what to see in NY: Go Get Your Shinebox

Go get your Shinebox, is a large group exhibition featuring artist made "shine boxes" which respond to the current economic crisis.

The show opens at Brooklynite Gallery on nov. 21, and promises to be vivid, energetic and full of ideas.

See the Terrific video preview here
and visit Brooklynite Gallery's website here

relevant, timely and resourceful are what we need now, and they are giving it to us!

What to See in New York: Andy Harper at Danese

London-based painter Andy Harper is having his first solo US show at Danese gallery this month. The show features an array of mostly large-scale paintings and mono prints immaculately displayed in Danese's lofty sky-lit space.

Harper's paintings of abstracted flora and fauna have to be seen to be believed. Across the smooth surface of the canvasses, thin gels of color are scraped, pushed and blotted to create writhing animated vegetal forms that crowd and push each other in densely packed spaces. The colors are hot, emitting glowing patches of light filtering through the shadowy darkness of his undulating plant forms. They are reminiscent of underwater regions choked with algae and seaweeds, or rich lush tropical rain forests. The overall effect is beautiful but infernal.

There is a decidedly hellish aspect to his work, where survival and the ability to flourish means crowding out or covering up some other living thing. The world shown in these paintings emits the strong scent of decay, underscored by the odd bit of bone-like forms and things that resemble internal organs as much as plant matter, wriggling between the leaves. The best works have a kind of all-over composition: it seems important to have a complex randomness here, as if one were looking at a slice of something which expands well beyond the boundaries of the canvas. Some of the works have more obvious imagery, such as femurs and skulls inserted in them as well. This seems a gratuitous and illustrational route to take when the work beautifully presents it's harrowing subject matter without them.

The surfaces and paint handling in all of his paintings is astonishing. Harper has a swift, virtuosic hand with the brush, and the semi-liquid, gelatinous quality of his paint perfectly serves the curvaceous and rapacious forms he pushes across his fields of canvas. There is a true rapport between the way that the images are formed and what the images themselves depict that make being any more explicit with the content seem unnecessary.

Harper's work paints a funny line between being very old fashioned ( He references Bosch, botanical illustration and 17th C. Dutch painting as much as anything else), and very contemporary: the freshness of his mark-making, the all-over surface patterning are like a re-working of Pollock and De Kooning for a post-Vietnam war era.

An online-catalog for the exhibit is available here.


Andy Harper: Recent Paintings and Works on Paper

October 16 - November 14, 2009

Danese
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY, 10011

T: (212) 223-2227
F: (212) 605-1016

Hours: T-S 10-6
Summer: M-TH 10-6; F 10-4

Yarn Theory exhibit at PS122 Gallery is open!

Yarn Theory is now up and open!

I am really pleased with how all of the work interacts together in the space, and was totally blown away by how many people showed up for the opening!

My stars...

This exhibit is NOT about hats, scarves socks or mittens, it is about exciting soft sculptural work, with an amazing variety of forms, colors textures, allusions and imagery. I hope this show gets some attention, because I really think the artists shown here deserve it.

Many are practicing mathematicians, which makes what they produce closer to Modeling structures rather than making sculpture, a distinction I am intrigued by.

I realize that I am hardly impartial, but I do think the show works well, and offers so intriguing surprises....

What to see in Venice:

Seeing contemporary art in Venice, outside of the Biennalle, is a tricky thing.
There are virtually NO real art galleries, and the ones that do exist tend to be on the stodgy and unimaginative side, featuring a smattering of this and that.

The one real exception to this is The Jarach Gallery, located just next to La Fenice Theatre. They specialize in contemporary photography, and literally every show I have seen there has been terrific.
The current show on view of works by Claudio Gobbi, called "Persistence.
A history of Europe" is no exeption. These are beautiful, moving and odd photographs of theaters and waiting rooms, spaces meant to be elegant, but that are slightly down-at-the heels.
Gobbi favors very long narrow formats and soft evenly-lit colors. His spaces are empty, devoid of people, spaces waiting for action to take place in them.

This gallery is a haven of thought-provoking images in a maze of mask and glass shops.
long may they live!

