Saturday, August 24, 2013

Balls To The Wall @ Dodge Gallery



The show is about sports? I guess there is a Michelle Kwan video loop by Lisa Young and two wonderful mountain peeks made out of wood by Matt Browning and Leo Fitzmaurice’s little soccer jerseys made out of cigarette packs, so yeah, I guess the general concept of the show holds up. But the only reason to go see it is the long-awaited New York gallery debut (at least to my knowledge) of Tim Davis’s awesome Upstate New York Olympics videos, which feature Mr. Davis in isolating solitude engaging his surroundings in acts of competition where he fights snowmen, fences fences, rolls over yard signs, hurdles lawn jockeys and performs other absurdist acts, which all take place in an unassuming but often excellently framed working-class suburban area where dads drink and children play Little League and artists might possibly run across your lawn and barely clear your lawn jockey or the headstones of the old cemetery down the street. The work is juvenile and dumb, but in the same way lots of great conceptual art is. Fencing fences is about as brilliant and amusing as Ruscha’s Royal Road Test or Crackers. It’s the kind of thing that puts a smile on your face, but I am curious to see when Davis is gonna get back to doing what he does best, which is make smart inventive photographs. But in the meantime, go see the videos. If you’re not one to make it to the Lower East Side for art, they are all available on YouTube.


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