‘Transitions’ might just knock you stupid

ROBERT POKORNY’S ‘FORWARD RETREAT’

I think I’d like to crawl inside Robert Pokorny’s head for a moment—see if he sees things the way I imagine he might, like John Nash on a heavy dose of DayQuil, looking at the clouds. Or the Sunday comics. Or even an IKEA bathroom curtain.

Which is all really just a silly way of saying that Pokorny, like Nash—at least Nash via Ron Howard—seems to stare at the world and recognize shapes among shapes, patterns among patterns. These are shapes and patterns you and I would not see—and not just them, but movement, too, and it’s all distorted. (Hence, the DayQuil.)

Try to locate the starting point of a piece like Keeper, and it just might knock you stupid. There’s clearly the shape of a man tiptoeing, dressed in a suit and hat, holding a finger to his lips. But there are also shadows of the man, evidenced by extra hands and feet lurking in the negative space. Forget the arrows around him pointing in opposite directions or the assorted colors and swirls of the piece; it takes a moment to see the face hidden within the shape of the man himself, one eye staring back at you in side profile. And if you have any clarity in your thoughts as you step away, you might just notice that one of the hands—the one opposite the hand with its finger against his lips—has its fingers crossed. Gotcha.

There will be 11 other subjects at the show—such as the celebratory dame of Oh… and the fun, argyle-sweatered and goateed guy from Whhhat!—and works you can get positively lost in, from the electro-shocked Testing the Void to Resolution, with its abstract shape of a woman and another third hand, this one unattached, sticking a finger in her open mouth. With any luck, you’ll still be on your feet by the end.

TRANSITIONS: AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY ROBERT POKORNY {OPEN} 2226 E FOURTH ST | LONG BEACH 90814 | 562.499.OPEN | THESTORYOFOPEN.COM | OPENS SAT | THROUGH NOV 9 | RECEPTION 6-9 | PERFORMANCE BY EROS SINCLAIR & THE PERSISTENT RESISTANCE PLUS DJS COMPLIMENTARY REFRESHMENTS | FREE

Tags: art, Long Beach, robert pokorny, {open}