Jarach Gallery

Claudio Gobbi :

Persistence.

A history of Europe

La mostra verrà prorogata fino a sabato 28 febbraio.

A cura di Daniele De Luigi

13/12 2008 - 28/02 2009

Jarach GalleryCampo San Fantin,

San Marco 1997, 30124 Venezia,

da martedì a sabato 10.00-13.00, 14.30-19.30

unedì e domenica su appuntamento

T +39 041 522 1938 F +39 0412778936

www.jarachgallery.com

www.myspace.com/jarachgallery

fo@jarachgallery.com

What to see and buy in NYC:

One way to beat the post-new year's blahs, and it's even affordable!

this event is fun, for a great cause, and you can take home cutting-edge contemporary art at rock-bottom prices. everyone wins, and who doesn't love THAT?

Postcards From the Edge benefiting Visual AIDS

Metro Pictures
519 West 24th Street, NYC

Saturday January 10, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

$5 suggested admission

The annual display and sale of postcard-size artworks donated from 1,650 artists!



Donating artists include:

Martha Lewis, Alfredo Jaar, Cindy Sherman, RossBleckner, Kara Walker, Jeff Koons, Robert Longo, John Waters, CatherineOpie, Glenn Ligon, Tony Feher, Ann Hamilton, Kiki Smith, Nayland Blake, FredWilson, Mary Heilmann, David Armstrong, Carrie Mae Weems, Barton LidiceBenes, Adam Fuss, Jane Hammond, McDermott & McGough, Vito Acconci, JohnBaldessari, Louise Lawler, Marcel Dzama, Patty Chang, Paul Pfeiffer, T.J.Wilcox, Marilyn Minter, Kate Shepherd, Arturo Herrera, Julie Mehretu, EmilyJacir, Jack Pierson, Barry McGee, Slava Mogutin, Rirkrit Tiravanija,Lawrence Weiner, Annie Sprinkle, William Wegman, Yoko Ono, and many, many more.



A list of all donating artists will be distributed at the Benefit Sale

The Benefit Sale -- ONE DAY ONLY!

Saturday, January 10, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM

All works are only $75 EACH.

Buy four, get one free.



Works are signed onthe back and displayed anonymously.

Artists' identities revealed only after purchase.

First-come, first served.

$5 suggested admission



The Preview Party

Friday, January 9, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

$75 admission* includes one raffle ticket.



Additional raffle tickets $20.

Your only chance to get a sneak peek at the entire show!

No sales, but one lucky raffle winner selects the first postcard.

More prizes: the new Rizzoli Keith Haring book, a signed Cindy Sherman catalog, artist multiples fromARTWARE editions and Tulip Enterprises.

Special hosts: The Imperial Court of New York.

Plus a silent art auction.

Wine courtesy of Wine & SpiritsMagazine



*Admission for donating artists is waived

All proceeds support the work of Visual AIDS utilizing contemporary art forAIDS advocacy and historicizing the work of HIV-positive artists whileoffering career support



Questions?

Visit: http://www.thebody.com/visualaids/current/postcards2008_faqs.html

Still have questions?

Call Visual AIDS: 212-627-9855

what to see in New York: Petah Coyne- Vermillion Fog

Katrina is on my mind, and apparently Petah Coyne's as well...

Coyne is known for her baroque, globby sculptures and installations that usually have the crafty lushness of a fairy tale gone bad. Her works are always luxurious and ornate.

Here, for Vermilion Fog at Gallerie Lelong, the works consist of swathes of Velvet, plastic flowers, beads and pins, dead birds, and wax. There is a heavy gothic vibe here, a Miss Havisham's wedding cake aesthetic. This funereal splendour can usually get pretty wearying, but this time she's really hit the nail on the head. The works in Vermilion Fog suggest massive Victorian-style funeral effigies for our environmental irresponsibility.

Her installations, with their swirled lengths of purple and black velvet, evoke oil slicks, puddles of tainted water and brackish tide pools clotted with pearls, beads artificial flowers and dead birds. They rise into the air, matted together. What is really interesting about these clusters is the way they writhe and yet are so patently dead- they are glamorous, funereal stand-ins for nature. This is the concept of "nature morte" taken to it's most logical conclusion, with stuffed mallards dive bombing into velvet and flower clusters that look like hurricane thrown debris. I was stunned by these works, both horrified and touched by them.

