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Nature of the 'Beast'

January 25, 2007 12:50 am

By SHEILA WICKOUSKI

For THE FREE LANCE-STAR

While art historians and archeologists debate what to think of cavemen and their art, nobody talks about what cavemen might think of our "modern" art today.

It is a likely guess that they might feel at home in Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum, especially because the AVAM's 12th thematic mega exhibition, "Home & Beast," explores a subject that shares so much with humanity's earliest art.

The earliest artists were self-taught, like the visionary artists represented in the collection. Most of what remains of man's first images are beasts that covered cave walls for either decorative or ritualistic purposes. The AVAM's latest show follows this rich tradition delightfully.

The "Beast" portion champions human relationships with animals, whether as companions or as religious icons. "Home" covers domestic dwellings, from the teepee, yurt and mobile trailer to the apartment, ranch house and palace.

A herd of animal sculptures--dogs, anteaters, porcupines--is positioned at the entrance of the show.

Roughly sawn wooden crocodiles that are crude imitations of nature, a "pink elephant" that looms like a pictograph, a panda and a red-nosed reindeer are all predictably included among wild animals tamed by storytelling.

The AVAM also brings up issues of man's proper use of animal life. One wall text discusses the potential of cancer-sniffing dogs. Another is directed at meat lovers.

Haitian artist Henri Thezume's acrylic on canvas "Slaughter House" is placed next to Temple Grandin's photocopies of blueprints titled "Detail of a Round Crowd Pen and Curved Chute System" and "Large Layout of a Beef Stockyard and Handling System at a Meat Plant."

Thezume specialized in depicting everyday life in a colonial town, with pictures that represent ordinary people in both their inner and outer worlds.

Grandin was diagnosed as autistic at an early age, and later completed a doctorate in animal science. Her work with livestock led to the reformation of slaughter plants and farms for humane handling of animals.

When brought together, their works are a powerful visual message that is grasped instinctively.

Also included are three finger paintings by Betsy, the now-deceased chimp from the Baltimore Zoo, whom Baltimore filmmaker John Waters credits as being an inspiration.

The "Home" section of the show suggests a wide variety of possibilities from installations that are decorated in bottle caps or nickels.

At the AVAM, the artifacts are taken out of their unique cultural niches and placed in relation to funerary objects, such as glittering urns, in which there is even a space to store DNA in our final home.

Interspersed in the installations of "Home" are some serious paintings that challenge the notions of what "home" really means.

Lauri Lipton's pencil-on-paper "Darling, I'm Home" shows a man holding a male doll with a bouquet of flowers. He is about to enter a dollhouse in which each room depicts a dysfunctional family episode.

Her "Housewife," in which a 1950s-ish woman pushes a baby carriage in front of a Gothic house, is filled with mixed metaphors about the role of women.

William Kurelek, a Canadian of Jewish-Ukrainian descent, depicts family life on a dairy farm on the prairie. His works in the show seem so ordinary, yet they resonate with the complexities of human life even in the simplest circumstances.