McDonough only includes one conventional art object in the show: “110202-vinyl record,” a custom-cut pressing in an edition of 25, of backmasked audio from an episode of “The Joy of Painting.” He’s made a cult vinyl object featuring audio played backward, a play on the subversive potential of pop that, in this case, stars art’s least threatening painter, Bob Ross.
The piece again references Soundgarden: Play “665” backward and you’ll hear someone saying “I love Santa.” The band had the foresight to know that it would fall short of the evil that metal was supposed to represent. After that release, Soundgarden became the first of the alternative bands to sign to a major label.
Why should McDonough make these overthought artworks to prove an academic point about how alternative music was a commercial distribution category, not an aesthetic realm? The show teeters on the verge of wonky. But one moment that rescues it from utter cynicism: an errant brush stroke of paint that appears on McDonough’s otherwise featureless chipboard album sleeves.
It might be inspired by Bob Ross or it might be inspired by Gerhard Richter. It doesn’t much matter where it came from. McDonough’s gestural abstraction bursts forth like a blistering guitar solo from Soundgarden axman Kim Thayil in an MTV Buzz Bin clip. The mark is a feature of the packaging, but it still rings true. For work so narrowly construed and academically predetermined as McDonough’s to yield even fleetingly to something so raw is a revelation.
McDonough’s hardly the only neurotic to get worked up about how the industry works. But through his art, he’s not expressing judgment. McDonough sympathizes with the vulnerability of the earnest fan and acknowledges the inevitability of commercial accretion that follows artistic breakthroughs.
Glenn Gould once said, “A record is a concert without halls and a museum whose curator is the owner.” That was before David Geffen and other moguls got their hands on the music industry in the ’90s. Contemporary art is just as vunerable to posturing, from execs and artists alike. Despite it all, McDonough still manages to work in a good riff.
Capps is a freelance writer.
Opening Act
Through May 28 at Civilian Art Projects, 1019 Seventh St. NW. 202-607-3804. Wednesday-Thursday and Saturday 1-6 p.m. www.civilianartprojects.com.
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