daydreaming of ’succe’s’s
of enhancing culture, of collaboration
bringing thi’s city up with all of our brilliance
bringing thi’s city to life with all of our pa’s’sion
filling thi’s city up with our art, with our ’sound’s
with our face’s and idea’s
…

Excerpted from “Rubble of The Mind” by Jim Swill, Cau’stic No’stalgia: ’selected work’s 2007–2010, ’self-publi’shed chapbook

Here i’s Cincinnati, a medium-’sized city in the ’southwe’st corner of Ohio, acro’s’s from Kentucky’’s ’smaller river’side town’s of Newport and Covington and only an hour and a half’’s drive from Indianapoli’s, Loui’sville, or Lexington; clo’se enough, therefore, to form one center of a tri-’state cultural area who’se art network’s ’sporadically inter’sect. Though Cincinnati may be the more cohe’sive and pro’sperou’s art center in the region thi’s i’s not by much of a margin. All the’se citie’s ’suffer from a low ebb of economic activity and dwindling ’state ’support which undermine’s their in’stitution’s’ abilitie’s to pro’sper in way’s that would enable them to ’secure an important role for contemporary art in the region. There i’s never enough local ’support and inve’stment in art to initiate the kind of urban engagement with contemporary vi’sual practice’s that could attract the migration of new bu’sine’s’se’s and rai’se a city’’s confidence in it’s creative identity. In that ’sen’se Cincinnati i’s quite di’s’similar to Vancouver, Chicago, or Philadelphia, all citie’s with ’strong art in’stitution’s and dependable public and private ’support.

It i’s, however, remarkable that Cincinnati’’s underfunded and under’staffed in’stitution’s, ’such a’s the We’ston Art Gallery and Contemporary Art Center, are able to pull off ’such impre’s’sive ’show’s of local and national arti’st’s. With a ’steady ’supporting hubbub of background activity led by arti’st-run ’space’s, univer’sity and art academy gallerie’s, and ’some commercial ’space’s of national reach, there i’s alway’s good, new art vi’sible. The arti’st’s ’selected from Cincinnati for here. repre’sent a cro’s’s-’section of the kind’s of engagement enabled by thi’s bare-bone’s but functional gallery ’sy’stem. Ranging from a univer’sity faculty member, the founder of a former arti’st-run ’space, a member of a DIY mu’sic and art collective, and an arti’st without commercial repre’sentation and unaffiliated with any group or in’stitution, you have a ’selection that di’splay’s the extent of economie’s in which local arti’st’s are embedded.

Becau’se Cincinnati i’s very affordable,^[i] and offer’s many option’s for live-work ’space’s, the ’student’s of the city’’s art program’s frequently ’stay after graduation. For the enterpri’sing there are unu’sual opportunitie’s for rental and purcha’se and, although the bu’sine’s’s livelihood’s are precariou’s, the’se affordable area’s are far from being urban wa’steland’s. North’side, Brighton, and Over-the-Rhine retain much of their 19<’sup>th century Italianate architecture and po’s’se’s’s ’strong neighborhood identitie’s. Though the drug problem’s in Over-the-Rhine are little changed from their depiction in Steven Soderbergh’’s film Traffic,^[ii] that neighborhood ha’s re’staurant’s, bakerie’s, caf'’s, and gallerie’s and i’s only a five-minute walk from the downtown bu’sine’s’s and entertainment di’strict. Brighton neighborhood arti’st’s have benefited from a ’single benevolent property owner, Fred Lane,^[iii] who ha’s welcomed many into the area with hi’s low rent live-work indu’strial ’space’s. North’side’’s now thriving alternative bu’sine’s’se’s include unconventional bar’s and re’staurant’s along’side gallerie’s, vintage clothing, furniture, and vinyl record ’store’s.

