Works by Kyle Downs made with hand-cut basketballs: “Obsidian Sidewalks,” “Orgone Energy,” “Friendship Between Men.” Photo by Dave Clough

Two of the exhibitions currently at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland – “i forgot to remember | Katarina Weslien” and “From the Collection of Lord Red | Kyle Downs” – run through May 4. But don’t let the long run time tempt you to keep them on the back burner, especially Weslien’s show, since it has a lot to say (and feel) about our particular moment in time on this troubled planet.

The entry hall of the museum and the long corridor leading to the Art Lab and offices is devoted to Downs’ work. This artist has explored many media, including photography, video and performance, several of which involve a degree of physicality. Physicality comes through in different ways in the three bodies of work presented here, too, mostly having to do with the mind-blowing labor required by his chosen material – basketballs – as well as, in the case of the large pieces, scale.

Detail shot of “Orgone Energy” by Kyle Downs Photo by Dave Clough

A basketball as an object carries messages not only of vigorous physical sport, but also of pop culture, entertainment, licensing and advertising. The idea that it can be art, other than perhaps in a Pop Art context, seems a stretch. Yet the works in the entry hall space will blast that assumption wide open. Downs cuts his thick, pimply rubber material into strips, then weaves them like textiles into enormous “basketball-strip tapestries.”

We apprehend not only their obsessively achieved beauty – itself a deeply respectful paean to craftsmanship – but also a kind of ritualistic presence. Their production requires an immersion and concentration that approaches the meditative. Just cutting a material like rubber implies a repetitive action, one that results in its share of hand pain, imparting on our contemplation of them the sense of an almost religious mortification. But they also resemble ceremonial shields that might have been incorporated into some sort of sacred and mysterious rite.

Even more labor-intensive, yet in their case more slanted toward pop culture, are his “baseball cards.” These are made from basketball “pixels,” which require Downs to cut the individual bumps on the ball’s surface instead of strips of several of them in a row, then reassemble them into mosaic portraits of baseball players, which sit on shelves made of more basketball rubber. Our “what the – ” reaction as we marvel at Downs’ excruciating technique is balanced here with the levity of their reference to childlike memories of trading card decks.

Finally there are his “flowers,” which are made from single basketballs cut up and reassembled into the blossom-like forms. Yet these, too, have a youthful association – specifically to the scribble drawings we made as children, areas of which we then colored. These have a certain lightheartedness and fluidity to them that, because they are made of larger pieces of the ball, do not bear the intensity of the other two series of works and appear more decorative.

DANGER AND SAFETY

When Katarina Weslien traveled to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, she never grew accustomed to the frequent air raid alerts. Yet she recalls that some locals could gauge the seriousness of the emergency and decide whether to finish their coffee or bolt immediately for shelter. This bizarre wartime sangfroid infers a certain kind of human resilience that explains, at least partially, our ability to persevere through cycles of horror and violence.

Weslien’s exhibition explores the quality of that resilience, conceptually confronting us time and again through situations and/or encounters with impending danger and safety. It does this through the tactile medium of fiber – mostly wool, silk and felt, the latter being particularly effective when we consider its many uses in wartime. Each encounter forces us to deal with the emotions and/or discomfort it elicits and to negotiate our way back to some sense of normalcy before moving on.

Katarina Weslien, “i forgot to remember.” Installation, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 2500 square feet Photo by Dave Clough

At a spiritual level, however, “i forgot to remember” tackles something much bigger: the eternally primal struggles between good and evil, love and hate, aggression and vulnerability. The cumulative effect is a sense of contemporary urgency. Yet also implicit is a larger understanding that our repeating phases of primitive human cruelty are encompassed within the larger reality of universal holding.

