Looking Backward

Craig Kellogg -- Interior Design, 2/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Bauhaus meets gingerbread house. That's one way to describe Rear-View Mirror, Amy Yoes's playful installation integrating architectural construction with video projection. One potential explanation for her long-standing interest in the fine-art application of decorative flourishes, the subject of many of her paintings, photographs, and three-dimensional work: At age 48, Yoes recalls living through postmodernism the first time around. "You get the sense that things from different directions have come together," she admits. "I'm a gleaner."

For this piece, shown at New York's Michael Steinberg Fine Art, an MDF platform sported an unexpected sunny yellow. "It's an 'oops' paint from Home Depot—a color that didn't work out for someone else," Yoes says. She, however, loved it so much that she had more mixed. Also yellow is the Claymation blob that morphs restlessly on the wall behind the main structure. These Sesame Street elements balance the geometric rigor of a stout cadmium-red drywall triangle that appears to buttress the gallery's concrete column.

Yoes documented the temporary installation in photographs, which will influence future works. The piece itself could never have been for sale, pragmatically speaking—although, she adds, "We did say 'price upon request.'"