House of Pain at Vegas Gallery

House of Pain at Vegas Gallery

26 August, 2008
by: Katuschka

Tits, trash and pulp sum up Pascal Rousson's show House of Pain at Vegas Gallery. Whether or not a reference to Irish-themed hip-hop (and with Rousson's penchant for low culture in high art, who can tell?), House of Pain is a fantastic, writhing mass of a show, leaking bodily fluids and globules of flesh-toned paint.

Continuing the his fascination with pop-culture, DIY manuals and Americana (previous shows have included The Museum of the Dispossessed, The Life and Death of the Marlboro Man and the comic-book explosion-themed Assassin's Do It From Behind), Rousson this time looks closer to home by bringing the public perception of 'the artist' into question. And there's a good dose of B-movies, schlock-horror and post-war porn thrown in for good measure.

The centrepiece is the crudely constructed 'House of Pain' itself, assembled with shaky, canvas-covered plywood reminiscent of film sets, amateur home improvement projects and American dream-flavoured artifice. Usually used to conceal, this structure is here designed proudly to display uncomfortable truths and the darker recesses of the psyche: it's dripping with trash imagery sluiced from the over-exposed remains of pop-culture, and surrounded by driblets of paintings, which appear to have spewed from the main nerve centre.

Rousson's nudes are bloated with sexual connotation, breasts and abs hoisted into surreal proportions like a menagerie of Russ Meyer and Kenneth Anger fantasies. The imagery is fraught with moral panic and drug-addled daydreams, with surrealist, galactic repetitions of Brave New World-style posters and accusatory, dilated eyeballs turning the gaze back on the viewer.

Rousson is clearly inspired by Andy Warhol's pop ideology: his re-interpretations of thrift store finds and highly saleable work have all the trappings of Warhol's 'good business is the best art' capitalist approach. His work updates Pop Art, drawing from Warhol's protégé Basquiat, the trash-stylings of Rob Sacchetto's zombie portraits, and populist street artists like Banksy and Fafi. Rousson, however, appears to have a love-hate relationship as far as Pop Art's influence on his work is concerned: he uses Warhol's enigmatic persona and hipster reputation as a totemic daisy cutter; demolishing old myths and reconstructing the artist as a conscientious and realistic presence, camouflaged within the painting.

Rousson addresses the question of the artist as idol and tragic hero, a fantasy which impedes creativity and imagination by establishing a (somewhat exhausted) persona of little substance. Rousson's work criticizes the legacy of a canon of patriarchal hedonists such as Picasso, Pollock and Lichtenstein as well as more recent names associated with potentially ill-gotten credibility. Tracy Emin, Matthew Barney and Christopher Wool are all seated uncomfortably amongst urinating torsos, decomposing limbs and bulging thongs. These artists are portrayed with a machismo that verges on the homoerotic, and are seen eating themselves, stealing and objectifying women. Rousson aims to crush the temptation to place too much value on throwaway culture, especially on art that is so appreciatively self-aware.

By subscribing to fetishism over romanticism, Rousson seeks to avoid portraying himself in the same light. His intentional mocking is overt to the point of criticism but he still lays himself open to the same accusations and places himself in an ambiguous position; as a holier-than-thou Frankenstein's monster of an artist pieced together from the sins of his forbears. Whilst viewers can enjoy the besmirching of pretention, Rousson should be wary of a certain expression about glass houses.

In spite of the name-calling and mud-splattering, House of Pain is still gory fun; especially if your eyes are hankering for a bit of lusty grime or you're looking for some respite from the terrible burden of a creative soul.

Click here to read an alternative review of  House of Pain, by Art Sleuth.

Or perhaps click here to see other exhibitions at Vegas Gallery.

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Katuschka