Jenny
1996
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racing forms
by p.c. smith
a gallery tip sheet
Alan Belcher
at Jack Shainman
Jan. 4-Feb. 9, 1997
This Canadian artist's new series,
"Friends," constructed in acrylic plush,
mutates only slightly the idea of stuffed
animals. Images of fruit, fried eggs,
soccer balls and cartoon animals pop out of
complex, bulging configurations. Art's
spiritual comfort is satirized as warm and
fuzzy anthropomorphic infantilism. The
materials remind one of Mike Kelley (one
could name other antecedents as well), but
Belcher's color and form here tends more
towards Playskool Biomorphic.
Besides co-founding the influential East
Village gallery Nature Morte, over the last
15 years Belcher has created a sound-bite-rich range of conceptual objects, always
with interesting social awareness. His work
has remained somewhat in the shadow of his
peers, artists like Ashley Bickerton and
Jeff Koons, probably because they have a
patched-together, junky esthetic that lacks
expensive sheen. Until recently, his
objects have questioned the role of
photography: photographs of contraband
mounted on luggage, or of buildings under
construction wrapped around cinderblocks
(1988), or voodoo fetish self-portraits
using photo-booth faces and bits of his own
hair, clothing and nail clippings (1995).
Thus far, Belcher's work has been too
easily forgotten.
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