Being Here for City Paper

Half the fun in visiting Sculpture at Evergreen 6: Simultaneous Presence, the biennial outdoor exhibition on the museum's grounds, is the exploration. Some pieces lie conspicuously on the lawns; others are concealed within overlooked architectural elements of the vast property, the search for green metal plaques bolstering your sense of adventure. Regional artists Ronit Eisenbach and Jennie Fleming--Eisenbach is also an architect who teaches at the University of Maryland and Fleming is working toward her Ph.D. in Media, Art, and Text at Virginia Commonwealth University--curate this sixth installment, which features 10 site-specific installations designed by individual artists and collaborative artist teams. For Simultaneous Presence, though, Eisenbach and Fleming picked work that foregoes the carefree whimsy of past shows in favor of contextual message and eco-consciousness.

Artists were invited and encouraged to find inspiration in the museum's history and location, creating pieces that speak to the distinctive qualities of their five-month home. Those pieces designed by the two participating individual Baltimore artists and one artist team display the greatest insight into the local historic landmark, its current and historical roles, and proximity to the city.

"Skip," an installation by Baltimore-based artist David Page, consists of a short length of steel and wooden train track, with a stationary cart paused in the middle. A ghostly, metal contour of a crouching passenger peers out of the fixed car. The functionless structure and its eerie passenger memorialize a former Baltimore industry and alludes to the John Work Garrett, Evergreen House's original owner, who was the president of B&O railroad during the late-19th century. Page places the pedestrian aspects of the railroad with the material accumulations of its executive leader.

Baltimore-based Shannon Young chose to comment on the potential for agricultural sustainability, and the lack of edible vegetation on the Evergreen grounds. Young's work typically investigates the consumers' relationship with food, specifically whether or not people are aware of its origin and the physical distance it travels to get to your plate. In her installation, "How Does Your Garden Grow?," Young has carted in a vegetable garden, filling an expansive, sloping lawn with shopping cart-beds of lettuce, carrots, and other consumable plants. Alongside the garden sits a small greenhouse with additional planters and a stove; the physical distance from farm to fork could not be closer.

A small, square patio sits next to a picturesque, mallard-inhabited stream among the Evergreen's Italian-style gardens, which are bordered with hedges and brick walls. This is where the Baltimore-based team of Eric Leshinsky, C. Ryan Patterson, and Fred Scharmen--who enlisted additional collaborators: Michael Benevento, Gary Kachadourian, Sarah Doherty, Billy Mode, Jonathan Taube, and Services United--re-imagine a contemporary, urban counterpart, "Evergreen Commons." The elegant brick walls are mimicked with harsh, chain-link fencing, and Kachadourian's photocopied brick wall, complete with graffiti. Instead of white marble benches, arranged for conversation, the commons contains a single, modified Baltimore City bench and a trash can. Urban foliage, a streetlight, and basketball hoop cast narrow shadows across the ground.

Participating artists from other cities primarily focused on a mix of Gilded Age excess and environmentally friendly decoration. Queens-based Yukiko Nakashima, however, installed a series of hooded, child-size figures in shadowy areas of the grounds. The somewhat frightening sculptures are arranged in small tableaux: one set attempts to haul pine trees, another figure holds a dead bird, and two more wear a birdhouse and bird head. The only figurative sculptures in the exhibition, Nakashima's characters are alarming daydreams and the lone inhabitants lurking in the corners of the formerly domestic property.

Artists Taeg Nishimoto, Matter Practice (the duo of Chris Malloy and Ken Kinoshita), and Yolande Daniels, all of whom have a background in architecture, contributed sculptures that have both a universality and anonymity to them. They are decorative and somewhat functional, though Matter Practice's "Fallen Fruit" lawn chairs come with a warning against head injury. Both Nishimoto and Matter Practice incorporate solar-powered LEDs into their sculptures, the effects of which are unavailable to the public, as the facility closes at 4 p.m.

