Review: Anthea Hamilton: The Pillow Book @ O'Flaherty's
"It's so uprententious," Lilly declares
I was worried about the art at the O’Flaherty’s opening or
how about
We were chiefing by the back window on weed we bought for $30, a relative deal for an eighth, from O’Flaherty’s, Budweiser in hand, Tecate tucked in pocket.
Or perhaps
“That’s an interesting bar” expressed a passerby at last night’s rainy opening for the Alphabet City gallery-cum-cool-kid-hangout spot, O’Flaherty’s.
Any way you want to begin, it won’t start with the art. It seems that the actual work itself—Anthea Hamilton’s boulders and butterflies—was ancillary. The main event was the buckets of beer; the opportunity to front and hang out. Lilly called the show unpretentious. I came away wishing “The Pillow Book,” up through May 8, were less aloof. The opening was inviting—free Tecates, big open space replete with dance-club designed floors—but while the room was buzzing, the work was silent.
So quiet were Hamilton’s boulders that some dickwad used one as a prop to hold his umbrella. Now that’s just disrespectful no matter how many Sapparos you’ve swilled.
The press release wasn’t very forthcoming. “When you see a boulder, you know it’s been placed there,” was its koan-like explanation. I wish it had more to tell us. What was the material? It seemed like styrofoam—a sprinkling of dust near some boulders suggested much—spray painted (?) but I’ll never know.
I’m not above admitting I touched it, too. Lightly of course. I have respect. Hamilton was nominated for a Turner Prize in 2016. She’s the real deal. So why did this feel like a fake art show? To her credit, the boulders did look real. Like something pilfered from the moon, smooth and variagated, each in a different size suggesting verisimilitude.
I guess, in the artist’s defense, all openings have a simulacrum affect. It’s hard to judge art when there are a bunch of bros straddling it, trying to talk to the girls with the cool shoes. You need to feel like you’re in a cold library to really take things in.
Maybe I can’t see the boulders from the trees. Maybe the emperor wears no clothes. I mostly wanted to know why one would place a boulder somewhere, anywhere, especially a gallery. (Would it be wrong to call these works sculptures?) I’m not much for authorial intent or even press-release-babble, I can explicate work using my own noggin, but some promise here felt unfulfilled. What was the relationship between the butterfly bas-relief and the boulders on the floor? What about those hanging kimonos? These objects, in another room, might invite thoughts of tranquility. But in this room, with its Ken Russell film still motif lining the walls (an unperturbed imprisoned nun from The Devils (1971)) distractions loom. The floors, checkerboarded in green and blue, which the press release makes sure to point out were expensive to install, recall the bordeom of high school detention.
While I ordinarily find them stolid, a white cube space might have lent these objects more weight. Here, you feel you can lift the boulder above your head like a fed-up Sisyphus. There should be some weight to such work. Instead, it felt like ideas clashing. I’ll come to the next opening but isn’t it kinda the opposite of unpretentious to use art as a gimmick when you’re really just a hype house?
Verdict: **.5 / *****