ELEANOR HARWOOD - MILLION FISHES
MOLLUSK SURF SHOP
04.25.09

Eleanor Harwood Gallery: Laura Paulini & Jill Sylvia - Allegories of Control.

Comment by AB: "Allegories of Control" is putting it mildly. I'd call it more like "Apogees of Maticulousness," and I mean that in a good way because the levels of systematic precision and discipline necessary to produce the art in this show verge on incomprehensible. For example, I'm certain Laura Paulini's geometric works on wood involve some sort of screenprint process, but no. She tells me she applies each individual dot of paint (and there are scrillions of them) with the tip of a chopstick. Yo! I gotta slap a rare and highly coveted "How Do Dey Do Dat?" award on this one.

As for Jill Sylvia, the Empress of Excise, she transforms sheets upon sheets of ledger paper into sublime swiss cheese grids by flawlessly removing the blank fields between the lines with an exacto knife. But wait; there's more. She then takes the pieces she's removed and collages 'em into linear formations with astonishing determination and accuracy.

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Million Fishes: Swarm Intelligence.

Artists: Aaron Selverston, Allysun Dutra, Carlos Marulanda, Christina Miglino, Frank Callozzo, Ian Momsen, Joel Stockdill, Ryan de la Hoz, Zee Boudreaux. Curated by Ian Momsen.

Comment by AB: According to the syllabus, "Swarm Intelligence systems are typically made up of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of 'intelligent' global behavior, unknown to the individual agents." Like bees or ants. So is the implication that if this ostensibly unthemed show hangs long enough, some modicum of wisdom will come of it? Hmmm. Stay tuned for exciting evolutionary developments.

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Mollusk Surf Shop: Danielle Rubi - Invisible Thread, New Photographs.

Comment by AB: Danielle Rubi travels the world and photographs wherever she goes. For this exhibition, Rubi unifies a group of seemingly disparate images based on several parameters-- she takes them all with the same camera (a 1950 square format Rolleiflex), prints them all out in the same size, and hangs them based on the plane "horizon line" in each individual composition. The verdict? It works.

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