2010 Sondheim Prize Finalists Karen Yasinsky Review for City Paper

Karen Yasinsky

Installing her work for a third year as a Sondheim finalist, Karen Yasinsky has drastically scaled back her presentation. Having put tremendous gusto into the elaborate, multimedia installation last year, this year she chose to be more succinct and almost cautious. Yasinsky, who makes hand-drawn animations and stop-motion films based on classic movies, takes up one modest room in the gallery for her nearly three-minute animation loop, "You Have To Be Very Careful." While the title suggests a dual trepidation, both for her characters and about the installation itself, in this case, less is more.

The projection fills the entire wall of the small viewing room, the frame stretching from the floor nearly to the top of the wall, immersing you in a striking, larger-than-life animation of two psychologically opposite characters. One is Shelley Duvall from Robert Altman's 1974 Thieves Like Us; the other is Elliot Gould from Altman's California Splitfrom the same year. Through a stylized rotoscoping, Yasinsky introduces these unrelated characters into the same cinematic space. Using no dialogue, the scene's awkwardness and humor are achieved through its soundtrack, placement of the figures, and pulsing colors that make up the imagined interaction. Duvall, whose character is dealt the short end of the stick in Thieves, appears similarly gentle and delicate in Yasinsky's flickering, graphite line work. Pensive and preoccupied, Duvall's likeness busies herself with ambiguous tasks around the frame, stopping for a close-up.

The animation of Gould--amended with grotesque, almost clownish color splotches--appears bold and wild eyed in the frame. His character has none of the grace or daintiness of Duvall's; where she flows fluidly, moving between the frame's fore and middle grounds, the Gould figure stays spatially frozen, amputated by the edge of the screen. In the awkwardness of this pose, he is transformed into something not quite human; he makes no gestures, only horrid facial expressions. Yasinsky likens him to a frog when a fly drifts into view and Gould swallows it.

Soon rainbows appear, Gould's shirt stripes alternate psychedelically, Duvall checks her watch and smiles. Duvall stands alone, changed by the complimentary comparison to Gould, now surrounded by an outline of color. In the last few moments of the animation, images of products from the 1970s slide right to left through the frame before it starts over again. Yasinsky's ability to animate, manipulate, and interfere in the predestined lives of film characters is somewhat playful and curious. She removes the limits placed on each character, gives them additional scenarios in which to hold their own, and reveals the depths of their psyches.

In her statement, Yasinsky describes this animation as creating a sketch of an era rather than a conscious narrative. Its brevity allows it to act as a collection of thoughts, drawings, and references in a clean, accessible format. Having already clinched the Baker Prize and the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize this year, it may be this kind of self-limitation that helps her to secure the elusive Sondheim prize. (AE)

2010 Sondheim Prize Finalists Matthew Janson Review for City Paper

Matthew Janson

Matthew Janson's Sondheim installation is a scattershot presentation of the artist's diverse studio techniques and material fetishes. It includes two-dimensional pieces and sculptural works that reference home furnishings and domestic function, even though they remain unusable objects. In many cases, pieces feel overly decorated and certain details unnervingly push the work away from refined and toward the garish. The 2009 MICA Mount Royal School graduate offers a body of work that hesitantly wavers between glitz and grotesque. Having followed his work for more than a year, this inconsistency came as a surprise.

Janson is most successful when he separates the ornamental and furniture elements from the conspicuous Great Stuff (industrial canned expanding foam). Selective material combinations, as demonstrated in "Parlor Rat"--a low, squat ottoman/wheelbarrow bursting with crystalline mirror shards--yield the most sophisticated and impressive results. "Parlor Rat" confronts the tropes of masculine sculpture with frill, lace, and a somewhat antique aesthetic. The central mirrored form is propped elegantly on parts of a caramel-colored chair. The top surface is flattened and round, edged in a lace doily. The typically four-legged furniture object has a unique posture, sloping down on one side to rest on a single caster. The piece looks ready to collapse under the girth of its own fanciness, or tip onto its single wheel to act as a vehicle for collecting and removing excess glitter.

