The Rebirth

Frankenstein was a creature reassembled from a division of death. Under this model, death is not a finite epitaph of what life was but rather a newopportunity for materiality ' s transformation. Life is not limited to itselfbut rather what it can morph into. This opens it into unknown and organicpossibilities. A demise can simply be an overlooked possibility of life.

It has been claimed that post-postmodernism has called forth a fatal blow to art. This very well may be true. The moment Duchamp realized that by pointing his finger and claiming an object for art it would be art, brought forth the slow but steady passing away of art as it was always understood. Where does that leave understanding today.

The entropy of materiality and meaning in art occurred before my generation. Hence what does that leave me as an art maker to create with but with the cooling bodies of my entire previous historical lineage? What then is today ' s art making to be made from but the corpses of previously lived theory and asthetics of art history?

WYWIWYG ' s World is an installation that acknowledges this; many painters and other artist are quoted. There is a large extraction form a Barnett Newman painting (the three bold color stripes) beside a reference to Warhol ' s wallpaper alongside a standard color key made from reassembling the bodies of abandoned stuffed animals. In short this installation is a Frankensteining of art theory and history. The show is a rebirth of the old, the tired and the dead.

This idea is echoed in the re-use of nearly all of the materials used. The stuffed animals torn apart and reassembled that become an allegory for this thinking are all discarded from their original owners. None are new. The paintings where all originally made for a very specific location which they have been retired from. The have been shipped several times and show the wear of this experience. The stuffing lining the walls is all displaced stuffing form the skinned fur animals that where used in the making of this show. Even the robotic sculptures once belonged inside the shells of the disemboweled animals that now are stapled to the walls.

The building that houses the show itself has this history of re-use andrebirth. It was once a skating rink, a place for civic offices, and a placewhere wrestling matches occurred before its manifestation as an art center. To emphasize this organic history, the sign from the previous show in this gallery for the Texas Water Color Society has been left on the wall and incorporated into the new show.

We all enter this show, having some experience with the universal experience of what is known as cute. Almost everyone has a memory of his or her first stuffed animal or soft crib blanket. It is my hope that those memories can be relived and experienced in a new way here. My disassembled cute is an allegory for Frankenstein and rebirth. As you re-experience the mobile in your crib, the sounds of a lullaby or the soft feeling of fur as you sit on the bench I hope that your own memories are re-found. Memory is strange and often not true to fact, because of this, new is found in its supposed remembrance. Hence the installation focuses on images that, although born from cute, no longer adhere to its reality. Cute becomes an allegory for art history and our own interaction with memory and its psychology.

In short, What You See Is What You Get.