MIT's List Visual Art Center offers more of Matthew Day Jackson's work in a solo survey, "The Immeasurable Distance," that was organized by recently departed List curator Bill Arning. Jackson's interest in Americana turns out to be specific: middle-class American guy taste. He presents a heavy brown spacesuit pinned high on the wall by a wood plank, video of models of the nukes we dropped on Japan at the end of World War II falling forever through a wind tunnel, photos of mountains in each of the lower 48 states that people think look like men's faces, aerial views of Hiroshima and Washington, DC, rendered in lead and burnt wood. He commissioned drag-racing legend "Big Daddy" Don Garlits to build an engine for him; it stands on its own in the middle of the room like a shiny chrome god.
"The Immeasurable Distance" is about the stuff that turns American men on. Or you could call it dry conceptual art in macho hot-rod drag. What's fascinating is how middle-class guy taste has become a major subject of contemporary art. Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, and John Currin have explored this land of bad-ass Marlboro men, muscle cars, erotic knickknacks, dirty jokes, and lacy "classy" porn over the past generation. Jackson's version is cool, but it gets me longing for lowbrow art that makes no bones about playing in the mud.
Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.
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