Resonance

September 10 – October 22, 2005
Works by Melodie Provenzano and Richard Monge.
res•o•nance
Pronunciation: ‘re-z&n-&n(t)s, ‘rez-n&n(t)s
Function: noun
7 : a synchronous gravitational relationship of two celestial bodies

As an equation is dependent on its variables, our space may be recognizable thanks to the objects in it. We are surrounded by objects: their existence dismissed or acknowledged according to necessity, random interaction or selection. In times of historically unparalleled mass production and individual consumption, objects do not only represent our culture and our habits, but provide references for how we define ourselves.

Dolls and figurines are members of the commonplace to most of us. These representations are often among the first matter that we relate to early in life. Pretending, exploring and sharing are some of the activities children take part of when playing. These small things occupy our minds and hands at crucial stages of life, and are involved in the development of notions of object permanence, conservation, sexual identity and language. Memories of childhood usually bring to mind a favorite toy. Their abundance or their scarcity sometimes establishes our relationship to concepts such as dependence or freedom. When dolls and figurines become an obsession, a rebellion against their ordinariness is set in motion, and attempts are made to transcend a spatial projection. Accumulation, selection, display, elimination, all become activities for an individual catharsis.

German sociologist Niklas Luhmann called this process of reproduction from elements previously filtered from an over-complex environment ‘autopoiesis’, using a term coined in cognitive biology. Luhmann likens the operation of autopoiesis (the filtering and processing of information from the environment) to a program making a series of logical distinctions (Unterscheidungen).

The difference between what is familiar and strange is a question of place. This notion is not the only common ground in the work of New York based artists Melodie Provenzano and Richard Monge. Although coming from different backgrounds, their artistic practices can be seen as the product of resonant local processors. Each artist works within a system which is by definition an intimate boundary between a personal repository and the exterior, dividing space from a complex or chaotic environment.

The exhibition ‘Resonance’ investigates the interfaces between subjectivity, space, and indeterminacy, as it is negotiated by two emerging artists through photography, watercolor, painting and installation. The works of Melodie Provenzano and Richard Monge are deeply influenced by personal memories and experiences, each creating a cosmogony that explores ornamentation and kitsch. The pieces focus on the interior of their systems. Communication within these constructs operates by the artist’s selection of only a limited amount of all the information available outside; it is a marginal world that is given centerstage. The self-created zones of reduced complexity are autopoietically open, in that they use and rely on resources from their environment, and those resources become part of the systems’ operation. Meaningful communication is delivered to the viewer by way of resonance, or a synchronous relationship between information in the sense of uncertainty and in the sense of meaning. The criterion according to which information is selected and processed is meaning. The oscillation between these two types of information - between two realms of artistic expression – allows the viewer a glimpse into a universe that generally remains invisible.

Melodie Provenzano’s artistic practice for the past four years has centered on presenting situations created with inanimate objects. This exhibition includes recent large format paintings and small watercolor works that reveal an aliquote of the artist’s personal mythology. While referencing traditional genres of still life and studio portraiture, the almost fastidious cuteness factor of her work may seem shocking or appealing, however, the appropriation of a shared code as the hegemonic instrument of approximation to the work is translated to a question mark on that notion.

Melodie Provenzano’s work refers to the common interpretation of painting and drawing as a frozen reality, but in fact it aspires to become a misreading committed to decoding the cultural discourses implicit in the conventions of commercial grammar. The inanimation here is reversed: the characters disclose their trueness (and darkness) as they interact with the viewer. Deceptively simple ordinary toys and figurines, alone or in multitude, directly engage or ignore the viewer, gradually unfolding complex issues. Sexual roleplaying, the ubiquitousness of violence, notions of mass production and subjectivity, are some of the elicited questions concerning the human condition.

In a recent dialogue, Provenzano says: “These moments are the beginning. As I am open to direction, I must admit that I truly follow my heart; so nothing I make is contrived or fake. It’s all based on what will hold my attention. There’s no way I will spend hours rendering and being technically meticulous, if my heart is not in it or if it lacks meaning for me. I saw Rosenquist (James) speak last month and he was asked, ‘Do you think about the viewer when you paint?’ He said, ‘I am my audience when I paint.’ This is me to a tee.’

The artistic practices of Melodie Provenzano and Richard Monge present a multitude of partial perspectives, and attest to a current episteme of distinction: the proposition to consider society and human beings as different systems of reference. Although society and the personality are both constructed in terms of (inter-) actions, the dynamics of the aggregates are expected to be different.

Richard Monge’s current body of photographic work constitutes of assemblages of inter-related elements comprising a unified whole. Monge asserts his subjectivity by resisting categorization. He depicts ideas not explicitly but implies them through subtle hints and allusions, creating an ambiguous collage of fragments and details. Monge’s range of imagery deals fundamentally with the subject matter of identity (gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class), shaped by an individual perspective.

On the series “Jardin de las Edenas” (Garden of the Ednas), dolls have made the object of attraction and recontextualized into conceptual art forms. The artist subtly defies stereotypes by the layered articulation of a method of personal investigation that reveals a body of micro-histories that capture abstract emotional states. More than an act of exposure, or a polemical exploration of the commonplace, the desire for warmth and color in these “flowers” conducts the viewer’s otherwise quotidian ride to the recapture of memories that, not only help evade fears of emptiness and pathos, but stimulate the questioning and re-examination of our own core values.

Gamaliel R. Herrera