The late novelist and essayist Martin Amis called it “The War Against Cliché.” Visual artists don’t talk about it so much, but particularly in Contemporary Art there’s been a move away from the predictable format of years past, though by no means has that familiar version disappeared. Yet even where the gallery maintains its familiar identity and displays conventional art conventionally, the first task of the viewer may well be to determine just what precedent-breaking wonders these particular artists are up to. In the language of the Sixties, “What’s their trip?”

Sometimes, that encounter is the main point the artist is making. Figuring out the intentions, how the art works, may reveal enough about how we communicate today to make it worthwhile. In this, a space like UMOCA’s Codec Gallery is both a prime example and a comforting transition. In a perfectly conventional shoebox of a space, the Codec is capable of projecting video on any of its four walls, even wrapping a two-dimensional image around a disorienting corner. In this way, stepping into what is often a 21st-century vision also involves sitting in a dark room, a familiar, comforting place, while a short film plays repeatedly, giving the audience a chance to catch what might otherwise have slipped by the first time.

Maika Garnica’s Rotate, Orbit, Whirl, Shuffle, Dial, Twist, currently running in the Codec, certainly seems conventional enough on first viewing. In a panorama along one long wall, a grassy meadow surrounded by a non-threatening forest appears. The figure of a woman, recognizable from the text handed out at various places in the museum as the artist, appears carrying an object that presents the first challenge to complacency. Made of clay marbled in unusual colors, it resembles a gourd from which a number of branches protrude. Setting it on the ground, Garnica proceeds to stroke these with a violin bow, causing the instrument, as it is revealed to be, to emit a succession of variously musical sounds. Over the next several minutes, she produces a sequence of other devices, some to be blown into and others to be tilted, causing rain-like sounds when whatever they contains runs through them.

At that point on my first viewing, shortly after the work’s debut, things became complicated. An alert member of UMOCA’s genial and well-prepared staff came into the gallery and discovered that only one of two projectors was operating. What was intended to be a two-channel video had reverted to a more conventional form. As soon as my rescuer had corrected the problem and informed me that the two channels were meant to run unsynchronized, she left me in a suddenly transformed place. Instead of the sensation of looking through one long glass wall at a natural scene, I was immersed in the meadow and surrounded by the trees. It felt like being outdoors, a sensation aided by the soundtrack, which I realized had been playing all along but I’d not really thought about. As a background to the sounds being produced now by two versions of the artist, one on either side of me, there were rumbling of distant thunder. In case I didn’t notice the lowering sky, I realized that occasionally it was foregrounded by the video, even being shown inverted by reflection in some marshy pools.

What seems to have been the most subversive change, however, was that with two separate versions of the depicted scene, each a different length and edit, it became impossible for the performance to ever truly repeat itself. The location was unlike any place I was familiar with: I later learned that Garnica’s studio is in Antwerp, and this video was probably shot somewhere in the swampy northwest corner of Europe. With my ready assumption that I knew where I was corrected, it became apparent that nothing I was seeing could be discounted, nor for that matter was it meant to become a parody of itself over time. Some of the instruments were made from several colors of clay worked in a way that resembles marble or woodgrain and had been roughly cut out with a knife. Even the monochrome ones, which were relatively smooth like those I was familiar with, were covered with clay buttons that might have made them easier to manipulate.

The garment Garnica had chosen to wear may well have been selected for the warmth it offered on what appeared to be a cold and stormy winter’s day. Still, it contrasted with the international western conventions of outdoor wear: no quilted ripstop nylon, no bright colors, no foul weather hat … in fact, no hat at all. More like an austere monk’s robe. And that might be the key: while she chose to appear as herself, she wanted as much as possible to escape notice. In fact, she does nothing to call attention to herself, but remains passive and focused on what we hear, rather than who produces it. In a month when Beyoncé appears onstage with two dozen dancers performing in overwhelming lockstep, distracting from the reality that today’s music is largely contoured by computers to have no more performative artifacts than what cannot be avoided, Garnica wants to blend into the natural world, as close as possible to an event that is at once both unique and unremarkable.   

I doubt that Maika Garnica begrudges Pop music its dynamic sounds, energy and spectacle. They are, after all, a much sought after, even treasured part of modern life, engineered to be repeatable on demand. How great to know that whether its a great song or the thrill of bungee jumping into a terrifying void, it can be purchased as often as wanted. But as any artist will know, some of the best experiences happen while she is working alone, in her studio, seeking like a scientist to fully explore a subject and a medium. Why shouldn’t the audience have a chance to experience that, too?

Maika Garnica: Rotate, Orbit, Whirl, Shuffle, Dial, Twist, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, through May 31.

All images are stills from Maika Garnica’s Rotate, Orbit, Whirl, Shuffle, Dial, Twist, as captured by the author.

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.