It’s not NorthPark, but it’s significant.
Organized by “experience producer” Madison Mask and curated by Max Marshall, co-founder and co-director of Giant Runt in Fort Worth, You Are Here is a group exhibition featuring the work of seven sculptors who represent alumni, faculty, and/or current students of the University of North Texas.
Approaching the center court of the Golden Triangle Mall, consumers encounter a large “You Are Here” icon, fabricated by Mask. The sign acts as a tongue-in-cheek show title, indicating you’ve made it to the exhibition. The quintessential mall locator symbol stretches vertically toward the atrium above, which vaguely looks like the ceiling of the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York City or the Rothko Chapel in Houston.
The architecture of the space is overwhelming; the background of each sculpture is interrupted by a decaying commercial enterprise, while the foreground is obstructed by stanchions installed to protect the work. The ambience, too, is intense and specific; olfactory blends of Auntie Ann’s pretzels, fresh pressed publications at Barnes & Noble, and some secret third thing enrobe the cavernous interior in a nostalgic stench.
Unlike NorthPark Center, with its masses of consumers and internationally recognized mall art collection, the Golden Triangle lacks a sense of urgency; it’s underwhelming and, frankly, creepy and heavily lacking in aesthetic or visual contributions. The building swims in an empty parking lot, with thousands of spaces unoccupied by vehicles. Not much happens at the mall, but their website claims to be “the heart of Denton – where families come together, friends meet, and traditions are born.” And, while that statement feels a bit far-fetched and outdated, it’s not untrue given the mall’s inclusion of a pop-up art exhibition.
A visually stimulating ramp of turf provides a platform for several works, while other sculptures communicate directly with the site, predominantly the stairs and court platform. Marshall’s artificial fauna, The Mall Deer, meanders on the artificial green space, wrapped in artificial flora. Identifiable as Golden Triangle’s “nature” space, Marshall’s visual response echoes the artifice of the environment.
When the Golden Triangle Mall opened in 1980, the center court featured live trees, gushing water fountains, and design elements that brought life to the shopping center. Since then, its aesthetic flair has been compromised, revealing the limitations commercial spaces have in understanding the natural world.
Jagged, flat, branchlike structures attach themselves to the fake trees that grace the perimeter of the center court. UNT faculty member Meredith Cawley’s Branching Out displays the artist’s research of the natural world through etchings of native plants and animals. The installation considers the artificial space and makes efforts to include more natural components seamlessly into the environment.
On the turf, idles a small, shiny, purple creature with elongated limbs, traipsing down the prickly plastic ramp. Stationed on all fours, Megan Scoma Gunn’s I’m feeling vulnerable right now features a small, androgynous figure in a compromising position. Exposing itself, the little varmint suffers voyeuristic stares through its exhibitionism. The indistinguishable soft sculpture confronts conventional perspectives, interrupting the norm and perplexing all who pass by with its explicit undercurrents.
Dakari Butler’s FLUX! is a giant fabric organism, soft to the touch. The garish colors of the textiles overwhelm the eyes, but that’s the artist’s intention and a welcome inclusion in such a visually cluttered space. Butler is intrigued by audience accessibility to visual artworks; guests are even welcome to gently interact with the work.
Tactility and accessibility are highly considered in the exhibition. UNT faculty member Joshua Steven Bryant’s site-specific, interactive work, Pop-A-Squat, fits like a puzzle piece with the court stairs. The turf-coated wooden structure resembles Minecraft blocks, attempting to blend into a nondigital environment; an abstraction of the physical dimensions of the space. As an artist contending with chronic pain and disability, Bryant looks to chairs and stairs as symbolic structures with varying levels of accessibility. And, yes, you’re welcome to sit on it.
Works by current student Noah Steely and recent alumnus Joseph Schuler sit on the other side of the court. Both artists utilize found objects and discarded materials to develop their sculptures. Schuler’s Seeking Remnants is a minimalist monument of construction materials adhered to one another to form a solid rectangular block. The block sits astride a crate, introspectively highlighting and meditating on the artist’s work as an art handler.
Steely’s Cogs features a hybrid figure with wooden anatomical legs, but rather than a torso with limbs and a head, there’s a cog with receipts bound together, stretched between two wheels. Perched on the edge of a staircase, Cogs looks out on the dead commercial center. A cord attached to a motor on the receipt wheels is taped down the steps leading to a pedal at the base of the stairs. Step on the pedal and the receipts spin. The kinetic humanoid, as Steely calls it, serves as a consumer without agency or autonomy over its own decisions or spending habits; it repopulates the mall with its almost-human presence.
You Are Here reveals evidence of shifting values in art and commercial systems. The potency of art spaces and cultural institutions in the North Texas region and beyond is constantly questioned by issues such as funding, censorship, and the dismantling of diversity and equity initiatives, to name a few…