Let’s be clear: “Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior” isn’t just a show about drugged-out art, but there are plenty of references to magic mushrooms, as well as a furry pink carpet covering much of the floor (well, the parts of the floor not taken up by one of Jim Lambie’s overpowering striped-rainbow installations). For chrissakes there’s a huge painting of raccoons wielding paintbrushes, courtesy of Peter Saul, so clearly we’re in slightly inebriated territory. The exhibition — curated by Phong Bui and Rail Curatorial Projects, and hosted in Red Bull Studios New York’s massive, bi-level space through December 14 — is a wild and colorful journey into another dimension. And like any such trip, there’s bound to be occasional slippages into the dark side (a motorized sculpture by Jon Kessler, which features an amputated, plug-pierced ear emitting bubbles, does that job nicely).
“Spaced Out” includes a lot of painting, much of it exuberant, abstract, and highly patterned: Keltie Ferris, Tamara Gonzales, James Siena, and Chris Martin (who concurrently has a very glittery show over at Anton Kern Gallery). The sculptural inclusions in the show tend toward the very modest (a tiny cricket cage carved from human bone by Charles LeDray; one of Robert Gober’s phallic-beeswax candles) to the monumental (a goofy, metallic bust by Ugo Rondinone, which lords over the main gallery space with a shit-eating grin on its vacant face). Brooklyn artist Fred Tomaselli— who is readily associated with an interest in mind-expansion, and who has occasionally used drugs as a medium — has an amazing older piece in the basement level. “Geology Lesson,” 1986, is a desk whose top is covered with dozens of tiny, upward-facing speakers, each filled with a few pinches of cat litter; tap a button and the speakers come to life, emitting a growing tone whose vibrations cause the litter to shiver and bounce. The sculpture is a marvel of lo-fi special effect.
Will Ryman — an artist whose paintbrush-mazes and nail-birds have never particularly thrilled me — also has a stunner in this exhibition: “Infinity,” 2014, a cheeky-and-creepy homage to Yayoi Kusama’s light-filled rooms, except this one’s walls, ceiling, and floor are covered with child-sized sneakers. It’s an immersive little den within the hyper-real immersive environment that Bui and his Brooklyn Rail cohorts have transformed the entire space into: A celebration of the proudly nonsensical, drug-addled or otherwise.
