ART REVIEW : Cultural Gems Unearthed in ‘Excavations’

An old tire, a couple of mail boxes, a gaggle of dime-store collectibles, a globe spinning above a classical column. These are among the junk-heap gleanings in “Excavations,” an exhibition at Otis/Parsons that presents a rather diffident visage to visitors.

The energy level rises deeper into the show, but the work of the five artists seems almost completely disconnected. There are spare, timid conceptual sculptures by Greg Colson; more spirited constructions by Tim Hawkinson; a boldly painted room by Renee Petropoulos; a florid installation of sculpture and wall drawings by Megan Williams, and a heavy-handed installation of huge painted canvas partitions and a cement slab by Chu-Hsien Chang.

What is this incongruous mixture? Well, for one thing, it’s the very antithesis of group shows composed of look-alike art that is actually unrelated. For another, “Excavations” is a show that requires a theoretical explanation. Fortunately, curator Anne Ayres has one. Her motive in pulling together this apparently disparate work, according to a printed statement, is to examine how artists dig through “contemporary culture’s material debris, cultural artifacts and systems of thought.”

That’s too much territory to be covered by five artists in one medium-size exhibition, but the concept provides a thread of continuity. Petropoulos, for example, borrows stepped motifs from ancient Indian structures, as well as ambiguous ritual vessels, in a vividly colored wall painting called “Unholy Alliance,” which wraps around a room.

Equivocal vestiges of former civilizations converge in a big painted circle that encapsulates the door and continues on an outer wall. The visual information is too cryptic to explain what is unholy about this merger; indeed, the piece seems a mural-sized example of contemporary abstract painting that has evolved quite naturally from varied historical sources.

Chang also draws from the past and foreign cultures in an installation said to resemble “the sacrificial spaces of a post-apocalyptic civilization.” It sounds impressive, but what you actually see is not an arresting environment but ambitious use of material: a towering slab of cement, inset with metal grips and installed behind vast lengths of darkly painted fabric.

Is the cement wall meant to represent an industrial-age altar, a ladder of escape, a psychological barrier or an abrupt end to humanistic values? A posted notice says the piece was altered by the Fire Department, thus undermining the artist’s intent, but it’s hard to imagine that the original enclosure could have lent this languid overstatement much conviction.

Williams’ work, on the other hand, bubbles over with engaging ideas, often dredged from an artist’s process of turning concepts into matter. She transforms volumes into “three-dimensional drawings” of various fibers that float in space. “Black and White World” sets a painted globe spinning above a column-like pedestal, as if freeing the world from artifice. “Vesuvius and Vase,” consisting of wall drawings and a framed sheet, both depicting an erupting volcano and a tipped-over vase of flowers, talks about the way dissimilar things sometimes look alike and even share meanings. If this installation indicates what Williams has brewing, she is certainly ready for a larger solo show.

The same can be said for Hawkinson, who reveals an uncommon wit as he constructs an animal tusk of 132 Jell-O molds in the shape of a snowman. Stacked into a sweeping curve and mounted on an iron plate, this army of white plastic molds deftly moves from the kitchen drawer to the trophy wall, thus changing from a symbol of female kitsch to male bravado.

Hawkinson’s “Spun Drawing of a Chalet” pairs a drawing of a building on a suspended cylinder with a framed sheet of horizontal lines that represent what the chalet would look like if the cylinder were spun at a high velocity. Among other things, the piece reverses the concept of line-into-form by returning the realistic drawing to its simplest elements.

Not bad, but the best thing about this small body of work is that it never falls into a formula; instead, it discloses a talent for turning such ordinary sights as mirrored bric-a-brac into an examination of appearances.

In contrast, Colson’s work seems lackluster, though he is up to the task of transforming mundane objects “excavated” from hardware stores and trash bins. He often imposes numerical systems or evidence of contemporary order--say, maps of sports stadium seating--on found objects. There’s a vaguely ominous edge to this work--when a tape measure turns into a cage-like “Rambler” or an ironing board becomes a “Juggernaut”--but generally the work is too tentative to gel into a cohesive sensibility.

Looking back at the exhibition, it too is not cohesive. But it doesn’t seem to matter too much, because Ayres has taken the refreshing step of presenting underexposed work in a thought-provoking context.

The show ends Friday. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.