Bring two things with you if you visit the Sculpture Center this spring: a tinfoil hat (real or conceptual) and a dirty mind.
The former will help make sense of “Cloud of Unknowing,” a small but impactful exhibition by Gary Sczerbaniewicz, while the latter will come in handy viewing “Morning After,” a luscious display by Ling-lin Ku. Both are on view until early June.
The craftsmanship in both shows is exquisite. Buffalo-based Sczerbaniewicz invites viewers to gaze on fantastically detailed dioramas through tiny windows in large wooden cases. Ku, meanwhile, a professor at Oberlin College, offers bright, large-scale pieces reveling in contrasts of color, shape and material.
But while both are highly complex in terms of execution, neither is especially complicated conceptually. In truth, their straightforwardness is actually a strength. It doesn’t take a degree in art history to comprehend what they’re going for.
In any event, there’s a lot to savor, especially in the work of Sczerbaniewicz. Inside his cases are tiny, astonishingly realistic laboratories straight from “Stranger Things.” Each painstakingly tiled room is complete with dollhouse chairs, computers and charts, and there’s always a window, through which some absent technicians are presumably monitoring something.
Scads of miniature cameras suggest whatever’s taking place is being recorded, and piles of tarot cards and a Ouija board imply supernatural dabbling. Other windows look onto a Victorian sitting room, one wall of which has been blown out by some foreign technology, and into a Masonic temple full of prominent symbolism.
Nearby windows in the same pieces reveal the flip sides of these scenes. We see some kind of satellite from a potentially staged moon landing, religious iconography, and caves stocked with pictures of aliens, Bigfoot, and 9/11 bomber Mohammed Atta. “SCIF #1: Cloud of Unknowing,” the show’s namesake, includes an audio loop about UFO sightings.
Clearly, Sczerbaniewicz, who came of age during the Cold War, is interested in conspiracy theories, in alternative explanations of reality and the idea that mysterious elites control the world.
What’s less plain is whether he nurtures such beliefs himself or how he feels about those who do. Either he’s revealing what he regards as the truth or mocking what those theories entail. But it doesn’t really matter. That tension is what gives this art its power.
Ku, by contrast, is all about the physical, the sensory. Never mind conspiracy theories. She’s consumed by delights of the flesh.
Like Sczerbaniewicz, Ku is a virtuoso. Her colorful, surreal pieces hang or hold together in incredibly imaginative ways, and every component seems to be the polar opposite of its neighbor. Round, square, smooth, coarse, light, dark, metal, wood, cloth; every juncture is a sharp juxtaposition.
But while the visual contrast in Ku’s work runs high, the work itself is about similarity, about what sex and food have in common. Indeed, it’s as if she conflates the two, as if she imagines one when enjoying the other.
Here’s where it helps to think a little naughty. Food – and specifically cheese – is a dominant theme in Ku’s work here, appearing again and again. But for every sandwich, berry or hunk of Swiss she conjures, there’s also some allusion to sexual acts, body parts or paraphernalia. In these works, the body itself becomes a food-like object, something to be eaten.
Most of it is playful and innocent. Then again, as with Sczerbaniewicz, the message isn’t entirely clear. What’s more, there’s an undertone of sadness or disappointment. In a work called “Morning After,” what appears to be a person lies in bed, possibly post-coitus, draped in a heartbreaking symbol of confusion, a blanket covered in green and red phone icons: call or don’t call.
Credit the Sculpture Center for bringing Sczerbaniewicz and Ku to greater attention. Once again, this venerable small-but-mighty institution has crafted a thought-provoking show and done its part to expand the very definition of sculpture. Even if you’re unprepared for either show, time spent here is time well spent.
What: “Cloud of Unknowing” and “Morning After”
When: On view now through June 6
Where: The Sculpture Center, 12210 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.
Information: Free. Visit sculpturecenter.org or call 216-229-6257.
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