Boston's theory-heavy artists could use a bit of practice

The state of Boston's art, it seems, can be found somewhere in a lit theory text, judging by the five representatives featured in the 19th Lois Foster Exhibition of Boston Area Artists. The artists are obsessed with materialism-teddy bears, floppy bunny rabbits, handkerchiefs, dresses, shirt pockets and other everyday objects take on a tremendous theoretical burden. Artists Yukiko Nakamura, Colleen Kiely, Juliann Cydylo, Jocelyn Lee and Amy Podmore expect us to appreciate all the tired old postmodern themes, like the redefinition of gender through art and the importance of objects in defining identity.

In the thick of all this evocation of theory, it's easy to become frustrated with the lack of innovation in Boston's art scene, especially considering that lofty gallery owners, art historians and curators chose these artists from over 100 New England artists. The chosen artists are neither original in what they want to say nor subtle in conveying it. As a result, most of their work produces a gag reflex or a bored yawn.

Nearly every work of art in the exhibit has a little didactic text from curator or artist or both hung up alongside it. Each of these is essentially the same, telling us how the piece contributes to the understanding of the individual enmeshed in the destructive forces of a materialist, male society. What really makes this annoying is that the Lois Foster Exhibition is ostensibly an even-handed survey of Boston-area art. In fact, it's a feminist art show-both the curators and all the artists were women and all these earnest bits of text ran along gender-political lines-that never comes out and calls itself a feminist art show. If it had-if all the same work had been shown, and all the same theory-heavy exegeses beside them, but it was explicitly presented as feminist-it would have been a (somewhat) better show. The viewer could have some faith that there was some kind of a central, cohesive idea behind it all. As it is, you have to wonder, given the emphasis the curators put on the theoretical implications of the pieces on display, why didn't they just publish a treatise and save us all the bother of looking at this lackluster art?

Nakamura's work, especially her skirts of square fabric stuck on wall, seems like Surrealism gone feminist-psycho mixed with attempts at cleverness gone sickeningly trite. She draws on the materials of appearance, like bas-relief shirt pockets and women's eyelashes, and claims that this is an "embodiment for emotion" using the things that mask our emotions, yet it just doesn't work. The felt shirt pockets put on a shelf merely recall the millions of other found and seemingly found objects that already call museums home.

By their very nature, ostriches and bunny rabbits on canvas should also be at least somewhat intriguing. But Kiely's provoke no response but repulsion. As another artist obsessed with producing feminist theory disguised as art, Kiely forgets that her art must be thought-provoking to generate a response. Her creations are uninteresting: her canvases are all the same size and color, white with a bit of sparkly glue thrown on them, and her colors, jarring combinations of reds, greens and blacks, vary little.

The one variable in Kiely's work is which "victim" gets to be on the canvas. One series has ostriches, while the other depicts battered stuffed animals. Kiely instructs us that she is speaking to the victims of society. The ostrich and the bunny rabbit are to Kiely misused symbols of fear and innocence. The only misused anything, however, is the canvas she wastes on what is simply boring and ugly painting.