What better way to celebrate the season surrounding Halloween -- a day made for flaunting daddy issues in thigh-high pleather -- than spending it at Spoke Art gallery honoring the man who made father issues occult?
The second annual "Bad Dads" art show, a tribute to the films of Wes Anderson, is an acorn off the tree from whence it came -- a whimsical and earnest gathering of fans, fan art, and homage. Like last year's showing, "Bad Dads" is a funny and at times overwhelmingly affectionate collection of baubles.
But what's lacking amidst this sea of indulgence, are distinct artistic voices with clear artistic statements used to challenge and subvert Anderson's commercial success: the obvious lure of the show. Most artists fell prey to regurgitation -- not uncommon for an exhibit of this nature, but an ill-advised strategy nonetheless.
The gallery brims with altars to Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) or the watery Margot Tenenbaum (Gweny Paltrow), the nautical Leo Bloom and the holy mother of withering talent respectively. Idol after pathetic idol proved it was easy to get lost at sea.
In this manner, the artists fit well within the Anderson narrative: an ensemble of lost people incapable of deviating from their charted course and, therefore, squandering opportunities.
Tantamount to those missed opportunities is an artistic statement on class. Anderson often mixes wealthy and working-class characters to expose the fruitless charge of keeping up appearances and the inevitable disappointment and embarrassment in failing to do so. Given trends in our moral and financial decline, the topic would have made for fitting fodder -- a treat for some Halloween tricks.
Pieces that stood out managed this precarious mixture of homage and announcement. Tim Doyle's He is the Zissou, for example, reappropriates Anderson's play with commercialization and absurdity through its whimsical use of medium, color, and character.
Anderson's films rest not only on fathers -- though fathers are easy-made antagonists -- but on mothers and lovers too. The women of Wes Anderson are wounded, emotive, and abandoned -- the fallout for which he is only beginning to discover (see The Darjeeling Limited and Hotel Chevalier).
It was nice to see some artists play against Anderson's Madonna/Whore by skewing into themes of emotional availability and malice.
The best of Anderson, however, expresses the bitter tug of war between what we're capable of and the neurotic mess that keeps us from accomplishing it -- ultimately, a lesson about acceptance.
The Greatest Magazine Never Made by Blaine Fontana incorporates these elements perfectly. Fontana uses Anderson's framing aesthetic, flashes of the Futura font, and adherence to primary colors while drawing upon issues of consumption, extinction, and self-preservation.
It is a difficult task turning multidimensional characters into one or two dimensional art pieces. How do you display art themed on characters whose havoc wrought disassociation, when obvious continuities are bound to unite the lot?
"Bad Dads" invites its audience to partake and participate in a palate of interpretation. Like the films themselves, these pieces are confounding and exhausting. The show is a splayed mess -- what happens in our head when the wet paint of daddy issues has yet to dry.
Still, the thing about bad dads is that what is left in their destructive wake is often stronger, cogent, and tragically beautiful.
"Bad Dads," an art show tribute to the films of Wes Anderson, continues through Nov. 22 at Spoke Art, 816 Sutter (at Jones), S.F. Admission is free.
