Theatre of Struggle
By David Pagel
Barry Krammes’ handcrafted tableaux fascinate me for all kinds of reasons. First, they stop me in my tracks and set my mind racing in more directions than it’s used to traveling, especially when it’s not distracted by the mundane details of everyday life—which can be so overwhelming (and familiar) that they make me feel as if I’m living life autopilot: reacting, automatically, to the incessant onslaught of visual stimulation I’m bombarded with, digitally and otherwise, without having the time or energy to respond in a meaningful manner, much less to have a chance to glimpse the reality that lies beyond the surface of things.
That’s quite a lot. More than I generally experience when looking at works of art. But with Krammes’ uncanny dioramas, it’s just the beginning.
Second, every one of his pintsize installations draws me into a world that makes me forget everything I was just thinking about— or being distracted by. The worlds I fall into with his works are a lot like the real one, only more concentrated, composed, and loaded: their purposefulness immediately apparent, not lost in the image- glut of modern life but there, for me to discover, if I look closely, think clearly, and pay attention to every detail, not one of which is random or the result of happenstance, but specific, deliberate, and necessary—in a sense, inevitable.
In the reality that takes shape in Krammes’ miniature stage-sets, every color and shape, in every pattern on every stitch of fabric that wraps around a figurine and folds as it falls around a waist or leg, feels as if it’s the center of the universe. Then, when your attention shifts to another element, the texture and tone of that first fold of patterned fabric functions as a complement to whatever feature now centers your world. That experience—of elements cooperating with one another, not struggling for dominance or striving to subjugate other elements—creates the foundation of a multi- centered universe, one made up of elements that do not hog the spotlight, but live alongside others, happily and harmoniously. Such situations—and the realities they instantiate—are rare, especially today, when power is perceived to be a force that is exercised over others, the blunter the better.
Included among the thoughts and notions you forget when drawn into Krammes’ works are the ideas and beliefs that revolve around your self. Put simply, his assemblages allow you to forget yourself. While that idea runs contrary to the identity-fixated works that dominate art today, not to mention contemporary political discourse, it forms the heart and soul of Krammes’ art.
Rather than getting caught up in the superficial trappings of the moment, his reference-rich assemblages tap into traditions from disparate times and places. They connect the present to forebears ancient and antique, kitschy and sophisticated, literary and scientific, esoteric and ordinary, architectural and poetic, organic and fabricated, functional and decorative, clichéd and extraordinary. The origins of the wide-ranging things in Krammes’ madcap mélanges, which include everything plus the kitchen sink and then some, can be traced to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as North and South America. In the swirling stew of repurposed stuff that Krammes forms into constantly rearranging constellations, the selves that take shape do not take the form of fortified barriers, designed to keep enemies, antagonists, and other perceived aliens at bay.
On the contrary, the selves that take shape as we interact with Krammes’ generous works are collaged and cobbled together, damaged and repaired, patchwork and ad hoc. Fluid and evolving, they are de ned by their relationships to other selves and settings and situations, both enlivened and enriched by memories and traditions and open to futures that are all that and more. The ego, if it’s thought of as an autonomous and controlling entity, finds no toehold in Krammes’ art, which might best be seen as a slippery slope down which individuals fall into a world of empathy, self-reflection, and constant, ongoing self-transformation. Here, consciousness is not raised so much as minds and selves are expanded and connected to others—both those from other times and places and those in our own neighborhoods. The global nature of identity is glimpsed in Krammes’ works, allowing human of all shapes and stripes to see ourselves as a species. Differences, of course, abound. But unity is fundamental.
Third, when I lay eyes on a work by Krammes my drifting self travels through time almost magically, following various storylines as they meander into the past and the future, weaving the present into a multilayered—and multidirectional— expanse. His works are narrative yet never scripted. They are suggestive, filled with endless possibilities but no conclusions. Assertions are nowhere to be found. The same goes for blunt declarations, bald statements of fact, and point-blank argumentation. It’s impossible to translate any of his works—or even a small section of any one—into a bumpersticker-style message or a speedily tweeted take- away. Rather than arriving at any sort of certainty, Krammes’ works leave you digging into a mystery, which, the deeper you dig, the more mysterious it gets—not in the sense that you need to solve or resolve it, as if you were reading a detective story or doing a crossword, but in the sense that you’re in the presence of something fundamental to existence: something you understand, deep in your being, but cannot come up with the words to express, much less match, that feeling of fullness. Such truths can’t be spoken.
