The bright orange facade outside Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects makes the place look as if it's undergoing renovations. The interior is something of a construction zone, too.
But the temporary facade exists as part of an elaborate conceit, which artist Lael Corbin sustains inside the doors, from the dirt pile visible at the entrance to the staircase with no destination to the laundry room (with dryer and washer sculptures) and beyond.
Corbin has a gift for creating atmosphere. This was the case with his elaborate MFA exhibition, “Latitude,” in 2007, and the show “Research,” earlier this year, which showcased him as a winner of the San Diego Art Prize in the emerging artist category.
In “Albedo-Frame Effect,” the centerpiece of “Research,” he created an elaborate bulletin board filled with aged, mysterious looking black-and-white photographs as well as short notes Corbin made on an aged typewriter. Many of the images were Corbin's; some were found pictures. It was, in its entirely, like some abandoned material for an experiment done decades ago.
In “Remodel,” he uses the gallery much like this bulletin board, blurring the distinctions between ordinary stuff and sculpture. Even the dirt pile inside the door isn't literally a dirt pile. It's dirt laid on top of a cinder block structure.
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“Remodel,” exhibition by Lael Corbin
When: Through July 5
Where: Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects, 2040 India Street, San Diego
Tickets: Free
Phone: (619) 696-9699
Online: seminalprojects.com
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Around the corner is a door on two sawhorses, mimicking the real things, but it looks somehow different. Edges of the door are rounded. They are all the same color and together they form one sculpture, which slyly alludes to both minimalist art and Duchamp's altered ready-mades.
This is the fine line that Corbin continuously walks in this show: everything is familiar, but nothing is ordinary.
Enter one area in the show and you immediately think “laundry room.” There's a washer, a dryer, a utility sink and a shelf. But all of them are made from the same stuff: medium-density fiberboard (MDF). All of them look like Platonic ideals of the everyday thing. (There are no working parts; not even any knobs or faucets.)
Like the door/sawhorse hybrid, everything here seems to allude to other art. The laundry room accoutrements harken back to Robert Gober's meticulous sink sculptures, as do the bathroom sink, toilet and tub. The dirt pile is a nod to earthworks artist Robert Smithson.
There are times when references like this seem affected and pretentious. Not so with Corbin's art, which just seems as if he's paying homage, even as he integrates precedents into an installation that is creating its own effects for the viewer.
Keep looking and you realize this is an artist with a passion for subtlety. There's a tool kit on the wall filled with tools cast from soap. There's an illuminated water heater in the back of the gallery, looking a little like a Noguchi lamp.
His “Untitled (Cabinet),” made from cast soap, wood, lights and plastic, is probably the most overtly artistic object. Its glow is almost mystical, as if to underscore the idea that Corbin's construction zone has a dual identity – a metaphysical as well as a physical dimension.
