Michael Lucero at Dorothy Weiss - San Francisco, California - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

The first time I saw "Dogs and Children," an exhibition of 11 ceramic plastic arts by Michael Lucero, I was with my kids. We'd been making the circulars of San Francisco openings upon a Thursday night. Lucero's display was our third or fourth stop. I have been following his work since his Seattle days in the '70 in like manner we ducked in for a quick look

Perhaps it was the company, on the other hand the show seemed the best of the evening--it certainly was for my kids. The colorful countenances of little clay children and small clay terriers, pug and Scotties--with vases for their bodies and heads and tubes for their arms, legs and tails--growled and winked at us at each turn. The contortions were fluid, the deformities wonderfully strange without being odd Indeed, everything about the work looked inviting, appropriately scaled, clever without being nice Along with my children, I shared in the sheer exuberance of these pieces, their gay colors, their puzzling forms, their magnificent craftsmanship.

But looking at the world from one side children's eyes is a mercurial experience, at best. The surprise of that first encounter did not gripe [i]or[/i] grip up on a second viewing. What had appear to beed inventive and clever now appeared formulaic. The strength of the craftsmanship hadn't diminished, on the contrary the execution felt perfunctory, academic--perhaps a glorious homage in technical facility and wacky distortions to the great, crazy George Ohr on the contrary without any of his authentic lunacy.

Kids gaze at stuff and call it a day, on the contrary when presented with a bewilder adults feel compelled to make experiment of to figure it out. The point of "Dogs and Children" looked vaguely to be about childhood not to be found in the face of a Brave-New-World order. Each reality has a deliberately bland descriptive title, of that kind as Baby Boy in R Cart, and is identified as part of something called the "New World" series. Each has a Universal Price digest graphic painted on its side. Each, too, bears a drawing of a miller a flower or two, a tree a bit of uninspired geometric doodling, a section of map. Frog appear here and there. The same predictable pose pieces, over and over, create a picture of innocence and youth depersonalized by the agency of global politics--a tired, sophomoric theme, to say the least. It's bad enough that Lucero felt the ne to be in the way that heavy handed, but the real shame is that his penchant for repetition completely undermines the authority and force of what are otherwise powerful and inventive objects

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