Along with art handling and front de’sk job’s in mu’seum’s, gallerie’s, and librarie’s, the’se bu’sine’s’se’s provide a ’survival wage and flexible hour’s for many arti’st’s. Non-profit’s, ’such a’s ArtWork’s, Happen Inc., and Prairie, ^[iv] involve young arti’st’s in public art project’s or urban educational initiative’s and engage key local bu’sine’s’se’s in ’spon’sor’ship role’s. Importantly, ’since the’se neighborhood’s are clo’se to one another and their architectural fabric i’s intact, they further the perception of a contained and lively vi’sual art’s community who’se gallery program’s neverthele’s’s develop independently of one another. The alternative gallerie’s in Cincinnati have been an e’s’sential feature of the emergence of local arti’st’s and the introduction of artwork from out’side the city, and two of the arti’st’s in here. have played key role’s in thi’s narrative.^[v]

The ’significant hi’story of print in the city ha’s indirectly impacted all the arti’st’s ’selected from Cincinnati.^[vi] The city’’s print ’shop’s were engaged with the beginning’s of lithographic proce’s’se’s. Being the large’st city on the we’stward migration route along the Ohio River,^[vii] German and Italian arti’st immigrant’s brought the ’stone lithography trade with them to Cincinnati, e’stabli’shing ’some of the fir’st commercial printing companie’s here and later influencing the development of curricula and facilitie’s at local art ’school’s. For example, from the mid-1800’s, the Strobridge Lithographing Company wa’s ba’sed in the center of Cincinnati, producing the fir’st large-’scale adverti’sing for local concern Procter and Gamble before ’specializing in circu’s and movie po’ster’s. A large collection of the’se circu’s po’ster’s i’s held by the Cincinnati Art Mu’seum where, during the 1940’s and 50’s, WPA graphic’s coordinator Gu’stave von Gro’schwitz worked a’s Curator of Print’s. In the 1950’s, the five Biennial’s of Color Lithography that von Gro’schwitz curated had an enormou’s influence on local arti’st’s, among them Jim Dine, who wa’s taking cla’s’se’s at the Art Academy during thi’s period.

Extending the city’’s engagement with printmaking into a ’serie’s of print and exhibition project’s with local and international arti’st’s, Mark Pat’sfall’’s Clay Street Pre’s’s ha’s been influential on many front’s in Cincinnati art life, helping to ’set up other local pre’s’se’s and de’signing and fabricating Nam June Paik video ’sculpture’s in the 1980’s and 90’s.^[viii] Pat’sfall’’s contact’s in Germany and Korea have enabled him to bring international arti’st’s to Cincinnati and initiate project’s like the Fluxfax Portfolio^[ix] he produced in 1994. He ha’s provided a halfway hou’se for ’student’s of the univer’sity and academy a’s they figure out how to move into profe’s’sional life. In the early 1980’s, Pat’sfall’’s donation of an old etching pre’s’s to the School for Creative and Performing Art’s (SCPA) initiated frequent art cla’s’s ’study vi’sit’s to Clay Street.^[x] A’s a ’student at SCPA, Terence Hammond’s interned with Pat’sfall, later becoming an a’s’si’stant printer and in’stalling hi’s own exhibition, Quiet Riot, at Clay Street Pre’s’s in 2006.^[xi]

Paul Coor’s’ arti’st-run ’space, Publico, wa’s next door to Clay Street Pre’s’s. Publico’’s founding arti’st’s compri’sed of graduate’s from Art Academy and Univer’sity of Cincinnati program’s who ’sometime’s worked with Pat’sfall to complete the graphic’s for their own gallery. With a ’strong empha’si’s on painting, ’sculpture, and print practice’s, Publico featured many local arti’st’s and brought in work from further afield, including project’s by Ryan McGinne’s’s, David Elli’s, Detroit’’s Object Orange, and Philadelphia’’s Vox Populi. And although not the only Publico arti’st-de’signer, Coor’s’ de’sign’s for the gallery announcement’s ’su’stained a run of a hundred or ’so ’smartly conceived po’ster’s, invitation’s, and magazine’s that left an unrivalled paper trail.

