Art in a Global Age hints at much but says little

I wish I had a wheel chair. The current show at the Walker, Art in a Global Age will make you feel this way. Trudging through the art galleries laden with complex meaning, you will want to sit down to take it all in. The art literally screams at you from the excessively loud video and sound installations, and that can wear a person. It is exhausting to try to get all the hidden meanings, double entendres and clever innuendo. Art in a Global Age is like that friend we all have, who is really smart, but socially inept and insecure. So they always make a fool of themselves showing off how intelligent they are. The problem of acting like an ass because they want you to like them. Art in a Global Age was put together by brilliant curators, and houses brilliant artists who make great art, but … You might enjoy it if you have the patience to wade through everything.

"Portable City: Beijing" by Vin Xiuzen

I wanted to like artist Tsuyoshi Ozawa from Japan. His installation “The Museum of Soy Sauce” is a history of art that is masterfully articulated. A series of rooms joined together house different periods of art. All reproductions are painted with soy sauce. There is the Ancient Gallery, the Middle Ages Gallery and the Modern Gallery. In the Modern Gallery Tsuyoshi Ozawa has painted a surprisingly accurate copy of a Modigliani and a Van Gogh, all in soy sauce. It’s great, but … so what? The explanation provided in text on the wall (I recommend reading these throughout the entire show) is that his work is about the “museumification” of the world. At the same time he is mocking the structure that presents him. Doesn’t that give you a headache? The only real (and very important) statement this artist makes is the “Stop the War” he has painted in soy sauce on a blank canvas in the Contemporary Gallery. I really want to like him for that.

Turkish artist Culsen Karamustafa’s piece “Mystic Transportation” is a series of mesh baskets on wheels with blankets in them. This extremely simple piece is about the hugely complicated subject of nomadism. I just found myself being irritated. Has Karamustafa actually said anything about this overwhelming topic?

Another Turkish artist, Husevin Bahri Alpetekin’s wall piece “Heimat/Toprak” had a similar effect on me. “Heimat/Toprak” is spelled out with sequins in large letters. Both words translate to “Homeland” and this piece’s subject matter is immigration and integration. Nomadism, immigration and integration are all extremely important subject matters. It is wonderful that these subjects are being addressed in a place like the Walker. But do we walk away educated or informed about these subjects, or do we just get the joke and say, “Ah”? Is that relevant, informative, or even interesting?

Sheela Gowda from India has created “Private Gallery,” a very intimate exquisite little installation. From the outside we see two door sized pieces of pink linoleum walls joined together like a changing screen. We walk around the corner of the screens and see they are covered in beautiful little sepia and brown drawings/watercolors, and small quarter sized pats of brown material. The brown pats are thumbprints of cow dung and the paintings are made of watered down dung and red kum kum, a paint used for ritual body painting. This piece looks real and smells real. Gowda is a wonderfully trained painter and has painted (with cow dung and kum kum) fantastic paintings of city streets, flowers, leaves, as well as beautiful little portraits. Gowda has a realness, a human-ness, a personalness, and an honesty that is missing from most of the other work in this show.

Thank God for the artist with a sense of humor. The clever and funny video/performance artist South African Robin Rhode, has taped himself drawing a car with charcoal, on the white gallery wall. Then we see him take a screwdriver, a brick and a crowbar and try to break into his car drawing while a very loud alarm goes off. The video plays on a monitor next to the drawing of the car with all the objects used to break into it lying on the floor beneath it. This piece is very entertaining.

Vin Xiuzen, an artist from China, has made “Portable Cities.” These cities spring out of a series of large black suitcases. The recognizable skylines are made of fabric, city maps, audio recordings, lights, magnifying glasses and mirrors. “Portable Cities” has a homey feel of being hand sewn, with mismatched cloth and knit wear pieced together as if someone’s overworked mom did it. Berlin, Shanghai, Beijing and Minneapolis never looked so sweet. A well-thought-out lovely piece.

There are a few real gems in this show, unfortunately you have to weave through a lot of boring art. The Walker is to be commended for putting together a truly global show. It is also commendable to show art with a social commentary and a political agenda. However most of the art in this show is afraid to really state what it means. This show hints at much, but says little. The noise factor is also truly disturbing, but as an astute guard said to me, “The obnoxious in-your-face noise is meant to affect you whether you like it or not.” He summed the show up by saying “Rarely is the public going to get what they want.” To this I ask “Why?”

Art in a Global Age continues through May 4. Walker Art Center, Vineland Place, Mpls. 612-375-7622.