ArtBlog Shapes and Animals at Tiger and Grizzly by Becca Kantor

Visitors to Colleen Rudolf‘s exhibit “CON · NECT [KUH · NEKT]” at the Grizzly Grizzly Gallerymight feel as though they’ve stepped into a Please Touch Museum for the thinking adult. Rudolf is both perceptive and playful in contrasting animals’ straightforward and instinctual manner of relating to each other with humans’ inability to give our full attention to any single interaction. Rudolf believes that humans’ lack of focus is a recent development, due to the barrage of technological communication to which we are increasingly exposed.

The theme of Rudolf’s exhibit is illustrated most clearly in a series of three works on pedestals. On one pedestal is A Moment, a delicately wrought sculpture of two penguins facing each other. On the pedestal on the opposite end is Cellular Phones, two cell phones standing so close together that they, too, seem to be huddled in intimacy.

All of the show’s interactive works require two participants, and therefore facilitate the direct interaction Rudolf admires. My favorite of the interactive pieces, Elephant Feet, gives participants a chance to literally step inside an animal’s “shoes.” While one person steps up and down while wearing a pair of rubber-and-Styrofoam elephant boots, the person wearing the other pair feels vibrations on the soles of their feet. This mimics an actual method of communication among elephants based on seismic vibration.

In a final allusion to humans’ reliance on multiple forms of communication, Rudolf has provided laminated sheets of instructions at the gallery’s entrance. While some of the instructions are helpful, most are tongue-in-cheek. Take, for example, the diagrams explaining that one should look at the sculptures rather than swatting them off their pedestals. Rudolf’s point is clear: Are we so unused to direct, intuitive interaction that we need a set of instructions to understand works of art?

Becca Kantor was born in Philadelphia and received her B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Pennsylvania. Her short stories have appeared in Peregrine and Labrys magazines, and she is a regular contributor to A Sweet Life, an online magazine for diabetics.