Forget art that is the epitome of inaccessibility and elitism. Rosemont College's
latest exhibit is "WOMENTEK: Women Artists Using Science and Technology," featuring
works by 11 members of New York-based Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI), now
celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Probably many of the same people who used to worry that the computer was making
quality judgements now are going to worry that it is making art.
But there's a playful, almost rambunctious quality to this show÷suggesting that these
women do not approach their work like technicians or emphasize gimmicky but create
what they want, which includes teasing well-established traditions.
Among works in "altered realities" that have a dramatic insistence, the standout is
Meghan Boody's New York Doll tableau series. The specter of depersonalization
looms large in these digital images, which function as icons reflecting society's
obsession with style and fashion.
While beguiling and fascinating, such pieces seem like memorials to the art of picture-
making.
Far more cheery and quite sensual, with the narrative content sacrificed to an emphasis
on contrived form, are Meryl Meisler's fantasies of urban and underwater life. Like
Boody's frozen icons and Marcia Lyons' more closely focus work, Meisler's medium is the
digital photographic print.
Also in tableau form, Heidi Kumao focuses on the social upheaval of domestic violence
in ways that allow her to fictionalize and generalize her content. Framing it within a
setting of domestic bliss gives a bad-dream quality to this piece. Most amusing are
Sally Minker's make-believe seed packets in Seeds of Discontent.
Two of the most interesting presentations are by sculptors. Mary Ziegler gives kinetic
sculpture new validity for the 1990s with Fishing, an odd motorized piece that
reveals her deliciously off-kilter sensibility.
Karen Brown's raku pottery globular shapes, each imbedded with a glowing hologram,
inventively avoid mechanics while showing a great economy, as Ziegler's piece does.
This show gives an American women's slant to technological change ö and even, now and
then, a prophetic challenge to ideologies or our age. As for whether such new art will
be snapped up by the public, we'll just have to wait and see.
A very good show.