Large human-sized robots constructed from high-end kitchen appliances and programmed by MIT wunderkinds to masturbate perpetually to their own rigidly-moving images on numerous massive Sony plasma screens form the inside walls of a recent installation, the title of which is something like “The Obsolescence of Homo Sapien Domestic Affairs: Narcissistic Inanimate Sexual Mechanics in 21st Century Digital America,” is what I brace myself for, anyway, on trips to NYC Museums these days.

I have begun to see many such installation pieces, which are increasingly moving much of the timeless (?) permanent collections back into the dark recesses of the safe-locked storage rooms that were previously used for the fleeting grandeur of flamboyant sculptures and outrageous canvases that lasted only as long as tickets could still be sold for Wall Street, which borrowed many of the garish monstrosities from collections that fizzled right along with the cache of the once mighty Gordon Gekko.

The installation pieces are unlikely popular bullies that, if only because of their sheer mass, require reluctant curators to pull everything else from the floor, so similar to the popular demand for those superfluous porkers known as Hummers that rolled into GM show rooms and pushed out the massive Yukons, which ended up on side-lots with slashed prices for the Hummer-wannabe consumers who nonetheless needed at least 6,000 pounds of Detroit metal to transport two 70 pound boys and a one pound soccer ball to practices and games.

Perhaps my subtlety has gotten the best of me again, but the point is, I don’t generally like massive SUVs and folks’ justifications for buying them; and I generally don’t care for installations (and I do tend to give them time and respect when viewing), much of which I find rubbish, and I find myself being more of a traditionalist and gravitating toward the likes of a Frank Big Bear exhibit.

Big Bear utilizes an ultimately painstaking process of colored pencil on paper, the results of which are typically dream-like visions that draw from Big Bear’s Ojibwe roots, which are themselves derived from a Native culture in constant search of spiritual meaning, much of which is rendered in Big Bear’s drawings, although as more of an address than an answer to such a vast cosmic quest that can be better given justice by piecing together visions, such as those seen in the work of Big Bear—his grand images and complex ideas—rather than finding spiritual meaning in a single entity.  Big Bears work, then, is just a single link to a much larger spiritual meaning, though one that is not necessarily universal but rather personal in nature.

While several influences have no doubt resulted in Frank Big Bear’s inimitable style, the effects of Surrealism and Cubism are perhaps two of the more easily definable influences that do indeed span the great expanse of his prolific body of work.

Since Big Bear’s work has picked up some momentum again during the past decade, it gives this writer hope that, at least for a younger viewing audience, there will be a significant enough shift from masturbating robots to the infinitely more versatile canvas that operates on multiple compelling levels—at first drawing the viewer in to the surface of those levels by virtue of the colorful visceral magnetism that then places them in a position to open the doors of perception to political, personal and historical implications that are just as salient today as they were when rendered originally, whether two decades ago or just this year.

As I’ve matured, especially in terms of pursuing the art of writing as that which transcends my initial cathartic self-indulgence as a medium capable of impacting readers, I have increasingly discovered how other media (the most obvious of which is literature), such as film and painting and music, have impacted the way I approach writing.
But more importantly, on the grander scale that encompasses all who have an interest in the arts, these various forms of media are highly capable of influencing one another and, perhaps most exhilarating, such crossover can potentially manifest that which we have not yet experienced (as both artist and consumer); and while certainly examples of such manifestation already abound, the possibility for something entirely new should inspire us always to view all artistic media with its deserved admiration and respect, in an effort to reconcile past with present.  And—dare I say—perhaps even find some kind of intrinsic value, however improbable, in a masturbating robot constructed from high end kitchen appliances–a piece that has meaning to at least someone and in consequence gives their life purpose—something not to be discounted that can still elude the best of us.

All featured works courtesy of www.bigbearcoolcabins.com