"Text & Signifier" reviewed in Dialogue Art Magazine, September, 1999 by Jane Durell
		~~The teasing sensibilities of the best comic strips infuse the art in this exhibition. Compiled from works published by Carl Solway Gallery, Mark Patsfal Graphics and Volatile Editions, "Text & Signifier" presents sophisticated takes on visual notions that reach at least as far back as Stuart Davis, whose work often included a sprinkling of text. The artists comment directly or obliquely on the way we live, but are as frequently distracted by the sheer seductiveness of language as by the formal concerns of making art. Kay Rosen, in particular, can't stop playing with words. The letters "e" and "d" appear together as suffix (small e) and as nomenclature (capital E) in a short story told in six prints, The Ed Prints. Her plot line unfolds quickly, helped along by dual meanings, and embraces both death and resurrection. In The Man an etching as pristine as a wedding invitation, she rings changes on The man who would be King taking him through BB King, Queen Bee, Bea Arthur and King Arthur to stop as Art King. Another elegantly executed etching is Hannah Wilke's musing on her own name, Hername. Sixteen individual plates combine to form this 36" x 26" work, in which the name Hannah is picked out in a vertical slant from repeating rows of 16 different words, among them "Hang," "Archangel," "Thank You," and "Merchant."
					~~A group of 35 artists operating under the umbrella name of Fluxus produced a portfolio of hand-pulled lithographs and screen prints, created via faxed instruction sheets on standard-sized 8 1/2" X 11" paper and titled Fluxfax. A striking example is Ay-O's 1994 silk screen, One Eye is Enough. The set is packaged in an imprinted leatherette briefcase-folio, held jauntily by a metallic hand protruding from the wall in this installation. Individual works are totally individual, the artists operating on their own, often pun-struck wavelengths. The puns are linguistic and visual. Now, in 1999, this 1995 assemblage carries an unexpected message on the brief reigns of particular technologies. Faxes, ubiquitous at the time, have been largely replaced by internet communication.
		~~Annie Sprinkle, refreshingly recreational in her outlook on sex, is not so much modern as practical in her lists of 101 Uses for Sex and 101 Hazards of Sex. Little there that courtesans of any century or culture would not have known, but very '9Os, indeed very American, to print her lists on Plexiglas and on aluminum for wall mounting. Each list breaks off early, something readily imagined having intervened. One of the pleasures of the exhibition is to see again Nancy Graves's compelling and beautiful Lithographs Based on Geologic Maps of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo Landing Sites first shown in 1972 at an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Nam June Paik is represented by stunning screen-printed laser disks; Vito Acconci disturbs and amuses, as usual, and a dozen or more other artists also are included. Embracing work created over several decades, "Text & Signifier" serves a historical purpose as well as an aesthetic one. The sometimes bristly, sometimes in-your-face device of incorporating words and symbols in art is a prevalent element throughout the period.
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