Contemporary art is weird.

Gilbert & George @ Brooklyn Museum

2008-12-11T05:52:00.001-08:00

Gilbert and George are one of those art-dynamic-duos that I'd heard of but didn't know anything about. So I went to their current show at the Brooklyn Museum of art...and, it was weird. They met in art school in London in 1967 and have been collaborating ever since. They're so outspoken and quirky (and lovers) that I think they were simply made for each other. They always include themselves in their large scale photo collages...wearing suits (well, sometimes nude) and looking strangely serious. Many of their pieces include bodily fluids (Oh, there's Gilbert's poo!) blown up on a grand scale.

This was the piece I liked in the show, because I did like their stained glass style. (Whoever designed the Red Hot Chili Peppers album cover for Blood Sugar Sex Magik must have liked it, too.)

But a lot of their work was either way too creepy and aggressive for me...

...or too "we like young boys" pornographic for me.

Um, yeah. No thanks.

MUTO by Blu

2008-12-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

This posting is uncharacteristically not about an art show I saw here in New York...it's a video of an animation by an Italian street artist named Blu. Why is it unique? Because he does animations on public walls. I can't imagine how time consuming this was for him to pull off! I especially love how you can see the ghosts of the previous drawings as the animation progresses. This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time, so JUST WATCH IT!

Calder's Circus @ Whitney

2008-12-11T05:42:00.000-08:00

I fell in love with Alexander Calder in high school when I saw his work in Washington. Most artists seem like they wouldn't be fun people to hang out with (You know, they're depressed or overly intense or egotistical...) but Calder must have been a delight to be around. He was always creating and playing throughout his life. He's renowned for his mobiles, but the Whitney's current Calder show features work from the time he lived in Paris (1926-1933).

There are scads of wire sculptures depicting faces and figures. With a single wire he eloquently captures a form and personality of a person. (To me they look like living pencil drawings) He makes it look so effortless that it made me want to come home and start playing with my wire coat hangers! Here is one of the numerous Josephine Baker inspired figures...

The centerpieces of the show is his famous circus! All the little figures and animals are manipulated by hand and made of simple materials like wire, pipe cleaners, and bits of fabric. Each element is so simple but so clever! I am partial to the trapeze act, the knife thrower, and the lion.

This video shows Calder performing just some of the acts in his circus...

William Eggleston @ Whitney

2008-12-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

William Eggleston has a show up at the Whitney, and it was such a large collection of his work that I didn't even get a chance to see it all! Which is a shame, because I enjoyed his work. He's an American photographer, known for his masterful use of color through his distinct dye-transfer printing method. He shoots everydayness in the South, specifically the Mississippi Delta region.

My favorite image was this one here, because the reds were so vibrant and juicy. It looks so blah here, but that's because his color processing simply doesn't translate in reproductions. The photos simply glow.

My friend Jesse and I loved this photo in particular, with its identical poses but contrasting colors. Who are these men? What was going on?

His photos feel casual because they're mostly taken from eye level, like he just decided to take a picture in the moment of something that caught his eye. The point of view of this one makes me feel like I'm sitting in the booth of that diner waiting for my lunch.

PS--Jesse and I saw Billy Baldwin at this show. A security guard asked us, "So what movies has that guy been in?" We both drew blank expressions.

Street Art Street Life @ Bronx Museum

2008-12-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

I ventured all the way up to the Bronx Museum earlier this week to see a show called "Street Art Street Life"...it's about street as subject matter. It is mostly photography depicting street life, performances in the street, and artwork presented in the street. I found each image to be rich with narrative!

I particularly loved the photography of Jamel Shabazz from the 80's...

...and the photography of George Maciunas from the 60's.

But this here was my favorite thing: a short film called Ear to the Ground by David Van Tiegham. It reminded me of David Byne's Playing the Building (which I wrote about in July) because here Tiegham is drumming on the sides of buildings streets themselves. Check it out, it's worth a view!

Election 2008: The Square Foot Show

2008-11-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

Election 2008: The Square Foot Show @ Art Gotham

This was a very interesting show indeed...over 200 artists painted more than 300 square-foot-size canvases on the subject of politics. Simply, politics. The resulting artworks were as diverse and outspoken as the artists that were represented. Sarcastic caricatures, ambiguous abstractions, relief sculptures, text driven collages, timidly optimistic, painfully serious, etc. If you can see this show I'd highly recommend it! With hundreds of political points of view on display, you're bound to agree with one of them.

