Gregoire Worth a Deeper Look

Contemporary art is often both challenging and confusing because it forces the viewer to examine ideas that are rarely questioned.

Mathieu Gregoire’s installation “Misplacement: Revision,” on view in the Founders’ Gallery at the University of San Diego, makes such demands. In this small space, Gregoire juxtaposes French furniture borrowed from the university’s 18th-Century period room with his own sculptures and found objects.

A simple explanation might be that he is comparing the two styles. But, Gregoire is actually questioning, among other things, values that are hundreds of years old, but which continue to dominate the way that many people look at art.

Of the objects in the gallery, most people would value the 1746 engraved print of Mme. de Moucai hanging on the south wall of the gallery, as well as the Rococo-inspired table along the same wall and the tapestry-covered sofa facing these pieces.

But Gregoire has placed the print below eye level so one looks down at it, the table’s legs are broken and its marble top is cracked, and the tapestry on the sofa has faded.

One doesn’t immediately notice these shortcomings, however, because the objects conform to most people’s concept of what should be shown in a museum gallery.

Another disorienting aspect of the installation, and a further reference to the 18th-Century are two mirrors placed close to the floorboards.

The mirrors are not only a metaphor for the 18th-Century inclination toward vanity, but also a comment on the period’s emphasis on decorativeness. Mirrors often were used to multiply a room’s ornate effect. Gregoire switches their role, however, for here the mirrors give off reflections of Gregoire’s own sculptures, which all are placed on the floor.

But even more is going on within this installation. Gregoire has removed the partitions that normally block the gallery’s windows and doorways, in order to reveal the university’s stylized gardens and Spanish-style architecture.

Mathieu does this to point out the changing view of what is natural and what isn’t. For example, even though 18th-Century art was thought to be based on the organic elements of nature, which is how it is still described in art history books, Gregoire’s sculptures are too, though of a different sort. They include a nearly fluorescent-green plastic object that resembles a pod, and a small, fake mountain of the sort used as a background for toy train sets, both of which are part of the installation. These contemporary objects, seen here, appear just as naturalistic--or as artificial--as anything else in the room, and even as much as the manicured gardens outside the windows.

Through these contrasts and his unconventional placement of the objects, Gregoire points out that how we look at things can change what we see.

“Misplacement: Revision,” an installation by Mathieu Gregoire at the University of San Diego’s Founders’ Gallery, through March 26. Hours are 12:30-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

DEL MAR--Although different in approach and subject matter, two solo shows at the David Lewinson Gallery examine the delicate line between man and beast.

Han Nguyen’s recent series of color photographs, titled “Hominids,” are haunting reminders of ancient ancestors. His subjects are the models in the “Early Man” exhibit at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park.

His photos are not documentary-style, however. He leaves the images out of focus and saturates the backgrounds with color. Thus, we are not quite sure if we are looking at man or beast.

Nguyen is a master at manipulation: These partially illuminated figures provoke an eerie feeling of both recognition and repulsion, very different from their effect in the benign display at the Museum of Man.

The effect is best seen in the first two photographs in the exhibit. (All the works are untitled). Although both works show the same head shot of a reproduction of a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis , who is believed to be man’s ancestor from 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, two different likenesses emerge. In the first photograph, a yellowish glow surrounds the man’s head, and the artist has artificially etched a crucifix on the man’s neck, giving the work an ethereal and Christian feeling. In the second photo, the facial characteristics are more distinct, rendering the work more recognizable.

While Nguyen’s photographs depict primitive man, Donna Sasso Fisher’s paintings and drawings allude to a type of primal consciousness. Fisher’s seemingly straightforward works are based on the Australian aborigine concept of “shape shifting,” the spiritual practice in which an individual configures his or her psyche into some type of animal in order to relate to nature as the animal would.

Fisher portrays this practice by depicting half-animal, half-human figures in local settings such as Torrey Pines, San Elijo Lagoon and Rancho Santa Fe. But most of her subjects, such as “Benediction” and “Lamentation/ Restoration,” are based on recognizable Christian imagery.

In juxtaposing the ancient belief system with modern settings and Christian conventions of form, Fisher is examining the psyche of modern man.

For example, “Mate from Wolf” shows a bucolic scene with a contemporary woman surrounded by half wolves/half men resting within a setting of dead tree branches. The painting suggests that this woman is secure from the harshness of nature, cared for by these mythical creatures.

Although Fisher’s style is sometimes flat, and she handles paint better than charcoal, her quirky explorations of spiritual and psychological archetypes somehow work.

* “Hominids,” a new photographic series by Han Nguyen, and “Shape Shifting,” recent paintings and drawings by Donna Sasso Fisher, at the David Lewinson Gallery in the Del Mar Plaza, through March 22. Hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday-Tuesday, and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.