“In the Wind”
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Familiar figures from the Hudson County art scene try out a new medium: the banner.
We often refer to flags as standards. In its ideal and most recognizable form, a flag is a flat rectangle on the printed border of an atlas, or in a bumper for an Olympic event, or a social media profile. We know what it stands for: a nation, a tribe, a sexual orientation. It signifies something specific to the standard-bearer, and, as long as she’s aware of that significance, the standard viewer, too.
Out in the wild, flags rarely speak so clearly. For one thing, they must be run up a pole. Unless atmospheric conditions are perfect, the viewer will not get a rectangle. Instead, she may see a sagging heap of cloth. The flown flag may be as bunched up as a shower-curtain. It may be as twisted and blown open as a scarf in a gale. The disposition of a flag contributes to its meaning; we might say nothing contributes more. A banner held aloft by a charging infantryman is one thing. Old Glory halfway down the mast, drooping in a drizzle is quite another.
Thus it is reasonable that curator Tina Maneca and the show-runners at Art House Productions gave deep consideration to the ways in which the ninety unique flags that constitute “In the Wind” might be apprehended by a visitor to Lincoln Park. Could they be made to hang straight so that the entirety of the artwork could be seen, as it often is in galleries? Could these textile pieces flutter in the breeze and still signify as standards do? Could these flags behave?
To whip them into (quadrilateral) shape, Maneca hung them vertically and defied the re-routing force of the atmosphere by affixing upper corners to crossbars. Art House enlisted Josh Knoblick of Gardenship to drive flagstaffs deep into the Lincoln Park ground with a motor vehicle that one might associate with a tractor pull.
Heavy machinery matched the weighty mood that surrounded the show. This was no ordinary extravaganza. It was, according to Art House Productions, the largest outdoor art exhibit ever installed in Hudson County. “In the Wind” was funded accordingly, drawing grant money from the county government and the A.R.T. Program of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
At a crowded opening ceremony at The View in Lincoln Park, the Mayor, the County Executive, and the newly renominated Congressman Robert Menendez, Jr. all spoke to the importance of the arts to business development and regional identity — an old song in these parts, but a perennial jukebox favorite. Barbara Bickart, the Senior Advisor for Arts & Culture for NJEDA and holder of the purse strings praised the show and indicated to Art House director Meredith Burns that more collaborations may follow.
This is a positive development — to a point. Grant-givers tend to gravitate toward grand gestures and big programs, and bigness is simply not what we do well. Jersey City has always excelled at the tight, single-author exhibition that foregrounds the personal vision of an unusual artist. Our best places to catch art shows tend to be small and medium-sized rooms, and our best events tend to be standalone happenings.
When we’ve gone large, we’ve tended to prioritize inclusiveness and comprehensiveness, both of which are political ends rather than aesthetic ones. For years, the Jersey City Artist Studio Tour has placed pedestrian expectations on a city that is too large to walk from end to end. We believe in fairness and want every ward and every faction represented; thus we guarantee ourselves a fragmented experience. Many of the speakers at The View noted that no part of Hudson County had been left out of “In the Wind.” That’s something for a politician to crow about. For an artist, it’s immaterial. All that matters is that the show is good.
“In the Wind” is good, but not because it is big. The exhibition works in spite of its scope, and even in spite of the inevitable association it engenders. Especially in real estate-mad Hudson County, flags on a greensward suggest golf. The show is rescued from any country club signification by the splashy color of the banners and their proximity to each other; no fairway drives are needed to get from one to the next. A certain Garden State modesty hovers over the entire enterprise. From the balcony of the The View, “In the Wind” looks a little like a boardwalk putt-putt course, shorn of its windmills and transplanted from the Shore to the West Side of Jersey City.
Walking on the flag-lined pathways of “In the Wind” is a pretty manageable experience, too. Though a visitor is always aware of the size of the show — there are flags snapping everywhere — it’s only possible to take in a few at a time. Maneca has hung them pretty high, which means that the viewer’s slope of apprehension is pretty steep. You’re going to be looking up and cropping all but the nearest flag to you out of your field of vision.
Moreover, not every piece of artwork in the installation is suited to the banner treatment. The distortions caused by breezes means that the simpler and more recognizable the image is, the better it plays with its neighbors. The same wind that animates Robert Policastro’s tiger, for instance, scrambles and shakes Katie Niewodowski’s play of circles, ameboid figures, and nebula-like curves.
Thus we quickly learn something about putting a rectangle in motion. Symmetry and centrality rule: Anna Collevecchio’s mandala and Shamona Stokes’s modernized Venus of Willendorf both hang tough against the elements. Right angles, firm arcs, and discrete areas of color are far more legible than gradation and complex networks of intersecting marks. Whitespace works wonders. Kayt Hester’s image of Abraham Lincoln photographing a water bird is more involved than many of the other banners, but the lines, inspired no doubt by her practice of applying strips of tape to canvas, make her flag a standout.
Others meet the challenge by presenting icons of Jerseyana. The Colgate clock makes its inevitable appearance, as does the front of the embattled Boulevard Drinks. The factory facade of Mana Contemporary finds its way on to a flag. These pieces beat the bluster even when they’re flapping. They also play to the crowd, much as a musician does when she drops in a song that name-checks the town where she’s appearing. That never fails to get a roar, even if it’s a little easy. Since the flags bearing local references make the most immediate impression, they make “In the Wind” feel celebratory and maybe a little self-congratulatory. There’s a lot of depth to this exhibition and more than a few expressions of political and personal discontent, but it can take multiple viewings, and, ideally, a still afternoon, to really get it.
We’re in the midst of a particularly exuberant season for outdoor art. Along with her 14C team, Robinson Holloway has dropped painted soccer balls, all as big as VW Beetles, all over the FIFA-mad New Jersey metropolitan area. On July 4, Trish Gianakis will launch a digital art show that can be accessed, scavenger-hunt style, by pointing phones at QR codes scattered around Liberty State Park. Perhaps we should thank these artists and curators for getting us off of our butts and into the sunshine.
Yet a cynic (don’t look at me like that) might see the turn to the great outdoors as an expression of frustration. Besides the Biergarten at Mana, we don’t have any spaces in town that are big enough to accommodate grand gestures. Maneca herself banged up against those limitations at her last sculpture show at MORA, which overflowed into the park in Paulus Hook. It was nice to see those charismatic pieces on the busy corner of Grand and Washington. It was better still to encounter them in the stillness of the gallery.
(As long as Lincoln Park is open, the flag show is viewable. My recommendation is to tour the installation in the mid-morning.)
