Lincoln Tobier at Pat Hearn

Art in America, Jan, 1998 by Tom Eccles

In his ongoing project (It all comes together in) Ruckus L.A., Lincoln Tobier envisions making an architectural model of Los Angeles in collaboration with the residents of the city. Taking inspiration from Red Grooms's exuberant Ruckus Manhattan (1975-76), Tobier plans to ask community groups and individuals to construct miniature versions of their neighborhoods, or the drive to work, or any part of the city's built environment that appears significant to them. The resulting model of the city would reveal a phenomenological topology of the residents' perceived, rather than actual, urban environment.

For his show at Pat Hearn, Tobier utilized a satellite photograph of Los Angeles to cover an oversized coffee table. Fascinating in itself, this mapping of L.A.'s sprawl suggests that from our necessarily circumscribed personal or domestic standpoint we rarely picture ourselves within the vast "objective" world around us. Two examples of Tobier's sculpture further elucidated his notion of our dislocated urban vision. A small model of a truncated stretch of highway was placed on a pedestal, a fragment that might represent the off ramp for the exit home or the way to the shops; or it might be an anxious reminder of the recent L.A. earthquake. In the second work, a 12-inch-high model of Simon Rodia's Watts Towers is flanked by photocopied images of city streetscapes glued to Styrofoam backing.

Tobier's Ruckus L.A., in contrast to Grooms's Ruckus Manhattan, is far from a celebration. Instead it speaks of dislocation, of lack of planning, of urban and societal anarchy. In a new work that builds on his exploration of urban themes, Tobier borrows a formal structure from early 20th-century mass culture: folded-paper toys. Conical forms with cutout, pop-up figures attached were spread across the darkened gallery floor; lit from below, they created an eerie nightscape of small hills. On closer inspection, we see that they are covered with the anonymous figures, cars and buildings of American suburbia. It was difficult to distinguish one hill from another or to discern any particular narrative -- but that would appear to be Tobier's point.