Mystic Museum of Art exhibition welcomes work that pushes boundaries

January 25, 2017 11:00 pm • Last Updated: January 26, 2017 11:06 pm

By Kristina Dorsey
Features Editor

Kam Ghaffari’s “You Only Live Thrice (S∏),” which is part of the Mystic Museum of Art’s exhibition “This Is Not Art.” (Courtesy Mystic Museum of Art)

Mystic exhibition welcomes work that pushes boundaries

One hundred years ago, much of the art world was embroiled in a boisterous discussion of a compelling topic: what defines art?

It all began when Marcel Duchamp’s submission to Society of Independent Artists in New York City — the submission was a porcelain urinal, which Duchamp titled “Fountain” — was rejected because, society members opined, it wasn’t art.

Every piece submitted was supposed to be featured in the exhibition, but “Fountain,” which was meant to challenge the idea of what art can be, was turned away. That spurred energetic debate and opened up new ways of thinking about art.

The fact that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the landmark conceptual-art “Fountain” moment inspired an exhibition titled “This Is Not Art” at the Mystic Museum of Art.

George King, the museum’s executive director, says, “We’re more of a traditional (venue) where we show works that are more recognizable. But I thought it would be a good thing or a different angle for us to have this exhibition, and to recognize others in the art world who have been groundbreaking, experimental ...”

There’s nothing wrong with the art the museum has shown before, he says, but this exhibition was intended to be an opportunity for something else.

“I think it pushed a lot of artists who typically submit works of art to do something different and to think about it differently ... We’ve gotten so many great compliments and comments by the artists who got in, and they thought it was really great to have this kind of challenge,” King says.

Indeed, a lot of the artists seemed to have fun with the concept. Tom Saccone’s “Not a Step” looks, for all intents and purposes, like a used stepladder posed nonchalantly on the gallery floor. Ralph Acosta’s “Less is More” features an epically large, vibrantly white canvas emblazoned only with the artist’s shadowy signature on the bottom left corner, with a dark frame bordering the canvas’ edges.

A number of works toy with the idea of reflecting a viewer’s image, including Brian P. DeVantier’s “’Selfie’ or ...,” where multiple mirrors rotate atop a tripod and send shards of light across the gallery walls.

Tanya Pohrt, who was the juror for “This Is Not Art,” says, “The history of pushing the boundaries and the borders of art goes back quite a ways. Some of the things that seem very edgy and avant-garde are things happening over 100 years ago and beyond.”

Artists now can mine that history to comment on the contemporary world in terms of, say, politics or issues of race and identity, she notes.

“I thought some of the really interesting pieces in the show do that,” she says. “They use some of these same methods of appropriating or assembling pre-made objects to question or comment on our 21st-century world in a way that’s very interesting and thought-provoking.”

When it came to selecting which of the nearly 120 pieces would win the top prize, Pohrt says, “Knowing that Duchamp’s signature invention was the readymade, it seemed fitting that a readymade be the prize-winning entry.”

Those “readymades,” as Duchamp called them, featured utilitarian objects. His argument: “An ordinary object (can be) elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.”

Pohrt decided that the first prize in the Mystic show would go to Kam Ghaffari, an artist from East Lyme, for his piece “I’m So Glad You Called” that nestles together black and white phone handsets. Pohrt says that, as she was walking around the galleries, she kept returning to this work.

“It’s probably not a piece that the artist spent days and weeks crafting; it’s not that kind of a piece. But to have the kind of originality to select something that has that Duchampian aesthetic but is very original in terms of the materials and the objects that are chosen seemed very much to embody that spirit. And it was just beautiful and funny and clever in a way that seemed very appealing to me,” says Pohrt, who is special project curator, American art, at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London.

In “This Is Not Art,” there are allusions to specific Duchamp works. Suzanne Starr’s “Ode to a Commode” is a nod to “Fountain”; it’s a watercolor of a toilet, delicately portrayed and surrounded by a powder blue wall and a soft pink floor. And Ghaffari’s “You Only Live Thrice” references Duchamp’s “L.H.O.O.Q.,” in which Duchamp drew a moustache and beard on a postcard of the “Mona Lisa.”

Other artists took inspiration from Duchamp’s viewpoint, if not one of his exact works. Lisa Adams, an artist from Mystic whose “The Artist Uniform” is part of “This Is Not Art,” says that by referencing Duchamp, the exhibition “was kind of saying art is driven by ideas more than anything, rather than ... the physical craft or the aesthetic part.” Seeing the show, she says, “was wonderful ... Everyone has such a different take on it.”

Adams tends to paint and draw more realistic works, but for this, she turned the clothes she wears when creating art into the art itself, hanging her color-spackled white shirt and pants onto a backing board.

“I had no trouble with getting the idea because when I have worn (those clothes), friends or people who see me have said, ‘Oh, my God, that’s like a piece of art itself. You could sell those at Barney’s. A line of clothes like that, people would pay for.’ So I thought that was just a natural,” she says.

One element of the process that was new for her was collaborating on the display unit for the piece. She had to, for instance, rely on someone to cut and drill the wood.

When Duchamp created a stir with “Fountain,” it was 1917, not long after the formation of what is now the Mystic Museum of Art. Charles Harold Davis, a renowned tonalist and Impressionist landscape painter who was a central figure in the Mystic art colony, founded the Mystic Art Association in 1913. That association grew and was eventually renamed the Mystic Arts Center and the Mystic Museum of Art.

As for whether “This Is Not Art” indicates a possible trend for future exhibitions at the Mystic Museum of Art, King, who has been executive director for a year and a half, says, “There is a necessary balance to be achieved between the old and the new. There’s no question that I think we’ll be doing more of these kinds of exhibitions but balancing it with the more traditional works that have typically been shown here.”

Lisa Lyman Adams’ piece, “The Artist Uniform.” (Courtesy Mystic Museum of Art)

"Light House" by William Vollers (Courtesy Mystic Museum of Art)