Contemporary Artifices

Baroque Beauty in Sonnenberg’s sculpture, installation at AMSET

For Texas-based artist Anthony Sonnenberg, the sparkle and shine found in glitzy, gold-framed portraits, precious porcelain and decorative spaces designed during the Baroque and Rococo period are parallel to the bright, flashing screens of our iPhones.

“There is a basis in Baroque and Rococo, meaning that there is a basic part of humanity that loves sparkle and shine and lusciousness and lots of detail,” he says. “We love being modern, too, with our technology, and I think it might be in a way our ‘lizard brain’ loving that sparkle and shine”

Born in Graham, Texas, in 1986, Sonnenberg earned his B.A. in Art Studio with emphasis in Italian and Art History in 2009 at the University of Texas and his M.F.A. in ceramics in 2012 from the University of Washington in Seattle. Living in Kingwood, the artist has gallery representation in Houston and Dallas and has shown his works all over Texas and the United States.

His latest exhibition, “Still Stage, Set Life,” opens March 17 at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas and will feature multi-media works that span from the visual to the performing arts and incorporate influences from both the canon of western art history and contemporary couturiers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Dior. Sonnenberg quotes the overabundance and excess shared by artists in works made centuries ago to works made today. His interest with these art historical works is an interest still shared by mankind today in the preservation of such Baroque and Rococo work.

“Even though these styles are so much older and considered antiquated, there is still something about them that we are fascinated by that continues to call across the ages,” he says. “No one called for the destruction of Versailles because it was no longer functioning as a palace.”

On the surface, Sonnenberg’s ceramic works echo the glitz and glamour one would find in a Dresden porcelain museum. Elaborate vases, candelabras and chandeliers feature intricate details and precious materials that one could imagine viewing in former palaces and castles. In referencing these works, the artist finds a basis in art history on which to build his art practice.

“As a ceramics artist, I have noticed there is a trend in ceramic art as the conceptual artists move towards becoming more conceptual, there tends to a counteraction in the art world to balance it,” he says. “Quoting the Baroque and Rococo in my work does that because it plays with our ‘lizard brain’ with shiny objects and lots of fabrics.”

Beneath their decadent surface, however, the sculptures reveal a duality that digs deeper than just reproduction of a decorative object from the 17th century. Such ceramic works are assembled in a bricolage fashion with materials like silk flowers and textured fabrics (eventually incinerated in the kiln!) and found tchotchkes — low-brow excessive decorations of choice for those unable to build their own Versailles and commission Sèvres dinnerware sets. Glazes pouring over the ceramic works are reminiscent of destructive natural forces such as landslides and volcanic eruptions and cracks in the glazes offer contrast to the smooth surfaces in the work. Sonnenberg expertly crafts an object that stimulates the senses like one would find in the decorative, but with master handling transforms it into an artwork that demands deeper consideration of what it is presenting the viewer.

“Because the Baroque and Rococo is old-fashioned, it makes it easy for it function as a stand-in for the things we don’t want to talk about — it can be excess in our own lives or feeling out of control,” Sonnenberg says. “What I like about these styles is that is has almost become this type of standard symbol of decadence and excess and while we can understand it in this way, but also understand it as something more personal.”

Sonnenberg’s ceramic works are interwoven in site-specific sets which incorporate found objects, fabrics, textiles and sometimes even taxidermy and flowers. Previous site-specific sets included exhibitions created at galleries and art spaces across Texas including one at Lawndale Art Center during his 2015-16 residency there. These structures function as stage sets for performative aspects of the exhibition. The AMSET performance will feature prominent Houston drag performer Blackberry and other drag queens who will perform March 23 at the opening reception starting at 6:30 p.m.  The event will be filmed, and the subsequent video will play in another gallery throughout the run of the exhibition.

“What interests me about using drag queens as performers is often they are these effeminate gay men who at some point in their lives had been bullied and found drag and through this character bring confidence to themselves while they project confidence,” Sonnenberg says. “The audience watching the drag show also has to accept the illusion of what they are putting forward. It is not just the illusion of a man being a woman, but also the illusion that they are rich, glamourous, gorgeous characters while, in reality, most drag queens are not rich people.”

While contemporary drag queens rely on advanced makeup contouring techniques, costumes and wigs to develop their character, royal kings commissioned grand palaces to emanate power while also protecting themselves.

“Versailles was built up as a kind of cocoon protecting this family and emanating out this power that they may not have had as individuals but is projecting this powerful image of France,” Sonnenberg says.

The performance and visual work both portray themes from Friedrich Nietzsche’s “The Birth of Tragedy,” focusing on the Greek story of King Midas and the simultaneous gift and curse of the golden touch. Sonnenberg recounts the point in the story where Silenus, mentor of Greek god of wine Dionysus, answers questions from King Midas about things which mortals shouldn’t know — which sparks the question of why the Greeks invented art and tragedy.

“In the exchange with King Midas, Silenus recognizes that the world is full of pain, and we have art to get you through the day,” Sonnenberg says. “There is this artifice of beauty that is false because the truth is dark reality.”

In addition to the uniqueness of this type of installation and performance at AMSET, the site-specific sets are also unorthodox in viewers’ reception of the performance. The audience will enter through backstage and view the stage before the performance and may even choose to join Blackberry and her crew onstage.

“One advantage about attending the performance is crossing the threshold from being a performer or an audience member— this allows people to choose whether or not they want to be a part of the illusion or if they want to receive the illusion,” Sonnenberg says.

In his art, Sonnenberg aims to have viewers overcome their humanness and banality and pain of human life in the visual feast of elaborate ceramics, lush fabrics and sparkling metals and beads and a temporal performance in the space. However, even if viewers are not able to catch the one-night performance and only have the film to refer to, the space still functions as a kind of stage set.

Anticipation is an important element in entering the sets through the backstage, whether at the performance or viewing the sets when there are not performers in the space.

“Like with any performance, I am hoping there will be a charge in the air, that kind of anticipation for the performance to begin,” he says. “When the performance is not going on, this anticipation will build with the backstage viewing prior to see the front of the set.”

“Anthony Sonnenberg: Still Stage, Set Life” will be on view March 17 through June 3 with an opening reception and live performance from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 23 .

For more information, visit amset.org.

Caitlin Duerler, ISSUE contributor