Gary Sweeney at BlueStar Contemporary Art Museum, Exhibition Review in San Antonio Magazine

Photo Credit: Gabriel Diego Delgado

**The May 2013 edition of San Antonio Magazine's Datebook features an article I wrote on Gary Sweeney's exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary Art Exhibition.**

Read the Article here at:

http://www.sanantoniomag.com/SAM/May-2013/Lordy-Lordy-Look-Whos-40/

***Published just in time for his closing party MAY 4, 2013 and exhibition conclusion MAY 11, 2013

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Here is the article in it's entirety!!!

Lordy Lordy Looks Who’s 40!

Gary Sweeney at BlueStar Contemporary Art Museum

-Gabriel Diego Delgado

gabrieldelgadoartstudio@yahoo.com

For any artist, a ten year retrospective is seen as an impressive milestone in one’s artistic career.   In the case of San Antonio Artist, Gary Sweeney, his 40 Year Retrospective-A Forty Year Overview (1973-2013) on exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum from February 28- May 11, 2013 is a unique manifestation of an immense body of artwork encapsulating four decades of cynical Pop Culture linguistics.  An exhibition of conceptually colossal proportions, A Forty Year Overview (1973-2013) highlights Sweeney’s love for text, postcards, photography, mail art, and political and social irony fused with an endless and contagious but sometimes seemingly contemptuous humor.

Hung in themed arrangements, A Forty Year Overview (1973-2013) is approachable from all levels of Contemporary Art appreciation and understanding. Spotlighting everything from a “First Photograph” taken in 1960 of a grainy surfer to mixed media billboard style signage to photo-documentary public installation archives, to his conceptual family references to 250 framed postcards caches, Sweeney bares his California Surfer-style soul and quirky quintessence to all Blue Star Contemporary Museum goers.

Elizabeth Lyons, Blue Star’s Marketing & Program Manager states: “Gary Sweeney was born in California and became obsessed with text from an early age. This fascination continued during his time at U.C. Irvine where artists such as John Baldessari influenced his artistic development….He has a strong belief that humor promotes reflection and critical engagement.  This 1960’s Neo-Dada sway is seen in such works like the pastel colored paintings of copies of degenerative signatures by Richard Nixon, Abe Lincoln, and Georgia O’Keefe; all referencing a conceptual deterioration of ones social illustrious identity through signatory penmanship.

 Lyons also goes on to say, “Known for re-working signs and old photographs, Sweeney explores the roles of visual and textual languages as they influence the relationship of individuals to broader social and cultural contexts. He works with photography and text and creates mixed media sculptural installations.”

“The Job of the Artist”, a 50” x 80” discarded billboard text collage features a quote from artist Francis Bacon professing, “The Job of the Artist is to Always Deepen the Mystery”.  Here Sweeney has teased out our acclimation to the atypical highway nuisances, the commerce billboard, and eased us into his mischievous world of artistic buffoonery with strategic font and text familiarity; only to articulate a tongue and cheek artistic epiphany of vocational roles and responsibly.

Gary Sweeney recollects that he has been doing conceptual text pieces since 1972 or thereabouts, having displayed these kinds of work throughout the world; Tokyo, Paris, London, Florence, Nuevo Laredo, Denmark, Vienna Museum of Modern Art.  Sweeney says, “ I often try to pass myself off as a native to the region I am displaying the public art signs, but it is all utterly ridiculous because I spell the works phonetically in the regional dialect, knowing full well the translation is not even remotely equivalent.”

In describing his own work, Sweeney knows there is an underlying universality to his work, event though some of the art is self reflective.   “Some people describe my work as ‘bittersweet’… art with a serious knot”, he says jokingly.  Pieces like “My Mother’s Life in Six Parts”, a serigraph, linocut and photograph collage conceptually illustrates Sweeney’s mother’s lifespan with corresponding California earthquake timelines; nursing school, Gary being born, wedding anniversary, 75^th birthday, succumbing to Alzheimer’s, and an open ended punch line with no date,  for a spiritual awakening-or “another earthquake”, says Sweeney. However with a factual event that many people had or have experienced in their own lifetime, Gary Sweeney has conceptually and metaphysically connected with the viewer with his own story; something they can personally assimilate with.

While works like “It’s OK –We’re Safe Now” is a photographic documentation of an urban Ad hoc/ ephemeral pseudo graffiti installation. Flanked by two German Sheperd guard dogs, a section of airport fencing systematically spells out “Its Okay You’re Safe Now” in specially engineered squared off disposable kitchen utensils called Put-In-Cups®.  This absurd public art display speaks truths to the underlying post 911 climate in today’s era of domestic terrorism.

Rounding out the exhibition is a solid room of 250 framed postcards in sets of 25 in 10 frames; postmarked and mailed to friends of the artist over the last 30 odd years. Drawing on a Post Dada and Fluxus movement mentality, Sweeney’s goal is to show “There is a place for humor in art”. Sweeney says that this collection was sparked by a gesture of good faith from a son of one of the mail recipients. “I had been sending her my mail art since he early 70’s, and when she died her son dropped off a huge box of my postcards I had sent her all those years and artist memorabilia…this was the first time I realized people were keeping their own archives of my artwork.” This art archival epiphany allowed Sweeney to contact his roughly 50 friends who receive his mail art every month and begin to catalogue it in a scrap book fashion. “I guess I have mailed out over 25,000 because I know I mail about 100 every month”, Sweeney comments while contemplating the task needed to organize such amount of work.

Summarizing, Gary Sweeney jokingly jostles, “I am laughing out loud like a maniac sometimes while I am making them” when referring to his comedic artistic practice.

Forty Year Overview (1973-2013) on exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum from February 28- May 11, 2013 Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum is located at
116 Blue Star, San Antonio, TX 78204, Ph. (210) 227-6960.

 For more information on Forty Year Overview (1973-2013) go to www.bluestarart.org.