Boston artist Andrew Witkin won the Institute of Contemporary Art's 2008 Foster Prize for local artists with a cryptic, minimalist apartment-like installation. He continues to confound with "Among From With Andrew Witkin," part of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum's Platform exhibit series.
His art addresses "the poetic in everyday life," according to the museum. Or, as his gallery, James Harris in Seattle, writes, it's about investigating "systems and structures that shape contemporary life and experiences."
Witkin lines a hallway with simple wood chairs and banners printed with lists; he fills a room with hundreds of framed pictures leaning against each other, hiding their images.
A second room offers a table and chairs, and a second table piled with blank-covered books (inside, each page is printed with a phrase: "flame's glow," "equality of sacrifice," "forever changing"). Archival boxes are stacked in the corner (newspaper obituaries lie on top), and a wall is covered with news clippings about Governor Deval Patrick, the Red Sox, and Marilyn Monroe, as well as New Yorker fiction. All the while, various singers' recordings of "My Way" play.
It's home decorating and scrapbooking as art. Or it's a privileged, aesthetic ascetic showing off his handsome collections. Everything is arranged just so, but it's all so opaque, and Witkin offers so little to go on that it might as well be random.
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"AMONG FROM WITH ANDREW WITKIN" :: deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln :: Through April 21 :: 781.259.8355 :: decordova.org
