Visitors to the current show at the Hydra School Project are initially greeted by a poem/poster by Raymond Pettibon, which states;
“A general surrender of everything.
Anything is relevant.
Whatever’s Whatever.
Just let me keep my hair.
Which is a great start to the show, a very bold display of works curated by Dimie Athanaspoulou and Dimitrios Antonitsis. However there is a down side to this approach, while “Anything is relevant” the same could be said that “nothing is relevant” – and to me, while the show is thought provoking, there is a note in the back of my mind that keeps hearing the flipside to Pettibon’s poem.
This is not to say that individual pieces don’t stand out, Marylin Mitner’s photographs clearly steal the show for me – in particular Fuzzy Pam (Pam Anderson), 2007. Fuzzy Pam does not immediately scream Pam Anderson the way that say a David LaChapelle photo might, in fact the lack of focus on Miss Anderson and the lack of hyperstylization of her portrays a softer more complex woman than most would give credit to, and it is that flip of the switch that creates the most interest in this image for me. Vassilis Zidianakis presents us with a small installation of silkscreened plexiglass consisting of eight parts (Hydra + Op, 2008), casually leaning against the wall, these computer generated linear forms overlay and stand apart from each other while pulling back into the the installation as a whole.
Regardless of my constant mental games as they relate to the initial poem, Whatever’s Whatever is a strong and gutsy curatorial undertaking, I’m curious to see the next outing from Athanaspoulou and Antonitsis.
Fuzzy Pam (Pam Anderson), 2007, c-print