I was especially amused by all the different versions of Obama...everything from Robin Hood to George Washington, Jesus to Buddha. (It was not a McCain loving crowd of course) Here are come pictures...

I found this an interesting juxtaposition. Obama looking serious and contemplative...next to The Real Plumbers of Ohio.

My dear friend Nancy had a piece in the show! It's in the top center, with the puppet on the stage. You'll have to ask her to explain it all, because I can never wrap my head around conspiracy theories!

Art Gotham: 192 Ave of Americas (6th Ave btwn Spring & Prince)...Up through November 8th

Mary Henderson

2008-11-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Mary Henderson @ Lyons Wier Ortt Gallery

When I first passed by the gallery (it's on the first floor of my building) I thought these images were photographs. Shrug. But then I looked closer and discovered they were insanely photo-realistic paintings of photographs! Incredible. (I dare you to find a brushstroke!) The artist Mary Henderson found these pictures on a website that's used by soldiers and their families to exchange photos back and forth. She wanted to show us the faces of these men and women behind the politics and the headlines...the results are candid and vibrantly youthful. Impressive and poignant!

Lyons Wier Ortt Gallery: 175 Seventh Ave @ 20th Street...Up through November 8th

Blek Le Rat

2008-11-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

Blek Le Rat @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery

I've been mentioning Banksy here a bunch lately, so let me introduce you to the man who influenced him the most: Blek Le Rat. (aka: Xavier Prou) He's a French graffiti artist who was using stencils to create street art 20 years before Banksy. He basically invented the life size stencil that you see everywhere today. He became well known for stenciling rats all over around Paris...hence his rodent inspired title.

Although I find his historical references and tongue-in-cheek social commentary interesting, I found the gallery too sterile an environment for his work. It belongs outside. I was far more interested in the video showing his graffiti work out on the streets, because that's what completes it. Transplanting his stencils into the a simply didn't translate for me.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery: 529 W 20th Street, 9th Floor...Up through November 15th

Swoon @ Deitch Projects

2008-10-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend my friend Bishop took me to an AMAZING exhibit by Swoon at Deitch Projects in LIC. I find it truly unique how her work appeases both the gritty urban crowd (since she earned her stripes as a street artist and uses found objects) and the high-brow crowd (since her work is technically stunning and is rooted in influences such as German Expressionist woodcuts). Her work is so intricate that simply thinking about the number of man hours put into the creation of these grand pieces made me feel like a lazy sloth of an artist! (I had to remind myself that she had 75 collaborators) I was impressed and inspired.

As though this installation wasn't enough, outside the open doors of the gallery right there on the East River were her seven handmade boats. They were like little floating cities, that were sailed them down the Hudson!

Bishop and I adored this piece in particular...

A close up of her elaborately cut paper designs that covered the walls...

This fan behind the figure is made of pieces of painted doors...how cool is that!

Banksy Strikes Again

2008-10-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

The same Banksy who put on the pet store installation I wrote about last week also left behind a few other artworks (rat themed murals) while he was in New York. I passed by this one a couple days ago (Canal & West Broadway I believe) and found it so delightful I had to share! From far away I really did think, "Who is painting over that Banksy mural?!!" Then closer up I saw it was a joke. He had me...

YOUNITY: Urban Women Artists

2008-10-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got to check out a show by YOUNITY, which is an art collective for urban women artists. There was a regular exhibition inside featuring 60 international artists (celebrating the release of a book), but the more interesting part was the courtyard...

My friend Diva was one of the 12 women to cover the courtyard with beautifully painted murals, graffiti, and stenciled pieces. (She always covers her face...) Such a great group of ladies!

It's up at Alphabeta in Greenpoint (70 Greenpoint Avenue) through November 17th!

Banksy Pet Store

2008-10-13T18:35:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week I came across this bizarre pet store (and charcoal grill) down in the West Village with my friend Laura. An aged tweety bird swinging in a cage? A rabbit filing her nails at a vanity?! We were both highly entertained and highly baffled. The next day I heard that famous British street-artist Banksy set up an installation of a pet shop...ah-ha! I returned to check it out in more detail...

As a carnivore, I never wanted to acknowledge where my processed foods came from...and as a vegetarian, I finds ethics in meat production lacking and factory farming icky. So needless to say, this installation struck a chord for me. And struck my funny bone at the same time. (Isn't that the best way to convey a message?) There are animatronic chicken nuggets...

And hotdogs and sausages squirming around in their cages...

Fish sticks swimming eerily in a giant fish bowl...

Monkey watching monkey porn...

