With mechanized carnival attractions, curtained rooms that reveal grotesque surprises and a blatant feminist undertone, The Sideshow of the Absurd is as different from your average traveling art show as cubism is from the Baroque.
A lady sword swallower in a green bikini murmurs to herself as she performs her gruesome act, a pair of conjoined twins quibble as they perch above scenes of destruction and mayhem and a beauty shop/torture museum invites spectators to view the thrills behind its curtain.
Artist Pamela Joseph has lessons to impart to her audiences, and with Sideshow, she has shocked us into paying attention.
"It's a crazy show I know, but I like the play between the pretty facades and the underlying edginess," said Joseph, who flew into Albuquerque last week to speak to audiences. "I like the many levels of meaning, and I love being able to work in such a variety of mediums."
The pretty facades she mentioned are the multiple circus-style "sideshows," which make up the show. Joseph uses mediums such as wood, acrylic, paper maichà and even select mannequin body parts.
Upon first entering the gallery, one is excited by the sounds and lights. Carnival music plays cheerfully in the background, there are refreshments such as popcorn and licorice at the door, and colorful lights advertise various attractions. Immediately, the show is revealed to be unique.
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Greeting the visitors in their journey through the Absurd is the "Alien Fortune Teller" and "Leda, the Amazing Swan Princess." When the given knob is turned, Leda starts a hypnotic swinging motion as a recording of the beating of a heart begins to play.
Across from the two is the large "Torture Museum/Beauty Shop," proudly displaying the motto "You have to suffer to be beautiful." Inside, a spinning disco ball and torture chamber sound effects give the effect of a cheap haunted house, but the images that appear on the dozens of wooden cutting boards mounted on the wall reveal this torture museum to be a mockery of society's expectations of women. Scattered between the cutting boards are body parts and rubber gloves mounted on trophy plaques, adding to the already palpable air of surrealism.
"Fate and chance have always fascinated me, as well as the violence behind the facades ... the idea of illusion and reality," Joseph said.
Advancing through the gallery, one cannot help but be struck by the brilliant absurdity of it all. Thought-provoking as the images are, their wild exteriors are humorous and silly. "The comical Strongwoman Catgirl" statue, for example, has a normal body and what appears to be a giant marshmallow with cat ears for a head. She lifts a large cat and makes cat noises at the turn of a knob.
"Pussy Marshmallow," as Joseph has named her, is a recurring character in Sideshow. She grins toothily at audiences from banners, from the side of the torture museum and from a collaged wall near the end of the show, always wearing her signature leopard print leotard and pumps.
Joseph, quoting Mae West, defended her dark humor, "If you're going to tell them the truth, you'd better make it funny or they'll kill you."
"It's witty, funny and also a little frightening," said Chip Ware, curator for the Jonson Gallery at UNM, the traveling show's current home.
But is it most frightening in its twisted humor, its message or its deviation from the established ideology of the art world?
Perhaps its uncouth mixture of the grotesque and the comical is what makes it most frightening. One does not quite know whether to laugh at a piece or to wince at it and hurry on. And at the end of it all, should one ponder the questions and statements Joseph poses with her portrayal of the bizarre and freakish, or shrug the whole deal off as yet another example of why modern art is so laughable?
Getting The Sideshow of the Absurd itself to New Mexico proved quite a task. Since leaving Joseph's studio in Colorado to see world, it has made three stops: the Boulder Museum of Contemporary art in Boulder, Co.; the Northern Indiana Arts Association in Munster, Ind.; and the Jonson Gallery, 1909 Las Lomas Blvd. NE, of UNM.
The gallery, however, is much too small to house a show of its size. Where the Northern Indiana Arts Association boasts 5,000 square feet of space, the Jonson Gallery has a mere 1,000.
Many of the pieces had to be left out of the show in order to squeeze it into one fifth of the space it was recently occupying. Large banners illustrating the individual pieces had to be omitted completely, as well as pieces too big to fit. Most notable of these is
"The Garden of the Virgins," which originally served as the entrance to the show. Both "The Lady Swordswallower" and "The Strongwoman Catgirl" are only small maquettes of the actual pieces, which stand more than 10 feet tall.
The show, which took close to four years to create, is still not complete. "Leda, the Swan Girl," is brand new and debuting at the Jonson Gallery. Joseph is working on an "Alien Fortune Teller" figure, since the popular extraterrestrial is now only on a banner.
Though Joseph has not yet determined how long the exhibit will tour the country, there are at least three more stops on its journey. It will stay in Albuquerque until Jan. 11, after which it is booked for stays at museums in Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida.
Opinions may vary about the artistic value of The Sideshow of the Absurd, but it is undisputedly unique and fresh. Its abstract nature and surrealistic atmosphere, combined with Joseph's strong social commentary make it what Ware calls a "multi-layered exhibition."
To learn more about the exhibit, visit www.manose.com. Contact Jonson Gallery at 277-4967 or www.unm.edu/~jonsong for gallery information.
