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Friday, June 13, 2003

By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic

The two-for-one deal at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts tonight packages "A Night of Sound Art" with a chance to see the state-of-the-art 2003 Pittsburgh Biennial, which closes June 22.

	Review: 2002 Pittsburgh Biennial WHERE: Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Shadyside. WHEN: Through June 22. EVENT: A Night of Sound Art, 7-10 p.m. today; $15 includes membership. HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. INFORMATION: 412-361-0873

The very savvy Biennial spills into all corners of the center's two floors (handicap accessible) and even outdoors. Since the show's theme is the performative in art, the program is an especially good fit. Four of the exhibiting artists and musician Josh Brand will perform during an evening hosted by cabaret singer Phat Man Dee.

Admission to the event, a benefit for the center, is $15 (members free), which includes a basic membership, usually valued at $25. With that comes a discount in the center's shop and the chance to purchase the show's hot-off-the-press 157-page catalog for $10. Members may also bring one guest for an additional $5. There'll also be a silent auction of a one-of-a-kind lounge chair from Martin Prekop's installation, raffle prizes including an art class and artwork, music by DJ Soy Sos and refreshments.

Check out artworks by Rick Gribenas and Jeremy Boyle (also exhibiting at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery) for a clue to where their performance is grounded. Techno but subtle, their pieces grab the viewer via their fanciful appeal -- with leggy aspects, flickering light, clicking or airflow suggesting animated alien forms -- then hold him/her with more complex undercurrents.

Gribenas, who has a printmaker's knack for titles -- for example "Someone Chopped Down All the Trees in Swissvale; so I Stole All the Lights, Except One" -- induces intimacy through size, forcing viewers to step closer and follow him to private places. Boyle updates a classic genre in "(Rotating) Self Portrait." They both challenge assumptions about the way we perceive sound, Boyle revisiting classical music in his "Eight Part Fugue" and Gribenas through an addition he's made to the Prekop Family Room that you should discover on your own.

The Prekop Room is an enticing installation -- invitingly casual yet having exacting quality throughout its mix of components by several artists that seamlessly blend -- that's become a visitor magnet. Were this the Mattress Factory, it might have become a permanent fixture.

Equally unconventional is the construct and presentation by "Who is like God?s," a duo who will perform in their irresistible installation of four deconstructed pianos, projection and water table. Be sure to strum the piano harps; it's addictive. The artists are Michael Pestel and Michael Tolson, known as tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE.

Between all the action, slip away to see two engrossing media works, both manageably short: Hope Thompson and Simone Jones' "Vial," a murder mystery that's part filmed and part animated, and Suzie Silver's "Her Royal Majesty: Parts 1 and 2" (sit through each part with headphones).

In these, and throughout the Biennial, the tenor of the times is represented in pieces that appear polished and playful, but underneath are often dark, even anxious.

The effect of the artist grouping on the east side of the second floor, for example, whether intentional or not, is subliminally creepy. Carin Mincemoyer's out-mainstream Fluxus, feminist referenced mannequins and Mark Perrott's oversized, tribally adorned teen, have eerie presence, coupled with Tresa Varner's narrative that implies familial dysfunction and Benjamin Matthews' gallery of grotesques. With those as an entry gate, a momentary dunk into your subconscious in the dimly lit, meditative space (watch your head) by Wall-to-Wall Studios may inspire more agitation than peace.

While these works gain impact from individual associations and experiences, the punch of David Celento and Rebecca Henn's installation comes from scientific data, straightforwardly if aesthetically delivered. Vaguely reminiscent of Ilya Kabakov's 1991 Carnegie International installation, the designers have suspended small cards holding information about cancer. Each visitor-participant is invited to tie a ribbon to the strings holding the cards to commemorate someone who has survived, succumbed to or is fighting cancer, and also to locate his/her home on a map of Allegheny County that, through lights, indicates EPA Superfund and carcinogen emission sites.

Most likely to linger in one's thoughts is the exceptional "Swipe" by Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer -- a cautionary tale in fun clothing -- formatted as a bar from which drinks were served at the opening. To get one, you handed over your driver's license, which was "swiped" through a Web-connected scanner, and soon personal information about you was projected onto a wall, grabbed from the Internet. More effectively than any 100 consumer warnings, "Swipe" -- as in to steal, to deliver a hard blow -- makes clear your vulnerability in a digital age of record keeping. A nearby computer reveals unsettling -- but empowering -- information that anyone living in today's consumer culture should be aware of.

The Biennial's been up since March, and is showing signs of wear. The shallow pool of "Who is Like God?s" piece seems to be developing pond scum, one of the three platform lights in the Wall-to-Wall installation was out, Tim Kaulen's large outdoor flamingos were deflated and, while the browning of the once-lush, bright green patches of growing grass in Stephanie Mayer and Ursula Beer's work is probably a planned part of the work, the occasional mold and scuffing of the white floor detract (requesting shoe removal or providing slip-over booties, would prevent the latter).

Co-curators Vicky A. Clark and Robert Raczka have delivered another sterling example, that inspires and educates, while proving that you don't have to leave Western Pennsylvania to find cutting-edge and thought-provoking art and ideas. Let's hope they do it again in two years.