Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Classifying the Absurd

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What:
Certificate of Ingenuity by Bryan Baker

Where:
Tomato Head, Market Square

When:
Through Feb. 6

O.C.D. as a form of A-R-T

by Heather Joyner Spica

Lots of people out there feel that paintings without much color, or words rendered on a gallery wall—no matter what the intentions or effect—are just plain bullshit. That's modernism taken a bit too far, they'd tell you, having struggled to accept aged Picassos with a few extra eyes floating around as bona fide art. And language-driven conceptual pieces are indeed hard to swallow if one believes that art must be a picture of something, or that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Now we can factor into the Conceptual art equation the work of Bryan Baker. For another week or so, he's exhibiting two dozen text-enhanced Polaroid images and contributing to an intriguing tradition that dates back almost a century to the Dada movement (known for its abandonment of traditional artistic aims).

Called "Certificate of Ingenuity," Baker's show at the Tomato Head restaurant presents identically composed and framed pieces, each with a photograph and corresponding printed "form." For instance, one snapshot of a bowl covering an aquarium comes with a typewritten description reading, "The size, weight, and shape of a large ceramic mixing bowl all work together to help curb the instincts and actions of a cat." All variations on this theme of image and label, the pieces function as a single unit or installation. Baker's "Preliminary Assessment Forms" are completed to summarize the photos they accompany and include all sorts of categorized information—"Original Purpose of Specified Material," "Key Component of Operation," etc. One could call it a masterpiece of O.C.D. (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).

According to Baker, his exhibition "focuses on one portion of an ongoing investigation run by the PAR Association that analyzes the ability of individuals to suspend their own understandings of particular object identities and specific material purposes." For example, the perceptual leap required for a foam cowboy hat to be seen as a means of insulation against the elements. "It is a serious look into what some have dubbed... 'folk engineering', a type of problem-solving that arises somewhere between insight and desperation," he says.

As self-appointed director of the above association (purportedly established in 1976), Baker conducts "rigorous surveys" and collects data reflecting "interests primarily devoted to exploring the depths of circumstantial relationships." If that sounds a little offbeat, it's supposed to; it describes artistic exploration of the preposterous, and it is meant to amuse and challenge.

So what can we make of this continuing trend in art? We have on our hands a compulsion to revel in rather meaningless taxonomy (the Webster's Dictionary definition for which is, as follows: 1.) the study of the general principles of scientific classification, and 2.) the systematic distinguishing, ordering, and naming of type groups within a subject field). If we return to the thrust of World War I-era Dadaism, we might see it as a dismissal of science and technology being the solution to all problems. As for the later Conceptual art movement and its offshoots, I'll put it this way: Instead of emphasizing the machine, Conceptual art has emphasized the idea that becomes the mechanism via which art is produced.

Furthermore, examples of "pseudoscience"—such as absurd taxonomy—possibly clarify the true role of science and further distinguish art as a thing apart. As far as Baker is concerned, coming up with unexpected uses for familiar objects is a clever and entertaining process that assumes interesting visual forms—certainly no less of an excuse for image-making than a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers.

Baker's brand of "folk engineering" finds new applications for a range of items including a plastic lawn chair, an empty film canister, a coffee cup, and a bucket bottom. All are illustrated using sharp Instamatic prints. The bucket bottom becomes a bicycle chain guard, whereas other items are more loosely employed. Propped on a broken fence, the chair acts as a barrier to keep horses from wandering. A critical analysis of the discarded film canister found on the adjacent PAR Association form reads, "The malleable properties of this small cylindrical device known to those who have handled them became the object's most valuable attribute after its original purpose had been met." In other words, when squashed, an empty film container makes a damn good doorstop. A coffee cup can be suspended from a ceiling fan to reduce vibrations and silence squeaking sounds. And so on.

Scale is, unfortunately, always an issue for shows mounted at the Tomato Head. When diners are present, it's a chore for viewers to get close enough to see artwork without breathing on someone's salad, especially so when they are presented with the small Polaroid format. Lighting, too, remains inadequate. But, hey, it's another venue in which artists can strut their stuff and expand the boundaries of art-as-Knoxville-knows-it. And Baker does that with imagination and humor.