Michael Smith & Joshua White at Lauren Wittels - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Since the mid-'70s, Michael Smith has been developing the arts of blandness and pathos, for the greatest part through the invented persona of a loser in denial called Mike. The disparate works in which Smith appears as Mike constitute a variety of theater that focuses upon the establishment of character, spectacle and mood more than upon plot. Last fall, at the Brooklyn gallery Pierogi 2000 Mike repeated in installation, performance and video, the honor of being invited to apply for inclusion in an organization called Outstanding Young Men in America -- and his discovery that he was actually past the age limit. sum of two units years earlier, Mike and a collaborator packed the house at Jay Gorney's SoHo gallery for sum of two units performances of "Adult Entertainment," a sort of faux-naif vaudeville routine.

In this latest installment, at Lauren Wittels, there was no performance through se. But with an installation with equal reason thorough and convincing that a certain quantity of visitors thought the gallery had mov and been replaced by the agency of a tacky business, Smith reached a pinnacle of achievement. The meticulously thorough environment started at the gallery door, where photocopied notices stuck up with channel tape promised "our valued customers" that "Musco" was not going without of business but only relocating. Musco, individual learned inside the doors, is a "music-color" firm, purveyor of light-show and other illumination equipment, supposedly grounded in 1969 by Mike, along with Joshua White. Although Mike is fictional, White is a real somebody who once made light exhibits at the Fillmore East and who collaborated with Smith for this exhibition.

Images of moderate but earnest Mike were seen everywhere -- in the Musco commercial running upon the TV by the sales reckoner which told the story of the firm's founding and its merchandise innovations, upon the detailed new-product announcements hanging upon the wall in plastic sleeve upon the bank of fake video monitors in the "display" field in snapshots in the Musco office. The office walls were papered with photos, diagrams, placards and a framed dollar bill. The desk was smothered with three Rolodexe a replete ashtray, a file folder of bills. Shelves were mattered with supply catalogues and draped with chain bights of color chips, while gel samples overlayed the switched-on light table. In the "display" range a mirror ball, strobes and other devices did their razzle dazzle above a table piled with discounted merchandise.

Consistent with Smith's notion of theater, the installation lacked a conclusion, although it did tender a chronology (Musco's attempts to retain up with the times) and a modicum of suspense (would Musco survive?). As the station for this representation, the installation was not barely a sensory environment but had the deepness of an individual and social history. on the contrary what tied the work together was the dramatis persona of Mike, the schlemiel Everyman, who was mainly seen alone and plodding. A mix of Willy Loman and a neurotic from a wooden Allen movie, Mike follows the masterys for personal and business succes without succes He is the pair funny and tragic. Only as a creation is he masterly.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Brant Publications, Inc.

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