Less successful, in my mind, are the ceiling hung chandelier-like works shown in the first room, off to the right. The ruffled cozies holding the ropes or cables bother me, they make the works look clumsy and leaden, not aloft and airborne. Also the space was crowded and all one could do was peer in, with orate works like this, it is MUCH more satisfying to be able to wander around it, sense it's breadth and mass in relation to one's own body. My complaint is really more about installation and spatial choices than the works themselves- they looked uncomfortable and a bit ware-housed in that space.

The white wax and fake flower lattice hanging from the right door jamb in particular needs a different space than the ones the gallery offers. It is also a pity that there were no shifts of natural light over the works, no interesting atmospheric lighting at all, in fact. I have no idea if the fault is hers, or the preparators, but the installation of these works is flabby and lacks drama and energy.

Coyne's latest work verges on greatness here : an anger, a helpless fury seeps through the gaudiness and lavish textures to make a veritable wake for our own selfishness and short-sightedness.She has presented an apt and timely as a statement of our collective predicament, using a truly surprising set of materials to do so.

Petah Coyne:

Vermilion Fog

oct 24-dec. 13 2008

gallerie Lelong

528 west 26th st

ny, ny 10001

t: 212 315-0470

http://www.gallerielelong.com/

Report from New York

Spring in New York inspires wandering around to galleries and spending time gazing wordlessly...

Here are some shows and events In NEW YORK that I am excited about this week!
The Institute for figuring's
Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef
is on display in the NYU display windows on Broadway between 11th and 12th sts.
their project can be read about here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/arts/design/04crochet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
This is a collaborative, long-term project exploring crochet, lace making, natural forms, the environment, global warming, and the nature of structures.
the institute for figuring is one of my personal favorites-
I was totally delighted to see this for real and in person!
I also recommend their site: http://theiff.org/exhibits/iff-e9.html
Take a look and be amazed!

Louise Despont,
The Plant Life of Saints
nicelle beauchene gallery
163 eldridge street, new york, ny 10002
t: 212.375.8043
http://www.nicellebeauchene.com/

This show features amazing Emma Kuntz-esque drawings on antique Leger books. There is also a film which is a sort of animation of the drawings, though the film was not working yet when I saw the show. The work looked better on the site than it did in person- the assemblages and the use of antique materials struck me as a bit gimmicky and strategic. That being said, her work has lots of element I just love- diagrammatic detailing that suggests the mechanical and the organic at once, and alludes to tantric drawing practice. This is beautiful, energetic and exciting work.The exhibit is in a small but thoughtfully put-together new gallery on Eldridge in the east village. They get extra points for being friendly and having lovely fresh flowers at the desk, bringing a note of spring inside.
Well worth a detour....

DARGERISM: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS AND HENRY DARGER
Featuring Amy Cutler, Henry Darger, Jefferson Friedman, Anthony Goicolea, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Yun-Fei Ji, Justine Kurland, Justin Lieberman, Robyn O'Neil, Grayson Perry, Paula Rego, and Michael St. John.
Brooke Davis Anderson, curator
and
ASA AMES: OCCUPATION SCULPTURING

American Folk Art Museum
45 West 53rd Street
New York NY 10019
T 212. 265. 1040
http://www.folkartmuseum.org

