Word: fogg
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WITH THE installation of Mary Miss's Mirror Way, the Fogg makes one of its all-too-infrequent ventures into the realm of contemporary art. The scaffold-like sculpture, constructed mostly of unfinished two-by-fours, is visually and conceptually anomalous to the neo-Renaissance interior of the museum courtyard...
Miss's work is part of a series of exhibits honoring former Fogg director John Coolidge. The artists selected for the series create what is known as environmental art, or art that somehow responds to or interacts with the conditions of the site. Miss also tries to involve the viewer--she designs her pieces so that they can (and should) be studied from several directions. The Fogg piece can also be seen from several different heights; one can look down at it from the arcades of the second and third floors of the museum...
...THERE LIES her weakness. While she speaks of stirring memories of, for example, a grand entrace hall or a cramped tenement staircase--her work seems instead rather devoid of content. The problem may be one of materials. The staircase of the Fogg piece suggests ancient Aztec monuments; it might be more powerful if constructed of weathered stone rather than lumberyard wood. Miss, like many intellectually oriented artists during the sixties, gives priority to idea over aesthetic. In failing to point up the qualities of her sculpture, Miss deprives her pieces of visual and emotional richness...
Miss also tricks the viewer by setting up apparently ordinary situations and then altering them. The effect is somewhat like the Escher prints in which water flows uphill, straight columns bend, and roofs and ceiling invert on each other. Mirror Way at the Fogg is an elaborate experiment in such deception: pathways are blocked, stairs run up into floors, a ladder leads up to a slatted roof which then leads nowhere. In short, the structure is illogical--it feigns functionalism and yet refuses to function...
...close-up look at your heroes. They will not remember your face, or your name; they may preside over Harvard and Radcliffe, but they are partially human. Skippable, unless you fear that you may never get that close to them again. Your fears may be justified. The Fogg is a nice place to stroll and muse, too. The rest of you will have to wait with baited breath till tomorrow...