Overheard at Peace 2000, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn

"We always like to think that natural things come easy."—Henrietta Mantooth, painter

"I hope my stuff's awful enough to get in."—Anonymous, spoken of Art Omi, an art foundation outside of Hudson, NY

"People self-replicate instead of running against the grain."—Marvin Cohen, writer

"We all need to get out more."—Someone popping their third beer

"I had a really good time yesterday. I tried on thirty dresses."—Young woman

"Can you add your pigment to any kind of house paint?"—Grown-up man

"Smell me. I think it's vanilla."—Another grown-up man

"I asked the students where they were going for winter break, and and they say things like, 'Antarctica.'"—A dedicated university professor

"Are you in this show?"
"No."
"Say yes. No one will know the difference."—Someone else

Brooklyn is the place to be. Sideshow's huge group show (more than three hundred artists) is a high-quality hodgepodge, cram-'em-up-to-the-ceiling style—fairly common in downtown venues now, and more a decorating scheme than a piss-take on the French salon esthetic. Here, it delineates the idea that getting onto a wall in any New York borough is the best anyone can do. You're going to have a lot of company, so you might as well learn to dig the atmosphere. This gallery definitely makes that sour little dose of reality into a decent flavoring for the salad of work. This show is all ostentation, acrobatics, pomp, and humor.
There are lots of things to like here: Jerelyn Hanrahan's two ceramic busts, Fred Gutzeit's psychedelic paintings and drawings—hyperrealized, labor-intensive. Also a string of beeswax hand grenades, Claude Carone's murky, classical abstraction, Portia Munson's big flower C-print, something by Carl Fudge, a molten blue powdered lumpy panel by Art Guerra, Tim Wilson's rural tableaux painted on trophy plaques, Francine Tint's painted nougat, Vincint McLaughlin's striped lozenge that looks like an exotic beetle that got run over by a road-painting truck, Katherine Bradford's two guys lugging a canoe, Eung Ho Park's wild irises (the kind in your eyes) mounted inside bottlecaps, and Joe Ballweg's ink wash of a supplicant (or a hostage).

Comments

[eva]

Refreshing introduction, witty and original. I am interjected into the show with out knowing it. I would like more literary meat from you cause you write with depth. Reading something from you is like eating a thick juicy 6lbs steak, you have to take your time indulging in the density and flavor. I would images and more descriptions of the work.

Eva