Jumble Boogie

A big, diverse show in Hollywood may be too loud, but it hits an adventurous beat

Comments (0) By Michael Mills Thursday, Jun 5 2003

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On the other hand, I find myself in complete agreement with the jurors on their choice for Best of Show: Carol Prusa's Network, a large, ghostly floral image created with silverpoint, graphite, ground sulfur, and titanium white acrylic applied to a vertical wooden panel. With its companion pieces, What Connects Us Now? and Transfusion, Network forms a gently stunning triptych based on pale wispy forms that look like flowers but also resemble intricate anatomical parts. I wish the jurors could have bestowed the Best of Show award to all three paintings -- taken together, they have a cumulative power that each alone lacks.

Nor can I quibble with the jurors for selecting Nap, an obliquely erotic color photograph by Mauricio Ramirez that bears repeated scrutiny, for Second Place, and for awarding Third Place to Arrow's Lost and Found. And Honorable Mention-winner Eight Crow Reliquaries, by Gretchen Scharnagl, is also praiseworthy: a wall-mounted assemblage of birdlike figures made from clay, wax, and other ingredients. (Elsewhere in the show are two equally strange-but-wonderful bird-based pieces by Scharnagl.)

Best of Show, Carol Prusa's Network: It coulda been one of a threesome

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On display through June 29. Call 954-921-3274.

Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, 1650 Harrison St., Hollywood

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All of which goes to show -- and I imagine the jurors would heartily disagree -- that there's no accounting for taste. Then again, that's a big part of what art criticism is all about.