like forgotten idols in dense groupings throughout the show, arranged on tall plinths, terraced shelves, and ledges running the length of a room. A larger than typical sculpture from 1988, titled “Torso Found in Today’s Downtown Beirut,” is a dramatic example of the artist’s gift for toggling between epochs—it’s a relatively large chunk of found alabaster, carved to accentuate its resemblance to both ancient statuary and a body decimated by war. The statue particularly feels as if it has been excavated from an ancient ruin—a broken shard of something larger that has been lost to time. In Fattal’s figurative sculptures, modest clay figures are rendered with just enough detail to be discernible as individuals, revealing her interest with the persistence and fragility of the human form. After researching further, I found that her art has continued to assess how digging into the past can lead to a fuller understanding of the present, and also how narratives and histories can be co-opted and exploited.