I always love the folk art museum. It is JUST the right size, has interesting, intimate spaces for viewing the work , and a world-class collection of art. They also have terrific and imaginatively curated exhibits, featuring both contemporary and older work, often juxtaposed.
When I am there, I get a sense of America as a rare and special place filled with talented people making really interesting art that reflects their background and stories, often using very humble materials. I feel a cultural pride I almost never feel anywhere else. Currently on display are two compelling exhibits: Dargerism and Asa Ames.
Dargerism posits Dargers work with that of contemporary artists who have been influenced by him. This category includes me(though not, sadly, this exhibit!), and any excuse to see his work. The most convincing successor is Greyson Perry of the UK, whose genius decorated pots tell stories of childhood trauma and abuse, alienation, sexual ambiguity and use art history, fairy tales and pop culture to create their imagery. His work is amazing, strong, visual stuff, and very much can hold it's own with Darger's work. I was sorry that they only had two of his pots on display. The show was really interesting, and thoughtfully constructed, but aside from Perry, the contemporary work looked pretty pale in comparison to the sheer inventiveness and scope of Darger's oeuvre. The museum, which has the world's largest holding of Darger's work, has an active interest in claiming his lasting importance as an artist. I do actually think that he does have the kind of impact they are claiming for him, but I am a bit unsure whether this is convincingly made clear via this exhibit.That being said, the Dargers on display are worth coming to see in thier own right, and all caveats aside, this is a really important show. The Curator, Brooke Davis Anderson has been responsible for many of my favorites over the years, including the spectacular "obsessive drawing" exhibit they had a year or two back....


Asa Ames, their second, much smaller show, has the wood portrait work of 18th c. sculptor Asa Ames. This is a small exhibit of polychromed, exquisitely , sensitively wrought portraits, mostly of children. These are quietly astonishing, and made me want to see more, much more. There may not BE many more however- Ames, who worked around 1850 or so, died at age 27, robbing the world of a truly unique talent. This show is tiny , quiet and great,. It should not be missed.

Lastly,
a public art event on Monday, That I am sure will be great!

The Public Art Fund
presents
James Yamada's
Our Starry Night
April 28, 2008
At Doris C. Freedman Plaza in
Central Park
(Fifth Avenue and 60th Street , New York )
5-6pm: Viewing at Doris C. Freedman Plaza


James' work is surprising, inventive, and always worth a gander-
go and see for yourself!

Unmonumental

The Whitney Biennial is up and open to the public now, with showings at both the museum and the nearby 7th regiment armory building. This later is for site-specific installation works and live performances.
The main show at the museum features the works of younger American artists, and is almost exclusively the domain of sculpture and video. Despite the plethora of drawing, painting and mark-making going on in the outside world, almost none exists in the curator-driven utopia that is the Biennial.

The back-lash has officially begun.

Throughout the almost countless galleries of Chelsea, painting and drawing have been the dominant medium for a while now- and no wonder. They are saleable and portable. The market has been ripe to overflowing with collectors queuing up to by the works of young and established artists alike. There is a lot of work out there, not all of it particularly good or interesting, but it does fill wall space, and it does cost.
This, of course, led to lots of critical grumbling, mostly over issues surrounding quality of content.
Thus, there has been a shift, one that has been well in-line with the economic recession, to less commodifiable modes of art-making: performance, "conceptual" art projects using mundane materials, art that is neither transformative nor costly.

I am not against this: for a while now quantity has won out over content, and it has seemed shocking to me the extravagance of the artworld's outpourings given our own countries political climate and the fact that we are are engaged in a very ugly, controversial and expensive war.
Frugality and a more pensive mode seem altogether more appropriate for this moment in time. The glut of galleries, as well, the sheer mass of them right now is unsustainable for any length of time, and a paring down to the ones that are actually economically viable or are not market based seems only logical, and a bit of a relief.

Robert Storr's Venice Biennale reflected well this weight and pared down seriousness, though in an international arena. It also still included some drawing and painting, perhaps because Storr himself is a painter, or perhaps because it is just silly to exclude work on the basis of media. Painting and drawing are not responsible for irrelevant works of art to be clogging the current NY gallery spaces- artists, gallerists, dealers, collectors and curators are. The problem is at the production end- it is idiotic to turn on materials and media to stem the tide of excessiveness and banality. As the Whitney shows to good example, it exists in all formats, even video and installation.

Closer to home, a few months ago in NY, the New Museum inaugurated it's new downtown space to much fanfare with their show: Unmonumental. The exhibit is a large sprawling survey of international artists working with largely ordinary materials to construct seemingly temporary installations and sculptures. I was not a big fan of the exhibit, though I generally like this sort of work. In the museum setting it seemed pretentious and largely inaccessible to anyone out side of the art world. The architecture of the building dominated the show, and it all felt very elitist, which seemed at odds with the materials and precepts of the artist exhibiting. Another side effect was that it felt like way too much- so much actually looked so similar that it became boring, at least to my jaded eyes.