...and a bunch of other amusing creatures! (There are even actors hired to play the clerks.) It's only up through the end of the month, so check it out while you can: 89 7th avenue just north of Bleeker Street. Oh, how I love that Banksy...

Musical Robots @ LEMUR

2008-10-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I checked out a cool show at LEMUR (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots) over in Brooklyn. They're a group of artists who develop robotic musical instruments. (They make robots that are instruments, not robots that play existing instruments.) There were electronic string instruments, cymbals and drums with different mallets attached to them, this xylophone looking bell instrument, etc.

This guy was beat-boxing out a pattern which the computer translated and then had the robots play. How wild is that! Music and art and technology all welded together...

Andres Serrano @ Yvon Lambert Gallery

2008-09-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

Andres Serrano is a controversial Latino photographer best known for this image:

If you're not familiar with it, it's called Piss Christ. (You can see why he stirs things up) He's interested in the universal themes found in bodily fluids, death, and sex...

His latest interest is in shit (it's at the Yvon Lambert Gallery in Chelsea). Yes, it's a show of 8 foot tall close-up photos of different types of SHIT. The backgrounds are cheerfully colorful, the excrement becomes abstracted, and the titles are highly amusing. He sees images in the shit like when I look at clouds. There's Bull Shit, Freudian Shit, Hieronymus Bosch shit, holy shit, etc. Once you get past over the gross factor, it becomes rather interesting and borderline beautiful.

I looked everywhere online for pictures I could copy and post here, but had no luck. (I knew I should have taken my camera!) So if you'd like to see a slideshow of all the beautiful shit that the Village Voice put together, CLICK HERE.

Midori Harima @ Honey Space

2008-09-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

I mentioned Honey Space a while back...it's a gallery that I dig over on the West Side Highway (btwn 21st & 22nd) that's left open unattended during the day.

Anyway, right now they feature this cool installation by Japanese artist Midori Harima. The room is super dark, with this bright white sculpture of a carousel greeting you as you enter. The details of the carousel itself are projected onto the white sculpture, so it looks rather surreal in person! Flat yet three-dimensional, like an old photograph that's come to life. (I've seen this technique before...but for the life of me couldn't remember which contemporary artist it was! It was a feminist artist...that's gonna drive me crazy)

Dali @ MOMA

2008-09-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

MOMA had an exhibit that ended recently on Dali and his work in film, which was so interesting and bizarre (of course). Here are links to two of his more interesting collaborations...

Dali and Disney might sound like an odd pairing to work together, but remember how experimental Fantasia was? They worked on a creating a short animated film called Destino but the project was eventually dropped. More recently the film was finally completed based on all Dali's original storyboards. It looks strikingly modern but it VERY authentically Dali.

Another really interesting collaboration was with Alfred Hitchcock, where Dali designed the dream sequences for the film Spellbound. Hitchcock didn't like how dreams were usually shot in films as being fuzzy or unclear, because dreams are vivid and strong. I think their two visons worked together quite harmoniously...

Buckminster Fuller

2008-08-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

Our contemporary world is very concerned with energy-efficiency. Sustainability. Affordable housing. So I found the Buckminster Fuller exhibit at the Whitney especially timely! I didn't know anything about him beforehand, except that he had something to do with that "geodesic dome thing." As an individual raised in an environmentally conscious generation, I found that by reading his theories for the first time from my 2008 perspective was rather refreshing and poignant.

He was an American visionary who was determined to find sustainable solutions that would be as economically and materially efficient as possible. He reimagined how houses could be built and how cities could be designed in such a truly inventive and humanitarian manner. He based many of his structures on the tetrahedron, which he claimed was the the essential building block of nature.

Here is one of his famous geodesic domes. His greatest done was built for the US Pavilion in the Montreal Expo in 1967...

This is a model of his innovative Dymaxion House, which was designed to actually be shipped and assembled. Wonderfully thought out, but it never took off...

He even delved in cartography, striving to create a world map free of distortion...

Here's his three-wheeled energy-efficient Dymaxion Car that could hold 11 people...

Sex Lives of Animals

2008-08-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

I secretly have been wanting a good excuse to visit the Museum of Sex, and their current exhibit on the Sex Lives of Animals was a perfect reason! It was a wildly interesting exhibit. Who knew that animals engage in oral sex, some creatures have multiple genders, or that there are necrophiliac birds! Here are some pictures of some of the sculptures in the exhibit...

There is something mildly disturbing about watching two fuzzy-cutesy panda bears going at it on video...and even stranger to learn the pandas are actually shown panda porn in order to help get them into the copulatin' mood.

