Gallery Crawl

“Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded” at the Museum of Modern Art

By: Sarah Blumberg

 

     If there’s one thing the MoMA exhibition “Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded” makes clear, it’s that paper is an incredibly versatile material.  Then again, I guess that’s the beauty of paper.  For such amazingly ubiquitous stuff, however, it’s so often overlooked as a source of artistic inspiration.  During the 1960s and 70s, when many artists were taking an interest in using everyday materials and conventional processes in non-traditional ways, paper was a medium that was reassessed.  The focus of “Paper” is the reexamination of this material, often in incredibly unique and surprisingly beautiful ways. 

One of my favorite works from this show is Robert Rauschenberg’s Page 4, from his 1974 series Pages and Fuses.  Because Rauschenberg was a master of using non-traditional items to create works of art, it is not surprising that he was also interested in using traditional materials in unusual ways.  Page 4 consists of two sheets of handmade paper in Plexiglas frames that are mounted, one above the other, on the wall.  The paper was created around a single piece of twine, which appears only as a ridge down the middle of each of the works.  The twine runs vertically from the top of the work through the bottom, hanging well below the lower piece of paper.  It is only in the spaces between and around the paper – in the middle section between the two pieces and below them, outside of the framed paper – that the twine can even be identified as such.  The juxtaposition of the white of the handmade paper with the golden color of the twine is visually stunning.  The three-dimensional quality that the twine adds, both as part of the paper and in the way that it simultaneously connects the two pieces and is suspended below them, causes this piece to successfully inhabit an area somewhere between that of print and sculpture. 

While I liked most of the pieces featured in “Paper,” I wasn’t particularly excited about the works from artists that used organic materials either in the creation of their work or as a substitute for paint.  My one main exception to this was Richard Long’s 1992 Untitled.  This oversized vertical painting, while consisting of nothing more than Mississipi mud on paper, is eerily beautiful.  The application of the mud on the paper gives the work a sense of movement, much like the Mississipp itself, and I found myself fascinated by its color and pattern variations. 

The organic works in this exhibit that utilize food products, however, are not nearly as well executed.  I found some of them to be visually appealing, such as John Cage’s 1990 Wild Edible Drawing No. 8, in which Cage uses edible plants to create a highly textured work.  Others, such as Edward Ruscha’s Stains, which features 12 pieces from a 1969 portfolio of 75 mixed-media stains, with some of the stains including gunpowder (Dupont Superfine), wine (Chateau Latour 1969), urine (Human), and salad dressing (Kraft Roka Blue Cheese), fall short of their goal.  Ruscha refers to this work as “a little treasure chest of overlooked things,” the concept of which I really like.  Unfortunately, the implementation and visual representation of the idea, with each stain applied to the paper with an eye dropper in order to make it look like a stain rather than a work of art, is simply not remarkable in any significantly artistic way.  I guess this is the point of the piece, but it’s not enough to make it interesting.

One note about the space itself: the Paul J. Sachs Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries, located in an often-overlooked section of the second floor at the MoMA, is a great location for this exhibit.  There typically aren’t many visitors to the small spaces that make up these galleries, so unlike most of the other parts of the museum, it doesn’t feel crowded and you can actually spend some time with each piece.  I wouldn’t pay the MoMA’s exorbitant admission fee for this exhibition alone, but “Paper” presents a wide range of very compelling work that is well worth a visit.

 

   

“Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded” at the MoMA runs through June 22^nd

 

Museum of Modern Art

Take the E or V train to 53rd Steet and 5th Avenue or the B, D, F or V train to 47th-50th Street/Rockefeller Center

Museum hours: F, 10:30-8:00; Sat-M, 10:30-5:30

Exhibition website: www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/865

 

"Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT" at the Whitney Museum of American Art

By: Ashley Young

 

Jenny Holzer, PALM LEFT 000113, 2007, oil on linen. Courtesy: Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers.