This truth is expressed in a quote that informed Weslien’s thinking as she pulled together the various components of the exhibition, and that appears in disguised form in strings of fabric letters that spell it out. It is by Marxist philosopher, writer and politician Antonio Gramsci. At one time the leader of Italy’s Communist Party and a scathing critic of Mussolini, Gramsci was imprisoned by the fascist state and died there 11 years later. From his cell, he wrote: “The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

What both Gramsci and Weslien are pointing to is a period Romans called “interregnum” – a liminal time between the death of one ruler and the ascension of another – and “justitium,” when that time is also characterized by a suspension of legality and civil liberties. That this country is in a place of interregnum is obvious. Whether we are also experiencing justitium, of course, depends largely on which side of the aisle you’re on (aisle, of course, increasingly sounding like a genteel way of describing what is more like an ever-widening chasm).

So, for instance, at the center of the installation we encounter a space defined by four tapestries woven in Ghent, Belgium. They display a variety of images, the most prominent being a photo Weslien took of a pile of remnants from what look like monuments to power – a classical column, bits of armor, a battle tank. Jumbled together in this fashion, the suggestion of fallen empires and outdated structures is apparent. Another depicts an upside-down soldier who appears to be falling. Another a hand creating shadow animals against an old ledger of some sort, the shadow perhaps implying some distraction being manipulated by an unseen force (an authority figure or hidden cabal).

We are aware of the weight of these handsomely woven tapestries, their exquisitely tactile surfaces of wool and silk, and their complex imagery. But we are simultaneously aware of the fact that the stands they are propped on would collapse inward if they were not weighted on the back sides with sandbags. The longer we stand in this space, the more we discern the tension between gorgeous craftsmanship and imagery amid the danger of being crushed should just one sandbag be removed.

Along one wall, Weslien has hung a light silvery reflective material that billows and undulates as visitors walk past it (at the opening, children ran past it, heightening the effect). At one end after we traverse the shiny wall, a basket proffers us packaged emergency blankets, revealing that the wall material is just that – Mylar blankets that, because they retain 90 percent of body heat, are often deployed in emergencies like natural disasters. Our reflection in the material, we further realize, implicates us in the emergency.

Katarina Weslien, felt room, 10’ x 10’ 45’ floor felt floor runner, felt floor to ceiling, felt netting wall 22’ H x 45’W. Under felt room platform, 450 pounds of shredded used wool clothing for recycling .. Photo by Dave Clough

Along the perpendicular wall, we are beckoned to remove our shoes (an act of vulnerability for some) and walk along a corridor defined by a kind of felt netting hanging floor to ceiling that is some sort of military surplus. Felt is deployed in various armed forces applications, including padding and sealing in military machinery and in cleaning nuclear submarines. The corridor’s floor is lined with thick felt that continues up a couple steps and into a tiny room elevated above the ground and defined on four sides by felt blankets on which Weslien has randomly embroidered many red crosses. Water stains on the blanket are also lined in red thread.

The preponderance of felt comes from its absorptive properties, as if it were wicking away our fears and anxieties. Enveloped in felt, this becomes an oasis of safety and warmth that is literally floating above the melee of combat (whether it be political, armed, hand-to-hand or otherwise). The red crosses are, of course, international symbols of emergency relief, the blankets emblematic of a form of comfort doled out during tragic events like earthquakes and floods or at refugee camps. The red-rimmed water stains might be interpreted as representing safe islands in a storm.

This is all probably more than Weslien would want revealed, lest we get lost in our minds and bypass being touched by the sensorial qualities of fiber. Or, in her own words, her “deep, ongoing interest in the tactile and metaphoric power of cloth; how mute objects speak; and how objects elicit memories, emotions and embodied imaginations in the face of impermanence, disorder, and displacement.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “i forgot to remember | Katarina Weslien” and “From the Collection of Lord Red | Kyle Downs”
WHERE: Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 21 Winter St., Rockland
WHEN: Through May 4
HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday
ADMISSION: Free for Rockland residents, members and children under 18; $10 general; $8 senior and students
INFO: 207-701-5005, cmcanow.org

Jorge S. Arango has written about art, design and architecture for over 35 years. He lives in Portland. He can be reached at: jorge@jsarango.com