The other two sculptural pieces don't share in this fantastic tension. "Total Exploding Millionminded Version II," a massive two-piece, mirrored geode on casters, is impressive and beautiful. The front of the piece has the similar chunky, organic structures of pyrite on a very magnified scale, but the mirror is untreated, a sparkly fool's silver. The backs--sides? bottoms?--of the magnificent minerals are flat and decorated in a silvery fabric like the underside of a couch. Casters hang off these vertical sides, immobile and functionless. They subtly suggest commodity, furnishing, and mobility, while remaining less critical than "Parlor Rat."

Hung to the left of "Millionminded" is a black and pink wall-fixed sculpture that conjures memories of the Franz West survey that occupied the same space. The lumpy, imperfect finish of this mixed-media piece--which incorporates vinyl, paint, and spray foam--has a poised restraint that the other wall works, which resemble horrific birthday cakes, do not.

"Carrion," a brown crib with clumsy red viscera, is where Janson loses me. The works here go from David Altmejd meets a hint of Franz West to a Tim Burton claymation--a dated, cheesy goth aesthetic. The muddy, textured exterior and white frosting-like edging feel hurried and unconsidered. The circular mirrors on each side and decorative fringe lining the bottom feel like afterthoughts. Inside the goopy, messy piece is more goop and mess: String and piles of foam are painted a glistening red to evoke intestines and blood. The work is the obvious black sheep of the installation, its craftsmanship poor, and Freudian undertones somewhat clichéd and repelling.

Overall, Janson's installation is awkward and a little inarticulate. Personal narratives are lost in translation. Rather than a farm-raised and -influenced artist as his statement says, the pieces have an unfortunate chintz that is uncharacteristic of his previous works. (Alex Ebstein)

Ramping Up for City Paper

It's seven o'clock on a Sunday evening. Roosevelt Park's sunset hum of insects and birds is broken by the whir of skateboard wheels. The sound pauses as the skater is airborne, and begins again with the thud of landing a trick.

Nine skaters are using the park, a modest asphalt plot behind the recreation center in this Hampden green space. In one corner, a large, treacherous-looking wooden half pipe stands unused. Smaller wooden ramps, worn from use and exposure, hold backpacks, water bottles, and resting onlookers. Five modest concrete ramps, painted light blue ("pool blue," I am later told) ripple the lot like small waves. Jordan Bernier, the tall, skinny 26-year-old behind the DIY concrete project, walks into the park with his board under one arm, dragging a 12-foot metal pipe with the other.

"Coping!" Bernier says. "For a new ramp."

From across the park, another skater glides over and up the fence-side concrete ramp. He stalls on the coping, catches hold of the fence, and jumps off to join us.

Elie Sollins, 27, and Bernier share no social overlaps aside from skating, but through their mutual interest in the sport and a willingness to sweat and spend for the sake of the skate community, the two have formed a friendship and collaboration in their efforts to bring skating into the public eye as a positive recreation and subculture.

The Hampden lot is set to be the eventual location of a full, custom, concrete park--a long-term goal of the local non-profit group Skatepark of Baltimore. The group, which is devoted to fundraising and advocacy, has yet to solidify any plans to break ground. But as one of only two public skate-approved parks within city limits (the other is Carroll Park in Pigtown), the local skaters won't stand to see it underutilized.

"There is a history to this pad," Bernier says. "In 2005, I remember skating it. It was paved then but didn't have a fence around it. Kids would bring their jump ramps and stuff down to the park and skate it, but there was nothing [permanent] to skate. Some kids started building stuff on-site, but it all got knocked down by the city or by people lurking in the park at night." The park has been in the throes of public misunderstanding for years, its slow development due largely to misinterpretation that the defacing and damage of ramps (one was once lit on fire) came from within the skateboarding community.

