Katrina is on my mind, and apparently Petah Coyne's as well...
Coyne is known for her baroque, globby sculptures and installations that usually have the crafty lushness of a fairy tale gone bad. Her works are always luxurious and ornate.
Here, for Vermilion Fog at Gallerie Lelong, the works consist of swathes of Velvet, plastic flowers, beads and pins, dead birds, and wax. There is a heavy gothic vibe here, a Miss Havisham's wedding cake aesthetic. This funereal splendour can usually get pretty wearying, but this time she's really hit the nail on the head. The works in Vermilion Fog suggest massive Victorian-style funeral effigies for our environmental irresponsibility.
Her installations, with their swirled lengths of purple and black velvet, evoke oil slicks, puddles of tainted water and brackish tide pools clotted with pearls, beads artificial flowers and dead birds. They rise into the air, matted together. What is really interesting about these clusters is the way they writhe and yet are so patently dead- they are glamorous, funereal stand-ins for nature. This is the concept of "nature morte" taken to it's most logical conclusion, with stuffed mallards dive bombing into velvet and flower clusters that look like hurricane thrown debris. I was stunned by these works, both horrified and touched by them.
Less successful, in my mind, are the ceiling hung chandelier-like works shown in the first room, off to the right. The ruffled cozies holding the ropes or cables bother me, they make the works look clumsy and leaden, not aloft and airborne. Also the space was crowded and all one could do was peer in, with orate works like this, it is MUCH more satisfying to be able to wander around it, sense it's breadth and mass in relation to one's own body. My complaint is really more about installation and spatial choices than the works themselves- they looked uncomfortable and a bit ware-housed in that space.
The white wax and fake flower lattice hanging from the right door jamb in particular needs a different space than the ones the gallery offers. It is also a pity that there were no shifts of natural light over the works, no interesting atmospheric lighting at all, in fact. I have no idea if the fault is hers, or the preparators, but the installation of these works is flabby and lacks drama and energy.
Coyne's latest work verges on greatness here : an anger, a helpless fury seeps through the gaudiness and lavish textures to make a veritable wake for our own selfishness and short-sightedness.She has presented an apt and timely as a statement of our collective predicament, using a truly surprising set of materials to do so.
Petah Coyne:
Vermilion Fog
oct 24-dec. 13 2008
gallerie Lelong
528 west 26th st
ny, ny 10001
t: 212 315-0470
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