Only the Lonely

I think for maybe a year

I didn't see the world as being worth much of a picture.

Things change though.

People-less-ness.

People-full. It's the opening of "...After the Suburbs" at Kiang Gallery and that is a moss covered chair by Pandra Williams.

Pandra Williams, "Moss Chair; Renaturalization," Detail, Mixed Media, 2010-11, 44"x34"x37".

The show is curated by Karen Tauches, as she continues onward in her studious fascination with urban decay and suburbia.

James Griffioen, "Feral Houses," Digital Archival Prints, 2010, 8"x10"

Detroit artist James Griffioen sets the tone of the show with a grid of abandoned, comically tragic, and ready-to-be-rubble houses photographed Becher style.

It's like a perverse real estate listing you'd see tacked up on a coffee shop bulletin board.

This poor little house calls to me.

James Griffioen, "Feral Houses," Digital Archival Prints, 2010, 18"x24"

Steve and David D. said that Detroit is working on a program to auction off the land cheaply for the purpose of being converted into farms. An idea with potential! Apparently Atlanta needs to turn her suburbs into water reservoirs and quick.

Sarah Hobbs "Avoidance" C-Print, 2009, 60"x48"

I do enjoy a show with a good layout. Hobbs's photograph of aluminum-foil covered foyer windows greets you at the gallery entrance and sets a tone of quiet entrapment.

Travis Shaffer, "Residential Facades Series," Silver Gelatin Prints, 2010, 9"x9"

From there the show diverges into two categories

"Residential Facades Series," Detail

the prevailing being glimpses of wardened off exteriors - cooly geometric and foreboding - which threaten to kill off sentimentality (and perhaps the viewer's sympathy?)

but is brought into balance by Williams's spongy forest floor chair and even more by Nancy Van Devender's rolling landscape of ruffled fabrics.

Coy and subtly complex, Van Devender adds to the show a well-rounded musing.

Inclusion of an artist like Jessi Wohl would have been another nice counterbalance; providing a peep into the inner realm of theses cardboard cutouts.

Susan Loftin, "Blue View," Blue Painter's Tape, 2011.

It's a good time when two galleries exhibit shows that create an interesting dialogue between. Especially when the galleries sit side by side, and even better when it resultant of sheer coincidence in curation.

Cheryl Goldsleger, "Rear View," Mixed Media on Paper, 2011, 22"x30"

Like in 2010 when established Koran-American artist Jiha Moon was at Saltworks while emerging Korean-American artist Gyun Hur opened next door at Get This! Gallery.

"Rear View," Detail

Or when Sandler Hudson opens a group show dealing with the rather random topic of chairs while next door Kiang is opening a conversation about the exoskeleton of a house (with a chair sitting in the midst of it all).

Ilene Sunshine, "L.S. #75," Honey Locust Leaves on Paper, 2002, 13"x10"

It would seem like William's fern chair may have something to say to Ilene Sunshine's fantastically simple chair of Honey Locust Leaves on paper, but what do I know of chairs and their conversations?