Flag-draped coffin installation get's 'em talking

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Posted: October 8, 2009 - 12:03 pm

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And other Anchorage area art shows
Controversial?: A properly-draped mock coffin at a Washington, D.C. protest, March 9, 2003. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
By Mike Dunham

As I looked over Mariano Gonzales’ installation — that’s right, I said “installation,” not “prints” or “photos” — at Alaska Pacific University’s Grant Hall, a man passed through and asked “Where’s the art show?” I pointed to the three facsimiles of flag-draped coffins on the floor and a wall-full of responses to the artist’s posted question: “Please remind us ... why are Americans still dying in the Middle East.”

The answers ranged from philosophical, “How many more skyscrapers, had we done nothing at all,” to political, “We was amBushed,” to potentially inflammatory, “For the Jewish National Socialist State of Israel!”

“It’s not what Mariano usually does,” I said, though the Anchorage-raised professor often infuses his usually two-dimensional work with social or political issues. This display drew considerable commentary from the visitor, touching on a whole range of current events and how they may be seen from various points of view.

Shortly after the exhibit went up, it was reported that Gonzales was being asked to take it down. After some phone calls, Ann Hale, Director of University Advancement told me that APU was concerned that children attending TBA theater classes in Grant Hall later this month would encounter some of the nastier things written by people at the exhibit -- like the F word -- and so was asking Gonzales to swap venues with John Wilcox, who has a mixed media exhibit at neighboring Carr Gottstein Gallery. With the consent of the artists, that should take place next week.

I'm glad this seems to have a happy ending. This is not intentionally incendiary like "What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" the controversial installation at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska in 1992, in which the Stars and Stripes were set on the ground and visitors were invited to walk on it. For one thing, the present installation stays within the bounds of flag etiquette. In addition to the coffins and graffiti, there are two properly hung American flags and an article showing improper displays.

While Gonzales clearly has his own opinion on things, his display itself struck me as curiously neutral -- however catalytic its affect on various viewers may be.

"The Founders" detail: None of the pieces in John Wilcox mixed media show actually fit in a normal frame.
John Wilcox’s “Remants” show, next door (For the time being) in the Carr Gottstein building, is relatively traditional by comparison; art that the bold might hang on their walls — mixed media of boards, paint, metal, and (I think) human hair in asymmetric assemblages. Rabbits, keys and birds are among the images that recur.

The most accessible piece in the Wilcox display may be the one titled “Compromise.” In it a woman can be seen nuzzling a rabbit, looking through a field of vertical lines — a cage? — at the back part of a fluttering black bird. In a piece titled “Statement,” and perhaps intended as that rather than as a proper painting, the artist quotes Louis L’Amour: “No memory is ever alone. It’s at the end of a trail of memories.”

Later I headed downtown. It seems that, with the tourists gone, art shops are now closing at about the same time that meter-free parking kicks in, so I was relegated to staring through windows without much success. Except when I stepped into the Hotel Captain Cook — primarily to see Sindra Wolfsen’s paintings in the Whale’s Tail. These didn’t seem as personable as the Wolfsen pieces I’ve seen at Dos Manos, but how much personality can you put in a flower?

Negaqvaaq mask: This one's on display at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.(AP Photo/Smithsonian Institution, Barry McWayne)
However, the almost-empty fine art shops in the hotel offered much to admire. In the Boreal Traditions shop masks by Alutiiq carver Jacob Simeonoff caught my attention, especially his superb full size reproduction of an historic "Negaqvaaq" mask -- a Yup’ik style North Wind dance mask (variously spelled in English along the lines of "Negakfok.")

Fire People: By Nathalie ParenteauStephan Fine Arts — the one in the hotel; the separate store at the corner of 5th Ave. and K St. was among the closed-after-6 — is the place to go for prints and paintings by Yukon artist Nathalie Parenteau, whose singular style treads the line between cartoon and dream and whose subjects (at least those seen in Alaska) reflect northern people, animals and activities.

Stephan also has new work by Andy Hehnlin, who specializes in the finicky medium of egg tempera. Largely self-trained, he’s come a long way since popping into our awareness five years ago. His painting of a mining camp in winter is simultaneously attractive because of its Alaska theme, unexpected perspective and technical execution. I understand he’ll be featured at the gallery in December, so be ready for their First Friday fete on Dec. 4.

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