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Damien Hirst
Gagosian Gallery
By Nicollette
Ramirez
This eye-popping
show, which begins in Gagosian’s Chelsea gallery and
extends to the courtyard space of Lever House at Park Avenue
and 53rd Street, features at its center piece Damian Hirst’s
interpretation of the Virgin Mary; an Amazon-like anatomical
figure, apparently half machine and half Degas ballerina.
Beyond the obvious shock value, the work is revolutionary
in many ways. During the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci did
some of the best anatomical drawings of the human figure
to date, including some of fetuses. Four years ago Hirst
produced anatomical sculptures, not unlike those we see
in medical labs. Here, he has created a pregnant female,
with all that this implies. Dissected lengthwise down the
middle, skin, blood vessels, muscles, and the fetus are
made visible. The subject appears as a strong, elegant,
fertile woman.
At the same time,
in the gallery space we have what amounts to a mini-retrospective
of Hirst’s work over the past three years; ranging
from old Hirst favorites like pills on cabinet shelves,
to more recent themes that reference the war in Iraq. Of
particular note in this regard is the Baroque style painting,
Suicide Bomb Aftermath (Baghdad), (2004-2005), which exudes
a palpable feeling of death and destruction in the expression
on the men’s faces, and in the dusty colors of the
background. This work has the immediacy of horror, conveying
the hot desert landscape drenched in fresh blood.
The close-up clinical
precision of Hirst’s "medical" paintings
conjure the unmistakable scent of a hospital. Incision,
(2004) presents a chilling image of white gloved hands over
blue hospital coverings, while medical machines hover in
the background. The focused light on the hands, preparing
the incision, leads the mind’s eye to conjure what
comes next.
The physical demise
of the human body is a recurring theme for Hirst. This is
especially evident in The Devastating Impact of Crack Cocaine
(2004-2005). The source of this work is a series of mug
shots taken from a highly circulated internet link which
shows the arrests of a female crack addict over a period
of years. In another work, The Devil on Earth (2005) we
see a close-up of the pock-marked face and scarred hands
of a man lighting up.
Hirst captures
the mineral properties of gems in the same microscopic way
he regards his other subjects. Minerals (2002-2003) and
Cut Gemstones (2002-2003) depict gems in the rough and polished,
respectively. Color plays an important role in these works,
while Homo Florensiensis, A New and Diminutive Species of
Human Being Has Been Discovered (2004-2005) employs variations
on shades of black. The diminutive head seems to decay into
the darkness, while our homo sapiens head (larger, brighter
and more in the forefront of the picture) is threatened
with the same inevitable fate of fading into blackness.
The minerals are formed underneath and come up onto the
earth as the human skulls degenerate and become again part
of the earth. Here, Memento Mori are not an aside but the
subject of this work.
Hirst has been
quoted as saying that he moved away from painting in his
early work because he felt he couldn’t create where
great traditions already existed. Now he seems ready to
confront what challenged him as a youth; but as a seasoned
artist who can wrestle with tradition.
Through 4/23.
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Larry Clark
International
Center of Photography
By Joel Simpson
This elaborate
retrospective of photographer-filmmaker Larry Clark includes
the images from his books, his photo-collages, collateral
videos, and one of his films. Born in 1943, Clark burst
on the photographic scene in 1971 with his stark landmark
documentary of the youthful drug culture of his native city,
called simply Tulsa.
Here Clark takes
a painfully honest look at the culture that he himself was
immersed in as a young man, seeking both identity and escape;
a culture of collective self-destruction. The documentary
style is reminiscent of work published in Life magazine,
except that Clark’s lens could only be in the hands
of a participant. The images leave the viewer almost embarrassed
at the desperate vulnerability we are permitted to see;
scenes of young men shooting up, variously framed by car
windows, mirrors, shadows, broken glass and a large picture
of Jesus hanging over the mantelpiece; a vignette of a hand
dripping a trail of blood down the inner forearm; hands
clasped behind a bowed neck; a heavy young woman with a
black eye lying in bed; a young man in bed shooting up a
bare-breasted woman; a pregnant woman shooting up in the
sunlight; a man lying in bed takes a drag from his cigarette
as he looks off to the right, while a chubby-faced baby
lying cross-wise on the man’s stomach stares imploringly
up at the camera; flowers laid by a dead baby’s coffin…
In 1983 Clark
brought out his next book, Teenage Lust: An Autobiography
of Larry Clark. Here Clark extends the saga, beginning with
family photographs, then documenting his move to New York
City, then cross-cuts between his series of arrests and
his quest for the utopia of a communal hippie life in New
Mexico, concluding with a series of portraits of young male
hustlers around a pre-Disney Times Square. Throughout his
youthful sex scenes on couches and in bathtubs, as we pass
by image after image of bare breasts and distended penises,
there is little erotic allure. The subjects are just as
lost as in the first book, though the emphasis has shifted
from drugs to sex.
