“Neo, Neo-Dada”

James Jaxxa, Pink Football

Courtesy the artist

With the cult of the new dominating our zeitgeist, it comes as no surprise that Dada, the original antiestablishment movement, would be rebranded by this group show. Despite a prevailing cynicism about the effectiveness of dissent, the exhibition is a sincere effort to stoke the fires of aesthetic and political radicalism.

Zachary Fabri presents one of the more rabble-rousing pieces, a video of a street performance that challenges the common stereotypes of race and class. Using corn syrup and white flour, Fabri pushes sensitive societal buttons by becoming a public “eyesore.”

Kay Reese’s photo-based collages attack the materialism of American culture; while her message is loud and clear (one image shows a woman slicing a designer handbag), you wish that her approach were more formally nuanced. In a comment on waste, Sandra Lee reprocesses odd materials (graph paper, plastic bags and receipts) to create improvised items of clothing. James Jaxxa’s hot-pink football celebrates the razzle-dazzle of mass culture while also parodying traditional notions of masculinity. Gender roles are also prominent in Swati Khurana’s dreamy video, an interrogation of the fantasy-laden Bollywood films of her native India. Similarly, Puerto Rican-born Miguelangel Ruiz creates a hybrid comic-heroic character based on his country’s popular culture, as a way of reflecting on his own sense of displacement.

Still, even as the show tries to be provocative, it’s often difficult to tease the “Neo-Dada” out of this smorgasbord of styles. While taking the temperature of the current counterculture is a laudable goal, quirkiness doesn’t necessarily indicate iconoclasm.