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Obsessive Compulsive Drawing

A A A Comments By Rod Smith Wednesday, Oct 10 2007

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Not even the lack of a permanent space can slow Yuri Arajs's furious roll. If anything, his Placement Gallery's vagabond existence is making him more of a curatorial fireball than ever; hence his daredevil rationale in assembling "OCD." While "drawing" provides the exhibition's unifying principle, its contents are like far-flung pins on a map of the collective human psyche. None of the featured artists is the least bit squeamish about coloring outside the lines when called for. John Fleischer uses deep hues and rough geometrics to make the horned youth in He Arrive Right on Time Space seem otherworldly. Nick Howard, using his pen as a scalpel, cuts away our consensus masks to reveal the animals beneath. Melissa Gahagan's graphite-on-paper works, meticulously detailed and intriguingly dense, offer glimpses of a realm untainted by violent impulses, while David Gaul's pointillist portraits are blessed with a surfeit of friendly nervous energy. Best of all, the show is conveniently located in beautiful northeast Minneapolis. Act now, otherwise Arajs might just up and move Placement to Antarctica, where most walls are already white and space is really cheap.
Sept. 14-Oct. 14, 2007