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Review: (F)utility Kitchen examines fantasy of simple life

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 7, 2011 - For (F)utility Kitchen at Snowflake Gallery, artist Leslie Mutchler blends elements of sleek, high-end design and the strategies of fashionable DIY and urban farming movements to reflect on a curious historical precedent of all these things: Marie Antoinette's Hameau de la Reine, a functioning farm constructed expressly for her, where the queen could indulge her fantasy of leading a simpler life.

Mutchler has drawn on the irony at the heart of Hameau de la Reine -- that it takes money and privilege to engineer something so "simple" and "natural" -- to comment upon parallel tendencies in contemporary culture.

The core of Mutchler's installation is an elaborate yet minimal cultivation system used to sprout lentil seeds in handmade paper nests. Its ecofriendliness is belied by the fact that the paper nests have been made from pulped Post-It notes (recycled from an earlier work by the artist), and are despoiled by dyes and glue, making those pretty little lentil plants mildly toxic.

Mutchler nonetheless uses the gangly plant forms to spin off a minimalist-baroque wallpaper design displayed nearby, which looks like something you'd find at the more expensive home design stores. On surrounding walls, she's displayed drawings of familiar objects of contemporary design, including bowls, vases and candleholders, some mass-produced and some handmade, revealing their common aesthetic.

If Mutchler weren't such a smart designer herself, she'd never be able to pull this off; but she's managed here to translate keen cultural observations into a seductive, yet critically engaging work.

Ivy Cooper, a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, is the Beacon art critic. 

Ivy Cooper
Ivy Cooper is the Beacon visual arts reviewer and a professor of art at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.