‘I Just Can’t Get Enough’ delivers Cal State Long Beach art; you figure out the meaning
By Theo Douglas

“I Just Can’t Get Enough”—an art show featuring Cal State Long Beach faculty and Bachelor’s and Master’s of Fine Arts students—is aptly named. It showcases more than three dozen works in a variety of media and consumes the entire second floor of Angels Gate Cultural Center’s main gallery in San Pedro, yet somehow when it’s all over and you exit down an artfully weathered wooden staircase, you want more.

This could be a good thing, but despite having a half-dozen truly solid pieces, “Enough” feels slight at times. Somehow, it comes off like a very student show—in contrast to the University Art Museum’s own show of CSULB student work back in May, which was scarily engaging and sophisticated. “Enough” has enough to be very good, but it could be better.

A good example of what holds it back is McLean Fahnestock and C. Finley’s Now You See Me, a mixed-media installation that is the only piece in the show listed as “site-specific.” It seems rather precious for what it is: around 20 mirrors, some with rounded corners, others not. And by definition, every piece in every show everywhere is site-specific. This one was carefully lined up in the back corner of the room and on the floor, each facet polished within an inch of its life: reflecting the white walls, an artwork on the ceiling, gallery visitors, and basking in its own sheen. And don’t think the true art aficionados among us didn’t appreciate it, because we did.

“The way he’s got it arranged, you contrast with yourself, with the art piece, and with the other pieces around,” an art-lover in camouflage pants told his date, whose dress was printed with a huge Celtic symbol on the front. It was mirrors. A bunch of mirrors. It was also Fahnestock and Finley’s grand statement about something—which is why people hate artists.

From there, things improved dramatically. Sierra Brown offered an intriguing video installation, More than a Woman, a low-angle short film of women (probably the same woman) walking barelegged on a treadmill in a variety of multicolored pumps—set, of course, to a snippet of the Bee Gees’ “More than a Woman.” The angle, the bright light, the splashy graphics on the gym’s painted cinderblock wall—it was very ’80s, very Nagel. Not sure what it meant, but you didn’t feel like it had to mean anything. It was just fun, and that was great—unless thinking it was just fun means thinking women are inferior to men . . . in which case, no: it had a very much deeper meaning. One which if I tell you, you’ll never learn.

Elsewhere, Jean Robison showed the pretty, provoking Bite, a color photo of a woman on all fours in tight shorts, face hidden, biting a man’s calf through his jeans. One of the show’s more accessible pieces, it’s also on the flier.

Student Glenn Bach delivered a series of Untitled Sound Drawings, a grouping of graphite drawings on paper that looked like seismic recordings done by Etch-A-Sketch: the needle going straight, turning right, then left; noting, perhaps, a small quake with a rectangular blot, then continuing. It was supremely underwhelming at first; later, you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The same was true of Gretchen Jankowski’s works, which included the abstract multimedia wall hanging Toot My Red Horns and a life-size Living Room area, replete with a mid-century modern sofa upholstered in swatches of Ecko and Gucci. Horns was her standout piece here, however—a deconstructed rectangle upholstered three-dimensionally with red and black swatches of synthetic fur and assorted red-and-silver swatches of vinyl. Here and there, what looked like upholstered horns poked out. What did it all mean? Unclear. Jankowski has said she’s inspired by the abstract painter Elizabeth Murray, and Horns looks like what would happen if certain of Murray’s works were made three-dimensional by a visit from the art fairy. But beyond that, it lets you do the thinking. It was whatever you wanted. That always works out well.

I JUST CAN’T GET ENOUGH: AN EXHIBITION OF CSULB FACULTY, MFAS, AND BFAS ANGELS GATE CULTURAL CENTER | GALLERY A | 3601 S GAFFEY ST | SAN PEDRO 90731 | 310.519.0936 | ANGELSGATEART.ORG | OPEN TUES-SUN 9-5 PM | THROUGH AUG 19 | FREE