3D Menuscripts

 

3D Menuscripts 

Cozy Coupe (oil on canvas)

Hoover Concept II (oil on canvas)

Running Late

Jamie's Hand

Our House Cafe

Glass Rack 1 & 2

By Tom Wachunas

 

“Art should be literally made of the ordinary world; its space should be our space; its time our time; its objects our ordinary objects; the reality of art will replace reality.” – Claes Oldenburg

 

EXHIBIT: 86’d – work by Daniel McLaughlin, at VITAL ARTS GALLERY /

324 Cleveland Ave NW , in downtown Canton, Ohio / Gallery Hours: Wednesday 4-8pm, Thu-Sat 6-10pm / THROUGH OCTOBER 16, 2021

   From the posted exhibition statement: “86’d is a series of contemporary works created by Canton artist Daniel McLaughlin. The collection is inspired by his career in restaurants spanning 20 years, and the often overlooked objects and materials in the service industry…Large scale, non-traditional canvas structures with emphasis on three-dimensional elements…Painting and sculpture combine various plywood, paints, and finishes to create these minimally representational and playful works of art.”

   So, Pop Art meets Minimalism? Here’s a truly fresh and fascinating salad, if you will, of big, wall-mounted mixed-media sculptures, along with three oil paintings. But first, there’s the terse yet conceptually loaded title of the show, 86’d. 

   While the precise origins of the term are unclear, the most frequently cited history of the expression relates to the restaurant industry of the early 20th century. By the 1930s, many restaurants in the U.S. were using ‘86’ as a shorthand code for “not available,” or “we’re out of this item.” Other anecdotal tales mention Chumley’s, a legendary bar in New York City located at 86 Bedford Street, where rowdy patrons were routinely thrown out the door, and where they no doubt took notice of the large 86 overhead as they were carted away by the cops. This came to be called “being 86’d.”  Other associations are military in nature, such as Article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, handling soldiers who have gone AWOL. The code was also used in reference to enemy planes shot down during the Korean War by F-86 fighter jets.

   McLaughlin recently shared this observation with me: “…I wasn't sure how well known the term is to people that haven't worked in the industry.  But 1986 is the year I was born so I felt that was a good fit being that a lot of the work is self representative.  And on certain days and times I feel out of myself (depleted) in a way, as do others across, I think, any industry.  But in contrast to that, doing this work was really motivating and energy- giving.”

    In some ways, McLaughlin’s intriguing works here can be regarded as 3D pages from a personal journal, or a surrogate self-portrait. Some of the pieces include flattened accumulations of seemingly countless handwritten guest checks and meal orders sealed into the surface of the plywood forms. These are gathered records of his and fellow workers’ time on the job - menu mementos, customers’ appetites recalled… the prosaic graffiti of restaurant stewardship.

   Considering the well-publicized negative impact of COVID trauma on the restaurant industry, it is just a little ironic that this show doesn’t really feel so much like a sad 86-ing as it does an honest, even optimistic affirmation of a livelihood built on the materialities of culinary service.  

   Call it metaphoric food for thought, and energy-giving at that.