HIP-HOP

Art As Resistance;

October 2 thru November 22, 2004

What does found object sculpture have to do with hip-hop? They both "sample" stuff that was already out there. Some hip-hop tries to "keep it real" by celebrating moronic mayhem, but there can also be moments of brilliance. The Hip-Hop: Art as Resistance show at Barrister's alludes to all of the above, starting with some nice old Willie Birch concoctions from the early 1990s, folk-artsy pastiches of ghetto scenes dotted with lots of obvious as well as obscure references spelled out in hand-scrawled text. The graffitti-inspired abstractions on cardboard by former break dancer Jeff Cook are gorgeous, somehow combining modernist formalism with street culture in works that mark a nexus between Master P, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell. Paul Deo's painted pastiches of rappers, race heroes and con artists (Bush is a pimp) can be impressively electric, if not always consistent, reflecting the slippery, seething essence of hip-hop. But Denis Holt's abstract, graffiti-esque ruminations capture something grittier, darker and more mysterious. Maybe Holt senses that what really keeps something real is not the outer gesture itself but the inner truth of the impulse behind it.