Sight gags, vaudeville props, comedic mugging and the parallel universe of cartoon reality are all tools of the humor trade, whether for stand-up comedians or animation artists, and all rely on our response to visual cues to attain their desired effect -- our amusement and possibly more. From the clown's big shoes (or Pee Wee's, for that matter), to the falling safe in comic books, comedy appropriates and exaggerates conventions of visual representation for its own ends, playing with the dynamic between symbol, language and image so that our perceptions become unmoored from conventional reality and start bouncing around in our minds in unexpected ways. Visual artists Scott Reeder and David Robbins use the methods and icons of comedy to conjure the ironies and hilarities intrinsic to the illusions and allusions of visual representation.

Scott Reeder makes paintings of some very basic images -- in our show, rocks, a bookcase, a computer chip, and a potted plant -- rendering them with such a flat affect that the disjoint between the subject matter and his goofy depiction create a wide and promising chasm. On view in this show is Reeder's Small Rock Pile, which is just that -- six small, uniformly painted, rock-shaped gray canvases of varying sizes leaning up against the wall in a little array. Have they escaped from a quarry scene in a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Are they a tongue-in-cheek reference to Robert Smithson's Non-Sites? To Nature herself, which art ever strives to contain, and the nature of time -- geological, in this case -- which painting can't ever do justice to? The paintings recall, in some ways, John Wesley's deceptively straightforward manner and pastel color -- these kind of dumb-looking objects are vehicles for all the things real humor carries with it, that is, pain and pleasure. Reeder lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

David Robbins has been thinking and writing about art and entertainment for over twenty years, with a particular interest in comedic behavior of all sorts. He takes an anti-illusionistic approach to comedy. Whereas most comedy is understood as make-believe people in make-believe situations, Robbins is interested in comedy for real -- as himself, in real space and real time. He calls this "Concrete Comedy," a comedy of doing rather than of saying. Robbins' work in this exhibition takes many forms, including a photograph of a target with a hole cut out at its center (of course a few arrows are seen lying nearby) -- think Jasper Johns? the Loony Tunes logo? --and a charming needlepoint canvas reminiscent of the Home-Sweet-Home school of handicraft -- depicting a hobo's bag and stick, emblematic of leaving home. Taking the ironies of home, hearth and contemporary art yet further, this work, called Situation Comedy #3, was lovingly made following the artist's instructions by his mother, a gesture that invokes yet another favorite humorist, Andy Warhol. For Robbins, comedy is essentially an emotional occupation, and he is not interested merely in understanding the structure of comedy, but in maintaining its foundation in emotion in his art. A recent retrospective of Robbins' work was presented at the Institute of Visual Art (Inova) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the artist currently lives and works.

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