My friends Nick and Peter took the exhibit very seriously.

These female chimps are engaged in the common practice of "gigi rubbing," a term which made us all giggle. (I never heard about homosexuality in the animal kingdom really before this exhibit...)

Behold...two smiling male dolphins! They look so innocent, but wait...one male is penetrating the blowhole of the other male! I'll never look at dolphins the same way again...

Kehinde Wiley @ Studio Museum Harlem

2008-08-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Oh, that Kehinde Wiley.

Not only is he technically flawless as a painter of portraits, but he's inventive, culturally conscious, timely, wields a diverse visual vocabulary, is widely acclaimed...AND he's only 31! The nerve. He's making the rest of us artists look bad! But I gotta hand it to the guy, I really respect what he does and I think his pieces have a lot of substance to them.

He's done this sort or portraiture in China previously, but for this show at the Studio Museum he moved to West Africa for his inspiration. He portrays his young black models in traditionally heroic poses in these large scale paintings. The colorful patterns interact with the figures beautifully, by reflecting in their skin tones or overlapping with the models themselves. This show made me all nostalgic for the bold colors and patterns of Ghana...and the beauty of the people who I got to know there. It all looked so familiar! Sigh...

This last piece here wasn't isn't in this particular show, but it's from a more famous series of his that you might find familiar...

Ewelina Ferruso @ Ad Hoc

2008-08-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

When I was checking out the show 5 Identities 5 Destinations at Ad Hoc there was one artist who really stood out to me...Ewelina Ferruso. I was surprised to learn that she's new to the gallery world (like myself), this being her first real show. And she's a sweetie to boot! I found myself visually digesting each one of her paintings slowwwly, like I was working my way to the middle of a tootsie pop but in no rush to get there.

Her paintings are visually yummy, with complex textures and elaborate compulsive patterns...which ALWAYS appeal to me. Her imagery is about her childhood, imagination, and escape from the harsher aspects of reality. The polka dot giraffe inspired by an actual toy she still keeps in her studio, and the little girl in her paintings is a self portrait of herself as a child. Here are a couple pics I took at her show!

Jeff Koons & Comic Costumes @ The Met

2008-07-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

You know...I don't really respect Jeff Koons. Because to me, he stands for a lot of things I hate about contemporary art. I don't like him. That being said...I do like his series of giant stainless steel sculptures and did want to see them on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Am I so easily seduced by shiny things? Apparently, yes.

Also at the Met right now is the exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. Some are real costumes (like from the film Iron Man) and others are pieces made by designers (like Dolce & Gabbana) who were inspired by comic culture. The mixture of originals and reimagined designs made for a very fun show. POW!

Louise Bourgeois @ Guggenheim

2008-07-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Louise Bourgeois is one of those artists I've always known but never really known. So I was excited to get to know her work better through her current show at the Guggenheim! As an artist, I really admire how absurdly prolific she is and how her work has evolved over the decades...she is 96 years old and is still making art! Text scrolled across one of her drawings poignantly sighs, "It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive." Here, here.

She's known best perhaps for her giant spider sculptures...

Her sculptures of organic soft forms imply landscapes, clouds, and of course fleshy ambiguous body parts. It's intimate and sexual, and was a reaction against the hard edged geometry of minimalism back in the day.

Her work later moved from large marble/ plaster/ latex sculptures to cells...they are these little enclosed rooms made from found and sculpted objects. Little domestic settings you peer into...the artifacts speaking of memory and vulnerability.

This quote was embroidered on a bedspread in one of her cell rooms...thanks, Louise.

Olafur Eliasson takes New York

2008-06-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Danish/ Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has taken over New York! First I saw his work at the MOMA...then at PS1...and now he has installed waterfalls along the East River of Manhattan! He must be a very busy man.

But I don't mind his unavoidable presence in New York this summer...because I really really love his work. Firstly...it's SIMPLE. His works are very much about nature and the basic elements of visual perception but his installations are simultaneously artificial. He's interested in patterns, shapes, colors, and the power found in nature. (Side note: As a glacier nut, I was overly gleeful to see his collections of glacier photographs.) He plays with light, water, and geometry as easily as I play with pencils.

Since they are installations, pictures can't quite do them justice. You have to lay underneath the massive rotating reflective foil disk for yourself. Or walk into a dark room with falling mist and just enough light so you see a rainbow against the blackness. Or stand in a room made of walls that are literally lit so that you are so fully enveloped in a single saturated color...so that you look like a tinted photograph. Sigh..you just have to visit them in person. But here are a few pictures!

