Michael Bilsborough, 'The Sorrow of Young Werther Werther Werther', 2007
Sara Tecchia Roma New York Gallery seems to have veered from its typically more restrained program to present "Yourlineismakingmesowetrightnowiloveit," a group show of dirty drawings, a video piece and reflective collages. The exhibition showcases artists whose work is sometimes as wacky as it is provocative. Elena Monzo contributes portraits of women in panties that are influenced by sources as diverse as Rita Ackermann and Egon Schiele. Her attractive unfortunates take up a relatively small part of the white fields they inhabit. Their maladies -a Caesarian scar or a nosebleed becoming lip color - are rendered with a gentle touch and constitute the core of the subjects' scrappy, sultry charm.
Gallery artist Robert Brinker's cut paper and Mylar constructions hang dignified on the walls like surrealist hives. The works successfully bring to mind sculpture and painting simultaneously and since details are slow to emerge, reward prolonged viewing. Hans Bellmer is represented here by a few etchings from the seventies that depict womendolls struggling within the contorted lines of their bodies. Though sex pervades these examples, they are among the tamest of Bellmer's later works. Their inclusion in the show feels like an afterthought to bookend the other works.
The Rotterdam-based collective Antistrot has come armed with Sharpies and technical skill. Their drawings, cultural doodles and realistic cartoony portraits culled from the "consumerist" flotsam and jetsam of their lives, emit an Exquisite Corpse style of execution, since each of the six men contributes part of the work. The twist is that they all work at once. There's no attempt to be profound here, merely to fill the space and respond to what the others are creating. It is intriguing to imagine the artistic enthusiasm and territorial bickering of the process.
Undoubtedly the show belongs to the talented Michael Bilsborough. His sharp and distilled ink drawings house the deeply buried memories/fantasies/exploits of some unknown protagonist. These mysterious narratives and the sparseness of detail draw us in whether we like it or not. Bilsborough's black-and-white playlets are effortlessly shocking in content and, despite the limpness of the characters, his lines almost architectural in their precision. Certainly there's an element of high camp in the works: a tall female poised in a La-Z-Boy recliner can represent unvarnished libido, and lethargy often signifies sexual cynicism. I asked the artist about the recurring depictions of generic naked victims with closed eyes. Bilsborough tells me that he wants to keep us in the dark as to "whether they're intoxicated or sleeping or dead." I suggest that they might just be faking this indolence and he enthusiastically agrees. Bilsborough's cheeky explorations of gender roles, literature and substance abuse are among the most original and strangely potent works currently on view in New York.
Doug McClemont
Doug McClemont is the former Editor-in-Chief of HONCHO. He is currently writing about his adventures as a Mortician.
'Yourlineismakingmesowetrightnowiloveit'
Until 24 February
Sara Tecchia Roma New York
529 West 20th Street
2nd Floor
New York, New York 10011
T: +1 212 741 2900
www.saratecchia.com
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