Artists of the Year, Makers Who Mattered in 1995
City Pages December 27, 1995

Shana Kaplow and Michael Rathbun
by David Lefkowitz

1995 may go down as the year in which cyberspace became the new frontier for the cutting edge artist. As such, painting and sculpture were eulogized yet again in the wake of supposedly more egalitarian, more flexible, and just plain better and cooler new technology. So it was heartening to encounter work in more traditional media that can still command attention and engender experience that is at once visceral and intellectual.

Two particular exhibits in the Twin Cities in the past year were just such encounters. Shana Kaplows paintings of discrete body parts on hand cut, slightly irregular wood panels are ironically unified and complete; we reconstruct these partial gestures according to our own knowledge and experience of the human animal. by focusing on the body in a way that is at once clinical and lyrical, Kaplow somehow manages to express both how common-place and how amazing our existence is. Moreover, an adequate experience of these pieces is only possible in real space. A reproduction, on a post card or on line, can only hint at what the paintings clearly convey.

For his installation at the Soap Factory, N44°58.961’ W93°14.982’, Michael Rathbun used a single basic material, raw pine, to construct a large, ship like form which plows through wooden waves with absurdly oversized unwieldy oars. The huge structure of blond lumber trapped in the dark gray confines of the equally raw warehouse space was as “interactive” as anything I’ve seen on the Web. The fantastic ship-in-room embodies a paradox of motion and stasis, and a slow, considered walk on it’s gently sloping planks offers a constantly shifting perspective.

For all the possibilities of cyberspace, it’s not a panacea for creativity. As long as our brains rely on our bodies to gather information, plastic forms will continue to inspire awe and reflection. Rathbun and Kaplow convey that message as articulately and evocatively, as any artist anywhere today.

Learn more about this sculpture.