SOCIAL DISTORTION

As the week winds down and the wild promise of this upcoming weekend mounts, the yip and woo hoo inducing excitement of the REMIX party dropping at the Seattle Art Museum tonight can be felt vibrating through my skin. Although the unveiling of Chicago artist Nick Cave's work officially opened on Thursday, riding on the coat tails of Mardi Gras, the unofficial opening might as well be this remixed mixer! OBVS, with all the dos going down and a sold out crowd, it should be interesting in the way of people watching, but truthfully, I am really looking forward to seeing the performances by Cornish in Cave's soundsuits. As works of spectacle, the intricate pieces are truly a sight to behold and I can't help but be wowed by the shimmering bold glitter of the bodies in motion, the tactility of the each form sheathed in texture and the unpredictable and magical sounds of the aural landscape that might be encountered.

Will the hype meet my hopes? Will there be some sexy chemistrophic synthesis of pretension and sincerity? What am I even talking about?

When I first discovered Cave's work, I immediately made a connection to the collaborative duo of avant garde sculptors of the physical, Lucy and Bart. The mutated forms, often bordering on the grotesque can be identified by their use of simple materials, play on proportion and the electricity of brilliant execution. It is easy to fall in love with their willingness to submit to the nature of impermanence, weaving it into the creation process and embracing it, rather than viewing it (impermanence) as impediment.

While Cave's compositions walk the line of whimsically fantastic, the L+B brand of physical manipulation feels somehow more tangible. The eyes of either artist peering out from a metamorphosed skin. Confronting, but not aggressively challenging you, in an oddly direct way. Cave and the L+B pair, are part of what could be called the new school corporeal vanguard. A group of highly experimental, cultural observers that are questioning societal norms concerning bodily perception and documenting their methods of exploration through distortion and manipulation of the physical framework...the transformations often inciting visceral reactions from their audience. Moving past more conventional representations of the human body, the works of these artists are provocations, entreaties to perceive the muscles, the bones, the skin, the shape as malleable, evolving, communicative. The human form becomes a forum for questions, a vessel for statements and a mark for social commentary.