Michael Smith and Mike Kelley’s installation at Sculpture Center, A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, is a mash-up of art exhibit and burning man rave. Port-o-Potties mark the entrance, confusing the new visitor to the Center about whether there are bathrooms inside. The concept becomes slightly clearer upon entering the main exhibit space. Video Projections surround the room while the soundtrack fills the room. The installation is filled with jungle gym metal structures strewn with stuffed animals and other artifacts from the video. Towering over the entire room is a metal humanoid construction. The exhibit is a full-on immersive environment, occasionally feeling like a badly-attended rave. The videos track the adventures at Burning Man of the artist, Michael Smith, in the guise of his longtime character, Baby IKKI. The festival is not actually identified, however it is not hard to deduce. Baby IKKI is, for lack of a better description, a grown man dressed as and acting like a baby. The advantage of being fully surrounded by video screens is demonstrated by the impressive experience of the video’s climax of impressive pyrotechnics. However, the disadvantage is there is no way to escape when Baby IKKI creates and eats a dish that is thoroughly nauseating.
The work captures a sense of the bizarre in the culture of Burning Man, as various items are pulled out of the video and incorporated into the installation. At first the amalgam of different pieces is incomprehensible. While watching the video the significance of the different objects becomes clearer. However, many of the pieces never really make sense nor does there seem to be a coherent idea behind them. This does not prevent the whole installation from becoming quite exciting when the climax of the festival is shown on all the screens. Unfortunately, the video the rest of the time is alternatively boring, disgusting, or badly performed. Indeed, the weakest part of the installation is the portrayal of Baby IKKI, though the performance is clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, its artificiality is off-putting. The most interesting part of his schtick are people’s reactions, his eccentric character is merely run of the mill at Burning Man. There is much merit in recreating the feeling of an event through art. The installation is occasionally successful in evoking the atmosphere of an any-thing goes, drug-fueled festival. But nobody needs to watch a grown man dressed as a baby eat a mush consisting primarily of candy wrappers and all along with sand.
Beginning with the entrance to the exhibition, it is obvious that you were not a large fan of this duo’s work, and by contrasting the positive aspects with the negative this distaste becomes even more prominent. The recreated experience through videos and metal structures, as described, do make us feel as if we are at the rave, but in fact, they may be more than just reminders. Perhaps Kelley and Smith want us to step out of our own comfort zones. By taking us to an odd environment, we become similar to Baby Ikki because we must explore and interact in this strange place. Whether or not this was the intended effect could be argued, but one can be almost certain that they anticipated people to react to this installation, which is why your emotional response is so fitting for this review. Normally, emotions could get in the way of a review, but in this case, they are welcome and warranted.
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