Paradise Lost and Found
William LaChance at Beers London
Modernism, and all that it encompassed, was based on idealism and an elevation of the human mind and spirit. However, things didn’t go quite as planned. Movements like Art Deco and Futurism were co-opted by Fascism, cities in the United States and North and South America gave way to urban sprawl, industrial towns eventually went barren by the 1980s and 1990s. The future didn’t end up being bright and wonderful, and art and design now seems quaint in comparison.
William LaChance capitalizes on this lost dream in his show (After) Edge City at Beers London. The title itself riffs on the term “Edge City.” This is a term, that according to the gallery’s press release, “was coined in the ’90s by Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau, who argued that the ‘Edge City’ was rapidly becoming the foundation of urban growth in the 20th and 21st centuries.” What does this mean though? Well, essentially suburban areas are pushed further out as businesses and commercial ventures move into surrounding neighborhoods within the vicinity of a metropolitan center. Basically, an increase in sprawl and class inequality occurs.
Sounds pleasant, huh?
LaChance sees modernity as a failure, although I suspect that human error and greed had something to do with it. Here we see a return to modern ambitions: abstract paintings on top of equally abstract wall appliqués. The room and the viewer’s space is literally being consumed by Modernist tropes like collage and the use of idiosyncratic, vivid colors. The paintings themselves are even more of a mishmash. Wood panels and canvas covered in gouache, paper, and the occasional zippy stripe or abstract suggestion of flora. All of the tricks of the great twentieth-century masters are here, along with elements of design. For example, any number of these works could pass as textile patterns produced by Marimekko.
LaChance offers this show up as a way to ask, “what if?” What if modern ideas of art, design, architecture, and urban planning had been able to be carried out? What if the world really did end up being more beautiful, enlightened, peaceful, and orderly? We may never have the answers to these questions, but LaChance has reconfigured the tools of modernism, which were originally all about utopia and the future, into a melancholic moment of sentimentality. The bright colors and wild energy isn’t a reality for the world since it is contained to only a few rooms in a highbrow gallery.
One does have to wonder if this St. Louis, Missouri native has been informed by the economic and urban realities found in his own town. After all, the economy and racial tensions have been turbulent to say the least. Certainly the “Edge City” phenomenon has a presence in most major cities, and is arguably worse in Rust Belt cities like St. Louis that have inefficient public transit. However, incredible museums and modernist architecture populate St. Louis, including the massive folly known as the Gateway Arch designed by architect Eero Saarinen. The context of the artist’s background may or may not influence the works, but it certainly adds to the dissonance between modernist ideology and today’s realities.
