May Wilson at Pavel Zoubok Gallery
Babydolls and stuffed animals wrapped in stiff canvas, spray-painted in garish colors and 
trussed up in baling wire: silenced, shrouded, sealed over for eternity, mummified. This lady sure had 
some dark, sadistic revenge fantasies. B&D anyone? A golden child is crucified, broken on a wheel, or else ensnared in some diabolical nightmare dream-catcher. A silver puppy is yoked to a discombobulated toaster: you can almost hear the poor beast yelp as the switch is flipped.
Gee, I was thinking, I don’t know if I much care for this type of art. But then a rather proper old lady who was touring the gallery said, “You know, I feel that way sometimes myself.” She then launched into a diatribe about the inconsiderate dog owners who let their precious pooches take a dump right in front of her brownstone. “Ever hear of ‘curbing’, people?” she asked. “It means the other side of the curb, you know! Who do you think cleans that up, the Poop Fairy?”
Free associating, I immediately thought of those over-proud parents in their double-wide strollers who will run right up on your heels in the Whole Foods if you don’t scurry the hell out of their way.
Leaving her home, her husband, and her children in the suburbs of Maryland, May Wilson moved to New York in middle age to become an artist. She checked into the Chelsea (later living next door at the Carteret) and became a real American success story, teaching us by her heroic example that you’re never too old chuck it all and start over again; you’re never too old to live your dream.
We can now see May Wilson’s art for what it is: a radical rejection of the leave-it-to-Beaver motherhood and the manicured-lawn, two-car-garage, All American suburban nightmare. Babydolls and teddybears and toasters, knives and forks, keys and zippers: these are the objects that enslave you. And May Wilson enslaves them right back!
May Wilson was a woman ahead of her time, capturing the Zeitgeist of the present era in New York history. As the city becomes increasingly gentrified, she says to these parents and dogs owners: not everyone shares your devotion to these creatures and the way of life they represent. And for those of us who dissent from your dubious received wisdom, those of us who prefer art and books to dogs and babies, remember that New York is where we have come to escape.
Several months ago, I paid a visit to May’s son Bill, in his beautiful, slightly dilapidated old house in West Chelsea. Some of May’s same pieces adorned the walls, and, in that dark, antique setting, they had a haunting, funereal beauty. I felt they belonged there, and I was initially disappointed to see them in a bright, white-walled gallery setting. But on further reflection, I can see that the gallery setting valorizes and exalts the work, lifting it to the realm of the ideal, where its formal beauty shines through, and where comes to represent not the torture of babies and small fuzzy animals, but rather an eloquent appeal to pause and reflect on this mindless conformism that’s been spoon-fed to us all since birth.
(The other artist on view, Al Hansen, with his cigarette-butt Venus sculpture, and Chelsea hanger-on Ray Johnson, with his hairy-shoe collage complete with a letter to Joan Crawford, are also well worth the trip. Pavel Zoubok Gallery is located at 533 W 23rd, btwn. 10th and 11th Aves. (Images of May Wilson's work were provided by the gallery.)
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