Dani Tull's "Rejected Written Material (Tilted Arc)” at Special K (LA Weekly, 4/11/97)
Dani Tull's "Rejected Written Material at Special K (LA Weekly, 4/11/97)
Dani Tull's "Rejected Written Material (Tilted Arc)" is a massive, gallery-size sculpture made from rejected studio screenplays and story treatments, stacked in a semicircle about knee-high. Along the perimeter names like 101 Dalmatians II and Moby Dick, the Movie can be read on the spines of a spectrum of colored script covers. In an adjoining room, a collection of watercolors and ink drawings, called "Bachelor Drawings," hang in a Mondrian-like pattern. The images mainly replicate '70s-style portraiture of Afro'd couples locked in hi-fi vinyl embraces. Upon closer inspection, other images peppered among the drawings are also visible: corporate logos (the Playboy bunny, muscle-car emblems), period men's magazine spreads on famous artists (Gauguin, Picasso, Renoir), and doodles goofing on imagined public sculpture (cartoonish fields with abstract sculpture erupting in the middle of nowhere). Sparse text mainly phrases like "Bachelor of Fine Arts" and "Master of Fine Arts" inscribed above couples getting it on-sparse phrases like "Bachelor of Fine Arts" and "Master of Fine Arts" inscribed above couples getting it illuminates the ironies implicit in Tull's retread of yet another retro aesthetic trend, namely, '70s pop culture. Nearby, a prop stereo system and speakers made of multicolored disco lights stand in for the absent soundtrack for the space - part Calvin Klein's basement, part porno studio, part your dad's college dorm.
This work amuses, in light of the ongoing debate over good and bad taste, high and low art ("Tilted Arc," of course, makes reference to Richard Serra's landmark 1981 public sculpture of the same name), and allows the material remnants of a formerly trashed aesthetic moment to resonate with "historic" cultural significance. Behind the tongue-in-cheek attitude, though, it seems that Tull wants to lay claim to the '70s as his personal, or generational, property. Time will tell whether Tull and his retro fetishes will withstand critical inspection; for now, some of the obvious historicizing feels forced. In the meantime, pull up the chaise longue, dust off some skunkweed and start cutting up the lavender shag rug. Just make sure not to cut off an ear: This isn't worth dying over.