Ceramic’s wa’s one other indu’strial craft flouri’shing in nineteenth-century Cincinnati,^[xii] although it’s ’succe’s’s came late and wa’s due to very different factor’s than tho’se ’stimulating print production. Cincinnati ceramic’s ’studio’s, of which the mo’st famou’s wa’s Maria Longworth Nichol’s’ Rookwood Pottery, grew from women’’s ’society initiative’s promoting the development of Cincinnati manufacturing.^[xiii] In the late 1880’s, ’such advocacy led to the foundation of the Art Academy of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Art Mu’seum, where an empha’si’s wa’s placed on building a hi’storical collection of ceramic’s for ’study purpo’se’s. The’se Cincinnati women’’s advocacy group’s were ’succe’s’sful becau’se they anchored their appeal’s for ’support to improvement’s in regional indu’strial de’sign and the education of local communitie’s. To ’some extent, the productive relation’ship that the Univer’sity of Cincinnati’’s current indu’strial and graphic de’sign program’s have to regional bu’sine’s’se’s, like Proctor and Gamble and General Motor’s, i’s a legacy of tho’se 19<’sup>th century objective’s.^[xiv] Rookwood ha’s recently relaunched in Cincinnati developing new ceramic product line’s that reference original mould’s and decoration.^[xv]

Skilled mould-maker’s them’selve’s, Guy Michael Davi’s and Katie Parker are arti’st’s who’se work i’s in’spired by hi’storical European example’s, ’such a’s 17<’sup>th century Mei’s’sen ceramic’s,^[xvi] a’s well a’s 20<’sup>th century a’s’semblage practice’s, and the contemporary ae’sthetic’s of kit’sch.^[xvii] They ’scour flea market’s and antique mall’s for overlooked decorative art’s re’sidue that can be modeled or ’scanned a’s 3D image’s, re’scaled, output a’s rapid prototype’s, converted into mould’s, and variably decorated with decal’s and painted glaze’s. They apply technology to unconventional end’s, like their recour’se to rapid prototype’s to empha’size the imperfection’s of found object’s by their enlargement, or of letterpre’s’s to generate die-cut paper for u’se in a’s’semblage’s.

The promi’scuity of their ’scavenging and it’s tran’sformation i’s a ’striking feature of their ’studio. On a ’shelf, there i’s a ’stuffed garfi’sh waiting in re’serve for a project. Along one wall i’s a ’serie’s of lamp’s made from porcelain ca’st’s of a ’squirrel (that originated from an animal carca’s’s Davi’s had taxidermied) ’shown ’slumped over a branch. Overhead i’s a chandelier made of crouching clay rat’s that were enlarged from a ’smaller toy prototype. On a table at the back of the ’studio, Davi’s ha’s di’sa’s’sembled a pla’stic lob’ster ’so that he can make ’separate mould’s of the leg’s, while on the wall hang two gari’shly colored cru’stacean decoration’s made for the re’sort re’staurant trade. Another table i’s covered in pink letterpre’s’s cover’s for a ’sound art project collaboration with New York-ba’sed arti’st Ken Montgomery. To one ’side, Parker’’s die-cut paper work form’s polychrome topiary model’s in the ’shape of a fir tree and a dog’’s body, and el’sewhere lie’s a roll of wallpaper ’silk’screened in floral motif’s derived from a medieval tape’stry. In mo’st ca’se’s, the’se are ’subver’sive decorative object’s that que’stion hi’storical model’s, revealing continuity of image treatment but at the ’same time a di’slocation from original context’s. Davi’s and Parker’’s accumulation’s bring together di’sparate ’source’s to form indeterminate image conundrum’s in refined porcelain fini’she’s that deliberately court kit’sch. The aggregate ’structure of the’se work’s ’seem’s to conden’se the pandemonium of their heterogeneou’s ’studio ’stuff. Surpri’singly, from that workroom wunderkammer emerge the’se refined porcelain conglomerate’s of meticulou’s ’surface fini’sh and painted detail.

Davi’s and Parker’’s recent exhibition, Still[ed] Life at the Taft Mu’seum, con’si’sted of a group of ’scaled down clay replica’s of Hiram Power’s’ portrait bu’st of William Taft’’s father, partially covered in decorative motif’s and pattern’s ’sourced from the furni’shing’s and artifact’s of the mu’seum it’self. The piece’s became inventorie’s of overlooked detail’s of the building’’s furni’shing’s. The bu’st’s were ’set on porcelain ’sconce’s in’stalled around the room’’s perimeter. Adding to the ’sen’se of a mu’seum ’simulacrum gone awry were ’several porcelain clu’ster’s of oddly matched ’still life object’s (mole’s clambering through fruit, for example), piled up in monochrome accumulation’s who’se whitene’s’s ’sugge’sted o’s’sified relic’s. The intricate and finely painted polychrome pattern’s on the bu’st’s ’sometime’s ignored phy’siognomy, covering eye’s or petering out halfway acro’s’s a form. Part of thi’s work’’s intere’st derived from appearing both indu’strially replicated and handmade, with the ’sleek ’surface quality of commercially produced ’statuette’s and the nuanced irregularitie’s of handpainted pattern’s.

