The graffiti artist, who uses one name and whose work I shot for the Focal Point blog (adn.com/focalpoint) earlier this month, was clearly uncomfortable being photographed. He said it was fine, though, if I didn't photograph his face, so I didn't.
The graffiti wall for the "Pop 11" show is huge, about 92 inches tall and 52 feet long. The gallery show is one of several Andy Warhol-themed events that coincide with the Warhol exhibit now on display at the Anchorage Museum. That inspiration is plain to see in Meno's work. His stencil paintings of 40-ounce Old English malt liquor bottles are repeated in a manner deliberately reminiscent of Warhol's Coca-Cola bottles. Meno's liquid varies in color from gold to cloud gray to blood red.
Liquid occasionally appears to bleed from the bottles in a manner that couldn't be mistaken for sloppy work. Overlaying the bottle images is a portrait of a friend and painting collaborator.
Meno said he connects to Warhol in his own art. "He stopped being a fine artist and started simplifying his work," he said. In his adaptation of the concept, Meno made four stencils to create the face on the wall.
Each one, when sprayed over, masked a different color of paint. The technique gives the face a three-dimensional quality. The forethought and craftsmanship involved certainly didn't look simple, though the result is clean and striking.
He stuck with an alcohol theme to reflect what he has seen in his neighborhood, he said. Meno lives in Mountain View.
The result is the largest multi-layer stencil work he has created to date. And as recognizable as his art has become in the city, this is only the second time Meno's work has been displayed in a gallery.
That's just not where graffiti art is usually seen. I asked if he was nervous to straddle both worlds -- the underground creative circles and the wine-sipping gallery crowds. A soft-spoken guy, he answered simply. "Yes."
"Pop 11" is part of a community-wide series of exhibits taking place around town through January. More information is available at pop11.org.
-- Marc Lester
Anchorage Daily News
We can't show you this, either
But you can see what we're talking about at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, 427 D St., where Don Mohr has lined the walls with images from his forthcoming book, "Nude in Anchorage."
This installation stems from his show at UAA Arc Gallery earlier this year, in which he posed an unclad model in various spots around the Consortium Library. The juxtaposition of carnal skin with cerebral literature made a statement all by itself, particularly for those familiar with the setting. But it grew a little repetitive before you finished the series.
Nonetheless, Mohr and the model returned to the field for more fleshy photos, these taken in other Anchorage locations including the Anchorage Museum, industrial sites, a house under construction, a haberdashery. The resulting black-and-white photos are presented as transparencies and backlit, with the addenda of a stool and optician's equipment.
"It's about perseveration," he writes, "which is a real mental disorder," and a real word -- I looked it up, "characterized by the inability to stop doing something long after the stimulus for that thing ends."
I found it easy, however, to stop examining the pictures long before getting to the end of the thing. With the same model cast in similar static poses wearing a uniform blank expression, the display becomes static.
But it might be more appealing if it weren't all in front of you at once, say in a page-by-page book form, which is what Mohr has in mind, with each venue as its own "chapter." A very small number of copies of "Nude in Anchorage" will be available for $150 each.
-- Mike Dunham
Anchorage Daily News
Showing soon
In 1826, Capt. Frederick Beechey of the HMS Blossom sailed into the Arctic Ocean and named Point Barrow. Lt. William Smyth made some drawings of the area and its inhabitants, which -- fast forwarding to this fall -- came up for auction in London.
Richard Wood, a rare book and art dealer in Juneau, got wind of the sale and informed the North Slope Borough, which placed the winning bid.
The roughly 6-by-9-inch colored drawings show an Inupiat family, a work party on shore and, caught in a storm, a craft that looks far smaller than the Blossom, which was a 100-foot, 18-gun sloop-of-war.
According to a press release from the North Slope mayor's office, the drawings are currently at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage in the hands of Seth Irwin. Irwin, the only paper conservator working in Alaska, happens to be at the Aviation Museum working on their photo collection.
Fragile when they were new, the illustrations will be kept out of sight after they complete their 184-year roundtrip back to Barrow, but digital images will be on display at the Inupiat Heritage Center.
-- Mike Dunham
Anchorage Daily News
Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.
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