Maeghan Reid @ Chung King Projects

Taking iconography from a societal fringe and layering it with found materials, Maeghan Reid’s first solo exhibition of works on panel and paper is a smart investigation of the pastiche kind. With cues from Robert Rauschenberg and naturalist/California wilderness advocate/philosopher John Muir, Reid investigates nomadism with a fresh approach.

All but two of the 20 pieces in the exhibit are small in format. The sheer physicality of production in one of the larger works typifies the artist’s zealous method: Muir was crafted using many of the materials Reid lists in her artist statement (“vintage photographs from the mid-1800s, crushed velvet from Winnipeg, Turkish green satin, linoleum unearthed from a car factory in Detroit, or a stodgy piece of foam core from the alley”). Black silhouettes of eight crouching “Muir-like wanderers” surrounded by a forest of abstracted materials were compiled to create a meditative, slightly eerie piece.
But the strongest work in the show is an 8 x 10 inch, untitled, 3-dimensional construction of collaged photos on panel. The whimsy and arrangement of a colorful parasol and two crudely cut pieces of copper pasted onto a vintage print is a noteworthy plunge into the peripatetic.

Reid’s exhibition timing comes when galleries, art fairs, and museums are re-examining the old model – closing, coupling, disbanding, de-accessioning, streamlining, and morphing – whereby the references to a state of flux and nomadic life in the exhibition create a commentary on the wavering and unpredictable current state of the roving artworld. One is somehow reminded of a 1964 Twilight Zone episode, where actress Bonnie Beecher spine-chillingly crooned/seduced, “Come wander with me…”

(Published in The Magazine)