 

          Most famous for her “Truisms,” Jenny Holzer has continued, over the last three decades, to elicit intense emotional reactions through her use of text.  Recently, she has expanded her most commonly known work, street-pasted signs, benches and LED screens, to include oil paintings in the style of Andy Warhol.  In the exhibition “PROTECT PROTECT,” at The Whitney Museum of American Art, the curator does an excellent job of mixing Holzer’s old and new work to create a dialogue about both politics and personal issues between all of the pieces.

          The exhibition opens with the first-ever LED piece created to lay flat on the floor.  Entitled For Chicago (2008), this work combines all of the artist’s most famous texts: Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, Living, Survival, Under a Rock, Laments, Mother and Child, Wat, Lustmord, Erlauf, Arno, Blue, and Oh, and serves as an abridged introduction to her large body of work.  For Chicago layers the different texts and moves them along the screen at different speeds, giving the viewer a real sense of the incredible variation and many layers to Holzer’s practice.  The second piece the viewer comes upon, PROTECT PROTECT deep purple (2007), is the first example of oil painting seen in the show. The title work of the exhibit, this piece is comprised of reproduced plans detailing certain aspects of the Iraq war. 

        The second room of the exhibition includes three LED works.  Interlaced like fingers, Blue Cross (2008) and Green Purple Cross (2008), are installed as one in a corner of the room, above the viewers’ head. Together, these pieces create an emotional dialogue about loss, death, and the feeling of violation. This work, along with Monument 2008, which immediately suggests the combined forms of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin with its stacked composition and emanating light, fills the white cube gallery with deeply saturated color. Finally, the last room of the exhibition showcases an entire wall of redacted handprints hung in the style of Warhol’s Soup Cans, creating this sense of crime and life as some sort of commodity. 

          The most compelling works in this show are the new oil paintings. For these, Holzer has gathered numerous documents from the National Security Archive: autopsy reports from prisoners in the Middle East, letters from both soldier’s and soldier’s families accused of war crimes, handprints from U.S. military personal accused of crimes, and images from a military PowerPoint presentation that detail strategies for the initial invasion of Iraq. Referred to as redaction paintings, these works take their name from the sensitive material the government has blacked out of the documents in order to de-classify them.   

          Entering into “PROTECT PROTECT”, I was not prepared for such a strong statement on the state of our country in relation to the Iraq war.  I was, however, moved and more impressed than ever with Holzer’s work.  Run, don’t walk, to this exhibition before it closes on May 31^st , because it is one of the most strongly installed and effective shows that has been in New York recently.

Jenny Holzer, PROTECT PROTECT at the Whitney Museum of American Art runs through May 31^st

 

The Whitney Museum of American Art

945 Madison Avenue

Museum Hours: W-Thurs, 11am-6pm, F, 1pm-9pm,

Sat and Sun, 11am-6pm

Museum Website: www.whitney.org

Artist Website: www.jennyholzer.com

"Michael Rakowitz: The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not ones own" at Lombard-Freid Projects

By: Liz Shaw

 

Installation view of The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own, Michael Rakowitz, 2009. Courtesy of the Lombard-Freid Projects.

            As my companion and I turned the corner into the Lombard Freid-Projects, Michael Rakowitz’s latest creation stopped us dead in our tracks. “Wow” we both exclaimed, staring wide-eyed at the central piece to the artist’s most recent exhibition “The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not ones own”. The exhibition explores the relationship between science fiction and the design of Iraqi monuments and military uniforms under Saddam Hussein. Rakowitz’s pencil on vellum works, styled as graphic novels, trace the resurgence of Iraq through the lens of science fiction, specifically Star Wars; his monumental sculpture recalls the design of the Iraqi Victory Arch.  Ultimately, his refreshingly original exhibition combines the childhood familiarity of comics, Star Wars and science fiction with the former dictators’ disturbing obsession.

