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In Nayland Blake's 7th exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery the artist steals cultural narratives and applies a queer-black eye upon things associated with the straight gal or guy. Upon walking into Nayland Blake's exhibition Reel Around, you are immediately confronted with a child sized bunny suit carefully sewn together of low brow souvenir concert and pro wrestling t-shirts, one scrap contains a bawdy limerick parody celebrating base desires for sex and alcohol.. The child size initially instills a desire to gush and brings to mind kids with saccharin sweet pajamas imposed upon them by their doting parents. But the sliced up remnants of low brow culture subverts the preconceived emotive response and presents this bunny with a bit of attitude. Blake's work plays with subtle contradictions by skewing cultural narratives. This is apparent in both his work and his influences which range from authors such as Kathy Acker and Djuna Barnes and performers such as Richard Foreman, Sun Ra, Jack Smith, The Wooster Group, and Pro Wrestling. The main gallery is dominated by "The Big One" a huge white bunny suit. A recurring symbol in Blake's art which serves as a stand in for aspects of the artist's identity (gay and the child of bi-racial parents) the bunny persona connotes ideas of gay promiscuity, i.e. Fucks like a rabbit; as well as the cultural references to racial denigrations, e.g. Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. When I asked Blake to elaborate on his interest in Kathy Acker he replied: "The thing I love about her work is that her writing is passionately based in reading - in filtering stories through other stories and stamping them with her own convictions. When she encounters another writer she hijacks them into her world unabashedly. I thought this was an empowering way to proceed instead of being afraid of influence or contact with other artists." And Blake does successfully take cues from other artists to empower his own vision. Whether it is a nod to Jasper Johns through Blake's use of the flag in "Triple Surrender", a triptych of all white confederate flags hung in descending sizes, or to Robert Gober, through the peculiar subversion of normalcy or even Bruce Nauman through the use of humor in sculpture and performance, Blake smartly stands among his peers and within the art historical legacy which precedes him. Blake uses his own body to address hyper masculine intimacy. Blake, a great bear of a man decorated with tattoos and a big bushy beard has performed various DVD works including a collaboration with artist A.A. Bronson in the work "Coat" in which he and Bronson are depicted in separate monitors tenderly slathering black and white cake frosting on each others faces. The second part of "Coat", installed in the back-room gallery, shows the two artists on one monitor embraced in a kiss. The image of these two burly men in a scatological cake frosting kiss it would appear to be comic or repulsive but instead it comes across as a celebration. In the artist's own words: "Making art is manifesting our individual presence in the world. Shame is the name we give to the way we have been instructed to regard that presence. I think that to the extent that we can become "shameless", we can see each other clearly. Most often shame is used as a damping and policing device. Even within supposed "minorities" it is a way of squelching difference. I think of my work as a practice in reveling in my own complexities, differences and indecisions. I'd hope that I could be an aid to other folks doing the same." Blake does indeed serve as an aid, and a queer voice that is outside
of the stereo types and safe cultural niches currently occupied by the
likes of a celibate gay man such as Will and his fag hag Grace and the
doting queer eye house keepers servicing heterosexual white males. It
is refreshing to get a real queer eye upon an odd ball world in Reel Around.
This artist and show are not to be missed. By Andrew Robinson Exhibition Information Nayland Blake: Reel Around Related Links
This review was written for the Gay
City News, New York City |
The Big One Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York Download a compressed high resolution image bigone.tif |