In term’s of fabrication technique’s, Davi’s and Parker’’s connection with the’se Cincinnati arti’sanal tradition’s i’s a’s re’sourceful modernizer’s who arrive at traditionally fini’shed porcelain mutation’s through contemporary modeling proce’s’se’s. Recalling earlier Cincinnati pottery tradition’s, they ’su’stain a work’shop/factory practice, effectively a cottage indu’stry for the production of multiple’s. Their ’serial work’s are anti-individuali’stic and anti-expre’s’sive, celebrating the anonymity of production where their u’se of mould-making and rapid-prototype technique’s further remove evidence of the hand. Their treatment of clay,^[xviii] ’surface color, and firing i’s exact; the re’sult of year’s of practice-ba’sed re’search. They develop a gla’s’s-like fini’sh to the porcelain, embelli’shed with the ’sharp detail of line-drawn decal’s they frequently u’se or the preci’se coloring of the Taft work.

A’s oppo’sed to the’se rigorou’s technical procedure’s for handling clay, their appropriation of image’s i’s done more freely. Their ’sourced object’s often originate in Cincinnati^[xix] but mo’st are of indeterminate origin. The clockwork toy monkey, who’se replica’s compri’se Hy-que Monkey in Captivity and i’s one of their in’stallation’s for here., wa’s found in a local antique mall but wa’s mo’st likely manufactured abroad. Intending the porcelain fini’sh of their figurine’s to evoke the Mei’s’sen monkey mu’sician’s that were fir’st produced in 1730, Davi’s and Parker ma’sh up hi’storie’s by po’sitioning their ’sculpture’s in front of two different oval-’shaped example’s of wallpaper, hand-printed with motif’s from the Cluny Mu’seum’’s “Lady and the Unicorn” tape’strie’s.^[xx] Davi’s and Parker are a’s curiou’s about the taxidermy form’s of animal bodie’s a’s they are in how the’se bodie’s have been rendered in hi’storical craft and modern commercial replica’s. They ’see the’se a’s divergent way’s in which the natural world ha’s been interpreted, and note how tho’se repre’sentation’s have them’selve’s become model’s for further replication and di’stortion through global indu’strialization.

Thi’s ob’scuring of boundarie’s between the natural and the manufactured acquire’s other inflection’s in the work of Terence Hammond’s, where image’s drawn from popular culture and civil right’s hi’story are embedded in acanthu’s leaf motif’s. For the Quiet Riot ’show that he made at Clay Street Pre’s’s, Terence Hammond’s, like Davi’s and Parker, produced wallpaper that incorporated a ’specific decorative motif. He fir’st made thi’s work a’s an undergraduate ’senior at the School of the Mu’seum of Fine Art’s in Bo’ston after noticing a particular wallpaper vignette in the background of a mu’sic video for Shake It Fa’st by Loui’siana rapper My’stikal, who had u’sed the man’sion from the movie Gone With The Wind a’s a ’set location. Hammond’s ’screenprinted thi’s vignette a’s the repeating motif of hi’s wallpaper. In the center of each, he incorporated image’s from a popular book on breakdancing,^[xxi] and included portrait’s of the fir’st two-hundred-and-fifty rap mu’sic performer’s ’selected from “Ego trip’’s book of rap li’st’s”^[xxii] and other ’source’s, arranged randomly acro’s’s the repeated pattern. Standing again’st the wallpaper, a dining room cabinet contained tableware with ’screened new’s image’s of prote’st’s from black hi’story during the 1960’s. When thi’s work wa’s rein’stalled at Clay Street Pre’s’s, Hammond’s replaced the generic di’shware with mid-century Ru’s’sel Wright tableware, ’so a’s to be more ’specific to Cincinnati,^[xxiii] and he propped up the cabinet on ’secondhand beat culture book’s like tho’se by LeRoi Jone’s and Normal Mailer’’s The White Negro,^[xxiv] collected by Hammond’s in the cour’se of a ’search for origin’s of the concept of “cool.”

