“Rainbow 6: Warsong” - Aaron Noble
What I found primarily fascinating about Chelsea is the completely different sort of atmosphere it gives off depending on what sort of day one visits the area. I went on Friday, as I hadn’t seen enough on Wednesday to make any definite impressions, and found, to my misfortune, pretty much every single gallery closed. So I started walking around the neighborhood, looking for anything that was open, and began noticing the outside art spraypainted and pasted onto building walls, streetlamps, practically any surface outside. And I saw that, at least in terms of graffiti, there was a lot of resentment boiling. “We Are All Homeless” was scrawled on a staircase on 22nd street. A sign for several gallery openings had “Yuppie Center” written under it. And I looked around, and saw that pretty much on every block there were new luxury apartment buildings going up, and it was rather depressing. I imagine that Chelsea became such an art center because of how commercialized SoHo had become, and now the cycle is pretty much repeating itself, albeit in a more aesthetically pleasing manner. I didn’t notice any local artists in the galleries that I went to, so it could be assumed that at least a significantly large number of the artists now showcased in Chelsea have made their names already in their country/city of origin, and are exhibiting here backed by that original fame. So unless unknown artists are willing to put up their works anonymously in the street, there’s really very little place for them in modern Chelsea to be discovered.
Then I visited on Saturday, and my impression was completely different. This may have something to do with me being in a much better mood since the galleries were actually open, but still. With actual people around, the streets were MUCH more lively, as one would expect. Inside the galleries themselves, I heard open discussion regarding the artistic merit of various works, and there were numerous parents who had brought their children along to experience the art. Thus, the depressive ennui of Friday was lifted, and I was able to enjoy more fully the fact that there IS such a place as Chelsea where there is so much art to be enjoyed by the public, despite it being taken over by overpriced apartments. In this case, I don’t believe that the art will go away anytime soon, since, as exhibited by the huge number of galleries, the neighborhood is built around the art. People come to Chelsea for the art, and the entire neighborhood is uplifted by this influx of people. This influence creates a positive cycle within the neighborhood, as more galleries are opened to attract more people, and more people come because of the galleries.
One of the exhibits that left the biggest impression on me was Rainbow 6: Warsong, in the Pavel Zoubok Gallery. My first impression was of a chaotic morass of color and vaguely familiar shapes that gradually became distinct as I began to recognize the individual pieces within each piece in the exhibit. It soon became clear that each work was composed of numerous bits and parts of comic book art, fused together into one gloriously messy whole. From this impression and from the title of the exhibition, I discerned that the show was an examination of the essence of comic book art and the reader’s own impression of what they view (for those who don’t know, Rainbow Six is a video game series based on the novels of the same name by Tom Clancy. Warsong is most likely a reference to Phoenix-Warsong, a five issue comic book limited series based in the X-Men universe). Perhaps rather irrationally, this made me very happy for a moment. While there are plenty of discussions regarding the psychology and meaning behind American comics, this was the first time that I had seen someone use a visual medium to glean meaning from behind what, from what I have seen as a casual fan, may be one of the single most commercial art forms out there. I could imagine in each individual piece some dramatic showdown between the hero(es) and the evil supervillain, and all the drama and emotion of that scene boiled down to one single image.
And then I looked at the press release (which you see here: http://www.artcal.net/event/view/1/5409). According to the press release, the exhibit can be imagined as “stills from an imaginary science-fiction anime”. While I certainly can see the idea behind such a description, I have to say that I found it quite odd, as there are numerous differences between the typical science-fiction anime/manga and comic book, such that (in my case at least) one glance is usually enough to discern which is which. And while it states that “The title Rainbow 6: Warsong, and the individual titles of the works refer to the complex world of Manga (a genre of Japanese comics),” both parts of the title refer to works produced by American companies, and all the pieces in the actual art are from comics, not manga (not to mention the fact that manga aren’t a GENRE of Japanese comics, they ARE Japanese comics). After reading that, I got the very strange impression that the artist, or at least whoever wrote the press release, was missing the point of the exhibit (which does sometimes make sense, as when Ray Bradbury claimed several years back that Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t about censorship). So unfortunately, the press release rather dampened my feelings for the exhibit.
In any case, despite what issues I have with the artist’s interpretation of his source material and inspiration, the exhibit is still an interesting examination of the kinetic energy behind American comic books, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.