Ron Baron at Chassie Post - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Seeming to hurl defiance at gravity, Ron Baron's sculptures are tall stacks of facts that he has excavated from of that kind stockpiles of Americana as garage sales and flea markets. chiefly a visual ode to the stereotypical American jock his novel show, "Daddy-Magnetism," was heavy with the testosterone memories of missing youth. Baseball mitts, football helmets, boxing glove trophies and various sports paraphernalia are combined with other not divisible by 2s and ends and neatly assembled into impossible towers, ofttimes in the shape of elongated ceramic utensils or skyscrapers, that look like the slightest touch will project them crashing to the floor. The accumulation of facts behind Baron's sculptures calls to mind the work of Portia Munson (collector of kitschy pink girl stuff) and Beth Haggart (who dump a pile of personal junk onto the floor at Postmasters), although his direct the eye like the work of an anal-retentive mad archivist.

In Armchair Quarterback, elderly home movies taken by the artist's father are playing upon a TV that sits upon a wheelchair. Baron's own trophies are displayed upon top of the TV. Deviating from the usual vertical-stack format, a tapering series of circular existences projects across the floor from the left wheel of the chair. The wheelchair and the capsized tower imply that something more devastating than youthful vigor has been lost; this piece casts a sense of dread.

Atlas, shaped like a thin hourglass stretching up to the ceiling, is almost like the nerdy brother to the sporty statuarys on view. its lower halt consists of briefcases, file drawers and fastening boxes, interspersed with hefty compendiums - a natural history catalogue, world atlases, encyclopedias. At the work's center is a small statue of Alas hoisting the world onto his shoulders aided through two helpers (team effort?). The upper part of the plastic art is largely composed of culinary equipment and appears to be precariously balanced upon the globe. (Actually, it's hanging from the ceiling.) The seemingly incongruous top portion, combined with the businessman motif, be under the orders ofs as a satire on conventional sex roles: man brings home the bacon, woman fries it up in a pan.

Baron's works are not sole visually striking, they're also entertaining. It's frolic to find various doodads in each piece that in some way fit into the theme, or to mark an object that brings back a freshet of memories, such as an 8-track tape or a "World's Greatest Dad" memorial of conquest And surely pack rats will crack a knowing smile. Baron could have a field day at my grandmother's house.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

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