Between 1989 and
1992 Clark created a number of wall-sized collages, first
as informal bulletin boards collecting newspaper clippings,
magazine pages, postcards, photographs and various ephemera,
and later formalized as framed works. They focus on the
same themes as his personal work, but with more informed
context. The exhibition also features several videotapes
of daytime TV interview programs selected by Clark, such
as an episode of the Phil Donahue Show, in which teen violence
is discussed (e.g. a16-year old boy who murdered his violent
father).
For his third
work, 1992 (1992), Clark hired five teenage boys to create
fictional scenes that continued to explore themes of sex
and violence inspired from his youth. He strips away the
narrative framework, however, and substitutes image after
image of nearly identical gesture and scene, as of successive
stills from a movie. This book clearly presaged a transition
into film. Clark’s first feature film, Kids, released
in 1995, is shown continuously in one of the side rooms
of a downstairs gallery. This extreme-reality docu-drama
depicts a day in the life of an HIV-positive sexual predator
and his skate-boarding chums, who eventually gang up on
him and beat him up. Since then Clark has made Another Day
in Paradise (1998), a film about an older couple who hook
up with a teenage couple to facilitate their drug robberies;
and Bully (2001), based on the story of a teenage boy’s
murder by his drug-addled peers.
Clark’s
allegiance has always been to his subjects rather than to
the sensibilities of his viewers. As a result, his work
doesn’t pull any punches; as this show confirms in
excruciating detail.
Through 6/5. ¶
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Body
Human
Nohra
Haime Gallery
By Mary
Hrbacek
The
human physique has long proven an irresistible, recurring
theme in art. With contrarian boldness, Picasso flattened
the natural roundness of the female, carving contours into
distorted shapes to further his artistic ideals. Giacometti
stretched and elongated the male body to suit his expressive
purpose. Today the human form is no less fascinating. In
this group show, dubbed Body Human, 31 contemporary artists,
including luminaries such as Cindy Sherman, Tom Otterness,
Sandro Chia, Jonathan Borofsky and Hugo Bastidas, among
others, bring a unique perspective to an inexhaustible theme.
The
focus here is on barely human, anonymous forms in turmoil
expressed with rent, torn, shredded, roiling materials.
Whether tussling in a group or situated alone, each piece
confronts the viewer with its own energy. For example, Tony
Scherman's Hecate (encaustic on canvas),(1995), seems frozen
in angry resolve. Angel Gill's lone figure in Magnetize
(oil on canvas), (2002), attracts a multitude of tiny particles
that resemble blowing leaves. Lesley Dill's shimmering image
Homage to Frida Kahlo, constructed from shredded material,
pulsates with rhythm alluding to the label, "exhilaration,"
a verbal hint to the inner meaning of the work. Susan Rothenberg's
Head Role (oil on canvas), (1987), depicts a head as a double
image with a strong Giacometti influence. Set in a dark
format that is activated by white and grey brush strokes,
the double head expresses a sense of confusion and anxiety.
Presumably
inspired by party decorations, Heather Cox's spooky Tissue
Figure #6 presents a black, hanging form that is fashioned
of tissue. The other-worldly, ghost-like figure may be of
African origin, but its underpinnings are rooted in science
fiction. More overt, Jorge Tacla's Paranoid (oil and tempera
on canvas), (1985), shows the distorted image of a figure
kneeling among an array of ghost-like staring face-masks.
The work resonates with fear and insecurity. Likewise, Luis
Caballero's Untitled (pigment on paper), 1989, depicts a
tormented, naked man on his knees, struggling with a shadowy
but undefined adversary. Robert Longo's Corporate War Reversed
(pencil on paper), (1983), shows hand to hand combat that
suggests career infighting among figures that fill the format,
in a kind of modern homage to Renaissance master drawings.
The
idiosyncratic use of diverse materials by each artist is
part of what makes Body Human such an intriguing show. The
complex, personal feeling evident in these works, void of
reference to popular culture, allows the voice of each artist
to come through unabated.
3/9 through 4/10. ¶
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Martin Kippenberger
NYEHAUS
By Joyce
Korotkin
One of the most
prolific and diverse artists of the late 20th century, Martin
Kippenberger was heralded as the witty heir apparent to
the Beat Generation’s Merry Pranksters; sometimes
poetic and often profound in his paintings, drawings, posters,
portraits, installations and assemblages that chronicled
both the real and imaginary sites in which he lived and
worked. This exhibition focuses on works created in the
1990s; a vast collection of architectural plans, photographs,
sculptures and maquettes that document The Bermuda Triangle,
an area comprised of three sites that were of paramount
importance in Kippenberger’s life that were owned
and operated by two of his collectors and patrons, Michel
Würthle and Reinald Nohal. Muses and close friends
of the artist as well, the duo were proprietors of the Paris
Bar in Berlin, a hangout that was a legendary magnet for
Kippenberger and other internationally recognized artists
such as Beuys and Baselitz. Würthle owned a home on
the Greek island of Syros where Kippenberger summered for
six years, and Nohal started Dawson City Bunkhouse, a summer
retreat in the Yukon near Alaska.
