By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

To see the South recast, go downtown, but to see it regrown, go west.

“Gen X: Post-Boomers and the New South” at the Mobile Museum of Art makes a perfect companion to another regionally-themed show at Space 301. The 301 show visits elements of classic Southern Gothicism and examines their presence in and effect upon the area’s contemporary output.

Gen X is more interested in seeking the modern definition of the South, in exposing what current connotation arises from the South’s creative collective.

Initially, Southern icons arise, but not in deference.

Chris Verene’s series of photos seems to not only embrace notions of the Southern poor, but to inflate them to laughable proportions.

“Pregnancy Test” reveals a young couple in a shaded yard swing. His wife beater, tattoos and backwards ball cap seem to complement his companion’s hopeless gaze at the camera. The caption reading “The father left Amber when she was six months pregnant” underscores the irony of the title.

Verene’s “Crystal at 18” features an overweight teen in repose on a worn couch, ashtray on the floor, cigarette simmering in the hand perched atop her hip and her face dulled by the blank stare of television stupor. She seems already adrift at the beginning of a voyage.

His other work, “Three Generations,” carries along a similar line as “Crystal” superficially, but there seems to be a deeper subtext about persistence and the drive for genetic legacy.

A pair of literally luminous works from Critz Campbell rightfully occupy their own room. One, “Eudora,” consists of chairs fashioned from fiberglass, polyester resin and vintage fabric, then illuminated by interior fluorescent light. The companion, “Pretty Poly,” is vintage style dresses with adjoining tabs like those found on the attire for paper dolls mounted in frames and backlit. The statement about the veneer of Southern life is inescapable.

A pair of portraits from Oxford, Miss. artist Jason Bouldin are entrancing due not so much to what he renders, but as to the way it is executed. Bouldin’s technique initially appears bold and exact,, but with further inspection, the inference of his renderings say more than the actual precision.

Marcus Kenney’s “The Burning” contains the energy its name would require, but Kenney’s piece beside it, pays the price. On its own, “Down with the Evil Empire” would be impressive enough, but next to the more kinetic work, it seems to lose some verve.

Andrew T. Crawford’s massive 3-D work “Launch” bears gravity from its massive size as much as its subject matter.

A trio of charcoal studies of empty rooms by Georgia’s Maggie Evans contain a ghostly quality that is mesmerizing and do their best to hold any notice in the orbit of the aforementioned leviathan by Crawford.

A pair of oil paintings from Savannah’s Monica Cook contain enough of an unsettling aspect to keep them as interesting as the artist’s seeming technical reminiscence of Andrew Wyeth.

One medium in abundance in the Gen X show is video, with no fewer than four works that include the medium.

One, “Trophy/Show Your Teeth” by Justin Randolph Thompson, is a comparison of tribal customs with modern pop cultural adornments and the ribbon of violence and materialism that haunts the latter of those.

Another, by Bradley Deaver Thompson folds four small films into one 20-minute work chronicling the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the personal dynamic of family and place.

Another, by Bay Minette artist Rives Grande, seeks to highlight the emptiness of ritual via the manipulated cavorting of a bare figure on the Gulf’s white sands under a stark blue sky.

The last and longest video work also deals with the place and pertinence of ritual in Southern life. Conceived by Anthony Goicolea, the entire concept of “The Septemberists” has at its core a 30-minute film black and white film following a quasi-religious order in a rural setting. The artist seems to nod toward an implicit homoerotic nature within religious orders and boarding schools with his cast of androgenous, pale skinned teenager boys in tight and sometimes transparent clothing.

The film is joined by a series of C-prints of still scenarios from the video’s story.

Other works certainly denote the changing patterns of the South. Latin artists are in abundance, comprising a larger section of the region now than ever before.

Overtly political statements not normally associated with the region are present.

Even Mobile is represented by artists Monica Beasley and Gadel Johnston. Beasley’s work is more abstract in nature than Johnston’s somewhat arboreal mixed media works.

All told, the show accurately reflects the dynamic nature of art in the contemporary South, the shifting effects of time and tide on an area once seemingly the most intransigent in the nation.

Mostly, it seemed to this observer to say as much about the lens through which I interpreted the work, the biases I carry and how those perspectives may limit my experiences with art.

And ultimately, making us question ourselves is about the best thing we can hope for from a show.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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