A New Kind of Book Review: Jean Lowe at McKenzie Fine Art

Achieve and Maintain a More Powerful Delusion
Jean Lowe
February 14–March 15, 2008
McKenzie Fine Art Inc.
511 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
www.mckenziefineart.com

Someone—it may have been Robert Hughes, in a long-ago appraisal of Julian Schnabel's output—commented that although anyone can elevate his or her social status by buying a painting, nobody gets much of a boost from buying a book. Not true, you're thinking. There's nothing like settling down in a busy café and cracking open a copy of Ferdydurke or What Is The What. Depending on the crowd you run with, though, the books that make you look best may be the ones the fewest people seem to want to read. Think what we would have learned about each other if we'd gone around slipping twenty dollar bills into every shelf copy of A Brief History of Time.
Fake books, the kind we used to make in high school theater clubs, would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. No, not The Yellow River by I.P. Daly or Jump Off The Bridge by Hugo Fürst. Jean Lowe's fake books on display at the Mackenzie gallery in Chelsea, in Manhattan, are hand-built of pâpier-maché and painted with enamel à la Red Grooms in his Ruckus projects. They are revealing of a lot of common poses and wishes, and thus are not only very funny but eerily instructive. Over a hundred of them are arranged on big, Ikea-style bookshelves, also pâpier-maché, and there's also a pâpier-maché grand piano in the middle of the room. A grand piano in anyone's living room is, of course, the sign of a cultured family, and this one looks like the real item on first glance. But it's actually a snack dispenser. Standing next to it, I heard melting ice dripping out a plastic hose into a bucket.

This show accomplishes a lot of things at once. It lampoons the collecting of art as a social qualifier, makes fun of the Christian right (examples to come), and above all piques the citizens—most of the population, apparently—who don't read books about anything important. Jean Lowe's titles are all nonfiction, and it's all, in a sense, about you.
The construction of these objects—execution, materials, a temporary feel that suggests parade floats—is exactingly funny. The typefaces are roughed in and retain the character they do in a good book cover: the graphic design says "cheap," or "girly," or "buy me, you sucker," or all three. Some of these titles, such as Exclusive Spas of the World and The Doubleday Illustrated Children's Bible could easily be real, but not the situations they're presented in. Help me Make Up My Mind, Lord comes with a cover illustration of a tray of gooey doughnuts. A Sense of Place, which seems like it ought to be a nature book, has a picture of a sprawling southwestern suburb on the jacket. Rural America is decorated with a Cargill plant. And Invasive Species proudly presents a picture of a KFC bucket and an empty Pepsi takeout cup with what looks like Korean characters on it. There are a lot of people I'd like to give Lowe's version of Family Values to. Right under the title is a photo of a fat, self-satisfied SUV.

But if we're giving out prizes for laugh potential, the titles that don't need visual explanations are very possibly the best. Panhandling Pointers, The Philosophy of Binge Drinking, A Shiv for Sheila, Hospice Lockdown (a Tom Clancy murder mystery), and my favorite, Hey, I'm Trying to Get Stoned Here, work fine by themselves. It's tempting to wonder whether Jean Lowe gets together with her friends and a couple of cases of beer to make this stuff up. If so, whoever thought of Foucault on Bull deserves a night on the town.

Okay, okay, you may be sighing—we get the joke. The strength of this exhibition, though, is in the examination of what sort of humor this really is. There are several different strains here: the icon-busting, the embarrassing, the counterintuitive goofiness à la mode. I especially liked The Clue in the Meth Lab by Carolyn Keene, nineteen-fifties period-correct in orange on cop blue, with a colophon of Nancy in silhouetted profile, magnifying glass in hand. In First Time for Skipper, the cover illo makes it looks like she's being picked up by her (female) gym teacher. So you see, there are other appetitites at work: the agony of retro awkwardness, the uncompromising nature of real art (exemplified by a bloody Judith and the Head of Holofernes on a Bible study book), the futility of the self-help ideal, and the unavoidable truth of just plain bad behavior. You may have to dig hard to figure this out, but this is all message stuff. Just Ask God—Lasting Freedom from Joint Pain has a garden slug on the cover. It's refreshingly absurd until you realize that slugs have no joints.