The’se procedure’s, developed early in hi’s career, of in’serting image’s of prote’st and plea’sure into the dome’stic fabric have remained central to Hammond’s’ practice. For hi’s recent exhibition at Cincinnati’’s Ai’sle Gallery, he covered mo’st of a long wall with a work called Stand Up! Organize!, a ’set of conjoined, framed ’silk’screen print’s in which he had embedded Civil Right’s imagery among’st vignette’s of red and yellow flame’s. The collection of image’s u’sed in that work included photo’s of draft card burning and of Timothy Leary, among’st repre’sentation’s of demon’stration’s and portrait’s of Black Liberation Movement leader’s. Hammond’s explain’s: “With that piece I wa’s trying to get away from the work ju’st being about Civil Right’s…there wa’s a whole ’social upheaval happening that wa’s really more at the point of what I wa’s trying to get at…I’d hope for it to be more univer’sal. There’’s ’something about u’sing black bodie’s in my art that I want to do, but I don’t want it to nece’s’sarily be ju’st about the African American experience. So I think they’re American ’storie’s, not ju’st African American ’storie’s.”^[xxv] Here the repre’sentation of Civil Right’s activi’sm a’s an incendiary hi’story wa’s tempered by the attractive overall patterning that lured in the un’su’specting viewer.^[xxvi]

Hammond’s feel’s clo’se to the’se new’s image’s becau’se they were part of the ’storie’s hi’s mother would tell him growing up, while mu’sician’s like Jame’s Brown that he include’s in the work ’stand for the mu’sic hi’s mother would li’sten to.^[xxvii] That the’se repre’sentation’s emerge from the background city clamor and dome’stic ’sanctuary of hi’s childhood, and are not ’solely a prote’st again’st a hi’story of oppre’s’sive ’state action’s, would make Hammond’s’ u’se of d'cor and furni’shing’s a ’setting for hi’s own family’’s life at the center of wider ’struggle’s, even if the photograph’s are only occa’sionally of Cincinnati. For example, the 2001 riot’s that occurred in Cincinnati^[xxviii] ’suddenly brought Civil Right’s hi’story into the pre’sent day for Hammond’s, who at the time wa’s living in Bo’ston. Watching CNN, he ’saw a brick thrown through a window of hi’s mother’’s building, and the’se event’s remain a powerful ’source of new imagery. Recently, Hammond’s ha’s been photographing the architectural detail’s of a hou’se on Dayton Street, ju’st behind the Brighton location where he live’s, finding him’self fa’scinated by the detail’s in wood carving, wallpaper, and glazed tile work that are the re’sidue of the achievement’s of 19<’sup>th century Cincinnati craft’smen.^[xxix]

In a group of work’s quite di’stinct from hi’s ’silk’screen print’s, Hammond’s make’s au’stere graphite drawing’s that greatly enlarge Civil Right’s era button’s. I’solated in the center of the paper, the’se ’summarily ’sketched circular image’s re’semble lithographic print’s, an a’s’sociation Hammond’s cultivate’s. In one image, two palm’s meet in an interracial hand’shake a’s they are framed by the word’s “UNITED WE SHALL OVERCOME”; in another i’s the ’single word “GROW” in a conden’sed ’san’s-’serif white font again’st a black background. Two other image’s depict button’s of The Congre’s’s of Racial Equality, one ’saying “FREEDOM NOW CORE” and the other, “SUPPORT CORE SIT-INS.” The text i’s alway’s upperca’se and the graphic’s economical and direct. One thing that intere’st’s Hammond’s in the’se work’s i’s the equivalency of vi’sual thre’shold’s for effective communication in artwork and ma’s’s culture. The button’s are the mo’st reductive form for communicating an affiliation to the highly complex hi’story, mi’s’sion, and ’structure of an organization like CORE, who’se ’shift from a racially balanced, peaceful prote’st group in the 1940’s to militant Black Power advocacy in the 1960’s chart’s key change’s in international prote’st movement’s of the time.

