Quinn Zenner, Frank Zappa Tapestry, 2015, Graphite, marker, and colored pencil on paper, 18” x 24”
The latest of many ambitious exhibitions organized by guest curators in collaboration with Arts of Life* curators, Dance, Dance, Dance at Circle Contemporary is an elaborate selection of 29 works by 30 artists (including a collaborative video piece by Lizzi Bougatsos and Jess Holzworth). Pulling from Arts of Life artists, the broader contemporary art community, as well as his personal collection, Tyson Reeder has assembled an exhibition representing a diverse range of concepts and approaches. The resulting installation is bright and lively - an exuberant arrangement of individualistic and intuitive works. From Reeder’s statement:
Dance, Dance, Dance draws together artists that channel the mystery and immediacy of music in their approach to making work. As one of the most persistent muses of the visual arts, the unifying power of music shows up here in different forms, sparking unlikely affinities under the hazy glow of the disco ball. Glammed-up party people strut and vamp in the work of LA-based artist Marcel Alcalá and Aria Carter, while Quinn Zenner’s Frank Zappa Tapestry builds a dissonant wall of sound with wandering marker lines and rhythmic color. Fandom is rampant, in works such as Bill Lilly’s obsessive 80’s Hair Metal Bands and Nikole Heusman’s King of Pop. Artists that maintain concurrent lives as DJs and musicians are also represented throughout, including NY-based Sadie Laska, Matthew Higgs, and Spencer Sweeney, and members of the legendary Arts of Life Band.
The aspiration to capture an elusive experience through static visual works, and sense of mystery inherent in that process, is a recurring theme in Reeder’s creative projects. In his paintings, the use of plein air landscape painting is the classic expression of that concept - works that strive to embody the intensity of being out in nature, translating what appears (or happens) directly before you onto a flat surface. Unlike the traditional practice though, Reeder leans into spontaneity and playfulness rather than recording the process of observation or an accurate recreation for the viewer. In his curatorial projects and subversive collaborative works - like Drunk vs. Stoned, Beach Painting Club, and amorphous pop-up concept project Club Nutz - the overlap or enmeshing of the ephemeral and static is also prevalent.
Offering a significant entry point into this exhibition, Bill Lilly’s two text-based drawings 80s Hair Metal and Death Metal (2019) densely list his favorite bands in sharpie; the quivering, multicolored text clearly embodies the attitude of the era it recalls. It’s a straightforward idea, but the band names have evocative cultural weight as you read through - Def Leppard, Foreigner, AC/DC, Queensryche, Motorhead. Much like looking through Christina Zion’s handmade artist book The King of Pop Dies at 50 (2015), a sense of identity for the person or fan base that finds this music meaningful begins to form. Here, the exhibition’s proposition is plain. These works encode culture, which the viewer internalizes as memories, and cultivate the notion that the art object itself possesses experience.
Bill Lilly, 80’s Hair Metal, 2019, Marker on paper, 14” x 17”
Quinn Zenner explores the intangible relationship between mysticism and music, which lies in a sense of wonder and transcendent moments of shared emotion. Frank Zappa Tapestry (2015), like much of Zenner’s imaginative abstraction, is driven by intuition and curiosity. Using graphite, colored pencil, and markers, bold sinuous lines and irregular clusters of shapes interweave a splendid array of influences and interests. When talking about his improvisational process Zenner muses, “Take time. Whatever comes to mind. It floats in the head, you know? When you think something hard-core, or whatever, it just keeps releasing. In my view, it’s very hectic.” Demonstrating that the act of making has a higher value than any end product, Zenner often revisits previous drawings, cuts them up, and rearranges them on another surface, echoing his continuous personal navigation of existential questions and meaning.
Morgan Mandalay, Tap Dance, 2019, Oil on canvas, 14” x 11”
On close inspection, Morgan Mandalay’s modestly sized oil painting Tap Dance (2019) teems with fervid movement. The vitality of Mandalay’s works lies in the way his brushstrokes articulate subjects visually as much as willing them into existence by describing their movement in paint. Wispy flames and shadows insist that the experience of moving the brush will correspond to the experience of the reality they respond to - a perspective shared by Russell Copenharve’s Radio (2019). Copenharve poetically describes his painting process when discussing a past work: “I made the water move. See the water coming down. And see little stars. Shining little stars. The color - dark and splash. Like the water is moving. Splashing. Make my hand move - motion. See? The water is going that way.”
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Circle Contemporary is currently closed to the public. Dance, Dance, Dance is currently available for online viewing.
*Disparate Minds co-founders Andreana Donahue and Tim Ortiz are currently the Art Manager and Community Resources Coordinator at Arts of Life’s Chicago studio.