Women and Welty

By GREG COOK | February 10, 2011

KARAOKE WRONG NUMBER Rachel Perry Welty makes absurdist conceptual art about the consumerist junk that inundates contemporary American life.

Gloucester artist Rachel Perry Welty's exhibit "24/7," organized by deputy director Nick Capasso and curatorial fellow Lexi Lee Sullivan at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, shows where Pop Art has gone in the wake of Rosler, Mierle Laderman Ukeles's '70s homemaker performances, and the accumulationist (plus Martha Stewart) æsthetic of contemporary Minimalists like Tara Donovan.

Welty makes absurdist conceptual art about the consumerist junk — email spam, twist ties, store muzak — that inundates contemporary American life. In the video Karaoke Wrong Number, she lip-synchs to wrong-number messages she's received. You laugh at how well her face becomes the various callers, especially as their mistakes dawn on them. Elsewhere, she transcribes the lyrics of songs she's heard in a liquor store or an orthodontist's office into cut-out-magazine-letter ransom notes of canned romantic longing. But when she leans toward data processing — like 37 pages of her son's medical bill obscured behind a code of colored dots — the art loses its emotional core and grows tedious.

Her 2010 Lost in My Life photos show Welty dressed in outfits that camouflage her into backgrounds of cereal boxes, bread twist ties, Styrofoam take-out cartons. In the best one, she chameleons into the background because her clothes, her tote bag, everything is covered with a fabric she printed from price tags. It's a magical disappearing act in which she and consumerism beautifully, unsettlingly become one.

SLIDESHOW: 'Seductive Subversion' at Tufts, '24/7' at DeCordova

SEDUCTIVE SUBVERSION
TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY, 40R TALBOT AVE, MEDFORD | THROUGH APRIL 3

RACHEL PERRY WELTY: 24/7
DECORDOVA SCULPTURE PARK AND MUSEUM, 51 SANDY POND RD, LINCOLN | THROUGH APRIL 24

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Slideshow: 'Seductive Subversion' at Tufts, '24/7' at DeCordova
Images from two art exhibits, "Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968" at the Tufts University Art Gallery and Rachel Perry Welty's "24/7" at DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
Slideshow: Andy Goldsworthy and Ursula von Rydingsvard at the DeCordova
The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum hosts two new artists' installations starting May 29, 2011: Andy Goldsworthy's "Snow" and sculptures by Ursula von Rydingsvard.
Living history
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Bert Gallery, which Catherine Little Bert and her father-in-law Hugo Bert (who'd run Cottage Gallery in North Providence) opened in the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Providence in 1985.
A new Gardner, plus landscapes, performance art, and RAD
Greater Boston's art-museum building boom continues with the debut of an expanded Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in January.
Random stuff
If you were going to create a portrait of the Internet, what would it look like?
Quivering timbers
What’s a tree without roots? Usually it’s the kitchen cabinet or a sheaf of inkjet paper, but for Maine artist Jacob Galle, the answer is a lot less complicated.
The deCordova thinks about ''murals''
In "Wall Works" at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, curatorial fellow Lexi Lee Sullivan attempts to corral a trend in art today that spans graffiti and interior decoration.
Slideshow: ''Eva Hesse Studiowork'' at the ICA; Tory Fair's ''Testing a World View (Again)'' at the deCordova
This slideshow accompanies Greg Cook's review of "Eva Hesse Studiowork" at the ICA through October 10, 2011, and Tory Fair's “Testing a World View (Again)" at the deCordova Sculpture Park through April 29, 2012.
Photos: ''Gather Up the Pieces: The Andrews Shaker Collection'' at the Portland Museum of Art
The Portland Museum of Art hosts “Gather Up the Pieces: The Andrews Shaker Collection’’ through February 5, 2012.
Julianne Swartz: how deep?
A wildcard around art these days is the rise of Maker culture, the tribe of hip geeks devoted to DIY tinkering, engineering, electronics, and invention.
Weather reports
One of the great themes in America is nostalgia for the "good old days," which flame into being and then fade into the distance.
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Topics: Museum And Gallery , Rachel Perry Welty, Tufts university art gallery, Art, More

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