Michael Bishop: Trust Me
Reviewed by Colin Berry
Joseph Chowning Gallery
1717 17th Street, San Francisco 94103
Aug 8-Sep 17, 1998
Each of Michael Bishop's stark, singular sculptures is an enigma, a riddle that requires the viewer's engaged imagination. Some might call them conversation pieces. With repeated images and motifs--a bound heart, a child's head, half-eaten fruit, and a recurring character named Madge--the Chico professor creates his own mythology, a place of symbolism where his audience can explore sexuality, human relationships, dichotomy, and (perhaps most importantly) issues of power.
Or maybe not.
Linger in front of "Current Events No. 33," for example, a piece done for an acquaintance's divorce: on a five-inch-square platform rests a withered slice of bread (cast in steel, of course), backed with a life-sizedmold of an electrical outlet. On the underside of the stage stand the figures of a bride and groom, reproduced in fine detail. Here, the symbolism is fairly clear: the molding sourdough represents the underside of marriage (inverted, in this case), one which has no electricity, figuratively speaking--one not plugged in. In addition to the empty plug's overt sexual metaphor, the work also echoes such issues as "power" or "stability," key terms in any marriage.
Other works, however, are more elliptical. In "Analogous Set," a steel orange, artichoke, bound heart, and small skull all lie in a neat row on a shelf. What makes them analogous? The artist's arbitrary assignment of them? Their similarity as expendable objects? Their symbology as vessels of pain? Nothing classifies them in a satisfactory way--and we give up trying.
Yet this aborted interpretation seems at the heart of Bishop's portfolio. In his statement accompanytin the exhibit, the artist opines that "often, the elements of resolution don't materialize" in the work. In this way, he has more in common with conceptual artists than he does with sculptors. He's evidently interested in the random act, the everydayness of things and situations for which there is no clear resolution. His art is more like life, he seems to argue. Is it counter to his intentions, then, to try to discern symbols within it?
The answer seems to be--what did you expect?--yes and no. For Bishop, most pieces have a dividing line: in "Clueless, Cyclical, Not Linear Time," a length of surgical tubing (slowly moving via an external fan) snakes between six-inch-high figures of Scooby Doo. "You Think Your [sic] Some Kind of Village Idiot?" displays a tiny trio of heads on a high, blue tower--and a fan directed from below to blow women's skirts up. And "Trust Me No. 127466" features a prominent Japanese sword that slices the work horizontally. These dichotomies--above/below, left/right, turned on/turned off, idol/trickster, powerful/powerless--offer a comforting balance, even a stability in the midst of nonsensical imagery and resolution-less themes.
Bishop's work will inspire some and mystify others; it seems intentionally ambiguous, if not controversial. Perhaps the exercise of actively releasing the sculptures from resolution is what the artist is after here, or perhaps he just seeks an excuse to jump-start a process, a memory, an association. Or, if all else fails, an interesting conversation.--Colin Berry