I, I, I. This was my least favorite work that got published on Glasstire. The intense use of first person really bothers me. But I couldn’t think of another way to describe my thoughts at the time. Here it is unedited.
After I found out about this special event, I was invited to come meet the artist at his reception at Art Palace. I didn’t really want to meet him, but I figured what the hell. I show up and their is a P.O.D. storage unit in the driveway. I go around it to say hi to Arturo Palacios and I am introduced to the art world writers. From the Chronicle to Glasstire to Artlies, I stood in the center of a figure eight group of people. I was almost introduced to the artist, but I shied away and went to look at the art before I faced him.
Walking into the brightly lit P.O.D. I find it covered in drawings. Most were simple graphite on letter-sized sheets tacked to the wall. The largest, hanging on the back wall was a graphite rendition of a space shuttle with balloons flying out of the open hatch on about 24″ by 36″ of newsprint. Nothing complicated about the imagery. All of them were line drawings rendered using a nervous, jerky line. From far away they looked clean like a confident contour drawing, but close up they were jaggedy and comparable to a simple digital drawing made in MSpaint.
I keep thinking of the work as simple. The markmaking was not complex. The images were few elements on the page. The materials used are readily available. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t fond of them. I was expecting something more heady. But while the construction of these drawings felt limited, the content was whispering something. I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see it move its lips. There was something sinister running through the works that I wasn’t picking up on.
Towards the back of the POD and at or below waist-level was a sculpture. It consisted of a yellow balloon attached to a small, clear hose that was attached to a plastic blowup of a penis. After seeing this piece, I took note of the drawings with an erotic or, what I thought were, homosexual references. Is that it? Is he gay? Is that what I was missing? I didn’t see it in all of the works, so I put that thought aside. I’m about to head out when Mr. Palacios introduces me to Eduardo Navarro. It throws me way off and my mind blanks. I ask if we can chat later.
Saturday afternoon I return to Art Palace to check out both the gallery’s current show and Mr. Navarro’s work. The artist is sitting in front of the gallery eating a bag of chips. I say hi, look around the show inside and come back out to chat. I find out that drawing is a daily practice for him and this show worked well logistically since his sculptures are larger. On the porch is a costume, which I didn’t see the first night, as evidence of one of his performances. He conceded that it is out of context. I hadn’t resolved the drawings for myself so I ask Mr. Navarro about them. He described wanting to create or present something that was innocent or fresh. Something naive, because nothing can ever truly be innocent. So the drawings look like what I would call childish, but hold some adult content. So I guess I was right?
I’ll tell you ’bout what I sees.