            The title of the show is taken from a speech made by Saddam Hussein in 1985. The phrase was used again in the 1989 dedication of the Victory Arch, commemorating Iraq's victory over Iran. In Rakowitz’s version of the Victory Arch the two giant crossed swords are assembled from pieces of toy light sabers. The arms holding the swords are covered in pages from the book Zabiba and the King, written by the former dictator himself. Copies of the novel, complete with the appropriated image from illustrator Jonathon Earl Bowser, as well as the original print are also on display. At the base of the arms Rakowitz has assembled thirty Feyadeen helmets made of dismembered G.I. Joe figures suspended in clear urethane plastic. I could not help but notice that the materials used to create the Victory Arch were, for the most part, toys. Was the implication that Saddam Hussein toyed with the Iraqi people and the world while he lived in a fantasy?

         This statement seems more plausible upon reading the narrative of resurgence in Iraq, in pencil on vellum arranged around the room. Rakowitz details various instances that highlight the dictator and his sons’ obsessions with science fiction and other eerie happenings including: Uday Hussein’s appropriation of the exact design of Darth Vader’s helmet for his militia’s uniform and the faces of Iraqi leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Karim Quasin supposedly appearing on the moon shortly after their execution.

         We left the Lombard-Freid Projects with the same sense of “wow” as when we had arrived. Not only does Rakowitz pack a visual punch, but the web of history, science and science fiction that he weaves will leave you more than satisfied.

 

“The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not ones own” at Lombard-Freid Projects runs through April 4.

 

Lombard-Freid Projects

531 W. 26^th Street 2^nd Floor

Take the A, C, or E train to 23^rd and 8^th Avenue and/or the M23 bus to 23^rd and 11^th Avenue.

Gallery Hours: Tues-F 10am-6pm, Sat 11am-6pm

Gallery Website: www.lombard-freid.com

“Fish-Work: Photographs by Corey Arnold” at Sara Tecchia Roma

 By: Nat Ceger

I'm a big fan of fish.  Besides being one of the few healthy foods that I enjoy, they're the only kind of pet my mom allowed me to have as a kid.  I always wanted to grab the giant oscar out of our tank and give it a good hug, or at least pet it a little.  The image of a fisherman cradling a slippery sea creature in Matthew and the Sleeper (2006), one of the photographs by Corey Arnold on view at Sara Tecchia Roma, embodied this desire of my younger self down to the childishly protective, yet possessive expression on the fisherman’s face.  I couldn't shake the feeling of nostalgia as I walked through the gallery.  Finally reaching the The White Side (2006),  a close-up shot of a dead fish, I grinned as I remembered flying into a tantrum and flushing the oscar down the toilet after it had eaten all of my other fish. 

“Fish-Work” is the first exhibition of Corey Arnold's work in New York.  As a young college grad, he saw the opportunity for adventure, good money and a great project in commercial fishing.  Thirteen years later, Arnold is still a fisherman and artist, and describes what he does as part-documentary, part-conceptual photography (to hear more from Arnold, click on the NPR interview link on the gallery website).  His work has been compared to the Romantic paintings of J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, who both depicted the beautiful, yet terrifying wildness of nature.

When I learned of this comparison, I felt a little guilty sacrificing the majesties of the sea for my own amusement, but my reactions weren't entirely off – Arnold has a sense of humor.  Shitty Day (2006) shows Matthew mock-choking himself with a makeshift noose, providing a little bit of comedy that is probably key to surviving out there.  I can only imagine how it feels to be on a small boat in the middle of nowhere with the same people for months, surrounded on all sides by ocean.  The small format of the photos in the gallery relates this feeling of claustrophobia, but is unable to fully capture the power of the elements.  Arnold snaps some good action shots of the fishermen at work, and uses precarious angles created by the ship and the waves against the sky to regain some of the lost energy.  The work, however, seems to focus more on a personal journey than the forces of nature.       

