Alan Rath at Dorfman Projects - Brief Article

This exhibition, organized by San Francisco's Haines Gallery, featured eight new electronic sculptures by Alan Rath. An Ohio-born artist who holds a BS in electrical engineering from MIT, Rath is known for his witty, high-tech objects that evoke a wide variety of living forms. Since 1985 he has been refining his eerie merger of the human, organic and mechanical by means of a subtle integration of found objects, CRT (cathode ray tube) screens showing computer-generated images of facial features and other body parts, and low-frequency speakers with gently pulsating surfaces that recall the rhythmic breathing of living creatures.

The recent wall pieces and freestanding works on view here represent something of a departure for the artist. Spare and sleek, the sculptures are basically more abstract than most of Rath's earlier efforts. Instead of found objects, the primary elements used in these minimalist compositions are the unadorned electronic devices--black wires, silver corrugated-metal boxes containing computer hardware, and narrow, rectangular CRT monitors.

In spite of its somewhat cold demeanor, the work has anthropomorphic attributes, often delivered with a large dose of humor. Linguist, for instance, is a wall piece featuring a CRT screen showing a life-size mouth that sticks out its tongue when viewers manipulate a joystick. One of the most striking works on view, Triple Tongue Tree, is a 6-foot-tall freestanding piece that is reductive yet somehow humanoid. Here, three small screens are vertically arranged on a tall metal tripod. Each one shows a moving image of a monochrome green or yellow mouth alternately opening, closing and sticking out its tongue. Exuding a Pop irony, the work calls to mind certain Warhol images, especially the paintings of Marilyn Monroe's lips.

Rath's techno-language can often result in puns as in Waiting III, a floor piece consisting of a monitor, about a foot high, connected by a long metal tube to a metal suitcase. Embedded in this suitcase is a clock's face with only a red second-hand whirling round and round, while the screen shows a green human hand with fingers tapping nervously and endlessly on a table top. Although expressed with tongue-in-cheek humor, a Sisyphean nightmare of eternity is conveyed by the piece. In all the works in this show, Rath hints at possibilities for technology that are at once playful and foreboding.

[An exhibition titled "Alan Rath: Robotics" is on view at SITE Santa Fe through Jan. 24, before embarking on a national museum tour.]

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