In "So the city can exist," curators Nick Makanna and MacKenzie Stevens conjure the ethos of the city through a thoughtful selection of joyful and whimsical objects. In a presentation of mostly paintings, sculptures and textiles, there are two glaring and presumably deliberate omissions of related subject matter, people and tech, making the show feel like an embrace of what is overlooked and vulnerable here and now. The exhibition’s title and thematic premise refer to Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” (1972), which, along with a 1960s photograph by the German couple Hilla and Bernd Becher (an outlier here) and a reading nook with a collection of obscure and mostly historically oriented city-related books, establish a nostalgic frame of reference.
I encountered a fire hydrant at the entrance of the gallery, one of three works by Malcolm Kenter. I didn’t give it much thought initially, except to wonder if I’d parked too close to a real one. Another work by Kenter, “Square D Box,” consists of two small children’s animal stickers on a circuit breaker box. Wondering if a wily toddler had pulled a prank while the grownups gabbed, I perused the checklist for the works’ media: “Enamel on metal, plastic, wood & gouache on paper.” I looked closer to distinguish the trompe l’oeil effect. I felt disappointed, but in a meaningful way.
Like the Bechers’ “Cooling Tower,” Kenter’s work is indexical, a catalog of gradually outdated infrastructure which emphasizes the strange and ironic way objects shorn of their utility and social relevance tend to become more visible and aesthetically engaging. What was once an overlooked piece of the industrial urban landscape suddenly feels to be a sign of both connection to other people and human inefficiency. This is art as the stubborn details of a soon-to-be bygone era that persist, like calluses, on the smoothed-over facade of techno-utopia...
-Emily Davis Adams