 But whose journey is it?  The press release for Arnold's show mentions a “satisfaction of our natural voyeurism.”  Truly, the photos are set up cleverly to form a narrative that the viewer can follow around the gallery, like watching an episode from a reality show (has anyone ever seen Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel?).  I am not a huge fan of reality shows but I enjoyed this approximation of one, and I bet you will too. Arnold's work has diverse views, from humorous portrait to Romantic seascape.  I even found an unexpected decorative still life in Hyse (2005) which depicts hundreds of hanging fish, like a giant wind chime or chandelier.  Anyone who can do all that under the constant danger of being flushed down nature's toilet has to have some talent.

“Fish-Work” at Sara Tecchia Roma runs until April 4^th

 

Sara Tecchia Roma

529 W 20^th Street, between 10^th and 11^th Avenues

Take the A, C, or E train to 23^rd Street and/or the M23 bus to 23^rd Street  and 10^th Avenue

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat, 10am-6pm

Gallery website: www.saratecchia.com

Artist website: www.coreyfishes.com

Pulse 2009: The Postmortem

By: Melissa Shaw

 

Pulse? Yes, it had one, but the vitals were a little weak.

 

 

Before entering Pier 40’s Pulse exhibition, I was greeted by R. Luke DuBois’ installation Hindsight is Always 20/20 hosted by Bitforms Gallery NYC, presented along the perimeter of the walkway leading to the check-in gate. The viewer had the opportunity to peruse a series of Illuminated eye charts featuring the words of different State of the Union Addresses through time; the most frequently used words were shown large and bold at the top of the Snellien- inspired charts and the least uttered words down below in the spots where most of us have to squint to read.  This was definitely one the strongest showings of the fair.

Once inside, having taken in what over one hundred galleries from around the world and the United States looked like, I abandoned any hope of a well thought out agenda and decided to adopt the tactic of “chance operations” by walking aimlessly around looking for whatever caught my eye. 

Stand outs of the show included Clifton Childree’s Miamuh Swamp Adventure, a dilapidated shanty of an installation designed to feel, possibly, like an old movie theater. The ramshackle overgrown hut that was Miamuh Swamp Adventure played an old silent film, on a loop, about the “bait and switch” swampland property scheme that took place in Miami in the 1900’s. I liked this effort, particularly because of its relevance to the current clamor about real estate and ponzi scams.

Random Rules: A Channel of Artists’ Selections from YouTube curated by Marina Fokidis also feels particularly relevant in light of the viral obsessions of such hits as “David after the Dentist” and “Kittens Inspired By Kittens.” If you have not seen these gems I urge you to please Google them. Marina Fokidis put together set lists of different artist’s favorite YouTube videos and had them run on a loop. A description of her vision and all of the selections can be seen at www.youtube.com/randomrules09. Don’t miss “Stomping Phones with Climbing Irons.”

In the “Press and Collectors lounge,” I stopped for an espresso, and met a collector who said his overall impression of the Fair was that it was a little “amateurish” and somewhat like a High School art class showing. I could relate to what he was saying, some of the pieces I examined that weekend were reminiscent of the DIY punk flavor that seems to be predominant in up and coming art cities like Berlin, and the rough paper-cut stop animation of some of the videos also carried the loose illustrative qualities of someone’s sketchbook. I would not say it looked like people were just experimenting with “this art stuff” for the first time, but it seemed to me that the vibe of Pulse was at times raw, and at times a watered down version of a Whitney Biennial.

Nothing I saw at Pulse was going to change the Art World, but there was an inspired presence in Los Angeles based artist Ron English’s Post-Modern-Apocalyptic-Guernica-esque whimsied mash-up from Copro Gallery’s  booth entitled  “Old Skool Vs. New Skool,”  Habana Gallery’s showing from Havana, Cuba and Catherine Clark Gallery from San Francisco. If you are ever in these cities, legally or not, I would check in on what they were up to next.

 

Next year, perhaps, there will be more at Pulse to raise the heartbeat.

"MAs Curate MFAs" at Hunter College/Times Square Gallery

By: Gallery Crawler

 

A still from David Kagan’s Bunny Boy Quadrilogy.