These three sites,
and two muses, became the inspiration and subject matter
for the body of work in this show. Paradoxically both real
and conceptual, the works include drawings on disparate
materials such as hotel menus and table napkins that are
full of puns, art historical references and images, as well
as architectural plans and maquettes charting the world’s
first network of what can only be described as virtual Metro
Stations. Kippenberger built the first one of these conceptual
stations (that actually led nowhere, but simulated the rush
of warm air and sounds of passing phantom trains) on Syros
and the second one in Dawson City. They were followed by
others in the German cities of Leipzig and Kassel, as well
as in New York. Eventually they became known as the Metro-Net
project, a network of sculptural entries to non-existent
subways that conceptually linked important sites, on his
psychological global map, to each other.
Kippenberger lived
a wildly bohemian life fueled by a burning ambition to achieve
the height of fame in the art world; the running diaristic
dialog and sketchy images in his work serve to illustrate
much of the meandering and clever strategy behind his ideas.
Ever the showman, he had a penchant for creating work that
led his audience to such dead-ends as the stations; even
creating, with impish wit, numerous posters advertising
his own non-existent gallery exhibitions, that kept his
followers guessing.
3/5 through 4/30.¶
Ed Note: NYEHAUS
is located in the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South.
Hrs 11 am – 6 pm, Tuesday through Saturday
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The Armory Show
The International
Fair of New Art
By Lily Faust
For one very busy
week last month, Piers 90 and 92, edging the West side of
Manhattan just north of Chelsea, became a hub of activity
for artists, art professionals, collectors and art junkies
from around the globe. The Armory Show, which not so long
ago began life as an “alternative” hotel art
fair called the Gramercy International Contemporary Art
Fair, in 1994, (named after the Gramercy Hotel) today takes
its namesake from the historical 1913 Armory Show in which
European Modernism was introduced to an American audience
in New York.
Although more of
a synthesis of recent art than a discovery route to new
experiences, The Armory Show 2005 re-affirms the city’s
position as the epicenter of the art world in terms of contemporary
art. With nearly 2000 living artists represented by some
162 galleries from 39 cities around the world, the show
brought together a strong mix of art currents prevalent
in the West, attracting a record breaking 40,000 visitors.
Tucked into the two piers, the viewer gets a sense of incremental
art movements on a global scale. Distinctions of national,
racial and gender identity are hardly noticeable; timing,
however, continues to be a differentiating factor. Every
five years, there’s a feasible new “look,”
another turn in the zigzag of visual expression and art
consciousness, branded in particulars of shapes, lines and
color, or daring, or whimsy, or conceptual underpinnings
and outlook.
This year, drawings
with curious, sensitive lines, and paintings with lush creaminess
and sensual colors were evident in most of the samplings.
Figuration and realism, along with a more visual, whimsical
conceptualism have made a come back, virtually in all parts
of the globe. New York’s Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
showed a collection of recent Ida Appelbroog paintings in
which the artist’s slyly humorous figures displayed
a notable exuberance and looser outlines. Galerie Gebr.
Lehmann, from Dresden, showed paintings by Thoralf Knobloch,
a German artist who combines abstraction with representation
in compositions that invert scale. The painterly brushwork
and immaculate skill of Ena Swansea, represented by Klemens
Gasser & Tanja Grunert in New York, was on display in
her painting of a marching band imbued with unusually sensuous
reds and blues. Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, of
New York, showed Dean Byington’s painting, King and
Queen, which intermingles finely detailed line drawings
and diluted washes of runny colors to create whimsical,
storybook narratives, where reality gives way to dreams.
A few works stood
uniquely alone, borrowing and assimilating past attitudes
into new contexts. In humorous pictorial essays, using digital
photography, Gonzalo Puch, represented by Galeria Pepe Cobo
of Madrid, comments on the psychological and artistic aspects
of human life. In one piece, a man is crushed under a balloon-like
paper globe made up of road maps.
In another work,
titled Le Corbusier con Pina) (Le Corbusier with Pineapple),
an environment of white architectural models, geometric
structures and ramps surrounds a towering white refrigerator;
its door open, its shelves well stocked. Off to the side,
a pineapple is perched atop a circular base, balanced on
a slender dowel. Interspersed with large plants, the urban
“landscape” provides off-kilter configurations
for the mind and the eye. At Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles
Projects, Jason Rogenes‚ light-emanating ceiling sculptures
are puzzled together from styrofoam packaging. Recycling
new forms out of the “negative” shapes that
hold appliances in place during shipping, Rogenes has produced
surprising spaceships, reversing the mundane into the spectacular.
