Meaningful Art

I am writing to take exception to the review of Helen Redman’s show at the Kruglach Gallery by Leah Ollman (“A Thin and Flimsy Attempt to Be Satirical,” Calendar, July 24). I saw that show, and I couldn’t agree with Ollman less. Ollman faulted Redman’s socio-political commentary for not being more biting and sarcastic, which to me spoke more of Ollman’s limiting assumptions than of Redman’s work.

There seems to be a notion in some parts of the art world that art that includes a dimension of social criticism needs to be solemn in order to be serious. Not so! Humor disarms people, so the message can be more effectively transmitted. The viewer laughs, relaxes, and down go the shields that guard against new or uncomfortable thoughts.

Redman did a wonderful job of capturing the unnerving totality of life in Southern California, that weird mix of restless, rootless, heterogeneous “fun” and uneasy intimations of mega-disaster. Her cartoonish style was exquisitely appropriate to the dissonances and unrealities of life on this Hollywood-soaked edge of the Pacific rim. Are we humans, or are we “toons?”

Beyond the obvious allusions to Hokusai and Teraoka, I was reminded of the work of Florine Stettheimer, another adroit parodist of a particular social milieu caught up in the follies of a particular time and place. I found that Redman’s show left me thoughtful about the way we live here without being so blunt or mean-spirited or oppressive that I needed to put it out of my mind in order to get on with my life.

Not long after seeing that show I took some European guests to the beach and saw that Redman’s work had affected me as the best art hopes to do; it changed the way I see the world. Thanks to that show, I dropped an unconscious interior editing function that had been limiting my vision of life on this shore. And it is funny. And it is ominous. I hope your readers won’t let the Ollman review stop them from going to Kruglach and seeing Helen Redman’s work before it’s too late.

DIANE B. GAGE, San Diego