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What do you like in an art book? Do you see it as an opportunity to get inside an artist's head, or as an opportunity for the artist to earn a place in yours? If you're looking for a way to commune with a strange and intriguing artist's sketchbook, Mr. Non Pigeon is as good an option as any. If, on the other hand, you w
ant to be really wowed, this is likely not your best option. At least for the duration of this particular work, Moss's first priority is to entertain herself. The reader comes second. The question is, does that sound like your idea of a good time?
Mr. Non Pigeon takes as its central theme the recent extinction of the passenger pigeon. The book is a pretty loose treatment of the theme, though -- we quickly move from extinct pigeon subsets to a wider variety of birds, flying men, and as often as not, subjects that aren't even tangentially related.
A more dependable focal point might be Moss's considerable nervous energy. It's tempting to blame the thin, scratchy inks she favors, but not everyone does the same thing with these materials -- recall Dave McKean's unique style of inking, here -- and the few paintings included in the middle of the book maintain this same tone. This may be intentional or it may be a compulsion, but in any case, it's Moss's style.
Of course, her subject matter has a lot to do with it as well. Severed bird heads hanging from sinister, skinny trees next to floating, anatomy textbook feet, which in turn dangle from barely-drawn bones. In a brief sequence of small, murky images, a sheep walks through a field in the night. Then a bird swoops toward him. Then his head falls off. A jaded old man sits perched atop his perfect twin, both concealing their mouths and noses with outstretched arms, from which thick black threads dangle and trail off of the page. Then we see a hairless, armless, legless, noseless body, with indistinct blots for a mouth and eyes, as well as an open wound on his gut. This was sewn up once, but the thread has gone missing. He is sitting in a small boat in the middle of the ocean, looking at a child's shovel. Perhaps he intends to paddle.
These surrealist images, and others like them, are rendered in alternately intense and toss-away detail. It's easy to imagine many of them starting life as post-it note sketches. The one count on which Moss is consistent, and the one that will stick with you the longest, is her manically detailed approach to hands and feet. Rendered in the same chicken-scratch lines as most of her drawings -- even when they're attached to a nebulous white-on-black blob of a human -- her hands and feet suggest at least a passing familiarity with Van Gogh's early paintings of impressively homely farmers and general manual laborers; they are disproportionately large, and immediately communicate a sense of wear and tear -- a timeless, immobile grime that scents and discolors the skin. They are surprising for their perfect textbook proportions, and unsettling for the same reason.
This is what can be so troubling about Moss's work. It's certainly interesting that she has a thing for hands and feet; if you're into that kind of thing, you can probably fumble your way to some fairly interesting psychological insights based on such initially puzzling details. It's compelling, it is intriguing, it will make you wonder -- but it will not impress you. As intriguing as most of Moss's art is, that's all it usually accomplishes -- it makes us want more. This is no doubt due in part to the sketchy nature of her work, but a general lack of development is also at fault.
One particularly egregious example comes in the form of a rough, clumsy and incomplete drawing of a suit. There's a little shading on the left shoulder. Below, in parentheses: "My suit isn't activated." An unidentifiable object floats in the upper right hand corner, probably part of something else that was cropped for the book. What does this page add to this book? What is it here for? No one but Moss can say for certain. Regardless, this is one of many frustrating images. Although art fans who like getting into an artist's head will probably love the way Moss lets her quirks spill out all over the page, the rest of us must be forgiven for stifling yawns.
When did effort become unattractive, anyway? Is the new populism nothing more than an acceptance of failure? Please don't take that the wrong way. Mr. Non Pigeon is not a failure; it merely tilts in that direction. It considers the precipitous nature of lethargy and wonders, could it really be all that bad?
The answer is yes. It really could be that bad. If Nadia Moss can find it in herself to try harder, or at least more obviously, she might be able to divide her fans and detractors by factors more flattering than patience. You can certainly enjoy her work, but it'll take a little effort on your part -- effort Moss doesn't seem to be making herself.
-- Mike Meginnis
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