Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Information overload has understandably been a popular theme for artists, and many have explored it poignantly. Among painters, Albert Oehlen has gleefully confronted the digital assault, Jacqueline Humphries has riffed on the increasing denseness of the “data surround,” Chris Dorland has examined how “shellcode” and “legacy software” might infiltrate perception itself as well as narrative, Andy Meerow has noted the perverse tyranny of clickable instructions, and Adam Simon has plumbed nostalgia for analog manageability. In the realm of installation and sculpture, Sarah Sze’s antic spillage of disparate and often discombobulated objects has reflected the capacity of digital output to both nourish and overwhelm the senses. These approaches and others lean towards a dystopic or at least a flummoxing future. It’s rarer to encounter an artist who unequivocally embraces the output onslaught as a positive opportunity. Lisa Hoke is one – a game and capable bull rider in a visual rodeo. In her solo show “Relative Uncertainty” at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts,, she meets the challenge with consummate skill, persistent wit, and, not least, a kind of stoical grit that firmly rebuffs any attempt to cast her outwardly joyful approach as sheltered or clueless, utopian or oblivious.
A receptor of external realities she cannot control, Hoke takes what the world throws at her and – not unlike, say, El Anatsui confronting discarded bottlecaps – endows it with beauty and meaning. One of her bywords is “patterned density,” which describes to a tee smaller wall pieces like Remains of the Day and Round Up. In these she winds traditional materials and found consumer ephemera – cards are a current favorite – into veritable gears of the daily grind, downshifting fitfully from action to repose. The term also suits the two robustly three-dimensional, multi-piece wall reliefs, which warrant further elaboration. Lucky Lights, whose contour resembles a bird of prey taking flight, comprises hundreds of brightly colored components, with common sets in regimented patterns but irregularly configured in relation to one another – a “visual cacophony” that nonetheless vibes as harmonious by virtue of some wise but inscrutable invisible hand. If that sounds like a cautious wink to the laissez-faire of Adam Smith, the inference may not be off-base. Hoke has never abjured capitalist society and her work can be read as a celebration of it – within the limits of civilization. Modified TWA playing cards elegantly fanned in one quadrant of the piece suggest, alongside measured respect for bountiful commerce, a trace of wistfulness for a simpler time. Juicy, the smallest and least complicated piece in the show, might confirm the sentiment.
Hoke hardly yields to forlornness. Turn, the other big installation, abstractly but unmistakably references the Stars-and-Stripes, which appears to be emerging tattered but intact from some ordeal. It may or not be a coincidence that the title is identical to that of a televised story of heroic subversion during the American Revolution. Three shaped pieces accent Hoke’s metaphorical reach and subtlety and, for all her good cheer, an underlying seriousness. Hoses, smooth on the left and jagged on the right, suggests encroachment and envelopment, remaining agnostic as to whether it is benign or hostile. Red Light – that title an apparent pun – takes the ominous form of a conical hat, pulsing with enigmatically reptilian energy. With incisive economy and clarity, Swingtime could reference competing centrifugal and centripetal forces in close quarters – a nod, perhaps, to discomfiting political dynamics. Softening these rather topical warnings is Hoke’s general sense that human confusion is less daunting than it seems, susceptible to taming in the hands of an artist.
“Lisa Hoke: Relative Uncertainty,” Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, 529 West 20th Street, New York, NY. Through November 30, 2024.
About the author: Jonathan Stevenson is a New York-based policy analyst, editor, and writer, contributing to the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Politico, among other publications, and a regular contributor to Two Coats of Paint.
NOTE: We’re in the third week of the Two Coats of Paint 2024 Year-end Fundraising Campaign! This year, we’re aiming for full participation from our readers and gallery friends. Your support means everything to us, and any contribution—big or small—will help keep the project thriving into 2025. Plus, it’s tax-deductible! Thank you for being such a vital part of our community and keeping the conversation alive. Click here to contribute.
