‘Home Show II’ Houses Range of Ideas

SANTA BARBARA —  Dedicated art mavens planning leisurely weekends in the Channel City might enjoy “Home Show II,” organized by the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum. A follow-up to the organization’s first show in 1988, it’s a kind of aesthetic scavenger hunt scattered around public spaces and private homes in the area.

To put it together, a curatorial team headed by arts forum director Nancy Doll invited 10 artists from around the country--some as well-known as Vito Acconci and Dan Graham--to concoct site-specific projects related to the idea of domicile. Results range from irritating to humorous and borderline profound. Graham, for example, planted his piece in the frontyard of a little house in a gorgeously situated neighborhood called the Mesa. It’s a modest, middle-class, dream-come-true area near the beach--looks like a paradise for raising kids.

The piece, “Video Project Outside Home,” is a large rear-projection TV. It broadcasts whatever is being watched inside the house. Visitors parked at a proper angle can observe residents watching TV, and residents can watch visitors watching them watch TV. For anyone not already hip to the cliche that the media have too much influence on our lives, the work may be edifying.

Acconci turned his host’s nearby dwelling into one huge loudspeaker. Draped in black and called “Talking House,” the interior is wired to trap and amplify every sound that might occur, from family arguments to clattering dishes and flushing toilets. The work pursues Acconci’s long-standing fascination with the relationship between privacy, exhibitionism and voyeurism.

To tap into all this, one goes to the the arts forum’s headquarters in State Street’s Paseo Nuevo to obtain a map, catalog and general orientation. There are works on view there, such as “Hotel Shorts,” a documentary video by the Chicago collaborative Haha. It consists of interviews with residents of a nearby retirement hotel, the Carrillo. At a scan it seems to suggest that old age is a tragedy. One hopes this is not always true.

Several artists here are concerned with domestic displacement and homelessness. Down at the beach, Allan Wexler installed “Five Yardsaver Homes.” It’s made up of a group of those little, inexpensive storage sheds familiar to zillions of tract-house backyards. The artist suggests their use as dwellings with the addition of amenities like austere foam mattresses and skeletal shelving.

George Stone expands the idea of the troubled state of the larger American home in “Sinking Giant, Rising Shelter.” Located in a downtown parking lot, his structure is shaped like a huge Liberty Bell fashioned from wood struts covered with stretched fabric seemingly half-submerged in the ground. It sees the land of the free foundering. At the same moment, the above-level portion forms a big tent recalling the nation’s new function as an international refuge.

Some artists go in for domestic humor. Pepon Osorio covered his host’s furnishings with plastic, satirizing folks who overprotect their belongings. Jean Lowe scattered her domestic site with funky, hand-painted carpets, paintings and books suggesting a very eccentric resident.

The only participant to bring the idea of structural transformation to the project was Linda Hudson. With a little help from architect Wayne Schlock, she stripped down the interior of a vintage, borderline-Victorian dwelling and extended the exterior with grids of wire. The result--particularly in an upper dormer space and a kitchen with a levitated metal table--makes the house feel like a charming little old lady turning into an astronaut. Amazing what artists can do when they think like artists.

Margaret Crane and Jon Winet offer a particularly thought-provoking piece in a Goleta mobile home park. Their immobile trailer’s living room houses a couple of computers. Its bedroom has been transformed into a nightscape. Taken together, the separate parts plant the idea that we do some of our most interesting traveling when we are physically fixed, mentally wandering through cyberspace or dreamland.

There are inevitable glitches in projects like this. The day I visited, Buster Simpson’s project was unavailable for viewing. Potential visitors should also be reminded that this is a weekends-only show except for special group tours that can be arranged for Fridays. It’s also probably not a good idea to try to see it all in one gulp unless you like marathons. If you’re moving at a fairly good clip, it takes about five hours to decently take in the pieces and cover the roughly 45 miles of driving required.

* Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, 653 Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara, through June 2. (805) 966-5373.