This year’s “MAs Curate MFAs” show at Hunter College is a great antidote to the fiscally-obsessed fair circuit and its aftermath that hijacks the New York art scene every March.  Visitors to the Hunter exhibition get to see a wide array of contemporary sculpture, installations, paintings, photographs and films without having to meet the searching gazes of bored gallerists or worry about the health of the industry. The opening of this year’s installment felt particularly festive in comparison to the funereal tone of the Amory, located just a few avenues to the west. 

David Kagan’s film, Bunny Boy Quadrilogy, was far and away my favorite work; this may say more about my perverse sense of humor than strength of the film, but I hope not.  Bunny Boy, shown on three walls simultaneously, is a Cartoon-Network-style mash up of broad comedic skits, loosely held together by the recurring appearances of the main character, Bunny Boy, and his mother.  The film’s cast comprises human actors, including Kagan, and Kagan’s puppet creations. Though all of the antics of the Bunny Boy company are oddly amusing, the real fun of the film, as the wall text tactfully explains, is the “parodying [of] artist[s] who boil down to a recognizable cliché.”  In the film, this translates to a maniacally evil, bedazzled, talking skull à la Damien Hirst, a Jake and Dinos Chapman-esque puppet with huge bulging eyes, and a singing Jeff Koons. 

The already lowbrow tone of these parodies is consciously lowered further by scenes involving human-puppet sex, vomiting puppets and a conspicuously male transvestite giving birth.  Ridiculous? Yes. Disgusting? Frequently.  Hilarious? Completely.  As I took a seat to watch the film, a young man turned to me and said, “I can’t stop watching this.  I just can’t look away.”  He looked both vaguely horrified and a little gleeful.  After watching for only a few minutes, I understood.  Call it schadenfreude, but after Damien Hirst’s spectacularly gauche “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” Auction at Sotheby’s London in September, I think Hirst—and his ilk—are due for Kagan’s brand of leveling. 

I was also impressed with Lori Merhige’s installation entitled, We’re Not in Sodom Anymore, composed of a sculpture of a blue gingham canopy or shower curtain and a large pile of red glitter.  Yuliya Lanina’s curio cabinets perched on mannequin’s legs were intense, as were Yashua Klos’ technically masterful, giant woodblock prints. 

I initially dimissed Julio Grinblatt’s Cielito Lindo Series as boring minimalist canvases, until my companion insisted that I read the wall text.  What I took for a set of square blue canvases, were actually photographs Grinblatt had taken of the sky.  After snapping the photos, Grinblatt took the film to developers in three different cities and told them to give him, “a beautiful sky.”  Each resulting image is a different shade of cerulean, reflecting not only the film developer’s different ideas about what makes a beautiful sky, but also our differing ideas of the concept of beauty.  Armed with this knowledge, the series is still visually minimalist, but conceptually loaded.

There is so much to see and hear in the maze-like rooms of the Times Square Gallery, that visitors can quickly become overwhelmed.  This year’s show, in particular, is an embarrassment of riches.  As my companion so succinctly put it, while standing in front of a black bird made of yarn that flopped repeatedly, and rather disconcertingly, against the floor, “There is a lot of weird and amazing shit here.” This exhibition is not to be missed!

 

“MAs Curate MFAs” at the Hunter College runs through April 18^th

 

 

Hunter College/Times Square Gallery

450 West 41^st Street

Take the 1, 2, 3, 7, A, C, E, N, Q, R, S or W train to Times Square/42^nd Street  

Gallery hours: Tues-Sat, 1-6pm

Exhibition Website: www.hunter.cuny.edu/art/mascuratemfas_2009/index.html

A Light at the End of the Tunnel: SCOPE New York International Art Show

By: Laura Phipps

  

