A group art exhibit is like a mix tape. None of the artists created their work with the intention of having it displayed right next to another artist’s work. Even when the pieces are displayed in the same gallery, it is challenging to find a common thread. Much more difficult than writing about one artist’s body of work, it’s like writing about the very small exhibitions of too many artists, so I have wholeheartedly been avoiding writing about group shows until now.
I was wary when a row of life-sized human figures shrouded in white greeted me at the Cosmic Wonder show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — maybe because they were standing in piles of broken bottles, or maybe because I caught a glimpse of their small creepy hands through the white fabric that covered them. A nearby vase of white felt flowers that was taller than me made me wonder if the exhibit — put together by guest curator Betty Nguyen — should have been called Bleached Wonder instead.
But beyond the initial sculptures was an interactive show teeming with artwork worthy of the title Cosmic Wonder. A wall installation stuffed with neon, psychedelic, childlike paintings and drawings, and two monitors displaying unrecognizable animation was the first piece I saw and seemed to be the quintessential installation for this particular exhibit. Created by the collective artists of the organization Paperrad, the paintings and monitors were complete with headphones playing techno trance music. I’ll admit I don’t remember if the music was actually trance, but the artwork screamed Candy Kid Raver, so trance would’ve been the most appropriate musical genre to accompany the installation.
Several other wall installations were featured in the show, including an enormous mixed media mandala by Hisham Bharoocha that had me standing as close as the museum guards would allow (one inch away at YBCA, I love those guys) to try and determine how the artist went about creating the piece. Next to it was a piece entitled Craftsbury Common II by Reed Anderson — a giant blueprint paper circle hanging wrinkled on the wall and decorated with intricate cut-out designs and two lovely birds in ink. I liked the juxtaposition of an intricately fragile art process carried out on such an everyday type of paper — what some might call a comment on high art versus low art.
It wasn’t until I saw a skate video filmed at the skate park in the coolest town on the Peninsula (where I currently reside) that I decided to write about this show. “What is a skate video doing in an art exhibit?” you might ask. Well, the skaters carried or were in the vicinity of a large white pentagon-shaped sculpture throughout the video, which is apparently enough to make it art.