From Texas, Angstrom Gallery showed Chip Rack by Kevin Landers,
a four-tiered hand-built rack stacked with brightly painted
hand-made junk food bags, filled with styrofoam doodles.
Landers utilizes advertising ploys, such as boldly colored
shapes of banners and bursting stars, to draw attention
to his products that have no names, no price tags, yet evoke
the spirit of Pop Art, commenting obliquely on consumption.
In a photographic
essay, titled Hotel Room No. 310, the large-format color
photograph of Birgit Brenner, a German artist represented
by Galerie Eigen+Art, of Berlin and Leipzig, depicted the
interior of a hotel room that is occupied, (TV on, shoes
by the bed) yet empty. Stuck onto the wall right above the
photograph, a small rectangular cardboard read “blutfleck”
(blood stain in German), written in red pencil. A long wooden
strip of wood, sharpened to a point at one end, leaned diagonally
against the sign and the photograph. The hand-written, black
inked text on the slender stick expressed an ongoing internal
monologue, part of which read, “It’s an easy
thought. Ten seconds to go. He moves on. Seven seconds to
go. He opens the window and considers the height”
Oddly catalyzing a sense of impending danger, and quietly
building a psychological drama, the work wove meaning into
a neutral image through specified textual content.
There were also
unexpected discoveries.
A series of photographs by the reclusive Czech artist, Miroslav
Tichy, exhibited at Arndt & Partner, of Zurich and Berlin,
showed images of women taken by cameras that the artist
himself had devised. Tichy’s cameras, made by taping
and gluing together components from several different optical
instruments, are also works of art. The product of a sensitive
mind coupled with an imperfect tool, his images retain an
earnestness that is rare in documentary photographs. In
this regard, there is a Henry Darger quality to Tichy’s
work.
Beyond an assessment
of individual works, this year’s installment of The
Armory Show had a noticably sleek, corporate feel. Depending
on one’s perspective, the show has either “arrived”
in so far as its economic impact on the city leaves no doubt
that we are no longer talking about an alternative art fair;
and this is a good thing, or by the same measure, but through
different eyes, the show has “arrived” and at
the same time left something behind. Record-breaking attendance
and heady prices (which trickled all the way down to the
$9 bagels and $4 cookies for sale in the fair’s cafeteria)
tell a story of indisputable commercial success, yet some
intangible spirit was missing. Perhaps this can be explained
as mere nostalgia for the fair’s grass-roots beginnings,
or perhaps the looming spirits of co-founders Pat Hearn
and Colin de Land have left the building while no one was
looking. In the roller-coaster world of today’s city-hopping
collectors and countless new art fairs, there is simply
no time like the present.
3/11 through 3/14. ¶
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DiVA Art Fair
By Ariadna
Capasso & Diana Korchak
In a city driven
by the shock of the new, the newly christened DiVA (Digital
Visual Art) fair, which took place here last month at New
York’s Embassy Suite Hotels, from March 10 - 13, struck
a chord with dedicated following of digital and video art
collectors and dealers. This first edition of the fair,
produced by the non-profit organization Frère Independent,
was billed as a tribute to Bruce Nauman; his work appeared
on large screens throughout the hotel, and a panel discussion,
moderated by Elga Wimmer, was held on the work of the digital
art pioneer. Partial proceeds for the opening night party
were donated to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and
featured live performances, which were pointed out by little
Yellow Arrow messages on attendees’ cell phones.
The fair’s
modest size, some 30 participants spread across a couple
of floors in the hotel’s open atrium, allowed for
an easy overview. The strong presence of European galleries
gave DiVA an international flair. Spanish art dealers in
particular seem to be more committed to the medium. It is
worth noting that the first video art fair, called Loop,
originated in Barcelona. DiVA exhibitors included Galería
Fucares and Magda Bellotti (Spain), Ronmandos (The Netherlands),
DNA Gallery (Germany), Galerie Parisud and Olivier Houg
(France). Despite the presence of some New York galleries
with an interest in new media, such as Boreas, Bitforms,
Alp, Elga Wimmer, LMAK, and Remy Toledo, among others, there
did not seem to be a lot of support from New York dealers.
This is likely due to the barrage of art fairs and art events
that seemed to hit the city all at once.
Standouts in the
show included Digitale, by Montreal-based artists Alexandre
Castonguay and Mathieu Bouchard. This work consisted of
a bench with an integrated touch screen and a Kodak Brownie
box camera. The visitor would sit on the bench and touch
the screen, which became a pool of water. There was an Alice-in-Wonderland
moment, when concentric circles formed in the wake of one’s
touch. The image on the screen was recorded and transmitted
live by the camera. Going one step further in this magical,
digital world, the visitor could take a black and white
“photograph”, which was projected onto an adjacent
wall, and which immediately disintegrated. So much for the
notion that photographs capture an eternal moment...
