Denver
Rude Gallery, Rocky Mountain College of Art
Viewers entered Donald Fodness’s installation, LUVRZ B H8RZ, through a beaded curtain, the kind that separates one living space from another in apartments too tiny to warrant full-fledged doors. If his title (lovers be haters) suggested the ambiguities of human relationships, the room itself was transformed into something equally equivocal—a slightly funny, slightly icky domestic setting. LUVRZ B H8RZ was full of stuff. Two life-size, legless mannequins dominated the room, their torsos mounted on what could have been a gilded coat rack. A few worn rugs covered the floor. A large, tired-looking, mid-20th-century record console stood directly across from a video screen on which one could watch a wax peace symbol slowly disintegrate. The far wall was spray-painted with “Raider H8RZ,” intimating a certain amount of violence, which was reinforced by a hole punched through its surface as if by a fist. Reflecting the dichotomy inherent in the title, Fodness delicately arranged a row of green and orange glasses directly across the room. A blue plastic tarp hung overhead, next to a bare fluorescent fixture that highlighted two sculptures resting on top of the console below.…see the entire review in the print version of September’s Sculpture magazine.
