May 12, 2008
ART REVIEW \ Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon \ By Ben Marks
Nostalgia is the prevailing sentiment in Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon, an exhibition of sculpture, video, paintings, and works on paper by 20 artists at the San Jose Museum of Art. For senior curator JoAnne Northrup, the word robot conjures the walking tin men of science fiction's golden age, whose physical similarity to us (arms, legs, eyes, etc.) was essential to our embrace, and fear, of these in-our-image fantasies. These are the robots of our futuristic daydreams from days gone by, the machines that would one day deliver us from empty lives of domestic drudgery and toil -- that is, if they didn't zap us to death first with fire rays from the guns mounted in their titanium chests.
Compared to other artists in the show, Mew and Bailey are well represented, with four and six pieces respectively (Bailey also lent the exhibition a number of vintage toy robots from his personal collection). I could have done with at least that many works by Feric (Eric Feng), whose blueprint-like drawings of a bird and a benign raptor-like creature are superb works of draftsmanship. At first we are content to simply drink in the artist's skill at rendering a wing or section of muscle, but then we notice that Feric's lovely animals are actually little robots, whose innards are filled with low-tech, probably magic-powered gears. A short animated film of Feric's winsome creations plays next to these two quiet sketches. I left this show longing for much more.
