Artist James Drake spent his formative years in El Paso, Texas, an increasingly corporate-sponsored metropolis boasting an ample suburbia, separated by the Rio Grande from its impoverished Mexican neighbor, Juárez, where adobe dwellings and tin shacks pepper the desert expanse. His exhibit, "Artificial Life in the Valley of the World," captures the very acute contrast between the two in its melding of the ancient and the technological.

The exhibit-which inhabits both the First Floor and Lightwell galleries in the Center for the Arts-was chosen by gallery Director Al Harris for the way in which Drake, an artist Harris has known for 30 years, delves into our relationship with nature and our estrangement from it, largely through modern technology.

"What he's trying to do is work with these really universal sorts of ideas, but at the same time, he captures them in the vernacular of a specific site or place or environment," Harris said. "I think that's why the work is great."

	The Drake exhibit is Al Harris’ last as director of the UB Art Gallery.
	photo: Stephanie Hamberger

Harris, who grew up in El Paso and, in fact, spent a good deal of his life there, says Drake's work is a unique expression of the juxtaposition of first-world and third-world countries.

"(His work) reflects a lot of that part of the country, and in ways that are interesting-not only in some of the specific subject matter, but also in the use of materials that reflect a certain kind of starkness and harshness of beauty that the desert has," he said.

Snake skin is one such material the artist uses to depict the ever-present customs and behaviors of the environment, in part a certain lawlessness that-though not necessarily violent-"is based on a history of smuggling, in both directions, and in the free movement of citizens," Harris explains in his essay on the exhibit.

"This lawlessness reinforces the cowboy/macho culture of the region, celebrated in snake-skin boots, snake-skin skirts, cockfights, gunrack-toting pick-up trucks on the U.S. side and an occasional machine-gun execution of a drug kingpin on the Mexican side."

In his piece "Snake Skin Engine," 1994, and again in "Artificial Life in the Valley of the World," 1994, Drake encases motorcycle and automobile engines, respectively, in python skin, forcing the viewer to link the art of invention to its ancient roots.

"Drake synthesizes animal and machine, creating a snake-engine, conjuring the primitive and the modern, the familiar and the alien," Harris writes, suggesting "that we are not as far from our primordial roots as the mediation of our modern technologies might have us believe."

The exhibit-Harris' last, as he is leaving UB, along with his wife and gallery curator, Karen Emenhiser, at the end of this month to assume the position of executive director of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Neb.-is a continuation of the work he has sought to bring to UB during his seven years here.

"I think some of the most interesting art being done is art that reflects the artist's personal history and the environment that the artist comes out of," he said.

Harris, who fancies himself an optimist, says he always has viewed popular culture as serving an important purpose in life-and in art.

"I'm interested in artists who engage popular culture, or whose work doesn't just critique popular culture, but also embraces it," he explained. "It's not just junk and a waste-there's a lot of important information and myths.expressed in popular culture. And we need those myths because they do reflect what we think of ourselves and how we relate to each other."

	Joseph J. Scona (left) and Abdur-Rahman Morgan (right) examine an engine encased in python skin at the opening reception Friday night of “Artificial Life in the Valley of the World,” an exhibit by El Paso, Texas, artist James Drake that is on display in the UB Art Gallery through March 9.
	photo: Stephanie Hamberger

The self-consciousness of Drake's work-his exploration of the male macho culture in particular-is what brought Harris back to his work for a third time.

While critics have railed against Drake for pieces that exude the macho in perhaps a disturbing, non-politically correct fashion, Harris enjoys the way Drake adheres to an honest representation of the cultural climate of his surroundings.

In "Machine Gun Bench," 1987, for example, Drake situates two oversized machine guns facing one another underneath a large steel bench. And in "Blue Love Seat," 1990, Drake features two open-sided steel boxes flanking one another, with a slightly larger box containing a motorcycle engine. The backdrop is a cobalt blue panel framed in steel. Harris explains in his essay that Drake's use of this particular blue conforms to the colors used to paint homes and small businesses in the desert region.

So while Drake's use of obviously large, heavy, raw steel, welded and riveted, could be construed as that which the "macho male sculptor" is able to erect, Harris says Drake "wasn't just doing that-he was also reflecting on the male macho culture."

Drake's most recent work, also on display in the exhibit, is a departure from his sculpted pieces and is reminiscent of the 1994 work, "Valley of the World," which sets grainy, black-and-white images of both the destitute landscape of a Mexican neighborhood and modest suburban El Paso alongside rectangular pieces cut from python skin.

"Then the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened and they knew they were naked," 2000, the title of which is taken from the Book of Genesis, is comprised of two framed, glass panels, each featuring a photograph. Each photograph, mounted on glass that is framed in cobra skin, shows a close-up of hands: one a man's, the other a woman's. The original photographs were videotaped then re-photographed from the monitor to produce what Harris describes as a grainy, mediated appearance-much like that of the snake skin.

The hands-the man's clean and businesslike, the woman's old and worn-are as nearly a stark contrast as the engine encased in snake skin.

Playing off the title of the work, Harris explains the duality of Drake's intent.

"(The piece has) an ancient title and reference; at the same time, you have the man and the woman, you have them mediated through technology," he says. "You're very much aware that they're very distant."

Connecting that piece with Drake's earlier works, Harris helps bridge the seeming gap between industry and ancient history, or myth.

"He encases the automobile engine, which is a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, or the idea that we create technological extensions of our own selves-with our bodies, with our skin."

And in the story of Adam and Eve?

"What happens after God banishes them from paradise is that God also then clothes them, and makes (clothing) of animal skins-so, in a sense, that's also a story about the invention of technology. That mediation between us and nature," he says. "Which," he adds, "is the really cool thing about being a human being-but often is seen as this curse."

Harris, who will assume his new post March 1, said he is looking forward to working in a thriving artists' community and is pleased with the legacy he leaves at UB.

"One of the things I tried to do was create a program that functioned as a crossroad for not only the individual departments that were interested in visual art and culture, but also to reach outside of that and create a crossroad for people from throughout the university," he said.

The exhibit, which had its formal opening reception last Friday, will be on display through March 9. The gallery is open from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.