{"id":710,"date":"2009-06-19T12:57:37","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T19:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/06\/prelude_to_a_puppet_the_catalo\/"},"modified":"2009-06-19T12:57:37","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T19:57:37","slug":"prelude_to_a_puppet_the_catalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/06\/prelude_to_a_puppet_the_catalo.html","title":{"rendered":"Prelude to a puppet: the catalog (Hello Dave)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did not hustle to see The Puppet Show<\/i> from the ICA<\/a> when it opened at the Frye<\/a> last month, partly because (already been chewed) puppets are everywhere. Pretty sure the exhibit plucked a few stringed bodies from the contemporary image stream as easy-to-chew crowd pleasers and sorry more compelling explorations<\/a> tend not to travel, I filed it under an ever-receding-into-the-future to-do list. <\/p>\n

I should have listened to Jen Graves, review here<\/a>. (Mine in multiples soon to follow.)

The Puppet Show<\/i> is killer good, and so is its catalog<\/a>. Catalogs for crowd pleasers are either too jolly or too academic, good for their show lists, images and quotes from artists. This one, like Poussin<\/a>, can truly claim to have thought of everything.<\/p>\n

Below, jewels plucked from its various crowns, otherwise known as quotes from essays, beginning with the anchor piece by ICA curator Ingrid Schaffner<\/b>, which provides an essential history of. <\/p>\n

The art of bringing dead things to life is how Kiki Smith, who was once a busker with a Punch and Judy show, relates her work as a sculptor to puppetry. Or half-life, since part of what makes puppets so compelling – and, to many minds, creepy – as objects is that they always appear to be as much dead as alive. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The puppet that opens its eyes after everyone has gone to sleep…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

(About Calder’s Circus, from 1961:) The sight of a big old bear of a man playing with tiny childish objects … encapsulates a lifetime’s effort to make art as gratifying as a toy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

fingers tangled in strings…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

In the creation of art, it is the puppet one makes of oneself that is most important. (Harold Rosenberg)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jane Taylor:<\/b> Big points for resuscitation of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/i>,
\nwhich was always too big-idea for me, and whose virtues have receded through
\nthe lens of nephews and nieces, who unanimously reject it.<\/p>\n

‘Stop.
\nWill you. Stop Dave. Will you stop Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid Dave.<\/b>‘ 
\nThese are not questions, nor are they appeals. They are chains of
\nsignifiers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n
\"ASpaceOdyssey.jpg\"<\/span>John Bell:<\/b><\/p>\n

Puppeteers are often asked, ‘Oh, don’t you love Being John Malkovich<\/i>?’
\nIn that film, John Cusack plays Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer frustrated
\nby his unachievable desire to control people the way he controls
\nmarionettes. This has nothing to do with real puppetry and is instead a
\nmisdirected metaphor about puppets: the idea that the goal of puppet
\nperformance is complete control of the object.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Terence Gower:<\/b><\/p>\n

This tyranny of the copy brings to mind the final images of Federico Fellini’s film City of Women<\/i>,
\nin which (Marcello Mastroianni) finds himself in the gondola of a
\nhot-air balloon. Looking up, he realizes that the balloon is a copy of
\nthe beautiful young woman he has been pursuing throughout the film. She
\nlooms over him like a vast marionette, yet it is he who is caught in
\nthe strings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


Jenna Osman:<\/b><\/p>\n

The
\nleast change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial
\nair. A man who seldom rides needs only to get into a coach and
\ntransverse his own town to turn the street into a puppet-show. (Emerson)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brecht’s
\nepic theater is an argument against ‘culinary” performance wherein the
\naudience gives itself up via empathy to the unreality of the stage.
\nOnce the empathic lock has been achieved, the spectator consumes the
\nwords and experiences of the protagonist as if there were her own. And in light of such consumption, nothing changes<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carin Kuoni:<\/b> Excellent on the specific qualities of the artists in the lineup. (Co-curator of the exhibit, with Schaffner.)<\/p>\n

Ann
\nChu, for instance, has taken her puppets off the strings. All of a
\nsudden, the charming old man with a wide-brimmed sloppy hat and the
\nmaiden with her stiff bonnet hang off ropes, transformed by the artist
\ninto strangled corpses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Nayland Blake’s puppets are delicate, temporary, rococo concoctions – frail and doomed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

A puppet is never abstract, lest it become a pattern (or a dance)<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did not hustle to see The Puppet Show from the ICA when it opened at the Frye last month, partly because (already been chewed) puppets are everywhere. Pretty sure the exhibit plucked a few stringed bodies from the contemporary image stream as easy-to-chew crowd pleasers and sorry more compelling explorations tend not to travel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}