In light of the impending merger between the Pacific Northwest
College of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Craft—a partnership
which promises to help the museum survive a funding slump—now
seems an opportune moment to revisit the museum’s unique contributions
to the city. One of the most exciting aspects of the exhibitions put
forward by is the extraordinary amount of freedom that Namita Gupta
Wiggers enjoys in her duties as curator. It is with obvious delight
that she explores the challenges presented by the craft context,
inspired by fundamental questions about the relevance of borders
between fine art and the sheer tactile joy of materiality.
Seattle artist Mandy Greer’s Dare alla Luce is an exuberant,
visceral indulgence of unfettered process. The museum’s first-floor
gallery space is consumed by the installation, in which chandeliers of
crochet dangle and drip from the ceiling in shades of green, each a
reference to a different tree species. The twisting, organic threads
have drawn comparisons to MK Guth’s recent exhibit at the Portland Art
Museum, but Dare‘s initial reference is to the late Renaissance
painter Jacopo Tintoretto’s The Origin of the Milky Way, in
which the Roman goddess Juno’s breast milk spills into the sky.
The intellectual significance of Greer’s inspiration is less
compelling than the lushness of its execution, and Wiggers apparently
recommends experiencing it by lying on the floor, looking up, to
maximize the satisfying sense of being enclosed within its decadent
tendrils.
Greer’s work is being shown in tandem with another, much different
textile exhibition, Darrel Morris’ The Large Works 1999-2008.
Best known for small, colorful embroidery art, Morris’ Appalachian
roots and autobiographical tendencies lend a straightforward, masculine
quality to his unexpectedly powerful and misleadingly spare medium.
Morris works off of collages created with newspaper clippings of
human figures grouped according to common gestures. A throng of people
traced out of a red background in an agreeable, slightly wobbly white
thread all stand pointing, for instance, while a tableau of a Southern
funeral affectionately mocks its melodrama, exuding a quiet, surprising
power. A counterpoint in many ways to Greer’s installation, the
combined duo is indicative of the wide playing field that Wiggers’
agnostic philosophy enables, evoking the potential in the
still-struggling craft genre’s future.