Modern Painters

REVIEWS106 MODERN PAINTERS JUNE/JULY 2016BLOUINARTINFO.COMPHILADELPHIA``````Chad StatesVox Populi // March 4–April 24``````A MEMBER OF artist-run collective VoxPopuli, States presents here a compactshow of new work that makes theformal personal, and vice versa.States conflates sexual and somnialimagery: A motif of blues and yellowssuggests ocean and sky (bothJungian symbols of the unconscious),nocturnal emissions, and bed-wetting,all bound up with desire and shame.As a preface, visitors are provided withan excerpt from James Baldwin’s1956 novel Giovanni’s Room—describinga conflicted sexual encounter betweentwo men—and are asked to removetheir shoes before entering the gallery.Passing through a secluding veil,one finds a kind of domestic scene, withdense cerulean carpet over the wholefloor and one wall ornamented witha multihued, patterned blue wallpaper.Near another wall is a teen-sizemattress. Soothing ambient musicplays over the whole tableau.The space is lit exclusively by twoartworks (all works 2016). On oneside, Untitled (Sunrise), an 18-minutetime-lapse video, casts a pale-blueaura. It shows serial clips of a youngman’s crotch as he pisses his under-wear, again and again, each newpair of white briefs accruing a painterlytransparent yellow stain. Acrossthe room, Untitled (I am the sun!)illuminates with a post-Minimalistsculpture of six neon lamps inconcentric circles. Its outer edge isa permanent lemony halo; whitebulbs at the center ripple on and offprogressively from the center out-ward, reminiscent of spreading stainsin the incontinent youth’s undies.The locus of the show, Untitled (Sea/Sky) draws these images together.From the mattress—which comprisestwo conjoined halves in differentshades of blue, and floats, raftlike, onthe carpet—spill wadded jockstrapsand briefs, stained with semen, urine,and fecal matter, thereby conflatinganal sex, wet dreams, enuresis, eroticism,and embarrassment in one sharpamalgam. Although one senses thatthis work comes from a specific,undescribed set of traumatic childhoodexperiences, States makes acutelyappreciable the sensation of what it’slike to be a kid trying to come to gripswith life in an excitable and not alwayscontrollable body. It’s an evocationof teenage alienation and libido that’s abit like being adrift at sea, like startingfrom a dream, and like meeting thedawn with pleasure. —Noah Dillon``````Chad StatesRIGHT:Untitled (I amthe sun!),2016. Neon,power pack,sequencer,84 x 84 x 2 in.BELOW:Untitled (Sea/Sky), 2016.Carpet,mattress,jockstraps,underwear,semen, urine,and fecalmatter.18 x 22 x ½ ft.BOTH IMAGES: CHAD STATES