Static Free A Digital Art Exhibition Reviewed by Erin Mallay Photos courtesy of The Gild
	Premature Daydream byMartzalini

Static Free
A Digital Art Exhibition
Curated by The Gild at the Changing Room, 3 Market Place
Showing from Nov. 12th - Nov. 19th - 10am - 7pm
Opening Friday Nov. 11th - 6 to 10:30pm

Pod Tall by Arvind Palep

“Static Free,” the most recent curatorial endeavor by the Gild and installed at The Changing Room, located far from Chelsea at the edge of Little Italy, presented purely digital works on paper as the highest of high art. The question is was it a convincing presentation?

I am prejudiced against Digital Art. Perhaps it is because I view digital images as, at best, commercial spectacles; dazzling but only as “deep” as the product they are advertising. Perhaps it is because I do not understand it, how it works, how you make it, how it came into existence, and as a human I have a tendency to hate and fear that which I do not understand. Perhaps I only give credence to those art forms originating from a process that demands it artists to get filthy.

Perhaps I’m just flat out wrong, and before I know it the art world is going to woosh by me in a digitally enhanced blur and I’ll be left in an obsolete era with my relics of romanticized mediums. After seeing the work exhibited at “Static Free”, this has become more than a musing concern.

Let’s talk artistic quality here, while (pleasantly) omitting some overtly esoteric postmodern concept crap that pervades most contemporary art exhibitions in this city: These images were stunning. And to use a word employed at least fifty times by one of the curators— these images were “raw.”

True, “raw” is not the word I would use to describe the medium. “Complicated” and “too technologically advanced to be anything but way over my head” would strike me as more appropriate a description. But it is undeniable that this work is that of classically trained artists, with a hankering for a medium that could keep up with their imagination.

There was a wide variety of the visual organization of figurative information between the three artists featured in the exhibit, but each seemed to push their mediums to keep up with their creative objectives: Arvind Palep’s sleek yet organic forms seemed to insinuate living organisms, perhaps an amalgamation of genetically enhanced coral or plant life of a sensationally sexy future. So convincing were his creations that he had to spend quite some time persuading me that they were not simply digitally doctored pictures of real life sculptures. I thought of a future contemplated by Patricia Piccinini articulated with the digital elegance of Chris Cunningham.

The figures in Mertzalini’s work suggested a somewhat darker, more numinous, dreamlike world. I was particularly struck by his use of ball point pen lines over his digital prints, qualifying his work as multi-media and demonstrating a familiar loyalty to the more tactile materials of the not so distant past.

C-Lamont-Walk, working with themes of language and communication through the coupling of spirituality and morality of religion, employed a drastically different visual language, combining simpler images and line with a piling of text that was organized with such finesse so as to pull the viewer in rather than overwhelm them.

Arvind Palep, C Lamont Walk and Martzalini

I think the most interesting thing about this show is the dichotomy between fine art and commercial work. We all know the life of the artist is suppose to be qualified by their lack of financial gain within their own lifetime, and a tendency toward the “starving.” So if a commercial, albeit corporate, sphere is perfectly willing to pay the big bucks for these images, styles and processes, who cares about gallery representation, right? Palep, who has achieved impressive success in this vein between the Alias music video and commercials and advertisements, was concerned about “validating [himself] in fine art before it all goes commercial.” (If you haven’t already seen the work his studio is putting out-- 1st Ave Machine--check it out at www.1stavemachine.com) It seems to me that fine art is hindered by tradition in this regard and in danger losing its most talented artists to an audience that is willing to pay what they deserve.

Manchild by C Lamont Walk

The Curators of the Gild (www.gildlilies.com), a new arts organization dedicated to the showcasing of emerging artists, harbors nomadic aspirations, so be on the look out for their shows at a variety of venues. If this show is any indication of their ability to collect interesting work from artists that have not yet gained the attention of the New York [High] Art Scene, they are certainly worth keeping an eye on.