Danish artist Eva Koch’s NoMad presents an 11 minute
loop from an image of people walking in the horizon on a
thin strip of land as they make their way out to pray to
the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai, a Mosque built 500 yards
out in the sea and only accessible during the low tides
by a thin rock causeway.
The multi-disciplinary
New York based artists Terry Berkowitz and Blerti Murataj
presented Eye of the Needle. A short and succinct video
that will be exhibited later this year at the Reina Sofía
Museum in Spain, this piece overlaps harrowing testimony
of domestic violence and rape, taken from the Lorena Bobbitt
trials (the woman who severed her husband’s penis)
with beautifully filmed images of a woman’s hands
sewing. The images of the needle piercing the cloth serve
as a powerful metaphor for the built up aggression silently
endured by the victim.
In spite of pioneers
like Bruce Nauman, who began working in this field thirty
years ago, video art still at the cusp of widespread acceptance
among collectors. Fortunately, those who love the medium
are rapidly outnumbering those are still waiting to see
what will become of it all. DiVA may very well have found
a niche, much like collectors of photography who finally
made the art world take notice that this new kid on the
block is here to stay.
3/10 through 3/14. ¶
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Peter Howson
Flowers Gallery
By Julia Morton
The paintings and
drawings are small, only 8 x 8 inches. But Peter Howson’s
subject is monumental; the life, death, and rebirth of Jesus
is certainly a risky choice of subject matter especially
given the religious passions that define more and more politics
around the world. Those who “believe” might
find Howson’s masterful, though exaggerated style
offensive, while others may have difficulty seeing past
the familiar narratives to find relevance in his imagery.
Apparently Howson is a believer.
Following in the tradition of great European religious art,
Howson’s paintings and drawings bring to mind artists
as varied as William Blake and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Using
a device that Caravaggio was harshly criticized for, he
casts “lowlifes” to play his Biblical characters.
His saints look like the homeless, and his Jesus appears
as a frightened, humiliated man. Manipulating his technique
to fit each scene, Howson applies contrasting colors to
dramatize the action, and his brush work alternates between
choppy and serene.
In Writing in the
Sand, the mob surrounding the Christ figure is reduced to
an abstract mix of lunging dabs and dry smears. In the painting
Temptation, abrupt areas of light and shadow define the
demonic lunatics who taunt a conflicted Christ.
In Legion, Howson uses a softer, smoother brushstroke. Christ
is depicted half lit in a darkened passage, behind him an
archway breaks with sunlight, while before him a naked man
writhes on the ground. All around spectators crouch in the
dark gasping in horror and wonder. In much of his work,
Howson’s compositions are so hypnotic that the eye
loses track of the subject; there is so much to take in.
While the paintings
are focused on specific events, and express Howson’s
vision of Christ, his drawings are apoplectic, full of rage,
degradation and foreboding. In both the early and late 1990s,
Howson traveled to Bosnia and then Kosovo, where he produced
a series of drawings that depicted the horrors of the war
ravaged populace; hence the authentic feel of the dark drawings
in this show.
The show’s
fourteen drawings are rendered in pencil on gessoed panels,
and appear sharp, but fragile. In Christ among the Outcasts,
Jesus stares sadly down as pleading, monstrous characters
crush around him. In Black Fire and in Wormwood hell has
literally broken lose. Human waves dissolve into liquid
fire and all manner of evil comes to life.
Seen together,
both the spiritually uplifting paintings and the devastating
dark imagery of the drawings combine to produce a strange
dynamic that recalls Goya’s slippery slope of madness.
3/17 Through 5/7. ¶
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Cornelia Renz
Goff+Rosenthal
By Nadja Sayej
Dried out markers
have a certain charm to them. They leave a mark that looks
used, worn out and finished. In Cornelia Renz’s show,
her women dance over this faded line, of looking worn out
and used. Renz is a German based artist who has a strange
fascination for the awkward space between “girlie
adolescence” and womanhood. As a young mother, she
takes her own feminine wisdom and mirrors it with the playful
naiveté reflected in her own daughter.
Scantily clad female
figures stand in absurd poses that question their innocent
chubbiness. They want to be empowered, but are easily categorized
as the objects that surround them. Looming abstract shapes
and teddy bear animals share the personal spaces with the
haughty figures (along with their confrontational attitudes).
Wearing provocative theatrical outfits, the feminine girl-creatures
impose seductive demeanours to viewers, outshining themselves
as dangerous sexual animals before intellectually empowered
feminists.
Renz stylistically
challenges the illustrative, informal nature of comic books
with a sophisticated aloofness. She surrounds the sexual
overtones in the nymphettes with an indirect Freudian sensibility.