One of his waterfalls up through the Summer along the East River...

An upside-down waterfall (the water moves up) at PS1...

Sculpture with planes of colored glass in front of a window at PS1...

His saturated yellow room and his mirror-sculpture-window-contraption at MOMA...

Rotating mirror that plays with the angles of the walls (It's hard to explain!) at MOMA...

Playing the Building by David Byrne

2008-06-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I visited the "Playing the building" installation by David Byrne (Yes, of Talking Heads fame) at the Battery Maritime Building...and it was so much fun! (I mean, how many times have you ever heard someone call an art installation FUN??)

The setting is the old Staten Island Ferry terminal, built in 1909 and showing its age beautifully. There sitting in the center of the room is an old church organ that has been wired to different pipes, beams, columns, and motors in the vast terminal. So with each key you press on the organ, a different metal column is hit ("Clang!") or air passes over the hole in a pipe ("Shwooo!") or a deep motor stirs behind the wall ("Whirrrr!"). (That second picture is of me and Lance trying it out)

Hence you are...playing the building! Visitors wait in line for their turn to try out the organ themselves, and I loved the fact that no one has an advantage when it comes to playing this unusual instrument. Everyone gets to experience that whimsy of simply pressing buttons and not knowing what sound it will make.

It's up through the end of August so I highly recommend playing the building yourself if you get a chance!

Poets of the Paste @ Ad Hoc Gallery

2008-06-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

Ad Hoc is my favorite gallery in Brooklyn (Bushwick technically)...and that's only partially because they're the only folks to give my art any attention. (Some of my pieces are actually in their gallery inventory, which you can see here.) Their latest show is called Poets of the Paste and showcases four figurative street artists. A mixture of stencils, block prints, paintings and drawings...

The two artists I favored were Gaia and Elbow-Toe. First, here are a couple of Gaia's pieces. (Despite the pretty street name...Gaia's a guy.) This linocut with the wolves is actually impressively huge! His work is elegant and beautiful...simply beautiful.

And here are a couple pieces by Elbow-Toe. His prints also display amazing linework, but the figures are more distorted. His swirling lines and poses are so expressive!

Antonio Lopez Garcia @ MFA

2008-06-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Antonio Lopez Garcia currently has a show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts..which I was lucky enough to catch last weekend. He is a Spanish artist who has been called a master of hyper realism, magic realism, Spanish realism...let's just say he's realistic. He focuses his attention on familiar and humble subjects, which he lovingly captures with a sensitive hand. (Figures, domestic scenes, cityscapes, etc.) His mastery of light makes his scenes glow, and you can see the influence of fellow Spanish painter Velazquez. I dig him.

Here are a few of his pieces...including a picture of Bonnie and I with one of his giant baby heads!

Behold, the Telectroscope!

2008-06-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Put on your imaginations, kids. And behold...the Telectroscope! This is a device that uses giant mirrors to see across a long forgotten trans-Atlantic tunnel that stretches from London to New York. It allows folks by the Tower Bridge in London to look through and see people all the way over at the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. So you see them in real time...I spent my time making funny faces back and forth with kids on the other side. Paul St. George, the creator of the Telectroscope, has an elaborate backstory he'd be happy to share with you about how he discovered his great grandfather's research and was able to finish the project on his behalf. But hurry up, kids...this is the last weekend it'll be accessible to the public. (It's located at Fulton Ferry Landing, open 24hrs.)

This is me looking into the tunnel...the reflecting glass makes it hard to see the people we're waving at!

Report from MOCCA Art Festival

2008-06-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

Every year the Museum for Comic and Cartoon Art (MOCCA) has an art festival in the Puck Building, which is like Comic Con but way cooler and geared more towards indie small-potatoes like myself. It ranged from big publishers showcasing their latest releases to unknown artists selling their little xeroxed comics for $1. I was amused by the number of comics that were openly the result of wasting time at work--I think it's an emerging genre! And there were a lot of girl artists represented...I guess Friends of Luna is doing their job! (They're a non-profit that promotes girls in comics.) Overall it was really reaffirming to see how much stuff is really going on out there in this thriving genre. And I was thankful I didn't see anyone else working in the same style I work in...phew.
I bought a bunch of books, including the new book by Lynda Barry "What It Is." Here's an example of her style, it's jam packed with thoughts and drawings to digest. Yum!And here's a picture of the creators of the "Action Philosophers," which is another book I bought. The book is educative and hilarious!

