: SELECTED PRESS / ESSAYS

WASHINGTON POST
Give a Bit, Take a Lot
By Bob Massey
Thursday, September 7, 2006; Express; Page E11

“You hear people talk about six degrees of separation, or Kevin Bacon,” said artist Jose Ruiz. “I thought that it was pretty funny to consider six degrees of appropriation.” That thought became “Appropriately Yours,” a show of six openly referential artists, at Transformer.

Ruiz, co-founder of the formerly DC-based Decatur Blue artists collective, notes that “Writers quote other people, DJs sample other people, sound artists rearrange pre-existing sounds.” So to varying degrees, the six artists quote, borrow and steal familiar materials to transform tiny Transformer into one giant referential work.

As with Bacon, questions of originality arise. Ruiz notes that young students are taught to write from within, to express “original” thoughts, and never to pass off another person’s words as one’s own. “But as you grow older,” says Ruiz, research and footnotes come into play. “The institution wants you to connect to history and other people so you’re not as separated as an individual. Originality takes on a new meaning.

Ruiz says, “Appropriation is about borrowing things and removing the artist’s hand from making work.” Yet each of artist’s singular style is evident even in quotation.

Of the six works, Chad Stayrook’s “Stumped” most directly quotes art history with his absurdist riff on Rodin’s “The Thinker.” Thom Flynn’s take on a stained-glass window turns layered, wheatpasted go-go posters torn from the city’s walls into thick, kaleidoscopic collage. Julie Chang creates textiles printed with status signifiers from her upbringing as a Chinese-American girl raised in Orange County, Calif.

Ricardo Rivera creates body drawings based on ritual movements from Mexican Catholic purification rites. Champ Taylor traces the global chain of labor that culminates in common consumer goods. The 17 syllables of haiku are the basis for Richard Vosseller’s bold abstract paintings, which become blueprints for beautiful swooping sculptures built from construction materials.

According to Ruiz, the materials are familiar, even commonplace, but “depending on your mood that day, the viewer brings something new to it.” Again, not unlike the work of Kevin Bacon.