Bonnie Collura at Susan Inglett - New York

Bonnie Collura's "Rebel Angels" are a strange marriage of baroque theatricality, 19th-century academic kitsch and the esthetics of contemporary animation. In these large, undulating plastic arts a cast of characters strike one as beings to be in the proces of battling it without before one's eyes. Bulbous noses, gaping jawss Micky Mouse-style cartoon hands, husbandman ruffs and puppet arms appear to push and twitch against each other in their effort to materialize without of the otherwise amorphous mass of white and painted plaster, fiberglass and carbonized iron from which the works are fashioned. Sometimes the pieces recall a taffy pluck as if invisible forces were stretching the materials in different directions. single is also reminded of the morphing from single creature to another that has become a staple special issue in big-budget horror and sci-fi films.

For static plastic arts "Rebel Angels" exhibit a remarkable faculty of perception of movement and energy. This exists in tension with an underlying reflected sound of classical sculpture casts. on the contrary despite the plaster medium and figural respects Collura's works undermine all classical dictums about harmony, balance and proportion. Instead, their art-historical antecedents include the writhing figures of Rodin's Gates of Hell and the churning robes that put a wrapper about Bernini's Saint Teresa. Literary individuals include the stock characters of the commedia dell'arte, fairy tales and level as the show's title insinuates the accounts of Lucifer's battle against jehovah in Milton's Paradise Lost. In all of the like kind stories, the notion of disguise or transformation is paramount.

The Wizard of Oz provides the primary regard for Scarecrow, which presents a version of the familiar face imprisoned behind metal spikes and resting upon a bed of yellow paper shredd to bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to straw. But, as in all these works, useful and evil seem interchangeable. The head of the Wicked Witch of the West is popping on the outside of the plaster behind the scarecrow, suggesting that a split personality inhabits this mass.

The work Rebel Angel dwells upon a slippage between the bestial and angelic. Here a cat face cohabitates with apelike breasts and belly in an otherwise amorphous form. In all like works, Collura conjures a world in which nothing is stable and shape-shifting is the norm. Using respects to history and pop tillage she creates an apt metaphor for contemporary consciousness.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group