{"id":1738,"date":"2010-08-08T15:52:16","date_gmt":"2010-08-08T23:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2010-08-09T11:08:58","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T19:08:58","slug":"everything-is-illuminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/08\/everything-is-illuminated-1738\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Is Illuminated"},"content":{"rendered":"

What if you go see\u00a0artwork\u00a0by someone you know and don’t like it? Wow,\u00a0awkward moment. Fortunately that was not the case with the first solo show at Johansson Projects by Erik Parra,\u00a0who I know from writing at\u00a0comPAct. Phew<\/em>. Parra’s “Between Currencies” was even one of the Bay Guardian’s weekly picks.<\/p>\n

Parra has a few graphite, ink, and watercolor or marker drawings, but the pieces that attracted the most attention are deceptively simple collages combining found images and confetti-like bits of colored paper. My initial reaction was a smile, and I saw the same on every face in the room. That’s quite an achievement, because collage rarely surpasses the feeling of being derivative, or meaningfully joining the parts\u00a0to reach\u00a0a sense of gestalt. Through his small modifications the hidden is revealed,\u00a0the drab is made fabulous and\u00a0the everyday,\u00a0extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Untitled, collage on paper (2009)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the above untitled work\u00a0unsmiling agents–guided by instructions piped through their ear buds–are\u00a0armed\u00a0not only with weapons but conspicuously groovy glasses that allow them to see all around them that which is invisible to us. It’s a\u00a0familiar motif: Luna Lovegood’s\u00a0\u00a0Spectrespecs which reveal Wrackspurt in\u00a0the film version of Harry Potter and the HBP.\u00a0\u00a0And in John Carpenter’s “They Live<\/a>” (which I never actually saw but has a really creepy poster), pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper finds glasses that reveal aliens controlling us through subliminal messages.<\/p>\n

\"\"

"MRE Show," collage on paper (2010)<\/p><\/div>\n

The children in “MRE Show” don’t need\u00a0magic glasses. They have not yet learned to filter out the mundane noise of everyday life. To them everything is aglow with\u00a0intensity. Even the preparation of the famously unpalatable Meal, Ready-to-Eat is viewed with drop-jawed fascination, no less than if\u00a0the cook\u00a0was juggling fire.\u00a0Maybe that’s why we all smiled: We were remembering when\u00a0life\u00a0was vibrant and magical.<\/p>\n

\"\"

"Cactus Garden," collage on paper (2009?)<\/p><\/div>\n

Perhaps it’s all one big acid trip, where\u00a0the walls ooze color and plants commune with you, sentient. But as\u00a0Nietzsche said,\u00a0“Of course it is happening inside your head… but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”\u00a0No, wait. That’s Harry Potter again.<\/p>\n

“Between Currencies” runs through September 11 at Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA.<\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if you go see\u00a0artwork\u00a0by someone you know and don’t like it? Wow,\u00a0awkward moment. Fortunately that was not the case with the first solo show at Johansson Projects by Erik Parra,\u00a0who I know from writing at\u00a0comPAct. Phew. Parra’s “Between Currencies” was even one of the Bay Guardian’s weekly picks. Parra has a few graphite, ink, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,4],"tags":[86,209,87,64],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","category-raves","tag-compact","tag-erik-parra","tag-johansson-projects","tag-oakland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-s2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1768,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}