Let's Get To Work: Joint Exhibition at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery and BaseKamp

Always a proponent of instilling some British art verve in Philadelphia, it seems I've had my wish fulfilled. Although "Let's Get To Work" features a collection of artists from several countries (UK, USA, Germany, Holland) the show contains the flavor and attitude of contemporary British art. Originating in San Francisco, where the original all British version began, "Let's Get To Work" then gathered speed in Harrisburg, picking up more participants. Now it invades the University of Arts Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery and Base Kamp.

The evidence of British influence here is a certain whimsical intervention to physical objects and spaces, a complexity of odd confrontation of conventions both small and large. This may be due to the presence of artists from the UK, or the fact that the Brits have been exercising a lot of influence in the current post-minimalist arena and are using every installation trick in the book persuasively. The two main thrusts here are about converging art with architecture and playing with delivery as a group. Coming from a well-defined place where installation has ruled for some time, the show starts off as a formless art about art barrage but quickly diverges into myriad social and political contexts, e.g. art about contemporary life and it's environs, cutting up the gallery where necessary.

Although wrapped up with some admirable utopian notions of cooperation and an earnest desire to take charge of the future, the work itself functions on contemporary ideas. "Let's Get To Work" serves as a great example of shared installation process by a group, a dramatic change from the usual emphasis on distinctions between artists' signature styles. Here, their affinities are blurred and combined towards one end, a large visual conversation, successful because this group of 28 artists show a command of materials and ideas that one rarely sees all together in one place.

Rosenwald Wolf is crammed with work in a most wonderful and casual way, at times seeming like a large set piece for a theatrical production or an intellectual playground. Bales of straw are provided as seating. Wood grain painted adjustments to stairs, floor and handrail proliferate. These types of devices involve the viewer directly and help link the sites. Modifications challenge the space and feign functionality. A fake door is filled with books. Classic metaphors and irony abound. Everything is doctored.

he diorama theme park by Steven Brower includes a Mount Rushmore Darth Vader and a half destroyed World Trade Center which adds an air of creepy prophesy within the commentary on corporate dominion (I assume it was made before September 11). Nearby, through a convex lens of Plexiglas, over a hole in the wall of the storage room, one views Julianne Swartz's installation, "The Last Days of Disco." This is great self mediation.

The use of the Base Kamp as secondary space is no coincidence, given BK's own cooperative work ethic. The show dips somewhat here because the space is rougher and the results are more haphazard and less carefully manipulated. This is an indication that the "cover everything" strategy of LGTW needs to be total in order to transform spaces to better effect. Cleverly, the intervention begins at the stairs -- but the highlight here was the very watchable video works by British team Harrison and Wood and artist Oliver Herring. Nina Katchadourian provided the LGTW Soundtrack, pieced together with found cassette tape that was procured in the street by Rosenwald-Wolf curator Sid Sachs and gallery assistants. Oddly enough, it sounds like Philly.

At both sites, visual demands are made on the viewer. All linked to the philosophical nature of art, to a great degree one is viewing ideas made real. That may be the future in a nutshell. As the UK/USA curating team of Gavin Wade and Jonathan Van Dyke join in the art-making and art direction of the spaces, they raise issues that seem almost out of place in contemporary art; let's call this "post-cynical." This successful collaboration proves well the point that they make about working together. Whether or not Wade and Van Dyke can make the larger breakthrough to linking art significantly with architecture outside the art context is another story. That seems a matter more for a larger political stage where art has yet to prove its weight. It would also take a major diplomatic effort to propel art beyond the "1 percent for art" limiting quota. But for the moment, breaking down tired models of the individual artist "genius" is a good place to start. The fact that these artists are working in unison, at such high level of achievement while keeping their audiences' response in mind, is ultimately refreshing.

© James Rosenthal 2001

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