Adam Brooks' art exhibit at the Abel Joseph Gallery critiques language through various mediums. One piece uses binoculars to show the words "LOVE" and "LEAVE" spelled out in windows across from each other. Another uses sandblasted mirrors with "un" words to show how language can fragment and alienate human experience. A series of glass objects labeled with bodily secretions like "urinate" and "defecate" connects physical and cultural disease. Though Brooks acknowledges the flaws in systems of communication, the scope and appeal of the works indicate his belief that humanity will continue trying to understand each other through language.

1. GALLERIES & MUSEUMS | ART REVIEW
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The Blasted Word
By Lynda Barckert
ADAM BROOKS
at the Abel Joseph Gallery
Big red letters spelling the word "LOVE" beckon from one wall of the
gallery. They lead the gaze to a pair of binoculars clamped to the
wall's freestanding edge. The binoculars are aimed at a nearby
window that looks out onto the Damen/North/Milwaukee
intersection, now dark and desolate in post-evening-rush-hour
quietude. Accepting the invitation, I peer through the binoculars and
see the word "LEAVE" spelled out in pale green neon in a third-floor
window of the Flat Iron Building across the intersection. Somewhere
in my body a vague memory of pain resuscitates. The physical and
semantic distance between love and leave activates a feeling of
nostalgic sadness that is both personal and cultural, visceral and
cerebral. This deceptively simple piece, called Platitude no. 1
(Love/Leave), is just one example of Adam Brooks's highly engaging
approach to an aestheticized critique of language.
Many of Brooks's works, through single words etched or stenciled
onto sheets of glass or mirrors, demonstrate the fragility and ultimate
failure of language as a communicative device. The shared
precariousness of glass and communication--both are easily
shattered--is so literal and direct that the metaphor risks slipping into
cliche. But Brooks transcends the danger by adding, with appealing
formal elegance, references to the human body. Unflect no. 2, for
instance, consists of 36 sandblasted rectangular mirrors spread

2. across three adjacent walls. A different "un" word has been traced
through the layer of pale dust covering each piece. As we read through
the litany of negativity--"unimaginative," "unrepentant," "untenable,"
"uneasy"--the words and portions of our own reflected image
materialize and vanish as we change position relative to the mirrors.
At nonreflective angles, the rectangles take on a handsome
minimalist, almost corporate look. Unflect no. 2 presents language as
a fragmenting and alienating mediator of human experience. Seeing
bits of our own reflection reminds us that we are not just victims of
linguistic manipulation but perpetrators as well. We all use words
every day not only to express ourselves but to advance our private
goals.
In other pieces Brooks combines words with three-dimensional,
body-referencing objects like cocktail glasses, soup labels, and hand-
soap dispensers. Because they link intangible linguistic meaning with
concrete human physicality, these works are the most satisfying in the
show. In a display window facing the street, several shelves holding
glass objects have been arranged in Crate & Barrel fashion, each shelf
containing multiples of a single glass item. There is a shelf of martini
glasses, a shelf of wine carafes, and so on. The repetition of
transparency and form produces a symmetry that seduces and flatters
the viewer/buyer. These attractive "goods" are meant to beautify our
dinner tables, impress our friends, and help quench our various
appetites. But the artist makes us pay for this visual flattery through
the provocative words sandblasted onto the surface of the objects.
Most powerful is the group of carafes, called Secrete Set. We usually
identify a carafe's primary function as dispensing wine or another
beverage, but these carafes are labeled with words like "urinate,"
"defecate," "ejaculate," and "menstruate." Because bodily secretions
are often tested for harmful "cultures," here the carafes seem
transformed into specimen jars. The artist makes the connection
between physical and cultural disease with impressive simplicity.
Words, objects, and materials don't always synthesize so smoothly in
Brooks's work, but even in other instances, intriguing visuals capture
our attention. Dispenser features eight mass-produced soap
dispensers, each filled with a different liquid, ranging across one wall
of the gallery. On the floor below each one rests a stainless steel bowl
ready to catch inadvertent drips. Subtly engraved on each dispenser is

3. part of a word--a clue to help identify the type of liquid inside. The
letters are difficult to see because they are small and thinly etched. To
make matters more difficult, the words they stand for are only general
categories for the specific substances in the dispensers. Some word-
clue/substance combinations are more accessible than others. With a
little work we might guess that "ADHE" indicates adhesive, and that
the white liquid in this dispenser in glue. But other combinations are
more obscure. "CATH," which I found refers to catharsis, could just as
easily point to catholic or catheter. Figuring out that the liquid in this
container is a laxative requires a substantial mental leap. Despite
such ambiguities, Dispenser establishes a strong physical relationship
to our own bodies through its hand-washing theme. This, coupled
with the objects' rigid public-restroom installation, makes the
experience of the piece an engaging, almost familiar one.
Brooks doesn't always limit his critique of language to English. His
Morse Mnemonic takes a look at two lesser-known systems of
communication. Six groups of black dots and dashes applied directly
to the wall are paired with their English "translations" on glass
panels. The panels have been sandblasted and tilted so that the words
they bear appear in pale shadows on the wall behind. The phrases
include "a wet jacket's comfortable, very!" and "turnips make oxen
cheerful." Silly or awkward sentences like these are often the result of
mnemonics, a system used to memorize another system--in this case
Morse code. Here Brooks shows how little light one system sheds
upon another, for we leave the work without any understanding of
either. We still can't interpret the dot-dash system because we don't
know how it relates to the word phrases.
This lack of coherence between different language systems is perhaps
more cogently treated in the Crit series. In five glass-framed diptychs,
Brooks pits a sandblasted word in the lower half of each frame against
a computer-generated scan line in the upper half that charts the
spoken sound of the word. So these delicate graphs are visual
translations of the words they're paired with. Below each frame a
glass placard names a specific art critic, magazine, issue date, page,
column, and line number. With these pieces the artist deftly critiques
the critics, transforming their written medium of expression into a
visual one. This visually pleasing series also comments on the way
words and images obscure rather than clarify meaning when they

4. attempt to comment upon or interpret one another.
In this strong, amazingly comprehensive show, Brooks acknowledges
our physical, emotional, and intellectual dependence on inevitably
faulty systems of communication. In this respect his viewpoint is
extremely critical, even pessimistic. But it is not nihilistic. Hope lies
in the works' appealing formal qualities and in the show's scope.
Spanish, Polish, and even Esperanto are represented. The inclusion of
so many different systems seems to indicate Brooks's belief that we
will never stop trying to find new ways to share our thoughts, ideas,
and experiences. Despite infinite boggled attempts, it is this drive to
communicate that makes us human.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Michael
Tropea.
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