Bernier and Sollins, along with their friend Steve Santillan, are responsible for the small concrete effort in the park so far. "Elie was the first to put money in," says Bernier, "but we don't have a lot of money to put into the project. It's something like 20 bucks every two weeks. But it goes a long way when you're making ramps out of rubble from around the park--recycled or re-purposed junk and bricks from under 83. All we're really paying for is the concrete."

Building concrete ramps in the park is a community-oriented project. As much as they are building ramps that they want to skate themselves, they hope that their efforts will encourage others to build their own ramps, and eventually replace the disintegrating wooden ramps with safer, concrete counterparts. Fostering a sense of responsibility for the space will help keep vandals out and use up.

"That ramp was built by Stephan," Sollins says, pointing to the fifth concrete ramp and referring to another local skater whom Bernier and Sollins only know from the park. "We helped him smooth it and paint it. Other than us, he's the only one who's put money in. But kids will line up to help us when we pull up with the van [full of materials]." Bernier laughs: "They literally line up!"

Bernier, who received a BFA and MA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and is beginning Towson University's MFA program in the fall, believes that the solo expressive sport and its accompanying architecture should be viewed as an art. As an undergrad, Bernier made a hollow ramp that was skated in a MICA gallery as an investigation of sound. Later, he built a wall-to-wall ramp in his studio, looking at form and space.

"Skateboarding has always been a huge part of my life, as much and sometimes more than art has been," he says. "There has always, for me, been the issue of connecting them. As an artist, who's to say something is not art? I have had teachers and other artists not recognize these [skateable sculptures and forms] as art, but that's their block." 

In 2008, Bernier was given the opportunity to bridge art and skating for Artscape, through the encouragement and curatorial efforts of fellow MICA graduate, Michael Benevento. Bernier designed and executed a pants-shaped skate ramp as part of the public sculptures in the median of Mount Royal Avenue.

"[Benevento's] curatorial angle was 'Outdoor Lounge,'" Bernier explains, "basically, somewhat functional sculptures that encouraged socialization." The pants ramp, designed by Jordan and assembled by a team of skateboarders and artists (including the author), brought together the arts and skateboarding communities with the general public. "People were really receptive to seeing a public intersection between art and skating," Bernier says. "It was a great platform for connecting skating with performance and sculpture." Over five months of consistent use, the ramp became worn and hard to maintain. The section of park that the ramp sat on was eventually purchased by the University of Baltimore, which requested it be removed for insurance reasons.

This year, Bernier plans to make another wooden ramp for the annual arts festival, keeping the Hampden lot in mind as a permanent home for the temporary installation. The ramp, which will be part of the Charles Street bridge performance and interactive sculpture section known as the Midway, will be a sculptural replica of Hokusai's "The Great Wave." Skateboarding has always had roots in surfing, and since the Z Boys and other West Coast skaters in the '70s, a tie to swimming pools. The image pays homage to the skating history, while appropriating an iconic art image to help those who have written off skating as a sport see the ramp for its craftsmanship and artistic validity. Structurally, Bernier and Sollins have designed the ramp so that, once transferred to Hampden, it can be buttressed with concrete for permanent installation.

While the art side of building ramps is fun and personally rewarding, the overall goal is raising awareness. "By seeing skating in a palatable way, the city becomes aware of the need for, and virtual absence of, skateparks in Baltimore," Bernier says. Tickets are still issued daily to those skating the Civil War monument on Mount Royal, and the recently circulated YouTube video of a police officer flipping out on kids skating in the Inner Harbor is a good indication that skating the streets isn't a viable alternative.

"You've got to respect the real world," Sollins says. "You can't be crushin' a church's steps, but there aren't a lot of places to go."

In a city with so much unused space, Bernier hopes that setting aside areas for skating can be viewed as a practical component of urban development. "In other cities like New York, where real estate is so valuable, there are still tons of sites designated for public skating" Bernier says. Through both projects, he hopes to show that there is a responsible, aesthetically conscious community willing to build and maintain attractive and functional structures.

