Time Out New York July 29 - August 5, 1999

"Millennium" TATE, through August 7
Article by Robert Mahoney

People generally know what the passing of 10, 25, 50 or even 100 years means; but what about a millennium? Is it the end of the world, or just a fresh start? That’s the question raised by at least one group in this final summer of the 20th century. “Millennium” takes a techie view of the big 2K; everything in it is about codes, circuits and virtually realities-and that’s just fine. The show is both fun and satisfyingly coherent.

Adam Ross, Gen X’s answer to Yves Tanguy, paints futuristic cityscapes, including one nice predominantly blue number here. Niki Monroe finds that the future is now in his series of flashy, uncentered images of Las Vegas, which beautifully capture the artificiality of the place. Takuya Chikushi’s views of malls, elevated trains and escalators in Japan seem equally unreal. Michael Scott “paints” his male subjects, who seem trapped between pain and pleasure, with pixellike Lego blocks, while Aaron Romine proffers his version of the apocalypse in the form of a slick, sweet and appealing image of group sex.

The showstoppers by far are the pieces by Shirley Tse, Lyle Starr and Philip Argent. Tse’s Polyphantasmer (blue), a wild circuitry pattern carved into the top of a light-blue polystyrene block on the floor, grooves in a very millennial way, baby. Lyle Starr fills a big canvas with a labyrinth of sports and porn image in Player’s Double. And Philip Argent’s Warholian arrangement of digital flowers in a white simulacrum of cyberspace is suitably cool and utopian.

Finally, Warren Neidich’s Double Vision Malibu brings things back to earth-or, at least, to the water’s edge-with photos of surfers taken through blue and red lenses. Somehow, these images suggest surfing through cyberspace: but they also express a certain sense of ennui with the end of the world as we know it.




Copyright © 2003, Michael Scott