OnTheCusp.org

Review: Who's Brian Presnell

"I'm Brian Presnell"
a solo exhibition by Brian Presnell
at Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art

[Please bare with me on this review, it is going to be a strange meandering ride]

Months before this show even opened there was some controversy amongst some of the local artists as to why the iMOCA was offering a solo show to a previously non exhibiting local artist. I admit, I had some reservations as well. I can not speak for others but my original opinion when told about the show was, Really? Why? I have known who Brian Presnell was for a number of years and had even seen a couple of images here and there. He is a nice guy. My concern was not directed towards him but more towards the iMOCA. It had always been my opinion that it is the job of the gallery system and more so the not-for-profit arts spaces to give artists their first chances. A place to experiment, to learn, to prove themselves. Why would a museum organization bother showing the work of an, as yet, unestablished artist? Why take such a risk? Why this leap of faith? I can understand some circumstances of a museum doing this, but usually in a historical context or perhaps post mortem. Though in the contemporary art museum setting I question this practice even more. To be honest, I don't think I really "thought" about this topic before all this came up, rather I just knew it to be so. Art Museums show established artists. Like some global truth. Needless to say we often find most things are not necessarily true.

The night of the opening I showed up not really knowing what to expect or even a clue as to how I would react to it. I came to the show with local artist Quincy Owens to what turned out to be a very large crowd. Well, the space at iMOCA is quite small but never the less people were elbow to elbow already. Most people seemed to be enjoying the show. It was a bit hard to really appreciate the works in this condition so I made a point to come back again the following day to better see the works up close as well as to hear Brian speak about the work and doing this show.

Most of the work is dealing with characters/personas that Brian has created, from Wheelie Man who has it out for Mr. Knight (a Bobby Knight caricature) though we never get to understand why Mr. Knight dislikes Wheelie Man, to Abe Lincoln, Billy Bob the working class hick, and P. Nelson Swisher the wealthy socialite. These characters show up in his many collaborative collages/paintings, in his numerous videos, as bobble heads, and even some as props from the videos. Throughout the work I kept seeing these characters and wondering, Who is Brian Presnell? Is he all of these characters? Are we supposed to think that he is? Everywhere the title of the show jumped out at us, "I'm Brian Presnell". Branding it into our minds. But I walked away not sure if I ever got to see or even glimpse the real Brian Presnell. I couldn't quite figure out whether this was the point or the joke. The show feels at times schizophrenic in personality but when it comes to hanging the show it looks absolutely wonderful in the space despite whether someone liked the work or not, I think they would at least say it was nicely put together. His vast experience hanging valuable artwork for the IMA and the Eiteljorg certainly shows through here. It is the attention to details that add to the experience of the show.

Most of the 40+ paintings in the show are scavenged thrift store looking paintings from country landscapes, boats on the water, bad nature paintings with barns, the type of stuff you would often cringe at the sight of (well, at least I do). These works are then added to through the use of collaged elements (some of his characters, some from other works by artists like Brian Myers) as well as through the actual hand application of graffiti by a few taggers. This aspect of his work brings up the question of authenticity, or could have if that aspect hadn't already played out with the likes of Kostabi, Koons, Levine, Duchamp, etc. I actually liked the areas that the taggers went to work on. I rather like that he would have them do what is natural to them rather than his trying to fake it. As a painter, I feel a bit cheated that the collaged elements were not actually painted on. This feels to me like a shortcut and question the work more than I think I would have if he had painted those same elements on to each painting. While it is in the gift shop that his ideas of marketing and self promotion really blow up. It was quite hilarious to see the iMOCA gift shop filled to the brim with all these silly trinkets, though if I had the money there was a nice limited edition silk screen in there for sale that I think I would have bought. Only $50. Not bad at all. The gift store had everything from beer cozys, t-shirts, pens, penny banks, bottled water, etc. All of these with either the slogan "I'm Brian Presnell" and/or one of the characters printed on them. And while at the opening people are all walking around with their "I'm Brian Presnell" cups and I even saw a few custom bottles of beer floating around. They surely went all out on the branding. But again I am left wondering whether we got to know who he really is. Does this even matter?

Humor, entertainment, jokes whether we are a part of it or the joke being on us, is a major aspect of this show, along with the concepts of identity, facades, and authorship. But even now, I am unsure whether the show adds insights to these issues or just confuses the boundaries even more. The highlight for the night of the opening was a brief allegory told to us about Brian by what, if memory serves me correctly, was his father in law. This story, seemed to me to shed a little insight into who Brian was and solidified to me that I needed to go hear him speak the following day. So as Saturday same and I was able to view the work once again in much better conditions, I looked forward to hearing him speak. I must say that after hearing him speak about what he was interested in and how he looked at the work, I felt I better understood a piece of Brian Presnell. There was something more humble in his discussion of the work, that I feel is missing from most of the work in the show. I understood more his desire to bring more humor into the environment, more entertainment. I though wonder if the works are in fact humorous or is the idea of the work humorous. These are strange questions that I don't consider in my own work so I am unsure where I stand on this on a broader sense. I know I usually don't gravitate to funny art. And yes I do find a lot of art humorous but often I think this type of work becomes a one line joke and wears thin to quickly.

Did I like the show? Yes, as an entire exhibition I think the work looked wonderful in the space and the presentation of it made this show worth looking at. I still don't know whether I feel the concept of the show was successful, and I still have doubts as to whether this was the proper venue for this show. Should the iMOCA show works by Indianapolis area artists? Absolutely. I don't question that one bit, in fact I think it would be a wonderful thing if they were able to designate at least one exhibition per year to Indianapolis based art, be it a group show with Indy artists or solo exhibitions. Did iMOCA pull off a successful show this time. Yes. I think they were able to do this show well. And in all fairness, I reread their mission statement and there is nothing at all in their statement that was not accomplished with putting on this show. So despite this supposed to being a review, I know for me it brings up a lot more questions than answers. And many of these questions may become posts in their own right like, should museums exhibit artists who have never shown before? What is the purpose of a contemporary art museum? Perhaps this show will spark some of this dialogue. Go see the show at iMOCA before is closes.

[Note: another review of this show will be coming in a little over a week, and the STAR wrote about Brian here.]

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