Decent funny art is all too rare, and it must be said that the best part of this show its be its pessimism. It is good to be reminded that we, as artists and art-goers, aren't above any of the pretensions Lowe mocks. At the same time, these could be the ultimate Baudrillardian objects: all books, we realize, are reproductions with no originals. There are no fancy editions of bestsellers for fancy people: all books are read alike (albeit at different speeds), an inevitability enforced by the Dale Carnegie-esque title, Your Purpose In Life, with the picture of a woman flipping burgers on a vast grill. And although it's amusing enough to have a chuckle at the expense of the squeaky-clean family values people, with all their purpose-driven rhetoric, Growing Up Isn't Easy, Lord when your dad is sitting next to your two-year-old self getting hammered on Michelob Light, as he is in yet another one of Lowe's books, and hundreds of thousands of living rooms across the country at this very moment.
The final note of this show, if you stick with it for long enough, is a sad one. It seems we're easily taken in by the right combination of corporate identity, phony cheer, and runaway evil. Nobody wants to be a patsy or a cultural petri dish, but we have to admit that this show is funny because it's convincing. The characterizations that seem so artless at first are dead-on. We are bathed daily in sex for sale, food sublimation, consumerist fantasies, and self-deceit. And how do we propose to rise above the soup? By more reading, of course.

In case you're wondering, these objects are for sale.

One visitor to the gallery out-joked Lowe in the sign-in book by writing her name and adding, "Will steal your ideas for the theater."

Comments

[Karen Joan Topping]

You tease out a lot of the “message stuff” to great effect, careful to not belittle the artlessness and tempering your highlighting of Lowe’s work that plays off of political, class, intellectual criticisms, etc.. Your very visual description of the work “Growing Up Isn’t Easy” effectively eviscerates this kind of rhetoric.

You could lop off the first and last paragraph tho', I think. They are both fun and fascinating, but I am much more intrigued with your dissection of humor and pessimism throughout your descriptions of Lowe’s work then I am with your attempts at practicing them in this instance. However, your descriptive, disdainful humor within the body of your descriptions of Lowe’s work is fabulous, establishing the quantifiable pathos of her sardonic presentation – surpassing irony by actually having an opinion.

[Nathan Pankratz]

Hi Sally,
You have a nice way of setting up a joke, immediately acknowledging the cheesiness of it, and ending on a serious, as well as self-reflective note. You are fun to read, and have a clever way of name-dropping that doesn't come off as pretentious in the least. At points, (I am thinking about the end of your fourth into the fifth paragraph "There are a lot of people...") your tone seems to get away from you, offering up an opinion, that maybe you seem to believe is everyone’s. I much prefer how you let me find the joke, and even have an un-biased laugh at the work itself, as you present it in your second to last paragraph, (“Decent funny art…”). Your last paragraph is both witty and insightful; it provides the social context that gives the reader clarity as to how he/she can view the work of Jean Lowe.

[Nathan Pankratz]

Hi Sally,
You have a nice way of setting up a joke, immediately acknowledging the cheesiness of it, and ending on a serious, as well as self-reflective note. You are fun to read, and have a clever way of name-dropping that doesn't come off as pretentious in the least. At points, (I am thinking about the end of your fourth into the fifth paragraph "There are a lot of people...") your tone seems to get away from you, offering up an opinion, that maybe you seem to believe is everyone’s. I much prefer how you let me find the joke, and even have an un-biased laugh at the work itself, as you present it in your second to last paragraph, (“Decent funny art…”). Your last paragraph is both witty and insightful; it provides the social context that gives the reader clarity as to how he/she can view the work of Jean Lowe.

[Michael]

Sally,
I loved reading your review! You have a way of presenting something that is clever and interesting. I found myself wanting to read faster to keep up with your comments about the show. You show a different what of introducing the show and I commend you on this. I would try to focus more on your thoughts about the show and the artist. I think your humor is great and your description and example are fabulous.

[Tammi Razzano]

Hi Sally,

I love your sense of humor and reaction to Lowe’s sense of humor through out the review. You keep it alive and make the reader want more with your clever remarks. You commented on each book just enough to tell the reader what you thought but did not beat a dead horse by explaining them in great detail. In other words, you gave the reader enough credit to figure out the connections on their own.

