January 3, 2005: Headlines: COS - Bangladesh: Art: Painting: Brooklyn Rail: A review of Bangladesh RPCV Dannielle Tegeder's show
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January 3, 2005: Headlines: COS - Bangladesh: Art: Painting: Brooklyn Rail: A review of Bangladesh RPCV Dannielle Tegeder's show
A review of Bangladesh RPCV Dannielle Tegeder's show
A review of Bangladesh RPCV Dannielle Tegeder's show
Dannielle Tegeder
Death Rock City
Priska C. Juschka
January 2005
Dannielle Tegeder’s art has very long titles. Fantastic indices referencing made-up lands, they are awkward and cumbersome fragments, that refute punctuation, capitalization, and grammatical order. As example, a title from one of her most recent mixed-media drawings:
BaskraPataci (India- Iran): Tri level Schematic with Long Escape Routes; Safety Chrysalis into Yellow Lower level Station, and upper Level tower with Tri- station containing Hollow Safety Igloo and Winter Line Trees, Upper Mandala and triangle Forest with Oval Garden, Electric and Water tower with Nuclear Route Ellipse; Schematic and Yellow Excavation Safety Areas; and Miniature Oz City and Grio Planet with Secret Square gardens and Circle Floating Shelters (2004).
In this paragraphical nomenclature, independent nations align to form new lands that are prepared to defend against the forces of evil rampant in our post-cold war, terrorized world. Tegeder mixes and matches her references, employing protective shelters and stages from the natural world (igloos and chrysalides), the fiction world (Oz and the Secret Garden), and the world of religious iconography (mandala), before returning back again to the real world of escape routes, towers, and stations. The result is a dizzying mental image of layered chaos and complex structure—paradoxically, not what is found in her precisely rendered works.
Using a lexicon of geometric forms, Tegeder weaves together lozenges, circles, squares, hash marks, triangles, and lines into diagrammatic compositions. All the drawings in Death Rock City are systematic abstractions that evoke a language of architectural drafting, technological plans, or schematic plan (as in the London tube map). She employs a palette that ranges from black, through gray, to white, as well as ochre, pale brown, and a variety of yellow, and there is little obvious difference between the works beyond their color, a uniformity that does the disservice of making the works feel decorative. Similarly, the scale of the pieces, which is determined by the number of sheets of Fabriano Murillo paper she has used (either one or four), amplifies this sense of patterned repetition, for the character of the compositions does not change with scale; it merely grows. While in some work repetition is essential—as in Warhol’s grids or Gordon Matta-Clark’s wallpaper projects—Tegeder’s urban landscapes cry out for moments of explosive tension. Charles Sheeler and Bernd and Hilla Becher also come to mind, but the power of their industrial landscapes derives from the intense energy channeling through, in steam pipes and electricity lines. That it is contained and controlled by an industrial armature, and then silently rendered, is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. In Tegeder’s work, the potential for a kind of terrific science-fiction landscape exists but does not come fully into itself.
However, moments of extraordinary potential abound, as do lovely microcosmic environments. For instance, there are places where Tegeder loosens her grip and watery gouache appears to billow like uncontained smoke; or places where a channel or tunnel made of minute concentric circles feels like tiny Albers color studies put to work. In addition, Tegeder’s first foray into translating her cities into three dimensions is successful. Perched atop mirror-topped boxes of varying heights, she re-creates her two dimensional language using a litany of found objects—beads, pigment, plastic tubing, sequins, wooden blocks, even sea glass, a choice I especially like for the contrast offered by the imperfections of each piece. Particularly strong is her decision to link the sculpture into the physical space of the gallery through a long beaded thread that disappears into a silver heating vent. The exposed electrical innards and the concrete gallery floor, itself striated through years of industrial use, become connected to the landscape of her built environment. This draws out the ignored spaces of the room and moves the sculpture stylistically away from what I suspect is an unintentional linkage to the work of the similarly architectonic and mirrored environments of David Altmejd and closer to the extraordinary fantasy-scapes of Sarah Sze.
—Katie Stone
When this story was posted in January 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| Peace Corps issues appeal to Thailand RPCVs Peace Corps is currently assessing the situation in Thailand, anticipates a need for volunteers and is making an appeal to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps. Also read this message and this message from RPCVs in Thailand. All PCVs serving in Thailand are safe. Latest: Sri Lanka RPCVs, click here for info. |
| The World's Broken Promise to our Children Former Director Carol Bellamy, now head of Unicef, says that the appalling conditions endured today by half the world's children speak to a broken promise. Too many governments are doing worse than neglecting children -- they are making deliberate, informed choices that hurt children. Read her op-ed and Unicef's report on the State of the World's Children 2005. |
| Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia." |
| Is Gaddi Leaving? Rumors are swirling that Peace Corps Director Vasquez may be leaving the administration. We think Director Vasquez has been doing a good job and if he decides to stay to the end of the administration, he could possibly have the same sort of impact as a Loret Ruppe Miller. If Vasquez has decided to leave, then Bob Taft, Peter McPherson, Chris Shays, or Jody Olsen would be good candidates to run the agency. Latest: For the record, Peace Corps has no comment on the rumors. |
| The Birth of the Peace Corps UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn. |
| Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying Congressman Norm Dicks has asked the U.S. attorney in Seattle to consider pursuing charges against Dennis Priven, the man accused of killing Peace Corps Volunteer Deborah Gardner on the South Pacific island of Tonga 28 years ago. Background on this story here and here. |
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Story Source: Brooklyn Rail
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Bangladesh; Art; Painting
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