Young Turks Two Art Exhibit
Nave Gallery
155 Powder House Blvd, Somerville
Through November 4
Hours: Friday 5:00-8:00 p.m., Saturday & Sunday 1:00-5:00 p.m.
(Also featuring Alasdair Roberts, Charalambides, and Heather Leigh Murray Friday from 8:00-10:00 p.m.)

Look in your wallet. How many credit cards do you have in there? How many pieces of plastic that identify you, confirm your existence, enable your participation in our corporate economy? How many of these actually reveal something about your real self?

You probably have tons of credit cards, but they probably say very little about you--credit card offers are so ubiquitous these days that almost anyone can get one, even with a mediocre credit rating. And we all probably have very similar items in our wallets, from the same Visa and MasterCards to licenses from the same states, movie-rental cards from the same Blockbusters, and so on. How can we stand out from the crowd if we're all identified in the same ways, on the same cards? Who do we become when removed from who we're told we are?

These and similar questions are at the center of Lee Powers' work (left), a raised fist of protest created from cut-up and painted credit and other types of cards. Other pieces also address these issues at the current ARTSomerville Young Turks Two exhibit at the Nave Gallery. Sponsored by the Somerville Arts Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the show was curated by Beth Driscoll of the Lady Cougars Art Gang. The exhibit's theme is "taking a walk on the wild side," highlighting "all that is not part of the status quo." Pieces from Head Clausnitzer, Barbara Cone, Katie DiChiara, Tali Gai, Sydney Phillips Hardin, Jesse M. Kahn, Edward Middleton, Lee Foster Powers, Melissa Sullivan, and Taryn Wells will be on display. The show runs through this weekend only, so clear your schedule and get out there.

A review of the show and info on upcoming ARTSomerville exhibits at the Nave Gallery after the jump!

While Lee Powers' innovative use of credit cards is what first "hits" you when you walk into the Nave Gallery, the Young Turks Two exhibit has plenty of other pieces to challenge and inspire you. From Jesse Kahn's hand-embroidered "Homeland Insecurity Blanket," to Katie DiChiara's artificial hair sculptures, the exhibit presented a diverse range of perspectives on society and identity.

Taryn Wells creates detailed pencil drawings that challenge the tendency to create racial categories, putting her subject in various guises (such as "Clown" and "Mammy") to convey the different social associations and assumptions prompted by dressing a particular way. "78 degrees" (left), her take on Petrus Camper's "facial angle" not only exposes the preposterousness of using such a mathematical "formula" for racial categorization, but also juxtaposes that strangeness with the equally preposterous nature of other racial judgments made by society. Have we really come so far since the days when proposals like Camper's were taken as gospel?

Katie DiChiara's hair sculptures are subtle and surprising. While "a*lure" combines silvery blonde curls of hair with hooks on a fishing line to convey how the fashion industry allures us with deadly images of beauty, "Dimona Sizemore" lets white locks of hair grow out of mammary half-spheres to suggest the reduction of women to nothing but their physical appearance. Perhaps the nuclear research reactor located near Dimona, Israel, might someday create the perfect woman through radioactive mutation? We can only hope.

Jesse Kahn's aforementioned cuddly "Homeland Insecurity Blanket" and carefully embroidered "Human Capital" pillows (right) may look like they belong in your grandma's living room, but they suggest a very real--and very problematic--societal acceptance of the corporatization and militarization of our culture. The "Fortune of Soldiers" video, also by Kahn, shows toy soldiers in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, revealing the politico-military complex's view of us all as expendable toys in their money-mongering game.

Even if you're uncomfortable with nudity, you shouldn't have to worry about Barbara Cone's ten photographs of genitalia--they're not real nudes, just pictures of naked statues. Or does the mere suggestion of nudity, even in sculpture, work to offend us? These artistic images of artistic works comprise, in a sense, "meta-nudes," and drive us to wonder what makes nude art "art" while our naked bodies remain "offensive."

The series of elephant images from Head Clausnitzer (left) reflect the artist's childhood experience as a fat kid. Clausnitzer has photoshopped an elephant's head onto several snapshots of himself as a child, producing a work that both links childhood trauma to our present-day memories and questions the accuracy of old memories. Are we really formed by what happens to us, or how we perceive it?

Sydney Phillips Hardin's paintings (top of post) show females in sexualized poses, sometimes masked, sometimes blinded by unpainted or completely white eyes. Hardin hope to create "an uncomfortable and intensely personal dialogue between potential voyeur and possible victim," and one could almost see the dramatized yet all too familiar eroticism of her work in the advertising pages of a magazine. Her exposure of "media and consumer blindness to erotically irrelevant features" is confrontational and troubling, but ultimately necessary to provoke us to look at advertising and depictions of women in general in different ways.

Edward Middleton's blurry photographs (right) of intense moments from various movies are intended to expose "indifference and ignorance by exploiting an experience most take for granted as a brief reprieve from their everyday lives." The indistinctness of the cinematic images replicates the unclear distinction between film and reality, and questions our need to indulge in a "break" from the everyday by watching the pain and suffering of others onscreen.

Tali Gai's pencil drawings deal with loneliness, alienation, suppressed emotions, courage, and the taboo by depicting animals, hunters, and humans. The drawings border on collage, with some parts of the paper literally burned away to expose additional images beneath. Depiction of subjects in shadows adds to the taboo feeling of the subject matter.

The large format photographs of Melissa Sullivan (left) may be the closest thing to easily recognizable "art" in the show, but they raise issues of their own. The photographs are of local establishments, taken while the businesses are closed. Partially bright and colorful, the pictures reveal an overriding darkness inside the shops, which may be because the businesses are closed for the evening, or because they've been put out of business by competitors. Sullivan says her project aims to revive local shops to community members.

All in all, the Young Turks Two show at the Nave Gallery in Somerville does an excellent job of creating art that challenges our everyday assumptions about identity--both our own and those of others. Make sure to check out the show this weekend to help you think differently about the way you view the world. And if you're into music, stop by the Nave on Friday night (tonight!) to appreciate the artwork, then listen to the stellar sounds of Alasdair Roberts, Charalambides, and Heather Leigh Murray.

All images from ARTSomerville or individual artists' websites.