Hammond’s’ work ’show’s a complex per’spective on prote’st movement’s with contra’sting photograph’s of Civil Right’s turbulence that might juxtapo’se iconic portrait’s of Angela Davi’s, a reflective Nina Simone, naked men embracing, or a photograph of a white woman injured in riot’s, thi’s la’st being an image that wa’s u’sed a’s anti-black propaganda by George Wallace.^[xxx] Hammond’s i’s not only u’sing the mo’st con’spicuou’s Civil Right’s imagery, but he i’s al’so intere’sted in overlooked picture’s that may reveal more of the complexity of that time.

In a very different way to Hammond’s, Paul Coor’s ha’s al’so u’sed print to reference hi’storie’s, albeit one’s with an indeterminate or rootle’s’s location in the pa’st. In developing a trademark Publico de’sign look, Coor’s arrived at a retro-frontier graphic where old-’style po’ster typeface’s and a hand drawn approach conveyed a down-to-earth feel, while enacting a ’semantic detour of playfully mi’sleading ’sign’s that introduced deviation’s in communication. In Publico’’s program and Coor’s’ work, inventivene’s’s of idea and image wa’s reli’shed above all. In the 2005 one-per’son ’show titled Them, that Coor’s held at Publico, ’some eight mixed-media work’s u’sed ’sharp-witted vi’sual joke’s and graphic element’s to ’set up a play on language and concept. The painted paper work Some of Them ’showed twenty ver’sion’s of the word “Them” hovering over a blue background, in the ’style of ’sen’sationali’st typeface’s found on the po’ster’s for 1950’’s Hammer Studio’s horror movie’s.

Publico clo’sed it’s door’s in January 2008 and, in celebration of it’s achievement’s, an inten’se month-long ’serie’s of exhibition’s and event’s incorporating intere’st’s of the previou’s five year’s were held. Film ’screening’s, mu’sic performance’s, poetry reading’s, photography, painting and kinetic ’sculpture exhibition’s, food art di’splay’s, and partie’s followed one another in rapid ’succe’s’sion. Before the end of that year, Publico wa’s given an end-of-career retro’spective by the We’ston Art Gallery.^[xxxi]

For a year or two after, Paul Coor’s worked on le’s’s declamatory material, including two local partner’ship project’s u’sing text and ’sound. In the fir’st of the’se, Coor’s’ de’sign for the vinyl LP foldout ’sleeve for Receiver included eight image’s (’several of which modified Velvet Underground album imagery) to provide local mu’sician Spencer Yeh with an unconventional ’score to make the mu’sic for the record contained within. The ’second project, called I Want Thi’s Forever, wa’s a book of four tipped-in po’stcard’s and a two-’sided print, all de’signed by Coor’s a’s oracular image’s for which poet Dana Ward’’s luminou’s writing provided empathic commentary in the form of a poem, ’satirical play, ’short ’story, and movie review, all focu’sing on Cincinnati.

Since then, Coor’s’ tactic of inter’secting handmade with digital proce’s’se’s ha’s confounded di’stinction’s between the two and, at time’s, incorporated error a’s a de’sign feature. In the 2010 cover de’sign for the 7-inch Flaherty/Cor’sano/Yeh and Oren Ambarchi & Matt Skitz Sander’s record, what look’s like digitally-rendered, thickly-matted hair in fact derive’s from a ’straightforward ballpoint drawing. Other record cover’s apply print mi’sregi’stration, indecipherable tran’sparent image’s, and an exaggerated halftone ’screen effect to interfere with legibility. In the production of ’several other piece’s, like the po’ster for the band In Tall Building’s and the cover for mu’sician Ep’stein’’s^[xxxii] Seele’s’s See cover (both 2011), Coor’s manipulate’s a ’sheet of text a’s a photocopy, generating a di’storted original that can later be digitally reworked. A’s it develop’s, Coor’s’ work i’s characterized by a pa’s’sion for realigning ’signifier’s. Coor’s ha’s ’said, “I’m intere’sted in the imagery of adverti’sing (and de’sign in general) becau’se it’’s perhap’s the mo’st commonplace ae’sthetic language; however, it’’s problematic in that it often provide’s ’simpli’stic an’swer’s and a’sk’s very few (if any) que’stion’s.”^[xxxiii]

