John Miller exhbition: Is That All There Is?

I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don’t know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, « Is that all there is to a circus? “Is That All There Is?” Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller

John Miller’s current show at Sutton Lane takes its title from the well known existentialist lament that Peggy Lee recorded in 1969. In turn, Thomas Mann’s short story “Disallusionment” had inspired Lieber and Stoller’s song. On view are three reliefs, three carpets and wallpaper. The reliefs feature conglomerations of vernacular objects such as toy guns, costume jewelry, fake fruit, sea shells and sports equipment. All these things have been painstakingly covered with imitation gold leaf. Miller has titled the reliefs “The Edge of Night,” “A Hypnotic Effect” and “Lost Years.” These titles refer either to soap operas or to minimal art. Miller had the carpets cut from remnants. He ordered the wallpaper online. Writing in Texte zur Kunst, No. 70, Daniel Emmanuel (“artistic advisor to the Schlomo Foundation”) observed that, “Miller’s use of objects and images hinges heavily on an alchemic transmutation of low culture and subcultural codes into concerns generally believed to be posed by high culture, namely how class and aesthetics interact to define beauty and the sublime.”