Tomma Abts @ The New Museum

2008-06-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

I heard various reports about The New Museum, so I was was slightly cautious when I finally paid a visit to their new building on Bowery. (A space that looks like it was modeled after stacked building blocks.) A lot of the art was just plain silly, but I did find some pleasant surprises. One artist in particular really spoke to me...Tomma Abts. She's a German artist who lives in London, and the best description I've read to describe her style is "retro-futuristic." I think I related to her hard-lined abstract works so much because as an undergrad student I threw myself whole-heartedly into abstraction. The controlled playfulness...the flat colors...oh, it was a comfortable language to speak through! In person, her works have a slight texture that's provides evidence of previous layers that she painted over. This gave them an unexpected vulnerability that I don't often find in such formalistic artworks. Here are some examples of her work...

Honey Space and Swoon

2008-06-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

My favorite gallery in Chelsea is Honey Space.

It only started showing art earlier this year, and it's unusual because it's left open and unattended all day. It's an old warehouse space (11th Ave. btwn 21st & 22nd St.) whose owner has simply been letting artists use for free for a few years. Artist Thomas Beale was using it as his studio before he decided to start this "no-profit" gallery space. He simply opens the security gates in the morning and closes them at night, leaving it completely open to the public to walk through.

At the latest opening, I walked in to discover no art on the walls. But...there was a hole in the floor. (Tom discovered it when he removed the bolted-down piece of wood covering it.) So you have to climb down the hole to find the art, like a secret treasure...

The secret treasure is a piece by renowned street artist Swoon. She creates these lifesize figurative wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts that you see on walls all over the city. I love how the holes in the paper show the often-decaying wall behind it...so instead of merely sticking an artwork over a wall her work is interacting with it. It's a unique combination of edgy yet poetic. This particular piece was a tribute to a women (Silvia Elena) who was murdered in Mexico, so the crypt-like space was the perfect setting.

Here are some other examples of Swoon's work...

And finally, here's a pic of Mr. Honey Space Tom (with the accordion) with Mickey Western at a previous reception:

I can't wait to see what's in store at the next show...

Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

2008-05-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

You might already know Murakami.

He was the only artist on this year’s Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People list.
He designed the super cool cover for Kayne West’s album Graduation.
His sculpture My Lonesome Cowboy (you know, the one with the ejaculating semen lasso) sold at auction earlier this year for a whopping $15.2 million
His designs are everywhere--from Louis Vuitton handbags to plush toys to keychains.
Yup, Takashi Murakami is a global art superstar.

And after seeing his show at the Brooklyn Museum for myself, I admit that I’m sold. Sure, he has a staff of 100 artists who actually make the giant-scale pieces he designs. But I couldn’t help but respect his vision and simply enjoy hanging out in his bizarre technicolor world.

Considering his style is SO contemporary, I was surprised learn he earned his doctorate in Nihonga…it’s a traditional Japanese style from the late nineteenth century. He decided to leave this style in search of a way to better represent modern Japan, and found his inspiration in the thriving otaku subculture…they’re the folks obsessed with anime and manga. In the late 90’s he perfected his trademark Superflat style--which looks exactly how it sounds. Flat planes of color, flat finishes, flat flat flat.

His pieces are like a psychedelic visual stew of concepts: graphic images from anime and manga, sexual fetishism, and references to traditional Japanese art and history. It takes a while to take in each piece because there’s simply so much going on. So many little characters to discover. But visually the works are so controlled that I never found them too chaotic.

After seeing the show, I wanted a postcard of my favorite piece. It cost an absurd $2.75! I thought, “Damn you Murakami and your consumer empire!!” And then I bought one anyway.

Report from the Istanbul Modern

2008-05-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this article for Les Arts Turcs...it's about the Istanbul Modern art museum!)

When I say Turkish art, what comes to mind? Calligraphy…pottery…rugs? Yeah, me too. That is why when I heard about a contemporary art museum in Istanbul I simply had to pay a visit. Although the traditional arts of Turkey are beautiful and rich, I wanted to add new images to my mental slideshow. I wanted to see what Turkish art is now.

Istanbul has had a happy gallery scene and even held a contemporary art biennial for a couple decades, but there has been no real institution before now. The Istanbul Modern is the first and only contemporary art museum in Istanbul, and it’s less than 4 years old. The Istanbul Modern is in a large beautifully renovated warehouse on the Bosphorus. I found it poignant how it’s such an industrial-chic art space positioned next to the large Tophane Mosque. The architectural juxtaposition captures how Istanbul is a mixture of old and new…traditional and progressive…eastern and western. It’s a lovely and stimulating balance.