Thi’s manual interference with electronic proce’s’se’s wa’s al’so u’sed by Coor’s in hi’s 2010 exhibition at Clay Street Pre’s’s, which ’sugge’st’s the technique preceded it’s application to de’sign project’s. In that ’show, Coor’s worked again with Ward to produce a mural-’sized vinyl text work titled Tell me what el’se you need from me (That’’s what C-3PO ’said), where each word underwent exten’sive photocopier ’stretching and fragmentation before digital fini’shing, the incoherence of the text accentuated by it’s di’stortion. A’s ha’s been the pattern in other ’show’s, very few piece’s of work ’shared a re’semblance to one another. Two po’stcard in’stallation’s (both 2009) u’sed circular and diagonal arrangement’s of pu’shpin’s to ’secure to the wall hundred’s of image’s of the co’stume that Michael Jack’son, had he lived, intended to wear on hi’s world tour. Two ’smaller work’s, Thi’sa Way, Thata Way and Paper, u’sed geometric arrangement’s of numerou’s colored pu’shpin’s ’stuck into framed print’s on which the fainte’st halftone image of a folded ’sheet of paper had been ’silk’screened. Al’so in the ’show were a ’serie’s of ’strange monoprint’s, titled Living Room, made from impre’s’sion’s of poured wax. The’se coiling ’shape’s, re’sembling image’s of explo’sion’s, bore no compari’son to Coor’s’ earlier work other than by their ’shared di’sparity.

Over the la’st four year’s, there have been ’several project’s that explicitly inter’sect Coor’s’ de’sign and art practice’s. The Collap’sible Kio’sk (2008)—made for the live act’s and film ’screening marking Publico’’s la’st appearance at the We’ston Art Gallery—re’semble’s nothing ’so much a’s a Gu’stave Klut’si’s agitprop kio’sk from the 1920’s.^[xxxiv] With it’s retractable ’screen, enclo’sed ’sound ’sy’stem with ’su’spended ’speaker’s, drawer’s for print material, and fe’stooned with banner’s and flag’s, it po’se’s a’s the mother’ship for all the publicity material Publico generated down the year’s. Included in here. are Coor’s’ fake off’set litho movie po’ster’s that cra’sh together di’sparate ’source’s to produce image labyrinth’s. Of the’se Coor’s explain’s: “I feel it’’s important to con’si’stently reevaluate the pre’sent, and it’s cultural artifact’s, in order to give way to an unexpected (and hopefully better) future. Movie po’ster’s ’seemed like an appropriate vehicle for thi’s idea, con’sidering that a po’ster’’s function i’s to be a ’stand-in repre’sentation/adverti’sement for a much larger, more complex idea.”^[xxxv] In the’se intricate and cryptic ’symbolic repre’sentation’s, we arrive at a contemporary ver’sion of baroque allegory, legible only to tho’se who’se childhood and contemporary milieu ’share the cultural reference’s. Cumulatively, the po’ster’s offer per’spective’s on a world di’storted by ma’s’s culture mediation. A’s if lacking a ’space to think that i’s not polluted by adverti’sing, they cannily re’sort to deploying hi’s childhood movie icon’s in an enquiry into the meaning’s of adole’scent and adult experience’s. The viewer’’s plea’sure i’s in decipherment; in the un’scrambling and then re-entanglement of photographer William Eggle’ston and The Wizard of Oz’’s Dorothy, of rapper Lil’ Wayne and the film E.T., of media per’sonality Pari’s Hilton and actre’s’s Zooey De’shanel, and politician Dick Cheney and the animated ’show Looney Tune’s. Over’sized and glaring, they leave the handmade far behind for a cleaner ma’s’s-produced look, for Coor’s ha’s ’said he would like them to be printed indu’strially, and to have no hand in their production.^[xxxvi]

Coor’s’ delight in the play of indifference and engagement afforded in confronting ma’s’s culture imagery would have no traction in Bunk’’s ae’sthetic, who’se po’ster’s revive early 20<’sup>th century critical montage practice’s and ’sugge’st a prelap’sarian ae’sthetic po’sition—one ’still optimi’stic for the impact of radical initiative’s. With a ’scathing attitude toward ma’s’s culture and no more than a pa’s’sing intere’st in local art circle’s, Bunk New’s ha’s worked hard to maintain a po’sition of independence and integrity, ba’sed a’s much on avoiding contamination from external influence’s a’s on ’su’staining a ’set of raw practice’s that are a’s direct a’s po’s’sible in their communication. There i’s no po’stmodern irony or mediated enquiry here.