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ALL ART EXHIBITS have themes, of course, but the new display at the Second City Council, "In Other Words," has unique requirements. Rather than looking for the most visually dynamic works, jurors (led by author-columnist Patt Morrison -winner of five Emmys and four Golden Mikes, founding member of KCET's "Life & Times," host of "The Book Show" and commentator for National Public Radio) required each artist to submit work that contained words in its composition, literary references in its content, or simply told a visual story.
Words and art have been hand-in-glove since the beginning of language. And, given the dynamics of this exhibit, no one should be surprised to discover that "In Other Words" is an exciting, highly "literate" show.
Take the inventive mind of Shawn Smith, for example. Smith cuts up a novel by William Faulkner, covers it in batter, then deep-fries it, and offers it as the latest creation in his "Deep-Fried Southern Authors Series."
Smith also tears up book pages from Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" to make a bas- relief silhouette of a "Visible Man's" face; and uses pages of Robert Cormier's banned book, "The Chocolate War," to craft a marionette dressed in prison stripes. Then consider "At a Loss for Words" - Peet Cocke's incredible alphabet book that opens in accordion style to reveal 26 animals that are on the Endangered Species List. Not only are Cocke's graphics flawless, his listings (all written in Latin) go from "Falco peregrinus anatum" (the American Peregrine Falcon) to "Gopherus agassazi" (Desert Tortoise).
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Saying, "words describe me," Bob Witte photographs himself in a portrait composed of the word,
"WORD," repeated hundreds of times in block-letter form.
Viviana Lombrozo constructs a wall work from seven spools of thread that rotate in meditation. Called "Count Your Blessings," arid symbolic of various world religions, the piece uses languages that include Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew.
Karen Rhiner's mother died of Alzheimer's disease in 1985. The first sign of her illness came when she couldn't find the cookies she had just baked. Drawing from that personal tragedy, Karen Rhiner presents "Mother's Cookies" - a drawing with three faces of her mother at various stages of life, surrounded by spools of thread and snippets of memories.
Using a window frame as his "canvas," Jeff Berman creates "In Other's Words," a mosaic of colored-glass panes that quote cliches about Los Angeles including these pithy thoughts: "Is that all there is?"; "La-la Land"; "As good as it gets"; and "The only permanent thing is change."
Dorothy Magallon's "Poetic Lament" is centered around a typewriter. Stating that Mark Twain was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to his publisher - and with pictures of famous writers pasted on each key of her old-fashioned, upright machine - Magallon mourns the passage of an extremely important instrument that has become passe in our computerized age.
Shirle Gottlieb is a Long Beach free-lance writer.
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