Many critics have been writing about the decline of the art market and its possible effects on art production.  Opinions range from hope for a creative revival of an art world ruled by artists (notably The New York Times’ Holland Cotter) to gloom and doom for the art world (The Art Newspaper, The New Criterion).  SCOPE New York International Art Show, this year gave some credence to the optimists in that crowd, while it openly fulfilled the more tradition role of art fair.  There was a large presence of collector-friendly, display-ready work at SCOPE, Pulse, and the Armory, as well as certain safeness to galleries’ selections.  However at Scope there was an accessibility that was a boon to the fair and gave it a more interactive, user-friendly feel than either Pulse or the Armory.  Interaction between artists and fairgoers uncharacteristically occurred as in Jon Burgerman’s Lossy Data Lab and the inclusion of artist-run galleries and collectives encouraged dialogue, even among those not buying.  This perception was perhaps a result of the prevalent themes that were present this year, including nostalgia for both our near and far histories and an embrace of “folksy” Americana.

Initially, this “folksy” scene was set by an installation that began to the right of the traditionally glossy art fair entrance, down a dark wooden hallway interrupted by rugs taped to the floor and faux furniture on walls.  The installation, Cheap Fast & Out of Contro1, organized by the artist Lilah Freedland and sponsored by the SCOPE Foundation, combined the performance, installation, films and inexpensive art goods of 19 artists.  Most of the contributions were incorporated into a timber-frame construction leading fairgoers into a backwoods honky-tonk of sorts.  Kristen Schiele, the artist that created the full scale house as a part of the piece Riding America Like a Cheap Pony, consideres it to be part of a “scenic domestic land of memorabilia.”  To Schiele “mock rifles, games, and beer symbolize the hard currency of the Great American Experiment.”  Within the construction a band strummed inconsistently, fairgoers exchanged galleries’ cards for drawings and perused vignettes of various art pieces, books, and clothing for sale, and a bartender served beer behind a homemade bar.  

Emerging back into the bright white booths of the fair one felt some comfort in seeing the crocheted guns of Karley Klofenstein (Charest-Weinberg Gallery) and handmade cuckoo clocks, adorned with the accoutrements of middle class Americana such as a trucker’s hat, by Nathan Skiles (Greene Contemporary). Okay Mountain put wistful memories of the late 1970s and 1980s at the forefront with pieces based on obsolete video games and arcades by Jesse Greenberg, while also heading in the direction of Cheap Fast & Out of Control by offering small handheld pieces for small prices.  In another use of the form of childhood wistfulness, albeit within a darker context and with a more pointed purpose, Wayne Coe’s work approaches the subjects of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and torture through the packaging of retro model kits (Jonathan Schorr Gallery).  

An entirely different form of nostalgia reaching further back than the simply retro was seen in the reclamation of cultural artifacts by artists.  Krampf Gallery presented several handmade porcelain sculptures by Ma Jun.  Ma Jun follows traditional Chinese techniques to create boomboxes, televisions, and cans of beer that question tradition versus modern consumption. Anna Frants’ series Made in Ancient Greece involves videos projected onto plaster vases shaped and painted to resemble those of antiquity (Dam, Stuhltrager & Frants Gallery Space). These pieces by Ma Jun and Frants create a confusing sensation of not knowing what history we are to engage with—the technology that shaped our culture in the past, or that which shapes our present.   

There was enough of the high production value painting, sculpture, and installation at SCOPE to keep fairgoers in the correct state of mind, but there was also a definite creeping in of homespun, collective art production and a cash-and-carry mentality.  Its yet to be seen what the bottom of the art market will look like to artists, collectors, and galleries, much less art fairs, but if its appearance is the overtaking of art fairs by artists and collectives then the optimists may just win in the end.

"Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art

By: Catherine Pearson

 

 

 

Hernan Bas, Floating in the Dead Sea with a Ghost Ship Pirated by Heidi Slimane. The Rubell Family Collection, Miami.

    A man floats supine atop a murky sea. His outfit is dandy-chic and he is comfortable in spite of the large pirate ship—which is haunted by the onetime designer of Dior Homme—that lurks behind him.

