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Mark Crisanti: Birdman
Aron Packer Gallery
Ornithology -- or sociology? Mark Crisanti: Birdman offers a touch of both. These are bird-persons as well as bird-personalities in an intriguing, often amusing commentary on human nature. Twenty-four works are on exhibition at Aron Packer Gallery: fourteen of them a field guide, if you will, of human types. The straightforward illustration, the accurate depiction of actual bird types (yes, you will find them in a real-life bird book), and the capturing of typical poses and identifying characteristics all strengthen the strong association with imagery intended as a guide or handbook for identification. By papering his backgrounds with the small, literal print of actual textbook pages the artist further anchors his bird-man chimeras in images suggestive of a textual, studious, scholarly realm -- the realm of types. Vintage materials of these printed backgrounds lend a postwar 50s feel, further supported by the clothing and hats of Crisanti's characters. From socialite to 'salaryman', each image gives clues to social rank, personality, and intent, as gleaned from body language and mode of dress -- here, capped with the inscrutable stare of an avian head, the characteristics of which suggest the type of person or personality. The type of bird is well-melded with the pose or act, at times playing with the expectation, at times against it: the gumshoe raven picking up a feather, the heron socialite with her fake oh-my expression, the two redheaded woodpeckers, identically dressed and seeming either FBI agents or businessmen, all elicit a recognition of the qualities associated with both bird and man; the burly barn-swallow man (with swallow tattoes) plays against it. But within these there is a disturbing element of alienness, even danger. Even as Crisanti invokes familiar clues through body language, his bird-heads push us off, distanced by the piercing inhuman stares. Though aware these are birds we also try to 'read' their expressions as if they were human, an attempt thwarted by their emotionless stares. On a very primal level, the bird-heads are inscrutable. Not for nothing did Egyptians and Assyrians make bird-headed gods: what mythological historian Edith Hamilton calls the "terrifying irrationality" of inhuman deities. The sharp beak and stark eye seem dangerous, unsmiling, defying every attempt to interpret the avian face using primate patterns. The amalgamation of animal head with human body also brings to mind Art Spiegelman's Maus, the now well-known graphic novel exploring Spiegelman's father's experiences in Poland during the Holocaust, with the Jews portrayed as mice, the Nazis as cats. The use of an animal head allowed the artist to suggest characteristics associated with the animal, while at the same time setting the character a step backward from the human realm: with no recognizable, individual person's face, the character could stand in for everyman, as well as for a personality type. Crisanti's bird-faces are, in reality, emotionless: it is the viewer who assesses other clues of bodily gesture and clothing, and assigns emotional content to the image. And to bring it back round to field guides, that alienness is put to good use. What else could as indirectly, yet suggestively invoke the covetous glance of a societal climber as the hard little eye of the well-preened heron-woman? The exhibition includes several other pieces, among them a small three-dimensional construction featuring the birdmen; three bird-related works done on chess or checkers gameboards; and two circus-style arcade posters. These appear to have been included to bulk up the show, but seem inexplicable in their wholesale departure from the exhibition's theme. It is the fourteen 'field guide' works that are the most successfully well-conceived. Are they anthropomorphized birds -- or avianized humans? Are we all just flocking creatures? Mark Crisanti: Birdman plays off the qualities of man and bird, bird and man, in a gallery of types that are, as well, a commentary on personality and social data. Birdman will be at Aron Packer Gallery through October 15, 2005. --Katherine R. Lieber Katherine R. Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net. Editorial Note: Books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews, may be purchased through this site's Amazon.com link or by clicking on the links below. Edith Hamilton is quoted from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Grand Central Publishing:1999). Maus: A Survivor's Tale is by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books:1991). |
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