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Friday, March 21, 2003

By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic

Among the many ways to experience the 2003 Pittsburgh Biennial at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts is to check out tonight's reception, where the buzz and energy of the crowds will amplify an already kinetic event, heightened by three art performances and a special opportunity for interaction with the artists and their works.

Martin Prekop, dean of the College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University, and exhibition co-curator Vicky A. Clark inside "Prekops at Home," an installation created by the photographer and his family. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette) '2003 Pittsburgh Biennial' WHERE: 6300 Fifth Ave., Shadyside. WHEN: Opening 5:30-8 p.m. today (free); exhibition continues through June 22. HOURS: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. EVENTS: Artist talks and performances will be held throughout the exhibition run. Those currently scheduled, all at 2 p.m., are: March 29, Simone Jones and Hope Thompson; April 12, Gerard Damiani and Jeremy Boyle; April 19, Tim Kaulen; April 26. INFORMATION: 412-361-0873 or www.pittsburgharts.org.

You can also catch one of the artists' talks or performances that will take place throughout the show's run, or, more typically, drop in to commune with the works one-on-one.

Each approach will reveal a different side of the exhibition, which comprises more than 40 artworks by 30 artists, making this fifth Biennial the largest yet. The show was conceived to showcase the high quality and relevance within the larger art world of works produced by artists living and working within a 100-mile radius of Pittsburgh.

The Biennial has never been stodgy, and 2003 was looking very of-the-moment earlier this week as artists and a PCA crew worked seven-day schedules to transform the building's interior with a show that leans heavily toward new media, installation and conceptual work.

Unable to contain itself, the exhibition gleefully announces its presence via Tim Kaulen's three oversized inflated flamingos that bobble in the breeze atop the roof and a 10-by-10-foot banner, "Emily," from photographer Mark Perrott's "ROYGBIV" series.

Entering the building, the visitor passes beneath Jeremy Boyle's "Eight Part Fugue," inspired by Bach but resembling a new life form, its gangly colored wire "legs" those of an oversized arachnid while its clicking sounds suggest cricket castanets.

Inside, the options fan out.

If you're tempted to stop for a drink from the bar of Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer's "Swipe," you may think again when asked to present your driver's license. It will be "swiped" through a reading device that will project it from a publicly displayed monitor, a commentary on surveillance and the amount of personal information that's been made public about each of us.

You may think you've had enough anyway (even if you haven't had a drink yet) when you turn to "Prekops at Home," an installation by Carnegie Mellon University Dean of the College of Fine Arts and photographer Martin Prekop and his family. The room and its furnishings are covered in a black and white wood grain that in places call to mind zebra stripes. Along with one of Martin's photos hang a black and white doll chain by fiber artist and wife Martha; a lamp and table by Chicago architect son Hank; and paintings by artist sons Zak and Sam, of New York and Chicago respectively. The latter is also a member of the band The Sea and Cake, described by All Music Guide as "a post-rock supergroup of sorts." They'd planned to play the opening, but they're touring; however, their music will be present. Sounds by the band will be complemented by the gurgling of the fish tank installed by family friend Suzannah Paul, who lived with the Prekops while she was a student.

	The duo "Who is like God's" - Michael Pestel and Michael Tolson, a k a tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - derived their name from the meaning ascribed to the name Michael. They'll perform in their installation "Harps & Angels" tonight, and three other times during the exhibitions run. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)

Likely you'll soon be drawn down the hall by the harmonious commotion (oxymoron intended) emanating from "Who is like God?s," a duo comprising Michael Pestel and Michael Tolson, a k a tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, performing on four stripped-down piano tables within their installation "Harps & Angles," which also comes with overhead projection of their fast-moving hands and a "water table" with sound-induced oscillations.

Among the works upstairs -- on the way up note photographs by Jessica Todd Harper who also has a solo show at Pittsburgh Filmmakers -- look for the voting booths of Laleh Mehran's "ecard," Boyle's "(Rotating) Self-Portrait," and the galactic infinity created by Wall-to-Wall Studios principals James Nesbitt and Bernard Uy.

And don't miss, set off in the back of a gallery, Susie Silver's revamped 1930s movies -- "Queen Christina" and "Cleopatra" -- turned into side by side videos, "Her Royal Majesty: Parts 1 and 2, Queen of Diamonds and Queen of Hearts," and shown in a modified movie palace.

Those familiar with Rick Gribenas' room-sized installation for his 2001 Emerging Artist of the year exhibition at the center may be surprised by the scale and location of his work in this show, though the flashing electro-luminescent paneling arrows are sure to grab attention, and you've gotta love a piece titled "Someone chopped down all the trees in Swissvale; so I stole all the lights, except one."

Gribenas will also enact a performance with Boyle tonight, joining the above-mentioned Michaels and Carin Mincemoyer -- whose solo exhibition opened at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery, Downtown, last week -- to add an extra dimension to the evening.

Co-curators Vicky A. Clark and Robert Raczka write in the show's catalog that, in this Biennial, "we have attempted to broaden the traditional definition of performance art by including works that have a performative aspect. We have defined the performative in art as a related set of concerns ranging from actual performances to the ways we perform and present ourselves in daily life to the public dialogues of advertising and display to technological interactivity."

Taken broadly, everyone who visits the exhibition becomes a part of it.

It's hard to believe that all of this was endangered a year ago when the center's exhibition department, including curator Clark, was dissolved and the fate of the 2002 Biennial looked sealed. But unpleasantries were put aside and commitments to invited artists, as well as to Clark and Raczka, were honored.

Bumping it back a year raised a few problems, such as what to do with artists who'd moved out of state since the original show date (they were kept in), but for many the luxury of extra time allowed for a more developed artwork.

Spokesperson David Madden says the center is committed to the Artist of the Year and Biennial programs, which he labels "flagship shows," and Clark has already been working with Artist of the Year 2003 Diane Samuels.

In the meantime, tonight the lights will go on, the music will start, and the audience will assemble for "another opening, another show."