I confess I was grouchy at the get-go: I had eaten a mediocre and uncomfortable lunch at the museum cafe, which over looked a display of neon word art. The meal was spartan, expensive and pre-packaged. It was like dining in a very snooty airport. Then, Having waited for the elevator, took it to the top where we were deposited at some sort of reading room/ information site. This was an unexpected, but also uninteresting start, though I did like the display of kite-like sculptures floating above the table.


Having exited this area we found the exhibit, which has a lot of the usual suspects: Isa Genzken,
Sarah Lucas, as well as many I've never heard of. It was certainly a declarative statement from the museum, and daring in a way. The press largely adored it. This exhibit seems to have influenced the curators of the Biennial, or perhaps this is just the aesthetic-du-jour around here these days.


However,the Whitney show, by contrast, has none of the sizzle, elan, or slouching glamour of Unmonumental. Is that because it shows only younger Americans?
Unmonumental was filled with Europeans.

Is that what's wrong with the Whitney?


Sometimes it is not a question of WHO but WHAT they have on show: some of the participating artists have made compelling works in the past, but what was selected or made for this show just isn't that fascinating. This is really made clear by a look at the Biennial website, which has a page of images from all of the participating artists. Godd examples are Adam Putnam and Racheal Harrison, whose work in the Biennial is nowhere near as exciting as that shown on the website.

The show lies flat as a whole, and features lots of installations that look just like lots of other installations have in the past, and lots of cubicles for watching videos. I confess my tolerance for watching videos is pretty low, but these were my favorite offering of the Biennial- the most meaty, conceptually compelling and VISUAL parts were videos. That being said none did anything particularly new or innovative with the medium, most were in a pretty straightforward documentary format.


The Armory part of the exhibit was, over all, more FUN-meaning, more visually engaging. This was largely due to the fabulous Armory itself, with it's amazing, lavish rooms contrasting with the dilapidated and functional military parts. It's like an amazing haunted house, or as a friend remarked, the Bradbury building in Blade Runner. This made an effective foil for sound-works, installed objects and set-ups of all kinds. even the bar area was more fun, hipper, more relaxed.


Yes, I do think Biennials should be FUN, even if we are in sober times of reflection.

But sober and morality laden art was not really on the menu at the Whitney. This was a common complaint about the Venice Biennale: too much mortality, too heavy, too much death. This seems the order of the day to me and an accurate reflection of how dire things are in the world, so I'm fine with art that reflects that.
I am not really sure WHAT was being reflected at the Whitney.
I felt that it was meager, stale and dull. It made me re-think my caveats with Unmonumental.


Most of all, it made me think:
"Where is the drawing?"

Drawing is an affordable, accessible medium being used by artists of all backgrounds, economic and ethnic groups. It is not a big showy statement of wealth and taste like painting traditionally is, it is traditionally, the medium of IDEAS. It can be serious, playful, it can reflect left, right and center. There is A LOT of it out there, and yet it was absent from this show, this survey of US art now. Ultimately this says more to me about the curators minds than the state of the art in the USA right now. A sort of return of the repressed, with the specters of what was left out moaning and wailing to be let in.

The Whitney, on it's website claims that the exhibit : "characterizes the state of American art today". I certainly hope not.
As a cross section of the USA 's cultural output, this was one meager repast, and did not do a good job of reflecting our richness, diversity, politics, creativity and ingenuity.
It reflected instead the rather flat landscape of its creator's minds.

For a rather good review of the show by Holland Cotter, in the New York Times, go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/arts/design/07bien.html

to look at Unmonumental go here:http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/3
to look at the Whitney Biennial site go to: http://whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=home
for more on the Venice Bienalle, see :http://www.labiennale.org/it/arte/

Between the Sublime & the Silly

Okay, Lets start with the SILLY:

I made a foray into Chelsea yesterday and saw several very good exhibits,

a few mediocre ones

and a gallery I found truly puzzling:

the Amsterdam Whitney gallery.