"When it comes to skating, my art is about the community, "Bernier says. "I am not looking to link it to a gallery, I'm not trying to take it to that level, but a public acceptability and appreciation would be nice."

More With Dress for City Paper

Panoptic, this semester's manifestation of MICA's experimental fashion show, featured imaginative garments by 15 undergraduate students from the experimental fashion concentration. Each of the students in Valeska Populoh's eight-month class created a unique line of apparel to satisfy their innovative interpretations of costume and fashion, while also collaboratively producing the event itself. Staged in the empty North Avenue Market building, the designers both incorporated and broke from the traditional runway show, incorporating video, performance, song, burlesque, narratives, and LEDs into the presentation of their lines.

Some students chose to make thematically and aesthetically consistent bodies of work, while others, specifically seniors Sarah Konigsburg and Erin McAleavy, emphasized costume by creating and outfitting characters in short narratives. McAleavy's presentation, entitled "Human/Nature," was a whimsical narrative in which figures were dressed as mountains, water, a fisherman, and a bear. The garments, while stylistically and materially varied, helped to define the characters in the short pantomime. Two of the mountains were joined to form a cave that concealed the bear. The figures walked--and crawled--down the runway together and stood at the end as a living prop. Five young men in blue sequined body suits followed the mountains, an army crawling down the runway with a rowboat--complete with fisherman/passenger--in tow.

Konigsburg's narrative, "Creation," focused on mythological female figures and began with the birth of Eve, falling out of a person-sized hole in the underarm/rib area of "Adam's" cape. Konigsburg's garments appeared to be influenced by opera, with their classical theme and ornate decorations, which included sequins and feathers. The two female singers wore the elemental colors blue and red and were led by two young women dressed as horses, leaning forward onto wooden horse legs as they traversed the runway.

Also theatrical, but without a rigid narrative, were the fantastically memorable lines of Marla Parker and Beth Pakradooni. Parker, a senior fibers major, has an avid interest in burlesque costume and performs locally in her own troupe. Her "Sweet Somethings" line reinterpreted the saccharine elements of burlesque performance through costumes that resemble pastries. Meticulously crafted with rumble ruffles and lace, the costumes are gorgeous, fun, and made to last. Parker, who wore one of her own creations, and her models winked and flirted down the runway, passing out lace-wrapped candies to the front row. Pakradooni focused on 1970s upholstery and crafting fabrics, using them to re-imagine party outfits from the same era. In some outfits, elements of upholstered furniture found their way into the garments, including a slip-cover-like cape and armchair shoulder pads. Dancing down the aisle with moves from school dances past, Pakradooni's runway show, "Home," was one of the most fun and memorable of evening.

Another showstopper was Katie Coble's line of convertible garments, called "Roost," which sent more models down the runway than any other designer in the show. Coble's line of earth and flesh-tone outfits unfolded into three times as many looks, as each piece of clothing could be worn in a variety of ways. Her models stood at the end of the runway, posing in fashion-ad tableaux, as three would step forward and help one another adjust and exchange their outfits to demonstrate the garments' versatility.

Equally impressive in its playful yet professional presentation was Alex Baldwin's line "Cosmia." Baldwin takes a somewhat cartoon-y and playful interest in the occult and mainstream gothic gear. Each model wore a matching black bandit-style mask with blue lips over their faces. A couple of Baldwin's dresses had black arms printed on the fabric where the models' arms should be. The models held their arms in the same pose as the print, either on their hips or crossed with their hands on their shoulders, the dresses created to be worn in only that pose. In some looks, Baldwin juxtaposes pink gossamer fabrics with stark black bondage elements, giving the line a Marilyn Manson meets I Dream of Genie feel. While both of those references have cheesy connotations, Baldwin's combination of delicate and harsh aesthetics is mature, smart, and in most cases, sexy.

