Transgressive Fiction
Transgressive fiction can be traced as far back as
the Marquis de Sade. It is a literary genre characterized by graphic
exploration of taboo topics. William Borroughs is another more
contemporary writer that explored this subject matter. The novel Naked
Lunch explores a parallel universe considered outside of mainstream
conventions. Burroughs’ highly volatile hallucinogenic tale
renders a junkie wasteland ripe with delinquent sexuality, and
excessive drug use. While some of the images in this exhibition explore
the topic of taboo explicitly, as in Henry William’s large
drawing/collage, “ Why She’s
Heartbroken “, in other works it acts
as a subtle undercurrent. It is within this act of overstepping limits
that these artists form new narratives.
Many of the artists I invited for this exhibition
are practicing illustrators. They are for the most part, our
culture’s contemporary visual storytellers. They are challenged
to interpret our most current state of cultural affairs. Many have been
recognized internationally and hired for their ability to offer insight
to editorial, narrative, and commercial marketing projects. Paging
through American illustration annuals one can find some of the most
compelling, resourceful, and provocative artwork reflective of our
current epoch.
Where there are humans – there is a desire to
share unique compelling stories. This desire has remained constant
throughout history, and it is this need that is the foundational
motivation for illustration. However what has changed is the content,
or culture within the context of the narrative. New questions and
themes arise within each epoch.
Films, television, comics, the internet have all
become ubiquitous prerequisites for understanding and participating
within our cultural landscape. So much so, that it is often difficult
to separate fact from fiction. Television and its host of familial
characters become our salvation for comfort and ease. These effortless
relationships become more common, because of our need to connect
outside
our immediate surroundings. Instead we become
voyeurs, not participants. Conveniently, the next day, we arrive to
work to share that evening’s sitcom, plot and characters in hopes
of bonding with others that have shared the same cultural experience.
This confusion is another theme throughout most of the work in this
exhibition. Again, the desire for stories will always be with us, it is
the content, or shared cultural language that changes.
This generation of artists has been exposed to
unlimited amounts of mass media and popular culture. Their work
alludes to many different themes and shared cultural references, yet
seems unburdened by these clashing culture’s conven-tions.
Inherent in the work is a sense of what is familiar and simultaneously
strange or incompatible. Things don’t add up to our natural set
of expectations. What is most evident is the artist’s ability to
ingeniously transport the viewer to a territory filled with moral and
aesthetic contradictions. It is their ability to salvage, mutate and
build upon clashing ideology that demonstrates the logic and lunacy of
being exposed to unlimited amounts of debris in our current mass global
culture.
As a result, the imagery is often arcane, as if you
were not allowed in on the “secret”. It is this mystery
that leads a viewer to more questions rather than answers. The
artists seem to freely associate, and remarkably blend together imagery
that transmits opposing concepts. The faithfully charming and
wretchedly grotesque commingle. It is the marriage of these opposites
that is incredibly resonate and genuinely memorable. It invites the
viewer to want to be in on the furtive message, to revisit the image.
Cultural Transgressions
Images have the inherent ability to tell many
narratives simultaneously, and are in large part defined by the context
of shared cultural experience. In this globally influenced community,
the presence of images saturates our every experience and they become a
common language, a familiar backdrop to our life’s stories The
imagery that has formed the scenery of the 20 th century – pictures from
children’s books, tattoos, nostalgic toys, science fiction, the
circus, comics, monster trucks – are taken by these artists and
recombined in such a way as to subvert the old comfort and familiarity
they once gave us. The results are often surreal, ambiguous, humorous,
strange, and compelling. These artists function within the perimeters
of what is common pop-culture, while introducing us to cryptic
inner-worlds, and it is this collision between the ordinary and the
uncanny that forms the idiosyncratic power of their work. As a viewer,
I am simultaneously lulled and disturbed; I am seduced into comfort at
the same moment that I am called out of it.
At times the place these artists call us into is
terrifying as seen in P Jay Fidler’s eerie juxtapositions of
childhood imagery and dreams. Other times they may contain an odd
contrast of elements, simultaneously inviting and sinister - as in John
Hersey’s and Oksana Bakra’s cast of computerized
characters. These artists force us to take a look at our complacencies,
our normal expectations and invite us to participate in their world of
quixotic misadventures and chaos.
Transgressions of the real
Many of these artists also play with notions of
artificial and authentic – often evoking them simultaneously or
operating in the space between the two. Our artificial fantasies are
called upon and examined. As a culture we long for the translation of
ordinary events into mythic fantasy. Film, comics, advertising,
catalogs, and the general debris of pop culture easily show us views
into other worlds, worlds that form alternatives to our immediate
surroundings. Audiences flock to Hollywood blockbusters to be
transported and escape from everyday ennui. The artificial, whether a
karaoke bar, a video game, or a Sears catalogue, begs to be interpreted
as the real. We seek to enter a controlled environment to gain comfort
and a lack of astonishment while simultaneously seeking that, which
stimulates and gives us pleasure.
We can simultaneously laugh and feel apprehension
within Steve Klamm’s depic-tion of an atypical post-apocalyptic
suburban family road-trip gone awry, along with the disappointing
arrival of the unexpected alien savior. Distressingly, he begs the
question; what exactly is in store for this helpless family? It seems
harm-less enough, but is it? It is this ambiguity that essentially
evokes our curiosity.
Finally, this show also attempts to capture the
state of fluidity and cross-pollination of the contemporary narrative.
Artists and their work are, in a large part, products of their
environment, and with the recent rapid changes taking place within our
communities, artists are continuously challenged in regards to
following a singular monothematic or meta-narrative Due to the ubiquity
of information technology, the global community now coexists and
interacts on a level previously impossible. As we all know the world is
much smaller and the narratives to support each culture are in a state
of flux and cross-examination. But the artists in this show counter
the threat of homogeneity that is implied by such forces of
globalization. Rather than exploit ruthlessly, they make use of
divergent cultural identity. Through their understanding of the endless
possibilities that can come from the borrowing and weaving together of
disparate ideologies, imagery, and beliefs, they have instead created
odd and powerful juxtapositions of new narratives and mythologies. The
need for storytelling is still strong and images continue to resurface,
re-circulate and recombine to tell new and highly individualized
stories. Out of the absurd imagery and disjointed cultural refer-ences
these artists have conjured up dreams that effectively critique
reality.