I don’t know how many books there were at the show but you did cover quite a bit, 17 I think. I can see why you wanted to include so many, they’re good! Yet, it may have been wise to cover fewer of them so your prediction (“Okay, okay, you may be sighing—we get the joke.”) wouldn’t come true. If you gave fewer examples and focused on vivid descriptions it would allow the reader time to fully grasp their metal image of the covers before moving onto the next title. (Especially since the photo you included wasn’t of those you mentioned.) However, I do like that you point out that some don’t even need a visual description and gave great examples for it.

There was one sentence that I was hung up on; maybe it was too much of a run on or just too wordy. “And although it's amusing enough to have a chuckle at the expense of the squeaky-clean family values people, with all their purpose-driven rhetoric, Growing Up Isn't Easy, Lord when your dad is sitting next to your two-year-old self getting hammered on Michelob Light, as he is in yet another one of Lowe's books, and hundreds of thousands of living rooms across the country at this very moment.” I needed to read this a few times and I’m still a bit confused. Could this be broken down in a couple of sentences for clarity?

Over all I really enjoyed your review and feel that you wrapped things up quite pleasantly by clearly making your opinion heard. “...we have to admit that this show is funny because it's convincing.” Not only did you explain why but by using “we” you were able to nudge the reader to agree with your thoughts.

[Jason Gura]

Sally Down the Alley,
Both pop culture reference and personal signifier. And never, ever for sale.

I once asked the question- what happens when you confuse awful social commentary with satire? The answer was Saturday Night Live.

More than one off gags, your article succeeded in describing a cultural dilemma that has gone back (for myself) as far as Mad magazine or even more specifically a brand of trading cards created my Maus' Art Spiegelman called Wacky Packies.
You are what you read. In this culture you are what purchase. Jean Lowe has created a great forum in this show for viewing and contemplating both previous statements. Your descriptions were clear and you have a way of enjoying the irony and humor without having it overrun the critique: considering the show you reviewed, thats a tough act to pull off. Your years as a reviewer as well as your graduate school education in writing are readily apparent. Growing Up Isn't Easy Lord is not only the faux title for an imaginary book but a cultural observation. I understood what you wrote right off the bat, although I think for some readers the italics might not be taken into account. A minor criticism. Your personality and opinions come through and validate the argument. I'm sorry I didn't see the show. The cause for cultural literacy moves on!

Thanks.
Jason

[Alex]

Sally,
Your writing well conveys your excitement about Jean Lowe’s work. You gave many humorous examples of book cover imagery and text. I think you could have chosen fewer examples and really have analyzed them in more depth. You begin your article with uncertainty, and this somewhat shadows the rest of your writing. I think you should really know who the “Someone” is. I really enjoyed the idea of art consumption being a social qualifier and would have liked further investigation of this concept. I was surprised by the down turn of your final paragraph. All of the other paragraphs are humorous and light except for the last, which makes me not want to believe your ultimate impression of the show, was a sad one. Your writing style is quick witted and punchy. Your social and political views are subtly addressed.

[Alex]

Sally,
Your writing well conveys your excitement about Jean Lowe’s work. You gave many humorous examples of book cover imagery and text. I think you could have chosen fewer examples and really have analyzed them in more depth. You begin your article with uncertainty, and this somewhat shadows the rest of your writing. I think you should really know who the “Someone” is. I really enjoyed the idea of art consumption being a social qualifier and would have liked further investigation of this concept. I was surprised by the down turn of your final paragraph. All of the other paragraphs are humorous and light except for the last, which makes me not want to believe your ultimate impression of the show, was a sad one. Your writing style is quick witted and punchy. Your social and political views are subtly addressed.

[Alex]

Sally,
Your writing well conveys your excitement about Jean Lowe’s work. You gave many humorous examples of book cover imagery and text. I think you could have chosen fewer examples and really have analyzed them in more depth. You begin your article with uncertainty, and this somewhat shadows the rest of your writing. I think you should really know who the “Someone” is. I really enjoyed the idea of art consumption being a social qualifier and would have liked further investigation of this concept. I was surprised by the down turn of your final paragraph. All of the other paragraphs are humorous and light except for the last, which makes me not want to believe your ultimate impression of the show, was a sad one. Your writing style is quick witted and punchy. Your social and political views are subtly addressed.