Box Set
Posted on May 3, 2011 – 6:32 AM | by Admin
By Tim Foster
Bytes of Reality, the Crocker’s new exhibit of work by Daniel Douke showcases 24 exquisite trompe l’oeil creations by the southern California artist. Regular visitors to the Crocker will recognize Douke’s work; Widescreen, a 2009 piece has been on display as part of the Crocker’s permanent collection since the reopening. Widescreen, like many of the works in Bytes, is the artist’s faithful recreation of an Apple computer box, rendered so believably in acrylic and canvas as to be near-indistinguishable from the real object.
Catching Bytes of Reality while Gottfried Helnwein’s Inferno of the Innocents mega-show was still on view in the next room brought forward some interesting contrasts between the work of the two artists. Each makes eerily photorealistic paintings and mixed media art, but there the similarities end. Helnwein’s pieces are loud, intense and aggressively ‘important.’ Douke’s are understated masterpieces of subtlety.
Though both artists were born in the mid-1940s, the two couldn’t come from more disparate backgrounds. Helnwein’s childhood in postwar Austria was grim; Douke came of age in the near-idyllic southern California sunshine – he even played in a surf band for a brief time in his teens. But surf music (and everything else) was blown out of the water on the day, circa 1965, when Douke happened on a show of Pop art at the Pasadena Art Museum. The artist cites his encounter with the Warhol, Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns works on display as a life-changing moment.
That Pop played such a huge role in Douke’s formative years should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his work. The ‘boxes’ which make up the majority of the Crocker show – and are his best known body of work – are clear descendents of Warhol’s Brillo box sculptures. But, where Warhol intentionally simplified his boxes, enhancing the graphic elements of commercial packaging, Douke focuses on the individual ‘life’ of each container. He meticulously documents each scuff, each stain, each piece of tape or mailing label that individualizes the box he has chosen to portray. Where Warhol celebrated the icon, Douke creates intensely personal portraits, memorializing objects meant to be forgotten.
The evolution of Douke’s work seems almost absurdly straightforward, from his discovery of Pop onward. He found success in the early seventies as a photorealist painter in the Robert Bechtle mold, and his first New York show featured large pictures of the swimming pools prevalent in SoCal backyards. By the mid seventies he had begun to explore the idea of creating acrylic and canvas replicas of discarded boxes. A self-described obsessive-compulsive, Douke simply worked on the concept until he had it exactly right. Douke’s box paintings worked almost too well- some gallery visitors thought he was a conceptual artist who had put discarded cardboard boxes on display a la Marcel Duchamp’s readymades. There have been a few side explorations (notably a series of faux ‘metal’ pieces and flower paintings) along the way, but thirty plus years later he’s still making boxes.
And why not? The work is beautifully done, and the art historical feedback loop Douke creates obliterates the line between conceptualism and craft. Douke continues to hone both his ideas and his skill (Dow, a stunning replica of a 4X8 piece of insulation is one of the newest pieces in the show) and shows no signs of running out of steam. His loving recreations of these most ordinary objects speak volumes in a whispered voice.
Daniel Douke’s Bytes of Reality runs through July 17 at the Crocker Art Museum, 216 O Street.