A few highlights from a hot and humid First Friday at 450 Harrison:
Cobi Moules – “Playing With Myself, Again” @ Carroll and Sons Gallery
A few of Cobi Moules’ self-portraits were hanging up in the back gallery the first time I ever visited Carroll and Sons and I was very happy to see Moules’ work there again, this time filling the main gallery.
“Untitled (6-7-12)” by Cobi Moules
The show winds together four different projects. Most immediately striking are the slightly larger than life self-portraits that Moules has been painting periodically since 2009. The self-portraits create a visual chronicle, most directly of his gender transition, but also of his painting style and maturity. Interwoven with the 30″x40″ portraits are smaller canvases on which Moules has created sylvan tableaus featuring a cast of Cobi clones. The picturesque but surreal images recall Anthony Goicolea’s photo composite scenes of himself roleplaying adolescent queer narratives, but Moules carefully paints where Goicolea Photoshops and the scenes are less obviously queer, focusing more on a communal exploration of nature.
by Cobi Moules
Shrinking even further, Moules abstracts his painted selves from nature and lets the tiny figures tumble together, collaged onto a blank paper void.
by Cobi Moules
Moules’ show combines pristine painting technique with rich exploration of self-identity and engages the viewer in the process of carefully inspecting each painting. Moules invites the viewer to look for subtle differences between many versions of the same person, but leaves the question open as to what the many divisions of self add up to. I look forward to more work from Moules in the years to come.
Phil Fryer and Tom Maio – “EPOCH” @ Anthony Greaney
The ever-engaging Anthony Greaney featured duel performances by Phil Fryer and Tom Maio going on throughout the evening on Friday. I missed Maio, but caught Fryer’s Patriotic themed performance, involving a red dress, blue and red paint, a keyboard, and a projection of a bed.
Phil Fryer performing
Linda Leslie Brown – “Chimeric” @ Kingston Gallery
Brown’s installation transforms Kingston Gallery into a forest sculpture, strings of moss linking together twisting metal towers.
“Chimeric” by Linda Leslie Brown
I enjoyed ducking in amongst the different sections to inspect the pale green sculptures that almost resolve into recognizable forms before the resemblance dissolves.
“Chimeric” by Linda Leslie Brown
Cobi Moules’s work looks amazing — I thought the first self-portrait was a photograph. I also really like Brown’s installations, or, at least, the photos you took of them, ha. This is a silly blanket statement, but, I’m never sure how I feel about performance art…
My strategy is to go into a performance with a very open mind – there is such a huge range of what performance can be! Still documentation can also be problematic since it’s only a moment in a more durational work…my explanation of this particular one may also be inadequate haha. I think like anything it also takes consuming/being exposed to a certain amount of it before being able to tell what you like/don’t like.