Dugout.

DUGOUT 

BY TERRY ALLEN, INTRODUCTION BY DANA FRIIS-HANSEN, ESSAYS BY DAVID BYRNE, DAVE HICKEY, AND TERRIE SULTAN

There are plenty of art-world folks who can carry a tune--Stephen Prina, Gilbert & George, Mother Inc.--but Terry Allen has incorporated his own music and performance into his art throughout his four-decade career (who could forget his 1967 crossover trucker hit, "Truckload of Art"?). In his latest multimedia installation, Dugout, 1999-2002, Allen crosses a riverboat blues standard, W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues," with the story of a young man kicking around baseball's minor leagues in the early part of the last century. The result: an exhibition that limns a mythic America where race, paternity, and music collide. A dugout is of course where ballplayers take refuge when not on the field, but the word is also redolent of shelter and unearthing, of one's destination after rounding the bases and touching home. Allen's Dugout gathers these coordinates in a series of tableaux and two- and three-dimensional paintings, which feature segments of the epic poem that unfolds over the course of the exhibition (an accompanying CD features a performance that completes the installation). With passages that remind the viewer in equal parts of Raymond Pettibon, Bruce Nauman, and Anselm Kiefer ("When the game is over, they will be deep with blood, spit, whiskey, tobacco and mud"), Dugout delivers a story about deep history that is pitch-perfect.--EB

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