reviews Lisa anne aUerbacH
Lisa anne auerbach:
auerbachtoberfest
DaviD Patton Los angeLes
20 october – 17 novem ber
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Two handsome wool quilts cover the two front windows of the gallery, her work as an artist but also as a freelance writer, photographer, bicycle
each with nearly identical design and text, one stating ‘Things Can Only activist and producer of all manner of ’zines, both online and in print, to
Get Better’ and the other ‘Things Can Only Get Worse’. On one side spread the word (the title of one, The Little Red Blog of Revolutionary
of the texts are images of unicycles, on the other is listed all the things Knitting, begs the question of what to call knitter with revolutionary politics?
that could go either way, from sweatshops, disease and the environment A sweaterist?).
to ‘my marriage’. On the edge of each is the legend ‘Auerbachtoberfest Along the walls of the gallery hang photographs of a diverse set
2007’. Los Angeles-based artist Lisa Anne Auerbach has woven into those of unicycles that were up for rent (at 10 cents an hour) at High Desert
literal banners for the show her aesthetic: personal politics, knitting, cyclist Test Sites (Auerbach’s sometimes collaborator Andrea Zittel’s outdoor
activism and humour. Five dressmaker’s dolls hang by wire from the ceiling kunsthalle and experiment in investigative living in the Mojave Desert).
in the centre of the gallery, each clad in a knitted sweater and skirt of a The different unicylces, shot on a white background, look immediately
design borrowed from sources ranging from the rock ’n’ roll posturing of similar, but upon closer examination each has its own distinctive qualities,
Cheap Trick to the bathroom sex shenanigans of Idaho Republican Senator and each has been named by Auerbach. The precarious nature of riding a
Larry Craig. The knitwear, tailored to fit the artist, looks like the uniforms unicycle is supposed to form a metaphor for the larger state of the world,
of a particularly subversive leftist cheerleading squad. Each sweater-skirt the press release citing Malcolm Gladwell’s tiresome ‘tipping point’ as the
combo composes the wearable praxis of Auerbach in her first hometown unifying idea for the show. PR aside, there’s something delightfully silly
solo since she graduated from Art Center in 1994. and charmingly whimsical about making sweaters based on those worn
Auerbach picks up where many feminist artists left off in reclaiming by rockers, cracking political jokes in knitwear and mixing metaphors out
traditional crafts to fit a high art concept, but ditches much of the vaginal of the actual precariousness of riding a unicycle. The charm of the work
rhetoric to fit her own particular brand of knit politic: post-feminist, post- avoids preciousness by being ballasted by Auerbach’s success in bringing
punk DIY, and a sometimes too-literal sloganeering tempered by a jokey DIY into the gallery in a way that’s conceptually savvy and activist-driven,
irreverence. Her crafty practice expands beyond yarn and includes not only without being too heavy-handed in its polemic. Andrew Berardini
artreview 118
JAN_REVIEWS.indd 118 4/12/07 15:32:32
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