Fine Art'Bridge Freezes' is Cool but not GreatBy Rosie Branson GillTuesday, July 5, 2005Two cultural communities – punk and ‘white trash’ – are enjoying some popularity right now. Unhappily, inclusion often comes at the price of authenticity, and indeed these two are the most recent victims; in the process of reaching a market, many of the rough edges that give punk and white trash culture their respective identity have been polished away. There has been a celebration of a careful selection of the attributes of these groups du jour and a simultaneous dismissal of the qualities that collide a bit too sharply with our traditional norms. Art is allegedly not a slave to such social streamlining, but a recent exhibition shakes our faith that this is true. Bridge Freezes Before Road at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery falls prey to both the safety and the glamour of celebrating culture’s new darlings. To be fair, there are some extraordinary pieces of work in this group show, but the overall impression is one of superficial attempts to be cool. Curated by Neville Wakefield, the show mixes both older and younger artists and, according to the press release, tells the “story of accidents waiting to happen.” The visual logic of this organizing principle was lost on me. There is good news though. Photographers Anne Collier and Robert Smithson, mixed media artist Banks Violette, video artist Slater Bradley, printmaker Kelly Walker, and illustrator Andrea Zittel all contribute interesting work. For example, Bradley’s video Year of the Doppelganger is a fantastic piece that could be a simple celebration of big arena metal music, but just as easily could be a tongue-in-cheek commentary about the predominance of football culture and one skinny rocker kid’s place in, among, or outside the co-ed experience of college. Anne Collier’s photographs honestly and often wittily ask us to reflect on the market industry surrounding the art-world. And Andrea Zittel’s drawings Point of Interest (later realized as a installation in Central Park) are humorous stabs at our pre-fabricated notions of monument, design, and nature. I wish I could say the same about John Dogg’s The Final Curtain or Adam McEwen’s photographs Untitled (Say Something) and Untitled (Stay in Tonight). Dogg’s curtain is composed of six packs of beer cans dangling down and clanging about much like a beaded curtain – only louder. Dogg could have commented on ‘trendster-chic’, as it has become known, but instead he played it safe, gambling that there is still novelty in placing the every day artifacts of ‘low-brow’ culture in gallery spaces. And Like Dogg, McEwen’s images are stale reincarnations of ideas that lost their viscious potency some time ago. I would recommend Bridge Freezes Before Road to see the great pieces. I would even more highly recommend waiting for those stand-out artists to have solo shows. For example, if Banks Violette’s salt-crying amplifiers made you eager for more, as they did me – just go to the Whitney. Bridge Freezes Before Road at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery through August 19, 2005.  
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