Art and comedy: Scott Grieger
Art Review by David Pagel,
Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2000
Scott Grieger is a prankster with a purpose. At Patricia Faure Gallery, his art of high comic relief gives form to the many faces of humor.
In the main gallery, the creepy aura of corporate spiritualism takes hilarious shape in 45 meditation pillows and cushions, which have been covered in 13 military camouflage patterns and laid out on the floor in a tidy grid. Adorned with labels reading "DHARMY," Grieger's "Zafu/Zabuton Set" is an indispensable tool for aggressive meditators.
Flanked by a pair of huge banners adorned with "Swooshtikas"- Nike logos in a pattern recalling a Fascist cross- and facing a bright red world map with an electronic clock and thermometer marking Los Angeles, Grieger's installation also mocks the idea that art makes people feel good and can be marshaled by corporations to increase cooperation and harmony among its minions.
In a pair of painted collages from whose surfaces spill synthetic cold cuts, the frightening idea of world domionation merges with warm and uzzy notions of the globalism supposedly heralded by the World Wide Web. "Globaloney" and its smaller sidekick, "A Little Globaloney," suggest that typically liberal pursuits are sometimes governed by the same unexamined assumptions of the conservatism they intend to oppose.
"Send in the Clines," a hand-painted panel that looks as if it were computer-generated, adds to Grieger's toungue-in-cheek embrace of the comforts of groupthink. But his screwball endorsement of family values is the funniest piece displayed- a wonderfully painted portrait of the prehistoric Venus of Willendof standing proudly by her man.
Turning an ancient fertility goddess into a loving wife, "The Willendorfs" rewrites art history to show that much of art's power lies in its capacity to throw a monkey wrench into any and every form of conventional thinking. Collectively titled "UnAmerican Activities," Grieger's provocative works are anything but.