The Panoptic event provided these dedicated students, in a concentration that otherwise receives very little exposure, a venue to present their work in its appropriate setting. Produced and promoted by the students themselves, the independent spectacle showcased eight months of output from a single class, all of which was entertaining and most of which was very impressively crafted. From the playful felt costumes of Julia Stone's "Heroes and Villains" to the well-researched and elegant "Osaka Loop Line" by Vincent Tiley, which illustrates the American occupation of Japan and the resulting cultural exchange through clothing, the entire show was fun, smart, and energetic.

Defining Women for City Paper

Maryland Art Place's current exhibition, Losing Yourself in the 21st Century, features the work of 12 emerging female artists, but it is much more than a gallery show. Originating with an online-project forum,losingyourself.com, the exhibition is a presentation of a larger dialogue and compendium of contemporary female artists addressing their role within their gender group, immediate and virtual communities, and the greater art world through performance and new media. Fostering a sense of solidarity and communication that would make Judy Chicago proud, the online network is a platform through which the artists presented and peer critiqued one another's work. Maryland Art Place and the Georgia State University Welch School of Art and Design Gallery each showcased this selection of works, curated by participants in the forum, that examine female artist identity in a tech-savvy, socially networked society.

In MAP's first room, the multitalented Saya Woolfalk presents "No Place," a mixed-media installation, and "Ethnography of No Place," a video piece made collaboratively with Rachel Lears, a filmmaker and anthropologist. "No Place" is a conceptual futuristic, earth-friendly civilization of human-plant hybrids. One of the sculptures depicts two figures, inhabitants of No Place, hand in hand. The figures are clothed in earth-tone calicos and elaborate capes, while their featureless heads bloom with bulbous felt growths of varying skin colors. One figure wears pink accents, the other blue, but their builds are even, simultaneously addressing and negating gender differentiation. The 30-minute video uses a Discovery Channel format to document the lives and traditions of the anti-consumerist, technology-free fantastical inhabitants of No Place, unblemished by media saturation, class structure, or other social distinctions.

Similarly fantastical, Baltimore-based Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum includes a stop-motion animation called "A Short History: Starring Asme as Herself." In her video, Sunstrum's art alter ego, Asme, appears as three separate figures. The Asmes glide into the frame, each in a different outfit, and exchange clouds of smoke, sharing unexplained information and energy. The video illustrates a meditation and gathering of one's selves: the woman, the artist, the traveler, etc. Their identities overlap, but they also exist in unique categories, traversing the physical and imagined world separately.

Shana Moulton and Milana Bravlavsky each address an anxiety for contemporary domestic spaces and the roles they play in constructing identity. Moulton's "Whispering Pines" video, like Sunstrum's, uses an alter ego to explore an absurd, almost manic relationship with home décor and new-age objects. Her protagonist, Cynthia, has isolated herself among obsessively collected kitsch in the fictitious community of Whispering Pines. Her mundane rituals lead her into mental raves, daydreams, hallucinations, and, ultimately, small moments of self-realization. Her world is at once claustrophobically small and endless in its whimsical possibilities. Crystal Light, plug-in waterfalls, flower arrangement, and pore strips play an uncomfortably large role in the chapters of Cynthia's life.

Bravlavsky's photographs, on the other hand, depict anonymous, distorted figures in empty domestic spaces. Faces are hidden from view, in some cases replaced with photographs at larger scale or alternate angle. The bodies in her photographs are awkwardly forced into their outfits and settings; the detail of bed sheets and dress patterns becomes more alienating than comforting. Identity is displaced between figure and environment, and the tension is simultaneously provocative and sad.

Throughout the exhibition, women examine their role in modern society, dissecting their identities through specific personal, cultural, and fantastical lenses. Text messages and screensavers are transformed into unique, poignant narratives. Cross-stitched television characters offer imitable, scripted emotion. Culture is observed, ingested, and altered; identity is lost and reclaimed. Amber Hawk Swanson documents others as they interact with a sex doll created in the artist's likeness, taking it to a variety of events--including an adult entertainment industry convention. The artist and viewer are both spectators in the bizarre scenes. Navigating the exhibition encourages you to consider how identity is created in relation to--and sometimes constricted by--the mundane material and intellectual ephemera that surrounds and permeates daily life. While the exhibition is slightly on the sparse side, the ideas it sparks can be carried into daily life.

