| Ivana Franke
by Vicky Rubin
"Come into my parlor, said the spider to the
fly…"
Any fly would be pleased to enter Ivana Franke’s full
empty space, part of the Special Projects Program at P.S. I. The stunning effect of
this piece lies in its craft, its apparent ease of construction, and the way it evokes
philosophical meanings which confound and inspire the viewer while the piece itself seems
so content just to hang there. The installation is monumental while at the same time being
entirely anti-monumental in its sheer and sticky ephemerality. It’s full of splendid
contradictions. It’s made of the oh-so mundane, and almost invisible, materials of
scotch tape and twine, and creates a literally floating world. The obvious irony of the
material comes off as wit rather than cynicism. The tape cascades from the ceiling into a
3-dimensional grid, creating an op-art-inspired parceling of space that at once suggests
wide-open infinity and the contradictory feeling of being trapped. When you look through
it you look through window after window, square after square, vortex after vortex. The
empty spaces you are viewing gets smaller as they recede, unfolding the patterns which
surely must have already existed, but which we were not aware of, within the little room
and marking off its space into a series of jumps. The intricacy is dizzying. The piece
brings more than cerebral fodder; it brings pleasure.
As I waited in the hallway for my chance to become a
participant rather than a spectator (for looking at this piece close up is more than
looking, but is truly experiencing), a little girl’s hair got caught in the tape,
prompting a somewhat elaborate rescue-and-repair mission. Given the spider web-like nature
of the piece, one wonders if it let her go because of her young innocence, and I wondered
what would have happened if I or some similarly corrupted grownup had disturbed it if the
piece would have merely cocooned us and had us for supper like a Venus flytrap. But if its
stickiness brings to mind a certain association with the predatory, its fragility is more
the reality, for just as the gossamer of a butterfly wing or spider web is destroyed by
touch, so is the menacing geometry of the scotch-tape patterns on constant verge of death.
And if death is defined by life, the organic nature of the patterns created by the work
are surely at odds with its industrial materials, materials which speak of the wonders of
nylon and plastic, born in the atomic age, and capable of gentleness as well as
destruction.
I’m only guessing the influences, but there’s a
touch of the lithe and organic works of Andy Goldsworthy, who often works outdoors, and
when inside a gallery seems to bring a piece of the outside world in; of Eva Hesse with
her winding webs and cocoons; there are hints of the spirograph-likeVasarely and even of
the revolutionary cosmic void created by Kazimir Malevich’s White on White.
Franke’s work has a decidedly urban feel that fits perfectly with these feng-shui
crazed times, reminding of us the lightness of being, the wonder of the moment, and the
fragility of life. Best of all, it manages to be playful, capable of being enjoyed by
children as well as adults, as the very best art. It carries a convincing bit of the
humor, terror, and transcendence of nature and the current trend in biotechnology to
convert the most basic cellular matter into into synthetic materials; in a tongue-in-cheek
way, Franke may be accurately predicting the day that the copyright to the human genome is
be bought by 3M. But for now, I’ll just enjoy the art. To look at full empty
space is to become part of it, to be it, as it becomes part of you.
Vicky Rubin is a painter, poet, and children’s book
writer/illustrator. She graduated from Barnard College and holds a master’s in art
education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has taught art and
photography to high school and college students. She covered the Burning Man art festival
for BusinessWeek magazine, where she now copyedits. Her first children’s book,
Careful Around Eggs, which she wrote and illustrated, is due to come out in
January, 2003. |
