Patty Chang, Melons (At Loss), 1998, SD video, 4'00". Courtesy of the artist and BANK
Author/Roberta Smith
Brace yourself for the solo debut of Patty Chang, a standout in exhibitions at Exit Art and elsewhere. Including performances (Saturdays from 2 to 4 P.M.), photographs and videotapes, the show has several memorable, not always pleasant images. These involve startling uses of foodstuffs (eggs, peppermint candies, lemons); garments (especially demure working-girl suits), and the body (its orifices and its actions, involuntary and not).
Sometimes a single gesture or riveting detail can overpower. In the videotape Melons (At a Loss), the artist slices through the cup of her bra, which is holding a cantaloupe, and spoons melon pulp into her mouth; the story she recites, about a dead aunt, barely matters. In a recent Saturday performance, she wore a wedding dress pulled away from her shoulders; a crystal ball filled her mouth, stretching her lips and magnifying her teeth horribly, suggesting a vagina dentata. The small video image flickering in the bottom of a teacup on her lap had little impact.
Other works are more balanced, especially when Ms. Chang dons her signature working-girl suits. In Fountain, she kneels and noisily slurps water off a mirror, a self-devouring Narcissus. In Candies, she drools pink saliva all the way down to her orthopedic shoes (her mouth, full of candies, is clamped open; her sleeves are sewn down). In Eggs, her nylons are full of mostly broken eggs whose yolks form a spreading pool at her feet. In each of these works, the physical and metaphorical properties of materials are deftly exploited. For example, the yolks are formally vivid, evoke running sores and menstruation, and disrupt the persona of a proper young lady.
Ms. Chang combines the social role-playing side of performance art and set-up photography (think Cindy Sherman) with its more abstract, endurance-oriented side (now think Chris Burden). To this she adds a post-feminist toughness in which different aspects of the feminine are flaunted, exaggerated or rendered almost humiliatingly vulnerable. When the parts of her pieces get together, they can be very good.
Roberta Smith
As a co-chief art critic of The New York Times, Roberta Smith regularly reviews museum exhibitions, art fairs and gallery shows in New York, North America and abroad. Since joining The Times in 1991, she has written on Western and non-Western art from the prehistoric to the contemporary eras. She sees her main responsibility as “getting people out of the house,” making them curious enough to go see the art she covers. Special areas of interest include ceramics textiles, folk and outsider art, design and video art.
