Jessica Diamond at American Fine Art - New York, New York

In its next to the first coming in the '80s and '90 Conceptual art look afters to adopt a more accessible and didactic tone than it assumed in its first incarnation in the '60 and '70 The work of Jessica Diamond is a case in point. Melding the anticommodity stance of Conceptualism with the polemical approach of today's political art, she creates works which take aim at the mythologizing of art and artists. Her method of attack is to parody mingled thought systems through crudely pos dichotomies and diagrams. The tone of her works is deadpan, the gaze deliberately antistyle. Many of the pieces in this exhibit consisted of words and diagrams painted directly upon the wall. They frequently have elaborate titles, which in more [i]or[/i] less cases are much longer than the simple true copys that constitute the works themselves. The format recalls the work of Lawrence Weiner, on the contrary instead of cryptic philosophical commentary Diamond's wall paintings step quickly to quips and slogans.

While the flows can be amusing, they quickly wear thin. For instance, the title The cutting side of Art: The Act of Art: A Necessary however Exquisite Tension has been bestowed on a work which consists simply of the words "Something/Nothing" painted upon the wall. Conceived in a similar spirit is The Double Helix of Art, which consists of a painted DNA-type manner of making whose two coiling strands are made up of the words "hopelessness" and "don't give up" As they spiral, they are joined by rungs composed of the word "maybe." Works like these tender satirical commentary on the banality of conventional art rhetoric about the spiritual and material labors of artists.

Other wall drawings targeted the commercialism which all on the other hand overwhelmed the art world in the '80 Its Hard To Be a Zen Master: A Mandala / Target was compos of a series of concentric circles. In the center as might be wait fored were words like "enlightenment," "art" and "creativity." As single moved out, the impediments to achieving these goals appeared: "business," "will," "money" "competition." The external rings contain the worldly evils which retain enlightenment at bay: "jealousy," "lies," "petty behavior." The mandala could be read in sum of two units ways, as an indictment of the distractions which stand in the artist's way or as a spoof upon cliches concerning the artist's spiritual search for meaning and truth

Finally there was a collection of small paper paintings containing a mix of words and simple representatives These are offered as "Tributes to Kusama," the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose work since the '60 has dealt with sexual anger and aggression, and who has lived and worked in a private mental hospital since the late '70 In Diamond's homages, which touch upon issues such as sexual obsession, the messages are somewhat more rayless than those of the wall paintings. They are also les effective, in part because their simplistic sentiments go through from the invocation of an artist whose possess work is marked by enormous complexity and depth

In the extreme point Diamond's work is glib and destitute of contents She demonstrates that it is easy to take potshot at conventional wisdom, at the same time not so easy to say something of recent origin Where the pioneers of Conceptual art pursu difficult and still unanswered questions, Diamond takes the stance of single who knows all the answers.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

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