I read a lot of the artworks as a visual conversation between the Turkish culture I was getting to know and Western art that I already understand. I spotted familiar styles I knew but with new Turkish settings and subjects. There was everything from impressionistic landscapes to minimalistic modern paintings… video installations to assemblage sculptures. To see this mutual exploration of materials and universal themes felt reaffirming to me. So even though I admitted I didn’t know anything about contemporary Turkish art before, I actually did.

There were a lot of great artists whose names I jotted down, but I’ll just introduce you to my favorite two: Erol Akyavas and Balkan Naci İslimyeli.

I love when kids draw complicated structures when they don’t know how to, because it ends up this amazingly irrational creation. Like unintentional cubism. Erol Akyavas’ unhindered paintings made me think of this very phenomenon, which I was thankful to be reminded of again. His architectural structures are surreal and natural, actually succeeding at recreating that childlike naiveté. But formally they are so well composed that this prevents it from becoming too chaotic.

Working in a completely different style, Balkan Naci Islimyeli’s artwork is rooted more in reality rather than fantasy. He explores the role of the individual in a changing society, often incorporating his own writing or his portrait in his work. I appreciated the diversity of mediums he utilizes…everything from drawings to sculptures to installations. You can really see his interest in film by how he composes his pieces, his black and white color palette (he’s definitely into exploring the metaphorical shades of grey), and his articulate use of contrast.

After days of exploring traditional bazaars and mosques in Istanbul, a visit to the Istanbul Modern is a refreshing and enlightening introduction to the other side of Turkish culture. And, oh yeah… it’s free on Thursdays.

For easy-to-digest info on specific movements in Turkish art history, click here.

Report from Comic Con

2008-04-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Comic Con isn't really an art show. But it's a visual cultural thingia-ma-bob so I figured it was worth mentioning!

I really had no idea what to expect, but since I've been sticking my feet in the comics waters I was thought it would be a good educational field trip. Personally, I admit I lean towards the graphic novel/ indie comic/ illustration-ey side of the spectrum. But Comic Con definitely caters the majority...those who are into the action/ fantasy/ superhero comics. Lots of boy stuff. Lots of people. Lots of lots. Walking around in my buttercup yellow dress and my Swedish-maiden-braided-hairdo I definitely felt out of place.

I loved how enthusiastic everyone was, and I enjoyed Artist's alley where there were tons of artists sketching and signing prints. But it is all about selling and promoting stuff, and I got tired of being perpetually handed postcards and flyers. (Except the free X-Files 2 posters, I was happy to be handed that!)

There was the usual array of expected costumes (Fun for all!) along with some more unexpected characters...like Jesus. Or the BK Trooper. The picture doesn't capture the simultaneously entertaining and disturbing pelvic thrusting.

I hate to sound disappointed, but it just wasn't my scene at all. So if you ask me how has Comic Con I'd reply with a big shrug.

Report from the Whitney Biennial

2008-04-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

The general consensus is that the Whitney Biennial this year is boring…and I suppose I'd have to agree. It was only politely weird.

Everything felt a bit crammed in, chaotic, too much of too much. I think that's why I leaned towards the simpler pieces that favored a more traditional aesthetic. I hate to say it, but all this newer crazy stuff simply doesn't have enough depth to sustain my interest. It lasts staying power. Like chewing gum.

The show was dominated by sculptures, installations, and videos so much that paintings felt like they were being treated like the "we're sorry, they're from out of town" cousins. Don't get me wrong, I mean, I did exclaim how I thought one pile of rocks was "really pretty!" And I appreciate the three-dimensional artwork's efforts to invite interaction. But for me the overabundance of representation/ replication/ recreation came across as simply overwhelming and recycled.

There were lots of collections of things, as though assembling them together makes them become more like archaeological objects. As my friend John put it, it seemed that many of the artists simply put together "a bunch of anything," and voila! Art. Well…stuff-thrown-together-Jenga-art. With the abundance of raw materials and noticeable casual display of works, it's like the art was trying to prove its own grittiness.

I noticed that a surprisingly portion of the pieces that I really liked were made by women. And the fact that this surprised me really surprised me. (I suppose that the contemporary women artists I've been familiar with tended to make art about their gender in some way rather than just talk about everything else.) Anyway…

Here are my dozen favorites:

Leslie Hewit's large scale photos of absent pictures said a lot in their silence. And the simple placement of them leaned up against the wall only reemphasized the feeling of these forgotten places…neglected.