Their dark and devilish attitudes are afterthoughts to the
child-like palettes that draw us in, then strangely repel
us. Their dangerous sexuality lends itself to a compulsive
hysteria that is understood only through rose colored Nabokov
glasses, looking at the (clumsy yet sinister) muse herself,
Lolita.
In an unconventional
approach to materials, paint is poured into empty marker
cartridges and applied onto plexi-glass. The calculated
gesture builds up a visual volume with straight lines. Renz
uses a repetitive analogue approach to render the carefully
fabricated figures. The pieces are separated into transparent
surfaces that are held together by a frame to create one
image. The final products are reminiscent of overlapping
animation cells that depend on each other for depth of field.
The electric sounds
of New York’s post-punk trio Le Tigre come to mind
in the postcard-like presence of From Berlin With Love.
The outfits help tell a disjointed fairy tale narrative;
whimsical clouds dance between a nymphet in an aviation
outfit with a bear in a pumpkin skirt. The girl-characters
in Renz’s work are inklings into the mind of a comic
book obsessed 10 year-old boy, one who hides his fantastical
drawings between the pages of his grade 5 math textbook.
Through 4/16. ¶
Ed Note: Goff+Rosenthal
is located at 537B West 23rd Street, NY 10011. Tel 212.675.0461
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Cadence Giersbach
Roebling Hall
By Mary Hrbacek
These large-scale
flashe on wood paintings offer a new twist landscape painting,
a genre with seemingly limitless opportunities for personal
invention. Ostensibly, the works comment on the unflattering
contrast between the mesmerizing grandeur of Niagara Falls
and its seamy man-made surroundings; a landscape dotted
with waste dumps, motels, power-plants and casinos. The
aforementioned motifs are all bathed in the seductive luminous
afterglow of sunsets that transform even so-called ugly
sights into dramatic breathtaking spectacles.
The artist transfers
visual information that she derives from digitally altered
photographs, by hand, onto her canvases. Some of the swirling
rhythmic patterns retain their computer-generated appearance.
Employing a luscious rainbow palette, Giersbach creates
shapes that dissolve into forms at close viewing, much like
the effect of brush strokes in Impressionists paintings.
The paintings,
especially Maid of the Mist, have lucid shades of pink,
green and aquamarine blue that suggest the light of the
tropics. There is a dreamy feeling of fantasy and reverie,
as if the scene were indeed made of mist. The work Niagara/Power
Towers recalls the red hues and fractured forms found in
the American West. Here under a "big sky" the
power towers loom in the distance, suggesting the filigree-iron
architecture of the Eiffel Tower.
Giersbach's works
resemble huge puzzles where the constructions of humanity
and of nature have their place, and play an integral part
in the picture. The miniscule fragments introduce a scientific
subtext of a microcosm that exists within a larger macrocosm.
There is also a hint of "paint by numbers" here
that lends a contemporary edge to the work.
3/12 through 4/9. ¶
Ed Note: Roebling
Hall is located at 390 Wythe Ave (at South 4th St), Brooklyn,
NY 11211. Tel 718.599.5352
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Greater New York
Show
P.S.1
By Jari Chevalier
Intended to reflect
the present state of the arts among emerging artists in
the New York metropolitan area, Greater New York, the ambitious
artists show which opened last month at the PS-1 Arts Center,
offers a panoply of multidisciplinary, multimedia, and multidimensional
works, most of which are provocative and at times confrontational.
The show is characterized
by complex, superlative and visceral work. Here, Zen has
given way to Hindu; Existential to Baroque; Apollonian to
Dionysian. Focussing on works by 167 artists, the dominant
trend among the highly varied forms of expression are dark
visions, heavy symbolism, in-your-face political statements
and pop culture iconography. For example, Justin Lowe’s
large scale installation, On the Beach, utilizes a truckload
of leveled sand, with a life-size manikin Michael Jackson
manikin, posed as if looking out to sea, with shoulder-length
hair that covers his face. The figure stands a few paces
from a luxurious teepee emanating pop/rock music. Banks
Violette’s Hate Them, shown alongside his Anthem (to
future suicide) and Untitled, a matched set of bad tidings
in chrome, shiny black surfaces and fluorescent light fills
a nearby room. In another room, Peter Caine creates a nightmare
of wooly white mechanized creatures in a landscape of fake
snow and colored lights.
Notable among many
artists’ chosen medium is the proliferation of innovative
paper works and collage — Min Kim’s assemblage
Deliberately blinding the evidence of distance-always, Kurt
Lightner’s, Untitled, a complex collaged image of
biomorphic forms, Nicola Lopez’s facetiously titled
A Promising Tomorrow, a Mehretu-like mixed media wall installation
of tires and smoke, and a series of paper shopping bags,
with a miniature tree cut into the interior, which is then
spot lit from above through the space where the tree once
was.