Floating in the Dead Sea with a Ghost Ship Pirated by Heidi Slimane is just one of 38 works from Miami-based artist Hernan Bas currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. With its layering of allusions, the painting serves as a microcosm for the exhibition as a whole. Bas’ works in video, painting, and sculpture deftly bounce from reference to reference, weaving together Mephistopheles, goth culture, Joris-Karl Huysmans, the Hardy Boys, Oscar Wilde, and 19^th century dandyism.

The exhibition is arranged as a retrospective of sorts, though the artist is only 31. As such, it shows off Bas’ artistic growth to great effect. His dense, richly colored paintings, which are reminiscent of Elizabeth Peyton’s work, have grown over the years in both size and confidence. The smaller paper-based paintings that make up much of the show’s beginning blossom into large, meaty works on canvas by its end.

While Bas’ technique and themes have evolved with age (an early focus on gay identity seems to have diminished somewhat), one constant throughout much of his finest work is an unabashed love for the sea. This is most obvious in Ocean’s Symphony (Dirge for the Fiji Mermaid), a specially commissioned video and sculpture installation that pays homage to Fiji Mermaids— those ghoulish taxidermic combinations of monkeys and fish that were regularly featured in circus sideshows. It is perhaps the Floridian in Bas that accounts for his fascination with the myth of swamp and ocean. Whatever the reason, his work is at its best when water makes an appearance.

Hernan Bas, The Great Barrier Wreath. The Rubell Family Collection, Miami.

 

Nowhere is this truer than in Great Barrier Wreath, a three-panel painting of men, swans, and water that the Brooklyn Museum describes as Hieronymus Bosch-esque. In the piece’s foreground are small groupings of flamingos, pink swivels of neck that snake their way into a deep, inky blue. It is signature Bas—layered, decadent, and full of mystery.

“Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art runs through May 24th

 

 

Brooklyn Museum of Art

200 Eastern Parkway

Take the 2 or 3 train to Eastern Parkway/ Brooklyn Museum

Museum hours: W-F, 10am-5pm,  Sat-Sun, 11pm-6pm

Museum website: www.brooklynmuseum.org

“Dan Graham” at Marian Goodman Gallery

By: Elizabeth Spier

 

   Though he is an American artist, it seems like Dan Graham’s recent work is always seen in Europe: a retrospective of his work travelled there several years ago, and many of his pavilions have been installed in public spaces in Italy, Germany and England. Now, however, the prodigal son has returned home: his first American retrospective just opened last month at LA MoCA, and will travel to the Whitney and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis this fall. In anticipation of this large travelling show, the Marian Goodman Gallery’s current exhibition provides a small preview of Graham’s art. Though the retrospective, organized by Chrissie Iles and Bennett Simpson, features a wide range of Graham’s work—from his early photographs to performance documentation—Marian Goodman Gallery shows only his recent pavilion projects, including a full-scale pavilion, a stage set designed for the band Japanther for Performa ’07 and five pavilion models. 

Marian Goodman’s exhibition highlights Graham’s well-known blending of architecture and sculpture. Though the first room in the exhibition contains the models, I decided to begin by looking at the largest piece, Crazy Spheroid: Two Entrances (2009).  As the title suggests, this piece has two entrances that visitors can use to walk into the glass and steel structure. The curved walls of the pavilion reflect distorted views of fellow gallery-goers and create a bizarre feeling of warped space. As Graham explains in the press release, the pavilion “is an eccentric space and one’s expectations are confounded upon entering.”

The other large piece in this show, the stage set Graham created for Japanther, is more successful in interrupting our normal understanding of how we move through space and how we see ourselves. The glass and steel walls (which, in this case, aren’t solid, and fall somewhere between mesh wire and Jarlsberg) play with the differences between reflected light and transparency. As I moved around the piece, I could at times see through it, then suddenly my face was reflected back at me as the steel surfaces gave way to reflective glass. I found this to be the most dynamic piece of the show, one that requires some time to be spent with it. A video shot during Japanther’s performance on this stage set accompanies the piece.

