by Edward Topher

With The Couch, Loyola abandons the bitter themes typical of last year's "Lab Reports" period and melds the more colorful elements of his recent "Game Room" essays with the derisive constituents of his acclaimed "Me and the Red Power Ranger at a Trade Show" series. The result is a seemingly playful, yet dreary, indictment of today's corporate culture.

The series begins innocently enough -- with "me & the couch," a photo of the Artist draped across the Couch dressed casually in knee-pants and sports shoes. However, closer examination reveals a tragic thread wafting, like an over-ripe gruyere, throughout the exhibit. The carefully composed Polaroid image depicts a haunted man trapped within the nurturing/asphyxiating climes of his "office," clinging desperately -- as the fetus to the womb -- to the one pathetic symbol of freedom and individual expression: The Couch.

The character of this boat-like, Levitzine divan speaks volumes. Paying tribute to his mentor, Andy Warhol, Loyola wrapped the settee in a nondescript fabric with tones reminiscent of tomato soup gone past its prime. The disquieting mixture of the furniture's baneful countenance with the smiling subjects trapped within its grasp only serves to heighten the ironic nature of the work.

Although despair is the theme du jour, Loyola embraces, like a tapeworm glommed to the upper bowel, a melange of themes. His photo, "modern entertainment as well as underscores the dangers of cosmetic surgery. "una fiesta para el cinco de mayo, y la couch" takes bold political aim at the failure of multiculturalism in the workplace. "jon finds an in-between meal snack, & the couch" emphasizes the tragedy of displaced persons. "claire, fresh and full of life, & the couch" cuts to the core of today's cynical advertising juggernaut. "chris 'the man' breen gets ready to write help folder, & the couch" crucifies false mysticism. And finally, "macuser jammy jam & the couch" is a sadly erotic portrayal of repressed sexuality.

Loyola's images tortuously pierce, like the downtrodden employees of Cherri's House of Noserings, into the clotted heart of post-Information Age America. With The Couch: A Retrospective, one of the world's great emerging artists strips away the threadbare cheesecloth of our failed culture with his unerring and unforgiving eye. Would that we all had the courage to not avert our gaze.