Multimedia Savvy

by Steve Carter | Modern Luxury Dallas magazine | December 23, 2011

Intermedia artist Darryl Lauster’s work is multidisciplinary, multifaceted and open to multiple interpretations, ranging from literal to ludicrous, historical to hoax, from arm’s-length detachment to poignantly personal. Of Thee I Sing, his exhibition at Barry Whistler Gallery from Jan. 14 through Feb. 25, slyly addresses the American experience writ large. It serves as an oblique reveal, a portrait of the artist as historian, creator, curator, social critic, philosopher, anthropologist and citizen. “I’m a journeyman in this field, this field of history,” he explains. “I’m working with history as an artist, and so what I’m interested in doing is dissecting it, searching for its beauty, its contradictions, its truth where it can be found, and its mystery.” Lauster’s penchant for commemoration is an idée fixe, but he’s also fascinated by history’s subjectivity. “It’s possible that we’re interpreting antiquity completely erroneously,” he asserts. “What if we’ve got it all wrong?”

With Of Thee I Sing, Lauster’s installations incorporate sculpture, printmaking and video. He embraces vernacular art, narrative and folklore with an underpinning of myth-deflating irreverence that’s unique; he might well be a yarn-spinner, a storyteller. His earlier work typically involved a larger, interrelated context, but lately is revealing newfound willingness to create objects that are stand-alone or autobiographic. “I’m organizing this show in a moderately rambling manner, wherein groups of objects are installed in thematic relationships that have to do with time span,” he says. “The objects in one area of the exhibition speak to revolutionary history, some the history of labor, the Jacksonian era and the contemporary, from 9/11 to the present. They’re like chapters within a larger book… but within that each one can also be understood independently.”

Lauster, 41 and married, was born in Goshen, N.Y., and comes from a long line of public servants. His late grandfather was a two-time veteran and a lifelong firefighter; he’s one of Lauster’s heroes. “He was a significant presence in my life,” he acknowledges. “By example he taught me what it means to contribute to the human situation and what it means to be a man.” A video in the exhibition, “Tie Your Anger to the Sun,” is a heartfelt homage to the man. Other highlights include the inscrutable “New Windsor,” the seditiously sardonic “Ornament,” and 2010’s “In Memoriam,” a haunting cast-resin sculpture with obvious autobiographical resonance. A past winner of grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Peter Reed Foundation, he’s currently an assistant professor of intermedia/sculpture at UTA. “With my work I get to play the role of artist and archaeologist and conservator, and intertwined with the role of artist I get to play the forger, and I get to play the role of scholar and contextualize everything. ... It’s a hell of a lot of fun.”

Barry Whistler Gallery, 2909-B Canton St., 214.939.0242, barrywhistlergallery.com