Notwithstanding
the range of different styles, media, and techniques on
display here, much of the show seems familiar. There are
the self-indulgent confessionals, and grotesque theatrics;
such as Robert Melee’s High Life, Daniel Hesidence’s
series of self-portraits, and Brock Enright’s Capitulation
and Carpet Touch. These are companion movies depicting a
severely mutilated gorilla/Darth Vader figure hurled by
an unseen source repeatedly against the wall, then dying
a slow death.
There are also
sparks of originality; Wangechi Mutu’s installation
Once Upon a Time there lived a people who loved to kill,
but even more they relished watching one another die. Delicate,
lyrical creatures — half woman, half butterfly —
fly with painted ribbons and streamers among cankers gouged
in the walls and painted-in wound colors. Another dark,
inspired piece is Rob Fisher’s Accidental/Intentional
series, in which unfocused photographs depict trailers and
shacks set on fire with paint.
As a survey of works created by New York area artists since
2000, Greater New York
both validates
and informs, calling attention to tomorrow’s potential
“art stars” while reaffirming the past as prelude.
Through 9/26. ¶
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This Article
Jules de Balincourt
Zach Feuer Gallery
By Nadja
Sayej
In the final scene
of film adaptation of George Orwell’s novel, 1984,
Winston Smith caves into the totalitarian propagation of
Big Brother by writing “2+2=5” with his finger
in table dust. Although Winston is seen ultimately as a
symbol for defeated societal passivity against government
control, he also stands as a free thinker. He questioned
his oppression in a secret diary that he hid in the wall
of his desolate apartment from the “thought police.”
This ominous,
paranoid surveillance that confronted Winston is paralleled
through political re-constructions in Jules de Balincourt’s
This Is Our Town. Through an ambiguous illustrative narrative,
these new paintings objectify anonymous authority figures
(oddly resembling plastic toy figurines), as they are shrunken
into proportionally large paranoid landscapes that unfold
at our own suspicion.
In his previous
show in 2003, a cheeky humanitarianism defined his psychedelic-palette
works along with a welcoming tree house sculpture. This
time around, social and environmental issues are investigated;
but with stronger government and political aesthetic. We
are taken into uneasy board rooms instead of hand-holding
forest fires.
It is apparent that smug people hold power, but what and
over whom? Similar to the repressive government control
in 1984, power remains vague so as to sow confusion in the
recipients (or comrades for that matter). Just like in Poor
Planning, the two men in the concealed space have a private
investigator see what they are up to. The infused political
fear has a seriousness that partly resembles the awareness
in Antonio Muntadas work. Using black and red as a tonal
signifier for power, a round table swallows the dominant
space in Ambitious New Plans with distanced white-collared
men.
In U.S. World
Studies III, the top five republican donors for the “DOP”
are colour-coded into states in a US map. They are represented
proportionally, and are organized by the bottom chart from
numeric statistics. By reproducing the stats, he realized
how little control he had over the numbers.
The muted, generalized
approach de Balincourt takes to his paintings keeps the
work in a G-rated seat of accessibility. The neo-folk-pop
aesthetic functions democratically. It appeals to a broad
audience, maximizing the social impact. De Balincourt takes
a spectator position in his societal re-constructions, watching
the sub-categories operate within the bureaucratic boundaries
created by historical, hierarchical systems. The destructive
and paranoid narratives take viewers to task on their own
political engagement (or lack thereof).
Through 4/2. ¶
Ed Note: Zach
Feuer Gallery is located at 530 W. 24 St., Tel 212.989.7700
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Beverly Semmes
Leslie Tonkonow
Artworks + Projects
By Gu Huihui
Part fairy-tale
and part brainteasers, Semmes’ playful sculptures
invoke both childhood stories and the grown-up comforts
of luxury. Just as the Imagists employed precise visual
images to create poetry, Semmes’ objects utilize verbal
language to create whimsical puzzle-poems that eventually
bring the viewer back into the visual realm.
Her sculptures in this show deal with undisguised, recognizable
objects; dress, pottery, crystal vase. At the first moment
of perception, we name the object; this is our a “gestalt
moment.” The sculpture becomes a word, an idea. However,
what she does to these familiar objects, through simple
and direct decisions, subvert our expectations of the familiar.
We ask what we are looking at, and contemplate the work’s
formal qualities only to return once more to the visual
language.
Orange Hole, a
"dress" made of brilliant orange-red velvet, looms
brilliantly at the gallery’s hallway entrance. The
form is a simple slip dress, but the sumptuous velvet, the
length and sensational color suggest an elegant evening
dress. Upon closer inspection, however, we see that the
dress is much too narrow for a human body, and the length
would make walking impossible. Pinned against the wall it,
has less to do with reference to the body as it does as
an icon; a symbol of a dress.
