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   AROUND THE GALLERIES October 21, 2005 Son says farewell, tenderly, to Mom Review of Arthur Pembleton's solo show, The Dead Momma Database By David Pagel Special to the Times "The Dead Momma Database" is a weirdly endearing meditation on mortality and a heartwarming survey of the little things we do to make sense of the absurd predicaments in which families often put us. It's also Arthur Pembleton's cheerful farewell to his mother, Phyllis, who passed away peacefully at age 92 on Jan. 20, 2001, the day George W. Bush was first inaugurated. "I like to think my mother died in protest," begins the mural-scale storyboard at Los Angeles Art Assn./Gallery 825 Annex, which introduces visitors to the drama with nearly 100 sly snapshots and hilarious captions. We follow the unsentimental Pembleton as he picks up his mother's ashes at the local Post Office and, for the next six months, never leaves her side. The little black box she inhabits goes everywhere Pembleton does — to grocery stores, museums and restaurants, sailing on Lake Michigan, moving his son from Chicago to Los Angeles. The conversational tone of the text and the sweet demeanor of the snapshots convey an attitude best described as gentle deadpan: self-effacing yet sensitive, seasoned but never tough. Amid the humor is much seriousness, especially when Pembleton's ailing father-in-law dies. It takes Pembleton two trips to New Jersey — not to mention 5,200 photographs and hours of video — to muster the gumption to bury his mother. But he never burdens viewers with self-pity or guilty narcissism. The exhibition includes work stations where visitors can access thousands of images — randomly, thematically or chronologically, via wonderfully edited digital videos. Or you can play "Help Momma Find Her Grave," a homemade game assembled from footage shot throughout her life, interviews from the early 1990s and documentation of her interment. A voice-over keeps you glued to the headphones, as does an original recording by the band Orso. Titled "Is It Christmas Tomorrow?" the song pays homage to a question Phyllis often asked near the end of her life. Pembleton's playful installation conveys similar optimism while giving visitors the freedom to let their own reflections be as serious as suits them.
The Dead Momma Database
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