Chris Johanson & Kal Spelletich
Jack Hanley Gallery
- Isaac Amala -
L. Chris Johanson and Kal Spelletich, Citizen Witnessing Fascist State, 2006–07; Mick Jagger’s old microphone case, photos, wood, spark plugs; 14 x 12 x 10 inches; photo
by Maria Stabio
Feel that way peace guy, 2002–07; wood, steel, video monitor, DVD of demolition derby, motor, electronics; 36 x 10 x 10; photo by Maria Stabio
We hardly need to be reminded that the economy’s plunge affects everyone—not least of all the art community. Add in the realities of San Francisco’s exorbitant housing, persistent gentrification, high-rise developments (not to mention a suite of sobering dot-com aftershocks) and it is little wonder that the city’s gallery-goers have encountered two phenomena: in response to such economic rifts, artists in the Mission District have critically eschewed slick production quality while embracing craft-oriented processes and a punk/folk aesthetic; meanwhile, new alternative spaces have bloomed in the shadows of more established institutions.
Jack Hanley’s Valencia Street outpost has certainly come from money, but the place has done well for itself by featuring the likes of Chris Johanson and Kal Spelletich, both apt ambassadors from either end of the Mission’s wide range of artistic practices. Though each artist has enjoyed critical success both nationally and abroad, their plainly titled exhibition, A Collaboration, highlights their ongoing creative partnership. All evidence indicates a successful, albeit curious, marriage: Johanson’s oeuvre is packed with highly graphitized figures, vibrant geometry, social commentary and roughly hewn installations; Spelletich, meanwhile, wrestles with highly mechanized robotics and motion-activated devices. Merging such disparate practices as these risks work in which two personalities either compete for power or timidly avoid conflict. But, thankfully, Johanson and Spelletich allow for just the right amount of thrashing.
And what a battleground it is. Spelletich mechanically intervenes as if to activate Johanson’s figures, all the while making effigies of them. This kind of tension, along with the fact that many works either move by themselves or are viewer-activated, primes the place with a sideshow atmosphere. Such is the case in Business Person with Negative Vibrations for Viewing in which a faceless silhouette is hooked up to a motion sensor, a monitor and a camera on a movable on arm. When standing before the Business Person, you are not rewarded with your own image on the monitor. Instead, when you position yourself before the camera’s eye, a sensor is activated causing the camera to point in another direction. Woman in a Gyroscopic Wormhole, meanwhile, finds two upright women painted on either side of a flat board; if the two have distinct personalities, it’s difficult to tell. The figures spin so furiously that the pair is fused into a kind of dizzied Janus.
Meeting similar fates, the “citizens,” “comrades” and “peoples” that populate the remainder of the show seem to diverge into two species: sphere-headed miniatures (bearing a savage resemblance to a Fisher-Price crew) and Johanson’s tell-tale cartoons of fat men and business folk. These characters are affixed to slowly revolving abstract dioramas and bow to their partners ad infinitum. They circumnavigate and ponder voids in their environment. The artists refer to these as “wormholes,” implying that there are indeed escape routes—possibilities for transcendence, even when trapped in a closed-circuit lifestyle.
Isaac Amala is an artist, writer and performer based in San Francisco. He is a contributing editor to Flavorpill publications.