The hemline flows
to the ground and unfurls into a runway. Red velvet dress,
red velvet carpet; glamour and fashion are the first association.
Near the end of this gorgeous runway sits a ceramic pottery
of the same alarming hue. More accurately, it sits in the
center of a circle that had been cut out from the dress.
(The perimeters of this hole had been stitched together,
making the possibility of wearing the dress even more problematic.)
The craftsmanship of the pottery is childlike and obviously
hand built, with each indentation of fingers pressed against
clay visible. Because of the naïve, non-finessed form,
the color here, instead of referencing glamour, now refers
more to the fluorescent colors of childhood molding clay.
Nothing could be so different from the streamlined elegance
of the dress/runway that now recedes as background. Endearingly
lopsided and unpolished, it is the unlikely jewel set against
and at the same time camouflaged into its velvet backdrop.
Dress and pottery take turn receding and dominating the
viewer’s attention.
All this points
out to both the pottery and the dress as equivalents. One
accommodates the other without touching. The dress is the
orange fabric articulating the hole in which the pottery
sits. It is the visible form of this hole. Likewise, the
pottery is also the form around nothing, empty space. Hence,
the title, Orange Hole. By juxtaposing this unlikely pair
as kindred souls, pottery and dress call attention to their
structures as vessels, as three-dimensional objects. We
no longer think of the words and our idea of pottery or
dress, but are forced to describe the specific formal qualities
of the two objects and their relation to one another.
Having unraveled
this first riddle, the other sculptures are easier games
to play. Much more whimsical in shape, the fabric is expensive
and luxurious, such as crushed velvet, and the overall design
conjures up court dress from fairy tales; yet the rudimentary
form suggests costumes for children’s school plays.
The viewer is transported back to a presumed idyllic childhood.
One "shirt" has its two arm sleeves loop far past
where normal human arms would end; the two openings are
joined together as one continuous sleeve. The title, Golden
Egg, has both a narrative connotation - the title could
come from a Mother Goose story - and draws attention to
the color and form.
The show’s dazzling finale comes in shape of some
exquisite hand-dripped sculpted glass pieces. The humbly
shaped pottery reappears, this time metamorphosized into
several dazzling fine crystal vases. The process is transparent
and somehow child-like; the liquid glass is dripped into
asymmetrical, lumpy shapes. Yet each of the odd, misshapen
facets catches light and gleams brilliantly. Anything this
beautiful is difficult to resist, and the vulnerability
these vessels possess generates wonderment, whereas something
more refined may leave us cold. There is a subtle, childlike
sophistication captured in these works that resonates in
the soul.
Through 4/16. ¶
Ed Note: Leslie
Tonkonow Artworks + Projects is located at 535 W 22nd St,
NY 10011. Tel 212.414.8744
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This Article
in Spiritus
RKL Gallery
By Mary Hrbacek
Defined by essential
qualities; breath, life, vigor and courage, the works presented
in this group show, In Spiritus, are unified by their sensitivity
and a certain aura of authenticity. Curated by Christina
Chow, the show features works by some 22 artists. Standouts
include Makiko Miyamoto's Placenta, a piece that undulates
in a rhythmic in-out motion within a transparent "tent".
Suspended in place with fishing tackle, the poems and ink
on paper drawings that comprise David Heino's installation,
Blown in the Wind resemble swirling, eddying leaves in a
breeze. In Patrick Todd's Brickhouse, a clay silver painted
elephant kneels under the weight of a vertical brick tower
situated on its back. A small dish for incense accompanies
the piece. Richard Ballard's A Single Tree, is not so much
a tree as it is a simplified, dynamic, two-dimensional,
wooden cross. In contrast, Christy Symington's complex Tigris
Libris combines multiple views of black, white, and sepia
prints of tigers combined on a large, delicate rice-paper
format. As seen in dual portraits entitled, Arturo and Fanny,
Mariangela Fremura's stately style and warm palette mirror
the portraits of Amadeo Modigliani. Christina Chow's spontaneous
landscape, executed in ink on paper, San Vincente Om Mani
Padme Home, has the windblown impromptu feeling of works
done in plen air. In a nod to the Abstract Expressionists,
George Negroponte's diptich Looking Twice, features sweeping
active strokes and cool hues of splattered liquid paint.
Cecily Kahn's sensitive, overlapping honed shapes in the
gouache and ink work Blown, tap into the spiritual, through
the use of gold paint that hints at manuscripts or altarpiece
accouterments.
The directness
and clarity of each artist's inner vision, as it is expressed
in this very personal work, gives rise to a spiritual component
that is infused in each piece. It is this spiritual essence
that so differentiates this work its peers .
3/9 through 4/10. ¶
Ed Note: RKL Gallery
is located at 349 Leonard St., Brooklyn, NY 11211.
Tel 718.389.5033
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