Rachel Niffenegger at Western Exhibitions

Rachel Niffenegger says that her favorite childhood toy was “Dr. Dreadful’s Squeemy Snack Lab” (“Looks gross, Tastes great”) A similar contrast may be found in the current exhibition of her art. The sculptural figures all resemble skeletons wrapped in decaying shrouds. Yet they also suggest acrobats or perhaps even dancers holding acrobatic poses. They are vibrant and elegantly fragile despite their sepulchral associations. Each wire figure rests upon a clear acrylic box half filled with gravel and rubble that must have been swept off a parking lot. It’s possibly the cheapest, dirtiest, and most available material one could find. Yet it’s color and texture is visually the perfect complement to the soaring, twisting figure resting upon it.

Like many other shows at Western Exhibitions, the installation of this show is no less creative than the art on display. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A long sheet of translucent white fabric has been stretched within one area of the gallery. Concealing the edges of the conventional white cube, it has been tacked or draped over plinths of various heights. It renders the space more intimate than social. More remarkably, it has also been stretched over a life size department store mannequin of a running woman. Who knew that such an unusual prop even existed? The features of the mannequin are mostly obliterated by the sheet stretched over it – but it still feels lithe and athletic - the same energy that seems to drive all the collages, inkjet prints, and sculptures on display.

Childbirth appears to be the theme that unites everything. As presented by Cosmo Compoli, one of Chicago’s historic Monster Roster, it can be ugly, dangerous, and painful. That’s the message shared by his bronze sculpture, “Birth of Death” (1950). Giving birth, however, might also be considered the most amazing and creative act that humans ever do , even if it’s messy, and chaotic. Wistful faces in muted pink and blue often appear on the thin fabric that has been stretched across some of the wire loops in the sculptures. Though blurry, they still seem to express the sweetness, hope and potential of youth. More youthful faces appear in the inkjet prints where they have been distorted as if reflected by a funhouse mirror. In one such image, an infant is suckled by his naked, smiling mother.

The stated theme of the show, however, is “Psychotic transcendence”. Or, perhaps it’s “Personal Effluvium”. Or perhaps it’s “Mental Hauntings”. The artist offers fifteen possible titles for this show and seventeen possible answers to “what is the work about?”. None of them denote the act of giving birth . She does note, however, that since her last show, “There is more sex and babies”, “I understand beauty” and “Death is now harder” There is nothing cool about becoming a parent – or a “breeder” as some might call it. It’s more about responsibility than freedom. It’s more about creating rules than defying them. It’s more about someone else’s future than your own present. But it does seem to be what has been on the artist’s mind lately - despite her childhood fascination with the macabre.

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Luke Fidler's review in New City finds that "No individual piece is quite as compelling as the whole installation" -- as did I.   But he's not sure whether it's anything more than " collecting, re-working, and storing things"  Is it a good collection of such things?  That issue is not addressed - though overall the show is not Recommended

Niffenegger's new found interest in motherhood is too politically oblique right now for an artist to  proclaim or a critic to notice.

By the way, the critic notes that "much of the ambitious work focused on bodies these days attends to vital issues of race, gender, sexuality, or ability, grounding the body’s subjecthood in social procedures of constitution or experience." 


With which I'd agree -- but without the word "ambitious".  Such issues are more like low hanging fruit -- easily reachable and automatically respectable.