 

 

Part of Dan Graham's stage set built for Japanther, with a recording of the band’s show on a monitor to the right.

 

Finally, the five models in the North Gallery are variations on this same theme of both distorted space and perception. While the models are interesting to look at for about a minute, it’s the video footage looping on two monitors that saves this room from total sterility. Both monitors show the realized works Graham built based on the models, installed outdoors in public spaces. We alternatively see children racing around the reflective walls and languid teenagers resting next to the structures. Such public spaces are more appropriate settings for these interactive works; their beauty and playfulness is lost when shrunk down to small sizes and placed atop white platforms.

 

Installation view of Graham's models.

 

This exhibition provides a comprehensive look at Dan Graham’s phenomenology-concerned pavilion pieces. Head straight to the large-scale works and spend time watching yourself and other visitors. When you’re finished at Marian Goodman, be sure to mark your calendar for the arrival of Graham’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum in June.

 

“Dan Graham” at Marian Goodman Gallery runs through March 28^th

 

Marian Goodman Gallery

24 West 57^th Street, 4^th Floor

Take the F train to 57^th Street and Avenue of the Americas

Gallery Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10am-6pm

Gallery Website: mariangoodman.com

Brian Tolle's Levittown at CRG Gallery

By: Liz Shaw

Brian Tolle, Outgrown, 2009, toys, and platinum silicon rubber, 58 X 40 X 80 inches. Courtesy of the artist and CRG Gallery, NY.

          Brian Tolle’s work, Levittown, offers us a creative glimpse behind the repetitive uniformity of the American dream home. Designed and built by Abraham Levitt and his firm Levitt & Sons between 1947 and 1951, the Long Island planned housing community, Levittown, received praise from some but also came under scrutiny for its uniformity and mass produced nature. One of the earliest examples of functional prefabricated housing and often identified as the first proper suburb, Levittown has come to represent suburban Americana and the stereotypical, postwar, American dream community.

    Tolle has created soft silicone sculptures and combined them with other objects. His combinations reference the struggle between conformity and individual identity; they offer elements of Levittown’s uniformity with markers of individuality and identity from its presupposed inhabitants. The meticulously crafted silicone skins (or soft sculptures) resemble scaled down versions of the Levittown houses. They have all been created with the same mold, bear the architectural details of the original houses and are identical, save their color. Tolle has arranged these pliable rubber skins with other objects in order to infuse some life into their deflated state. The objects, which include a rocking chair, an ironing board, a bicycle, a wagon, sports equipment, tire swing, etc. either support the rubber skins from underneath or help to suspend them. For example, on a small square of AstroTurf, Tolle stuffs a royal blue rubber house skin with sports memorabilia and ties it up with a string, recalling a mesh sports bag. These objects represent the identity and spirit of the people of Levittown; they support their houses and literally give them shape and life, just as a house is not a home without the people in it. His work is full of symbolism as he toys with the delicate relationship between American issues of conformity (as expressed through the identical houses) and the individual identities of the occupants.     

    Ultimately, I would describe Levittown as cerebral, thought provoking and visually engaging without being too serious or overwhelming. The exhibit interests viewers with its own distinct personality. References concerning broader, more familiar topics such as prefabricated architecture, (an increasingly popular topic in contemporary architecture and in publications such as Dwell Magazine) and the pressure to conform to society while retaining a bit of individualism bring this exhibit to both intellectual and personal levels.

    To see more of Brian Tolle’s work check out the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City, Stronghold at the University of Washington in Seattle or the installation at the New School, where he is a member of the faculty. His upcoming projects include a sculptural project to be installed at the entrance of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn in 2009.

Levittown at CRG Gallery runs through March 31st

CRG Gallery

535 West 22^nd Street

Take the A, C or E trains to 23^rd Street and 8^th Avenue and/or the M23 bus to 23^rd and 11^th Avenue

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 10am-6pm

Gallery website:www.crggallery.com

Artist website: www.briantolle.com