Fever Kitsch for City Paper

On Jan. 20, an unusual crowd spilled out the door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk in front of the C. Grimaldis Gallery. A mix of formally dressed and costumed gallery-goers intermingled in the customarily conservative setting, equally anxious to see celebrity filmmaker and artist John Waters and the works in his solo show, Versailles. Renowned for neat, elegant exhibitions, Grimaldis would seem an odd venue for the Waters who built his reputation on movies such as Pink Flamingos, but Waters the artist is exactly that: neat, elegant, and comparably subdued.

Along the walls of the gallery, modestly sized photographs traditionally framed with clean, generous mats offer an array of humorous, albeit tame, non-sequiturs. The neatness of presentation and images from old movies give Waters' work a dated, almost nostalgic feel, referencing postcards and other collectable ephemera. Each image is its own self-contained joke, or pun, culled from its place in culture and re-examined in a new context to highlight its absurdity. "Versailles," the title image and only piece that directly refers to Baltimore, is a photo of the Palace of Versailles outside Paris next to the Versailles apartment complex of Towson. The two images, displayed at equal size in the same frame, are an understated smirk at the suburban apartment complex's grasp at grandeur. In the image "9/11," two movie title card, one for Doctor Dolittle 2 and the other for A Knight's Tale--both 2001 releases--offers an accurate but facetious document of the time period.

Waters' appropriated film stills, arranged in one-liner narratives, encapsulate his knack for voyeurism and comic timing. "Bad Trip," a seven-frame narrative beginning with "Have you ever been on a trip?," shows a woman's face five different times. In each frame, her face is contorted in horror, with a skull spliced in between the first three and last two. Other images depict single, laughable frames of movie titles and credits. "Melissa," a personal favorite, is a dreamy image of a blue sky with starring melissa rivers written garishly across a cloud. Another, "Haunted," hung next to the gallery's entrance, is a single frame of a title card, evidently for the movie entitled My Ass is Haunted. The kitsch in Waters' work is referential and smart; a Baltimore version of Andy Warhol and Richard Prince.

As well as his two-dimensional works, Waters' Versailles includes three sculptures and a sound piece, which loops through an undisguised set of speakers. In the front room of the gallery, "Rush," a GNC-like bottle on its side whose tagline is liquid incense, resembles an enlarged joke-store gag object, with a polyurethane puddle pooling beneath it. The large, socially acceptable "rush" is placed next to the sound installation "The Sound of a Hit," audio of a monetary negotiation, presumably for a seedier source of feel-goodery.

"Study Art" hangs further back in the gallery, a wall-mounted, palette-shaped sign that reads study art for prestige or spite. Here, Waters appears to take a self-conscious swipe at artistic aspiration, despite having himself achieved artistic success. "Bad Directors Chair" is perhaps a similarly self-deprecating reference to his own non-gallery work. The classic canvas chair is adorned with words such as hack and reshoot, and holds a leather-bound script titled piece of shit in gold lettering.

While his movies have become mainstream, and their humor universally entertaining, Waters' artwork is drier and deliberately created for a loftier audience. The filmmaker and the artist are two separate identities, each aware of the others' merits and shortcomings. The art is entertaining, and the movies artful, but they are held to a separate standard of critical and commercial success. Despite the basis of his fame, in the gallery world Waters is consciously, almost forcibly reserved; there are no feces in this show. In many cases, Waters the filmmaker is the butt of jokes for this blue-chip gallery audience. "John Jr."--a wood-framed photo of a wood framed, pastel portrait of the artist as a child--is further scrutiny of self-identity, in this case as poignant as it is humorous. Waters' artwork is decidedly sophisticated, built on but breaking from his other pursuits. Here, he examines himself as a character and celebrity, finding humor in his own predictability to be surprising.