| TITLE: | Monica Johnson at lack Fischer Gallery |
| SOURCE: | Artweek 38 no7 14-15 S 2007 |
| COPYRIGHT: | The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.artweek.com/ |
Like some haunting dream-world between memory and history, nostalgia and nightmare, g Monica Johnson's exhibition, Stick 'Em Up! Stay Down! Grow Up!, consisted of images both familiar and unnervingly odd--the uncanny at its aesthetic best.
Technically adept, every line in Johnson's drawings seems perfectly planned and orchestrated, while the end result is in the style of certain graphic novels---slightly disproportioned bodies, overstated gestures and freckles and grins. These images are lodged in a fantasized childhood--but not a pleasant kind of fantasy with playgrounds and sunlight and your friendly dragon; more the ones you might haltingly talk about in a psychoanalyst's office. The figures peer out with expressions both exaggerated and inscrutable, often reminding the viewer of the petty cruelties children and adolescents inflict on each other, or the indignities children suffer at the seeming whim of adults. Indeed, Johnson states that these works emerged from a yearlong visit to her hometown, and are in some part an attempted exorcism of the ghosts of childhood.
Among the most striking of Johnson's images is a pair of graphite drawings depicting what at first glance seems to be innocent childhood scenes. Upon closer examination, one finds a complex orchestration of bodies, history, race and childhood exclusion reverberating amongst the juvenile figures. In Loser, a child (Johnson's self-portrait) in full Confederate regalia stands outside a short brick wall, forlornly looking into the middle distance, a pistol sagging impotently from her hand. Meanwhile, a small crowd of children dressed in nineteenth-century garb glare at her accusingly. Loser's companion piece, the aptly titled Winner, features a similar gathering, but with a pre-adolescent Union soldier (also a self-portrait) standing within a similar short brick wall, grinning amongst an adoring mini-throng of child admirers. The soldier holds a hand over her heart while the children gaze upon her lovingly and a happy little terrier dances upon its hind legs.
These pieces place the United States' thorniest domestic conflict within the world of childhood justice. And this is not, one realizes while looking at the images, to say that justice is somehow eviscerated or even mitigated by being placed in the hands of smaller humans. Instead, one is reminded of the often harsh justice that children mete out, and how it grabs hold of young ostracized or bullied psyches. In this context, a history of discord stretches out from 1865 to 2007 and beyond; the Civil War is resituated as a schoolyard tussle of epic proportions. The saga of racial tensions and the political friction between North and South is imbued with a new emotional resonance both smaller and greater than in our history books.
Johnson also groups six small chalkboards together, each inscribed with a meticulously lettered phrase: "Monica-Jar ate a Guitar That's Why Her Boobs Are So Big"; "I Just Wanted To See if I Could Make You Cry"; "Sacrifice Your Body For The Ball." The lettering's flourishes and flowing lines are straight out of the 1800s, but the phrases are pure late twentieth-century schoolyard taunt. This combination, as well as the halo of erasure marks that several are written upon, gives the works a ghostly presence that reminds us of how such sentiments inscribe themselves both transiently and tenaciously in memory.
In another series of six works, Johnson uses wallpaper--that flowery type you might find in your grandmother's parlor--and wood paneling to evoke a sense of the past. Each piece uses the found material to create the idea of a room, peopled with diminutive figures. Yet, this past is not only of your grandmother's era. It is also firmly marked by the 1980s: One figure is in a "Beat It" shirt, another hands a companion a Rick Astley album (on vinyl), a grinning girl with an Esprit bag slung over her shoulder stands next to a friend bearing an "Erin 4 VP." sign.
In her artist's statement, Johnson says that this show emerged from personal reflections on her long visit home. Yet, by combining this sense of internal inventory with iconic images-- Confederate and Union uniforms; an Esprit bag; an old pistol---she also gives the images the stamp of history, which is the imprint both of particular pasts and repeating patterns. They remind us that we can never escape history--not the personal nor the political, not those that have passed nor those that we are in the midst of living through. Viewing these works is like encountering and excavating the ghosts of one's ancestral home before tearing down the appalling wallpaper and bringing in fresh paint from Restoration Hardware.
ADDED MATERIAL
Jakki Spicer is a freelance writer based in Alameda.
Monica Johnson: Stick 'em Up! Stay Down! Grow Up! closed in July at Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco.
Monica Johnson, ErinForVP, 2006, vinlage wallpaper, wood veneer, graphite, watercolor, at Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco.
