New York Press | JANUARY 18, 2005

The Degenerate Magazine Show | Jan. 8–30


Down under the Williamsburg Bridge, this Dollhaus is worth visiting. This month, the hole-in-the-wall gallery sports a collection of homespun collages from 27 local artists, styles ranging from altered magazine covers to digitally created publications.


Winner of the most popular backdrop goes to Cosmopolitan magazine; the traditional cutout-style collage by P5 builds upon the tasteless sex-oriented headlines that dominate this international glossy. Sunny Chapman also explores America's celebrity obsession through the Warhol-influenced piece in which the same image of Gwen Stefani is presented in multiple photocopies, each colored with different fluorescent markers.


Sex reigns at this show. On the opposite wall, the artists' disgust with society is apparent through Kim Monjoy's True Blue, an oversized compilation of lad mag covers, where a few random ideas, including online poker and internet hookups, are thrown in the mix amid the smutty pics and promises of more scantily clad babes inside the pages of Razor and Maxim. True Blue is sandwiched by Emma-Louise's Dollhaus Proprietress, a bizarre collage that reads "Plastination USA," and the racy Mofucka Comic. Frank Russo's fabricated magazine shows a caricature of a thug-like character smoking a joint, with a forty by his side labeled "coitus," and a swastika-emblazoned shirt. The fading words in the background read "Red Hook," telling the tale of local angst over a once avoided ghetto and its future as commercialized waterfront property. Mofucka's tagline aptly recites one of Marvin Gaye's famed lyrics, "Mercy mercy me, things ain't what they used to be."


Sadly, those words of wisdom ring true with Mike Bowman's Time for the Future, a mockery of Time magazine's decision to make President Bush Man of the Year. Part one of Bowman's collage features a human face with monkey and barbarian-like horns in place of the third eye; part two is a lion-human face with triangles over the eyes reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty's crown.


The most provocative image is Terrance Lindall's Williamsburg. A detailed painting of Broadway, the image imparts the often unspoken truth that some Brooklynites possess the same neighborhood-centric attitude as Manhattanites. The rat-infested street scene features the Dollhaus and the local arts association, renamed Williamsburg Historical Art Convent Klan. There's nothing accidental about the words and images chosen here—among the rats and run-down buildings, immigrants read ESL books and pray, and an artsy youngster sports an armband, a moustache and a tee with a swastika-like image. But his final touch is the most memorable scene: a tank on the Willamsburg Bridge and a sign bearing the following warning, "Oi Vey, You're Leaving Brooklyn. Once you cross the bridge, you're no longer in Kansas."


Dollhaus Art Gallery, 37 B'way (betw. Wythe Ave. & Dunham Pl.), Brooklyn,718-486-0330; Sat. & Sun., 12-6; free.


—Andrea Toochin

 Photo—Sunny Chapman, COSMOPUNKITAN.