JULY 12, 2006

C. EDWARDS
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

On the corner of Broadway and Jay Street a paranoid loner wanders an office complex at night; across town, on Rue de Poire, Julia Child is born and dies at the age of 92. Meanwhile, on Aggravation Alley, Nadia Comaneci and a group of costumed bunnies drift through heaven, hell and Eastern Europe. Welcome to the city of Opolis, the product of the third annual manifestation of Flux Factory’s Comix Fluxture exhibit in which 15 separate artists put their creative spin on a city block for the fictional metropolis: a blending of sequential art and architecture that combines the spectacle of installation art, with the intimacy of the comic narrative.

As expected, the results are as mixed as the artists themselves: Ian Montgomery’s forgotten row house stares up at Daupo’s Terminal Tower, crude but carefully rendered comic images covering its expansive sides. Beth Brandon’s library, with dreamlike tales of its own, overlooks the J.B. Liminal Park, a landscape architecture installation crafted by Nicole Tucker with suspended wooden structures nearby that house the city’s Futurological Society (a work by Leah Beeferman and Michelle Higa).

In his book, Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud defines the word “closure” as something that occurs in the margins between the panels of a comic book’s imagery, where human imagination takes separate images and translates them into a single idea. Comix Fluxture is built on closure, each installation able to carry multiple narratives, all of which come together to tell the story of Opolis itself; a tale that has as its most common element a lack of regard for time, seasons and reality. But whether or not each individual piece allows us to mentally construct a unified reality is debatable.

Rarely do you find a group exhibition that isn’t hit or miss, and Opolis is no exception. Very few of the artists have any real capacity for blending the sequential art with architecture to the level that the theme of the show implies, most just seem to give in to the idea of windows as comic panels or cryptic dioramas. Since there’s no real consideration for the perimeters of the gallery space, the entire show feels contained, and while most of the artwork will hold your interest, you probably won’t feel the need to re-visit anytime soon.

Opolis: a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Through Aug. 5. Flux Factory, 38-38 43rd St., Long Island City, Queens, 718-707-3362; Fri. 4-7, Sat. 12-5, Free.

Volume 19, Issue 28

© 2006 New York Press

07/06/2006
Flux Factory Breathes Life Into Mini City
by Farida Hariyanawala
Peering inside each window of “November House” to see a dream sequence played out frame by frame is one of the many sites in the Flux Factory.

It’s fall in the city of Opolis. Natasha is taking a leisurely walk in the J.B. Liminal Park. She’s the same cold blooded assassin who publicly shot the president in the interior of a theater. A few blocks away, Leslie, the paranoid loner, lurks in the dark shadows of his office, while not far away, Mr Macomber wakes up with a hole in his chest.
Like most vibrant cities, myriad scenes are being played out simultaneously in Opolis, which, though imaginary, has come to life in a comic art installation at the Flux Factory in Long Island City.
The third in the series of the factory’s annual Comic Fluxture exhibits, Opolis was created by 14 participating artists serving as the “chief architects” of the city. They also imagined and created the characters who inhabit this city, and wove around them tales of devious machinations, mystery, drama and romance – all in comic art form.
Comic illustrator Jason Little, who is curating the show along with Jean Barberis and Flux Factory President Morgan Meis, said they brainstormed on a formal theme to give structure to a series of images. “Though each of the blocks is different in terms of ideas and presentation, the overall picture is still inclusive. The only real linkage is that there are a few common characters around a lot of blocks,” he said.
Before stepping into this cardboard city’s zone, visitors can pick up a souvenir map and guide, which helps navigate the streets, with names like Languid Lane, Fascination Street, Terminal Avenue and Aggravation Alley.
As you walk around peeking into the lives of the city’s residents, and eavesdropping on their conversations, Opolis comes alive. You grow to love its quirky characters with their bizarre stories that unfold in the 14 blocks.
“Opolis has an air of sadness around it,” said Daupo, an illustrator and comic artist, who undertook building the tallest structure in Opolis. The end result was the Opolis Terminal Tower, the city’s only skyscraper. It is covered with comic strips that tell the story of an evil character in a multinational corporation in the building.
“The city has a lot of interesting variety – you have urban, modern buildings as well as conventional ones, but there seems to be a lot of death and tragedy unfolding in them,” he said.
Manhattan based Nicole Tucker, a landscape architect and artist, sees Opolis as a city of “indiscriminate seasonality,” so her contribution was a public park depicting all seasons simultaneously, one on each of four tiers. Reality blends here with the imaginary, as the fictional characters can be seen walking through three of the four seasons.
“What I like about Opolis is that everything is so different. It is so reminiscent of a real city where you have so much diversity all rubbing against each other,” she said.
For Brooklyn based Bishakh Som, this exhibit was the perfect opportunity to blend his two professions – architecture and comic illustrations. On the city’s border stands his three story conventional town house. Inside, the young protagonist Natasha is subjected to domestic trauma.
The story unfolds that years later, Natasha will assassinate the president in a theater – her ultimate revenge on authority figures. “Everyone aspires to be part of a family, but I wanted to show the flip side of it,” Som said.
Other interesting landmarks worth visiting in the city include the Historical and Futurological Society by artists Leah Beeferman and Michelle Higa, the public library by Beth Brandon, and Andrea Dezso’s November House, representing a dream sequence.
Yet the charm of Opolis lies not in its cardboard buildings, but in the many stories hidden in its underbelly, which should best be explored at leisure.
Opolis: A Comic Fluxture is on view at the Flux Factory, 38 38 43rd St., Long Island City, through Aug. 5. Hours are 4 7 p.m. Saturdays, noon 5 p.m. Sundays, or by appointment at (718) 707 3362. www.fluxfactory.org.