Mike Womack Warbling 2006 mixed media 12' x 14' x 20' [detail of installation, from without]
[detail of installation, from within]
Phew! Today, after going over some of the most depressing news stories of the winter (we're about to escalate an illegal, immoral and failed war while watching the disintegration and possible total reversal of an earlier campaign and learning of the initiation of a third), and after coming away from my previous downer of a post and the exchange it provoked, I'm ready for something completely different.
I'm not going to argue that Mike Womack's show at ZieherSmith is the most important thing I could report on just now, but it certainly represents a gentle good humor, a real and unqualified beauty, with the fillip of a delightful conceit in its production. Also, the images should show up very well on line.
There were two sculptures in the gallery (three if you count the background installation, shown in the second image above, which produced most of the magic for the effect pictured above it), and after exploring everything, Barry and I both left them very reluctantly, but smiling broadly.