 | “Metafiction” is form of writing in which the reader is made aware - either through the text or the character’s actions and interactions - that the text itself is the product of imagination. Lemony Snicket, the “narrator” in Daniel Handler’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” who comments on how the story develops or advances, exemplifies metafiction. Through this literary device, the author, and the audience by extension, questions the relationship of fiction and reality and requires readers to consider the nature of storytelling itself. In the cerebral, multi-disciplinary work of San Francisco-based artist Jana Rumberger, the relationship of fiction and reality and notions of control are examined through two bodies of work not previously exhibited. Now on view at State, Metafictions is open until March 25th. |
Review by Roula Seikaly
Walking into the gallery, the first piece I encountered is Home Sale Prices By Year 1971-2015, Median San Francisco, CA, Median California, Median United States (2017), which represents the series Data, Rumberger’s latest undertaking. Strung between a supporting column and the gallery’s eastern wall, the commissioned piece visualizes a data set using gray, gold, and yellow thread. Color choices are important to the artist, who noted in our email exchange that gold and yellow used in this piece reference popular and positive notions – “the golden state” and “gold rush” – commonly associated with California. Sourcing data points – average sale prices of homes in this instance – from various online sites as the raw material for her sculpture, Rumberger’s delicate creation portrays the indelicate reality that owning a home in the Bay Area is simply out of reach for all but the very rich. As an artist who was priced out of her studio space, the cool or impartial statistics with which she works are all too familiar. Further into the gallery, additional data visualizations such as Rape/Sexual Assault Against Intimate Female Partners in the US 1992-2013 publicly portray the personal horrors through which far too many women suffer privately.
Directly opposite Rumberger’s threaded creation are four wall-based sculptures which, at first glance, suggest dioramas or mock schemes for potential installations, but they are not. The fantastical views, all representing the artist’s long term series Metafictions, are discrete objects. Home Sale Prices… is mirrored in the tiny display, its physicality perfectly matching the gallery layout. The artist emphatically asserts that the miniatures – and this applies across the spectrum of her practice – are works unto themselves, and that the overarching “metafiction” assignation is realized when the miniature and full-scale versions of the work are completed. Using metafiction as a grounding point, our attention is drawn to the objects on view, how they relate to and depart from one another in form and content, and ultimately the impermanence or fiction of exhibitions.
Seeing Rumberger’s large and small pieces exhibited together satisfies a kind of desire, perhaps one akin to starting and completing a project. In this way, she neatly ties up what would otherwise be nagging experiential loose ends. But meeting desire’s needs is not guaranteed. After seeing small representations from her beautiful/chilling series The March Hare, I sought out – perhaps subconsciously – the piece’s larger pendant image. Hung at a distance from their tiny counterparts, these nearly life-sized paintings juxtapose popular notions of rabbits – fertility, sexuality, life – and death, here represented in eyes drawn from photographs of Civil War militia men. In this instance, my desire was satisfied. Conversely, what reads as incomplete, when either full-size or miniature versions of her data series installation or pieces from other painted series - Santa/President and Modernist Alchemy – are not accompanied by their complementary piece, a palpable cognitive lack is felt.
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| Metafictions reveals the breadth and depth of artist Jana Rumberger’s creative practice, as well as the layers of philosophical and critical theory that inform her work. Moreover, the installation of activates desire and notions of control; specifically, a viewer’s want to see all of what springs from the artist’s fecund mind, and Rumberger’s insistence in controlling which portions of her work are seen and in what arrangement. It’s not the easiest exhibition around which to wrap our minds, but when we do, the payoff is absolutely worth the effort. | Metafictions State 1295 Alabama Street San Francisco CA 94110 Exhibition dates | February 11 – March 25, 2017 Gallery hours | Tues - Sat 12 - 5pm |
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