Art Burn

JAYA BEANGE Enlarge Image

Opening night of Like-Minded.

In the bio accompanying Like-Minded, Micah Lexier describes himself as "an artist, a collector of things, and sometimes a curator," in that order, and it’s unclear which if any single one of these was calling the shots in this ambitious but ultimately disheartening little group show.
   
The premise is straightforward, its execution and implications less so. On the face of it, Like-Minded accompanies and augments A Moon or a Button, Winnipeg artist Michael Dumontier’s concurrent solo show at Plug In, which Lexier also curated. Each of the three-dozen artists represented, who span multiple generations of conceptual practice, shares something of Dumontier’s sensibilities — a formal simplicity or a wincing playfulness — and each of their small gestures collected here does nicely complement some aspect of his work. Regrettably, they do so largely to their own detriment.
   
Where A Moon... allows Dumontier space for his concerns to establish themselves, my fear is that, for audiences lacking at least a passing familiarity with the Like-Minded artists, this show may come off like a collection of mostly insignificant, defiantly impenetrable stunts, which the works (with several notable exceptions) are emphatically not.
   
For better or worse, this is an exhibition conceived of by one artist (Lexier’s credentials in that arena are unimpeachable) for an intended audience of other artists, and it unfolds like a round of high-fives if you know your stuff — Arnaud Maggs! Uh… Martin Creed?  But hardly everybody does and, given how poorly understood and popularly maligned conceptual practices tend to be, Like-Minded feels like a missed opportunity.
   
Like Lexier-the-artist, Lexier-the-collector may have also had more sway in organizing the show than Lexier-the-(sometimes)-curator. For one, many of the objects come from his personal collection, which is unusual in itself (artwork increases in value the more it’s exhibited so, while I don’t actually think Lexier is curating for personal gain, it looks shady) and helps explain why Like-Minded can feel like rifling through somebody’s first-rate stamp collection. Lexier’s enthusiasm for the work is unquestionable, and mostly I share it, but seeing so many small, spare objects in such close quarters has the effect of foregrounding "like-mindedness" at the expense of individual achievement, to the extent that the works’ superficial sameness is all one takes away, and that’s too bad.
   
Laurel Woodcock’s stickie, a Post-it note made of enameled steel, might be an approachable one-liner, and Sylvia Matas’ Nocturne, a booklet of orchestral "night music" with all but the rests, crescendos, and diminuendos removed, can be beautiful (and either peaceful or harrowing to contemplate, depending on your disposition) with only a basic understanding of musical notation. But something like Maggs’ Chargé XXII, a straightforward, unframed photograph of an antique envelope bearing a bold, black X,  only "works" if you know that it depicts 19th-century mourning stationery and that this is a subject he’s documented dozens of times to form gallery-spanning grids.
   
It’s an outstanding collection, if not the most successful exhibition, provided you know what you’re looking at. So maybe review the list of works and acquaint yourself with the artists before taking it all in. And, should Lexier-the-artist-collector-sometimes-curator take on something more like a museum survey, I’d be there as soon as the opening-night crowds dispersed.
   
Steven Leyden Cochrane is an emerging visual artist, writer and educator from Tampa, Fla. He doesn’t do crowds.

Like-Minded
Curated by Micah Lexier
Until March 25, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art