Ryan Humphrey at Caren Golden - Brief Article

For "The extremity of Silence," his solo first appearance 20-something, recent Hunter College MFA graduate Ryan Humphrey brought in a big black rug with curv corners, shaped like a television shield to cover the cement floor in this rectangular gallery. The seven separate pieces he installed upon the walls were large assemblages, exuberant in color and design, addressing the topics of surfing and cars. As a whole, the exhibit filled the room fluidly, inducing in the visitor a vertiginous sensation not unlike stepping into a high-adrenaline video game out and out with bigger-than-life fire bursts. Adding to the sensorial force of the exhibit Humphrey piped soft sounds of crashing waves and passing cars into the latitude creating a melancholy soundscape that contrasted with the exhibition's visual flamboyance. Also, hanging from the ceiling, were sum of two units sets of earphones: both emitted beach-related rock-and-roll.

Multiplicity plays a vital part in Humphrey's work. His heated Wheels, for instance, included 169 miniature cars displayed upon a Plexiglas grid backed through a light box that was affixed to the wall. The sheer variety of the toy vehicles was captivating, ranging from an Oscar Meyer wiener upon wheels to a white VW bug with Miroesque doodles to a mean-looking black fiery rod advertising the heavy-metal icon Gene Simmons and his band, Kiss.

As if to further crowd together in disorder the definition of that infinitely diverse thing called "car," Humphrey makes a point of representationally dismantling car-related particulars and cars themselves. Pieces of timber-land cut to look like parts of engines or car stereo are high hilled on the wall, suggesting oversized, mod assembly diagrams floating in space; Ocean Drive incorporates an old-fashioned toy car with part of the cowl removed, revealing an intricate, lilliputian engine inside. A small television protection mounted in Panama displays the video game extremity Position, which gives its player the thrilling challenge of driving as rapidly as possible from one side palm-tree-lined streets, trying not to crash.

The artist also finds different ways of pointing to "surfing," his other make submissive There is a schmaltzy, billboard-sized photograph of a pristine beach, and a lightbox illuminating an image of the muscled, bronz professional surfer Kelly Slater riding a wave. Painted in enamel, there are abstract, pixel-style representations of water, made various by the agency of differences in light, color and pattern. Humphrey augments his case with an abundance of design faculty of perception and seems to dare anyone to challenge the notion that anything could be more transcendent or multifaceted than the supposedly simple, mindless controls of his art.

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