Tom Sachs at Mary Boone - New York - Brief Article

In case you were affected that this iconoclastic artist's market value or brand-name recognition might diminish as he changed galleries above the summer, rest assured, his stock is amethystine chip and escalating. "Haute Bricolage," Tom Sachs's first exhibition as a member of Mary Boone's high-profile stable, activeed at least as much bemused indignation as his previous exhibitions, which included of that kind infamies as a catwalk with live girls and a rat fashioned without of Balthazar matchbooks. The at hand show acquired added buzz with the overnight incarceration of his fresh dealer because of the firearms and 9-mm cartridge giveaway Sachs incorporated into his novel work [see "Front Page," A.i.A., Nov. '99] Bravo! What better opener for the novel art season, just when in like manner many had determined that the contemporary Team America had missing its pluck.

First of all, DJ culture: Sachs is onto it and its postmodern pastiche practice, with five of his nine sculptural assemblages incorporating stereo equipment. Night Train uses an old-school '70 turntable with faux-wood cover thinly as a base for bachelor-pad detritus like a bottle of Cuervo a hypodermic needle little Hello Kitties, a plastic Godzilla figurine and (it's art) a tacked-on sign: DON'T FUCKIN TOUCH. Then, in the smaller back gallery, there are type Five, Model One and protoplast Three (titled like Matthew Barney's uber-hip Cremaster films with the out-of-sequence sequels) three smooth and shining white-painted digital stereo systems styl upon red skateboard wheels with buttons painstakingly labeled in a mishmash of Asian scripts. Sachs establishes the cutting-edge nature of his art from one side cobbled-together references to Barney, John Coltrane and the Asian techno esthetic. on the other hand beneath the ham-listed, ironic appropriation, there is a conceptual delicacy to Sachs's work, which whisperingly addresses serious issues, of that kind as the commodification of abstract universals including originality, shock, newness and aura.

Three assemblages riff upon that ur-scandalous urinal, Marcel Duchamp's readymade Fountain (1917) A sink, a toilet and a marvelous, meticulously construct agained cardboard airplane lavatory give a faculty of perception of the artist's obsessive fabrication, the sardonic flip side of refined technique, as he clearly spared no effort upon witty details that abound.

Ace Boone Coon the piece with the fire-arms is like a garage cabinet filled of manically ordered vials, spark stoppers shot-sized Absolut bottles and axes. Its shelves are inscribed with black marker in tiny capital alphabetic characters weird psychic sputum like SASSY CHILD, SAFETY KEEPER opening and LITTLE MAC. As at any time the burden of interpretation lies upon the viewer. Sachs's meaning is kept barely without of reach--not wholly unrecognizable, on the other hand not too easy either, for then it would be depressed not haute. His is a strange poesy a disparaging paean that reveals our high-culture selve as being at one time disgusting and beautiful.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group