Marie Lafia: Lingering Potentials, Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica
Marie Lafia’s recent exhibition
of mixed media work and installation addresses the blurring lines of distinction
between information and actuality, seeing and being, fact and fiction;
she investigates the parallel terrains of self-discovery and mass culture
through the use of conventional materials employed in an unconventional
manner. As in her exhibition “Little Potentials 2000” held last
year at Domestic Setting in Los Angeles, Lafia continues to incorporate
common everyday objects, such as sponges, floppy disks, marbles and mass-media
images, to create assemblages whose materiality functions contrary to
their intended purposes, and which are playfully thoughtful in their ambiguity
of meaning.
A common characteristic shared among the six individual wall-mounted sculptural
works in this show is a quality of self-containment, each being a microcosm
of personal invention. This past summer Lafia spent time in Skowhegan,
Maine. Two of the strongest pieces in the show, chaise lounge and two
chairs, reflect aspects of the artist’s experience while ensconced
at this scenic spot, which is also a summer retreat and school for artists.
Both works are comprised of a single brightly-colored kitchen sponge,
small rocks collected in Skowhegan, paint swatches and picturesque photographic
views of the lake there, all arranged atop a Plexiglas shelf. Combined,
these objects reconstruct the immediacy of an ephemeral and fleeting experience,
in much the same way a child creates an imaginary or surrogate world from
gathered odds and ends. This approach belies a calculated naiveté
at once conveying both wonder and innocence lost.
The subject of personal passage is the basis for a pair of related large-scale
installations on two opposing walls of the gallery entitled happy birthday
to me and happy birthday to you, referring to Lafia’s 30th birthday,
which occurred during the run of the show. Both works are made of crepe-paper
party streamers hung from the ceiling down to the floor. The former is
made entirely of black paper; the latter of multicolored streamers. Recognizing
this period as a point of personal transformation, Lafia acknowledges
the loss and rebirth connected with the transition through life’s
stages. While the premise of this idea is clear and poignant, and the
pieces themselves had a definite presence within the confines of the gallery,
ultimately the chosen mode of expression here was somewhat lacking in
imagination and originality.
Another installation-oriented work, entitled diamonds-1995, offered a
clever spin on the commodification and consumption of information. This
piece consisted of over 100 black floppy disks with an enlarged computer-reproduced
image of a faceted diamond placed at the center. This image was repeated
identically throughout and the floppy disks were arranged lined up point
to point (to form a “diamond” shape) in two extended rows along
the wall of the gallery, and then a third row along the same wall’s
baseboard. Both the concept of the value of the diamond as well as any
potential value the disk could offer as a vessel for the storage of information
became nullified through the artist’s process, and in doing so the
ultimate function of both became relegated to decoration.
Through the issues explored in this and related bodies of work, Lafia
has proven herself to possess an engaging capacity for devising alternate
ways of perceiving the limits of day-to-day reality, a quality that will
surely evolve as she celebrates birthdays in the future.
Jane Hart
Los Angeles, California
1995