Review (via L Magazine): L Rex: The Parlour Bushwick
L Rex: The Parlour Bushwick
by Paul D’Agostino
June 2, 2015
The Parlour Bushwick, 791 Bushwick Avenue, through June 21st
With so many period details, spatial oddities and general gallerial quirks, the main exhibition room at The Parlour Bushwick, which feels not unlike a partially manicured set for a Wes Anderson film, is so domineeringly pleasant in itself that it sometimes dwarfs the aesthetic potency of even very strong work. Not so this time around. In Neo-Craftivism—a show organized by Rachael Gorchov, Roxanne Jackson and Robin Kang, and featuring their works alongside others by Rebecca Morgan, Nichole Van Beek, Heidi Lau, Sarah Bednarek, Courtney Puckett and Katerina Lanfranco—the abundant otherness of the objects on display overcomes the room’s many charms by roundly complementing them, to say the least. A coffee table becomes a sand-strewn land of horrid fantasy, courtesy Roxanne Jackson; a large irregular crystal of sorts, apparently made of wood, looks like it just flew in from an Atari game, courtesy Sarah Bednarek; several physiognomically humorous, a bit lumpily executed heads almost out-adorn the ornamentation of an already well embellished mantelpiece, which has never looked better, courtesy Rebecca Morgan. Plenty of other enjoyably weird pieces are in the mix as well, and in a broad mix of media. For these artists, perhaps, one way to ‘neo’-fit the Craftivist movement is to infuse it with generous amusement.