Even so, before a work by Krammes, you find yourself having conversations with yourself, entertaining all kinds of “What ifs?”, “Why nots?,” and “Well, that might be the case, but so might that.”His entrancing mise-en-scenes excite the desires of your inner detective, making you feel as if you’ve entered a story that began long before you engaged it—and will continue long after you move on—yet still need to know as much as you can, right here and right now. The storylines require your imagination to leap into action.
That engagement is fanciful, to be sure, but it is also based on memories of previous experiences, what you know, and what you thought you had forgotten. Such back-and-forths, between invention and recollection, coming up with new ideas or recalling old ones, take poignant form in Krammes’ meticulously engineered sculptures.
In every case, you find yourself eager to include others in the conversation, to test your inchoate notions and shadowy inklings against their impressions, as well as to hear about what they are seeing, what details you might have missed or ones you have seen but interpreted differently. Krammes’ layered arrangements of cast- o collectibles invite people to start talking, to ourselves and others. Like welcoming hosts, they set the table for interactions that are intimate and unpredictable—and then get out of the way, leaving each of
us responsible for whatever happens next—not in full control of what might transpire, but implicated, deeply, in the ensuing events.
Fourth, Krammes’ renovated amalgamations of second-hand stuff undermine the opposition between found objects and fabricated art. For the past 60 or 70 years, California Assemblage has prioritized the former. Its makers turned to cast-o objects and discarded junk to bring a jolt of authenticity—and gnarly verve—to viewers who had grown complacent looking at tastefully composed pictures and benignly pleasant abstractions. For first-generation assemblagists, such standard gallery fare seemed to be too buffered, in its privilege, from the nitty-gritty reality of life in the big city—not to mention its ugly underbelly.
In Krammes’ eyes, that once-radical stance, has, over the years, become conventional, the fierce kick of its
original impact softened into a style as acceptable—and formulaic—as any of those it set out to oppose. Consequently, Krammes has ended up splitting the difference between found objects and fabricated artifacts. His works all start with discarded things, once-beloved objects and items that are now sold in large lots on the last day of estate sales, long after the good stuff is gone and the dustbin of history is a hair’s breadth away. Most important, Krammes treats his marvelous finds as raw materials, not as talismans that traffic in long-gone authenticity, or melancholic markers of loss, but as springboards to new meanings, new relationships, new contexts. He disassembles the furniture, picture frames, and playthings he has scavenged, along with the puppets, wallpaper, and bric-a-brac, as well as the umbrellas, kimonos, and masks. Then he reassembles everything, configuring it differently, often painting and drawing on various components. He collages some elements into wholes, which themselves become elements in larger wholes—and so on and so forth. A worlds-within-worlds reality comes into existence. Found and fabricated work in concert.
I think of Krammes as 3D painter whose palette is all of the domestically scaled objects he has accumulated and continues to accumulate. After all, he cares just as much about texture and composition, pattern and design, as he does about structure and storyline, character and dialogue. I also think of him as a set-designer and playwright and lighting engineer, all of whom work in miniature. As a category-straddling, convention-defying artist, he knows that illusions are as powerful as reality—even moreso, in the right hands. Those hands are his, and the magic of Krammes’ handiwork allows us to visit worlds that he has not envisioned in advance but discovered as he has made them, gluing one part to another, placing both next to a third, fastening the trio to a base, and adding a backdrop that is itself an amalgamation of more lucky discoveries and hand-made details, whether painted or printed, carved or cast, assembled or dismantled. To behold a work by Krammes is to sense that you are in the same situation as he was when he made it: discovering the beauty of those instants when it’s impossible to distinguish between actuality and artifice, reality and fantasy, the self and the other, mystery and wisdom. That’s a great place to visit. And an even better one to inhabit, 24/7.
David Pagel is a curator, critic and Professor at Claremont Graduate University. He writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times.