New Art Exhibit Ignites Fame, Emits No Heat
By Adam Freed
A&F Writer

It’s a quiet night on Stover Walk. You’re out for a little stroll. All of a sudden you hear something.

It is the sound of water. Then you catch a glimpse of a blue light in the distance. You look up and stop dead in your tracks just as every other passer-by has done.

There in front of you is a blue, moving, flowing art exhibit on the window of Alexander Hall, swishing and swashing to the sound of a bubbling brook.

This is a piece from the newest exhibit at the Pomona College Museum of Art, a series of moving pictures depicting Denise Marika ’77 entirely naked while in the act of primal movements. Outside the art museum, the blue window is the only display that doesn’t involve Marika, and inside we see her in a range of activities.

In the opening room, we see her grabbing for red clay and smearing and packing it onto the black background she faces as she grunts and heaves.

Across the way we see her in three more positions. In one, we see her only from the waste down, pubic hair exposed, swinging her legs.

In another we see her lying on her stomach, head hanging down as if she is leaning off of an invisible table, occasionally bringing her head up with a grunt, and letting it back down.

This piece’s counterpart shows the artist on her back, head hanging down, and occasionally bringing it up with a grunt before letting it back down.

The final image is perhaps the most memorable. Inside a semi-spherical bowl, we look down to see Marika curled up into a ball, hands over her head in constant fear and agony of little statues that get thrown at her every few seconds.

Each time one strikes her, she jolts and groans in agony, then settles back to her default position before being restruck.

Marika, whose work has been exhibited in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts “centers her artistic vision in the repetitive and mundane, encouraging the viewer to meditate upon the poetics of ordinary gesture,” according to the Museum’s website at pomona.edu. She deals with themes of power, vulnerability and privacy, with a “deeply emotional intensity.”

The controversial exhibit has evoked strong emotions from visitors and employees, ranging from interested to utterly appalled.

Susannah Edelbaum ’06 is an employee at the Museum of Art, and is not a fan of the exhibit. “I don’t really think it’s art,” said Edelbaum. “I think the idea is supposed to appeal to our base instincts but mostly it’s just unappealing.”

When asked if the only reason she didn’t like it was because of the grossness factor, Edelbaum responded that it also didn’t make her think very much. “The globalization [exhibit] was good—that made you think. But this exhibit just doesn’t make me think that much.”

Edelbaum believes her attitude is fairly common among visitors. “If you read the comment book, people say they like it. But talking to people, they don’t like it so much.” The genre itself, thinks Edelbaum, could be something college students accept more than the general public, but this exhibit simply fails to make an interesting point.

Certainly the uniqueness of the exhibit does make it stand out, but one wonders if it stands out like an ugly duckling in a group of swans. Marika’s exhibit should be credited for venturing into new territory, but her attempt to make the viewer ruminate on issues of power and vulnerability is wishful thinking.

One should credit her attempts to make a point through simple means, but keep in mind that, for many viewers, that point fails. Either way, the exhibit is worth a visit, for if there is one thing we can be sure about, it is that the works are likely to draw strong feelings from dissenters and supporters alike.

The museum, located on the south end of campus, is open Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.