ART REVIEW : Laura Whipple: Serious Attempt at Humor

Laura Whipple’s predicament is not an unfamiliar one: how to reconcile a penchant for humor with a desire to be taken seriously.

In the past, Whipple seemed to have it figured out, luring us in with visual puns and optical trickery only to embroil us in a philosophical investigation of perception--before we realized we were no longer laughing.

In her current work at Domestic Setting, Whipple stops short at the level of the joke. As far as jokes go, these are good ones, neatly skewed to their art-minded audience: a horizontal strip of fly paper embellished with artfully arranged insects and insect parts becomes a Chinese landscape scroll; a framed Winslow Homer postcard--featuring two oars and the day’s catch-is duplicated by a pair of wooden chopsticks and two fish-shaped chopstick holders; an array of toys, including a miniature Beuysian sled stocked with a Warholian can of Campbell’s soup, enlivens the sleepy pages of H. W. Janson’s “History of Art.”

Not only funny, these assemblages--and the others in the show--are beautifully constructed. Yet from Whipple, we expect something more. This work seems to want to go further, to offer a critique of the institutionalization of art and art history. But it fails to resonate beyond the quip. It isn’t that a quip is not enough; it certainly can be--except when the disparity between intention and result is so palpable it blows the punch line.

* Domestic Setting, 3774 Stewart Ave., (310) 397-7884 or (310) 397-7761, through Nov. 6. Open Thursdays-Saturdays.