and testament to the events that took place during the 1973 coup d’état in Chile. But its subtle message is lost amongst various snow globes, salt-and-pepper shakers and fly-swatters with more obvious political messages. And yet a whole wall is taken up with “Occupy Chairs” that feel disingenuous, as they were sold to wealthy collectors at the Armory Show Art Fair in New York at a high price with the illusion that the messages they contain are somehow a type of “Trojan Horse” that infiltrates the homes of the 1 percent.
Other works that are more interesting are just not accessible. It is impossible, for instance, to get a real sense of the “Narcissus Desk” because you can look at it only from a distance and can’t gaze down into its mirrored top. The same goes for “Time Lapse,” a stripped-down Norton motorcycle in which, because of the way it is positioned in the gallery, you can’t really see the colorful and delicate bird encased in its gas tank. At least the gallery supplies iPads that show the things you can’t see, like the playful and innovative “Explosion,” and the “Porcupine” cabinets in motion. But perhaps most intriguing of all is the wall of sketches that gives viewers access to Errazuriz’s unconventional thought processes. While they are not entirely abstract, they bring to mind the “automatic” drawing process that New York School artists like Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock learned from the Chilean painter Roberto Matta. Matta explained: “The New Yorkers became aware of these things through contact with us [the Surrealists in exile], although, as in a Chaplin movie, we had arrived utterly lost.” And so we are back to Chaplin, who at the end of the 1914 film “His Musical Career” makes the best of things by playing the piano as it sinks into the lake.
{BY LISSA BRENNAN}
INFO@ PGHC ITY PAP ER.CO M
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November 15 – December 21, 2014
FLOOR SHOW
Bill Miller’s “My Mother the War”
“Duck Lamp” by Sebastian Errazuriz
[ART REVIEW]
TA S T E
Bill Miller’s works, now on view at Gallerie Chiz, are evocative, moving and sustainable, fine art painstakingly unearthed from mundane materials. In an aesthetic recalling styles ranging from pointillism to Dr. Seuss, Miller constructs exclusively using vintage linoleum, cut and shaped but otherwise unaltered, adding dimension to his wall-mounted pieces both literally and figuratively. In art, it’s a novel medium, but in 20thcentury American architecture, linoleum was ubiquitously underfoot. Its past imbues its present with history and nostalgia. The Pittsburgh-based Miller coaxes linoleum into landscape, still life and portrait. Clusters of small works like “Grace,” “Inca” and “Yorick” — a trio of skulls — are bright and dynamic. “Macho Libre,” a face in a devilhued luchador mask surrounded by festively blooming flowers, is clever and comical. The large-scale “Eye of the World” is truly epic — sprawling, intricate and amazing, a vivid interpretation of a planet and its people delicately rendered. Outdoor scenes feature rolling hills, boats floating atop lakes, bristly pines and blades of grass. Abundant forests are magical and mystical and so lushly rendered that you can smell the earth. The busy-ness of the environmental pieces is offset by the wealth of emotion and staggering depth of the portraits. “My Mother the War” is generous in its gravity, a Madonna brimming with dignity. Her strength is as palpable as her pain, and communicated with brilliant clarity. The aged, craggy sailor in “My Home Is the Sea,” landlocked and housebound in his living room, sits stagnant in a chair; the image of his hale and hearty youth rests in a picture frame behind him. It’s beautiful, powerful and heartbreaking. “Three Sisters” is as electrically charged, with one woman offering solace to a distraught other, the third glimpsing the viewer at the moment of intrusion. This Chiz show, Fly On In … Take Off Your Shoes … Have a Seat, also includes works by Michael Beswick and Ron Nigro. In Beswick’s sculptural furniture pieces, form follows function in practical and stirring grace. Chairs are composed of roughly hewn wood and polished steel, merging the organic and manufactured with elegance, and discarded metal is repurposed into small tables as lovely as they are useful. Nigro’s sculptural models envision aircraft both replicated and imaginary, construction in wire with sinuous strength.
A MUSIC-FILLED PORTRAIT FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE MORINI STRAD
INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
BUY YOUR TICKETS TODAY! 412.431.CITY (2489) / CityTheatreCompany.org
FLY ON IN … TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES … HAVE A SEAT continues through Nov. 22. Gallerie Chiz, 5831 Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside. 412-441-6005 or www.galleriechiz.com +
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