This place has to be seen to be believed.

I was lured in there by a postcard featuring some Hilda af Klimt-esque abstractions using colored foil and plastic inserts.

On the back of the post card was an elaborate coat of arms, which should have set off alarm bells, but in the interest of hunting out intriguing images, I proceeded intrepidly on.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I found:

A dizzying array of elaborate and not-very-nice carved Asian furniture(imports from Hong Kong?) clustered with large Nutcracker dolls filling the table spaces, and large, varied and garish paintings coating the walls. These were, I guess, different "shows" up at the same time- there were artists statements and brochures littered next to the nutcrackers.There must have been a dozen or so artist's work here.

Many of the paintings featured 3-d elements and had elaborate frames. There was an oil portrait of the founder, replete with coat of arms, surrounded by carved objects nailed to the walls, and a series of giant carved wood hearts on stands occupying the scantly remaining floor space.

I was gobsmacked.

Is this a joke?

How do they pay the rent?

Above is a photo of one of the founders of the gallery,"Ambassador Dr. Alton Louis Amsterdam 111" with one of the exhibiting artist from a past show. The gallery is huge with several alcoves, but this gives you some idea of the level of clutter and general weirdness...

Here is what they say about themselves:

"AMSTERDAM WHITNEY International Fine Art, Inc. was established as a premier vanguard gallery in direct response to the discerning taste and trends of the sophisticated worldwide collector, searching to discover foremost cutting edge contemporary artists who will be the trailblazer Contemporary Masters into the twenty first century, showcasing them in a museum forum environment. "

A"Museum Forum Environment"?

HUH?

I admit I liked it, in the sense that it was such a nose-thumb at most Chelsea gallery taste, except that they actually seemed so durned EARNEST...
Maybe someone else out there(here) has the answer to this one?

If so, do tell!

For the morbidly curious here is their website : http://www.amsterdamwhitneygallery.com/index.html

from there we sashay over to

the sublime:

The show ended February 14th, but Jus Juchtman's show of minimal color-Field paintings at

Margaret Thatcher Projects was breathtaking!

They photograph poorly, but featured glossy poured and scraped glaze coatings you could fall into!

Yum.

Next:

Above is the painting Microscape 2 by Katsumi Hayakawa , now showing at
Garson Fine Art (511 w 25th st).

These paintings are evocative of views of cities from above and of circuit boards, without being illustrational. They have a thick matte crust of paint that the artist has cut into to reveal a glittering under layer of what appear to be tarnished rhinestones. This means that the works glitter and wink as one moves around them, like lights.

I liked that they are intricate and yet abstract. The materials reference other things while steadfastly remaining obviously recognizable as what they are. This gave the paintings a life of their own.

The Liars and The Moonstruck is an exhibit of Douglas Florian's inspired, witty, and seemingly sentient blobby collage monsters. An example, above though the ones in this show appear to have been painted on paper bags, and have creases and serrated edges. Florian is well-known as a children's book illustrator, but frankly, I prefer these.

Showing at BravinLee Projects, 526 West 26th Street, Suite 211, until March 8, 2008

For more information visit: http://bravinlee.com/, or see: http://www.douglasflorian.com/, which is a lovely and very well organized website. His artist's statement is wonderful, which is a rarity unto itself!

Oddly, or perhaps not- gallery directors must know what each other are doing-

Acclaimed children's book illustrator Peter Sis is also showing in Chelsea, at Mary Ryan Gallery,527 w 26th st. Unlike Florian's show, this one really is of works made for kids books. They are intricate and in places, impossibly detailed. I had to remind myself that I was looking at the real thing, and not a reduced printed image. They are really exquisitely wrought, and far more beautiful in real life than they are in print. This is saying something as the books are very high quality, and produced with great love and care. Above is a drawing for his book "Madelenka".

I've decided not to write about the mediocre shows I saw- it's too depressing.

The Amsterdam-Whitney was splendid in it's own way, as were the exhibits listed above.

Each a self-contained whole world unto itself.

Why spoil this with mediocrity?