Michael Smith's Sears portrait series were effectively ironic. They are photos of him with his students over the years, where they're all optimistic smiles and he's this shrugging everyman. (I sadly couldn't find a picture of these!)

Frances Stark's large self portrait was a line drawing/collage I could really relate to...especially as an artist who incorporates myself into my own work. I admit that even though I liked it, I wondered if it really belonged in the Whitney Biennial versus a college student show. (Owww, what a backhanded compliment!)

Ruben Ochoa's concrete sculpture was like a surreal upturned street. Unlike many other works in the industrial-material-sculpture-category (where piles of things are chaotically thrown together) his work is far more articulate…speaking of the relationship between the man-made and natural world.

Robert Bechtle was one of the few painters, and a realistic painter to boot! He was like a fine swiss chocolate in a bowl of Skittles, as Sarah Vowell would say. I found his Hopper-esque still urban scenes extremely relevant.

Melanie Schiff's large scale photos presented thoughtful vignettes of real life without trying to be ironically banal about it. Beautifully crafted and poignant. Her work and Robert Bechtle both expressed a similar yearning for beauty amid the chaos of the sculptures surrounding them in the same room.

Adam Putnam's projected installation of doors was refreshingly simple, clean, and beautiful. But then again, I'm a sucker for a good door metaphor. (I couldn't find any pics of his work since it's projected)

Karen Kilimnik's small paintings depicting aristocratic European vignettes were wisely hung in their own separate little room arranged around a crystal chandelier. I find her style cheery yet aggressive in her use of bold color and decisive hand.

Amanda Ross-Ho's odd collection of artworks did not work together cohesively in my opinion, but I did simply adore her intricately cut canvas piece. It almost felt like some sort of artifact, an elaborate textile with some hidden significance. How this related to the giant litter box was lost on me.

John Baldesari's sculptural paintings were a lovely combination of flat and deep elements/ bright and subdued elements. Since I've always loved his work, I felt guilty for not recognizing his pieces straight away. But I suppose I'm just out of the loop.

Ellen Harvey's art-within-art sculpture was a hit with me. The front wall is full of empty salon-style frames in black and white…but one of the frames is open, revealing the same wall of frames behind it but they filled with color paintings. (I couldn't find pics of this artwork anywhere sadly)

Charles Long's bizarre paper mache sculptures looked like they stepped out of a whimsical Giacometti dream. I was scared and intrigued by them at the same time.

Report from the Guggenheim

2008-04-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

This week I went to the Cai Guo-Qiang retrospective at the Guggenheim, which everyone's been talking about. So now here I am joining the conversation! My last write-up I posted was a bit on the pessimistic side, so this show was a breath of fresh air. It’s really reaffirming to come across an artist with a substantial body of interesting work who I never knew existed. It reminds me there are so many more fabulous artists out there for me to discover.

Guo-Qiang is a Chinese artist who references Chinese heritage and cultural symbols to comment on contemporary society. He also is fascinated with finding beauty in destruction…I think you'll enjoy his work!

Ninety-nine life-size wolves running up the incline of the Guggenheim and colliding with a glass wall (the same thickness of the Berlin wall) representing how we’re doomed to repeat our mistakes.

Tigers in midair radiating with arrows in a beautiful spectacle of man versus nature.

Five flipping cars suspended in the center of the museum with rays of sparking lights emanating from them in beautiful explosions.

Giant scorched drawings made of gunpowder, a material steeped in historical significance. (Oh look, there's the artist!)

Who knew fire and explosions could be so pretty? This piece of his is called Red Flag.

I can see why there are lines down the block every weekend for this show, it really is unique. It’s imaginative and serious…emotive and curious. The manipulation of real objects combined with its historical context makes his sculptures feel like archeological artifacts. And I found his metaphors very universal and graspable. I also especially respected the collaborative spirit in his work (including films of the creation of his larger scale pyrotechnic works), and how his pieces allow the viewer to interact (sometimes literally) with the sculptures.

He is overseeing the opening and closing ceremonies of the ’08 Olympics in Beijing, so keep an eye out for his wild fireworks display. Well, like his show at the Guggenheim…I’m sure it’ll be hard to miss.

Report from the Armory Show

2008-04-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

The Armory Show…the groundbreaking 1913 exhibit that introduced shocked New Yorkers to Modern art. Now it’s a big art fair with 160 galleries from around the world showcasing their best. Totally commercialized? Yes. But I still had to check it out. So I thought I’d relay my personal observations here in case you’re interested. (And the pictures are ones I snapped with my camera at the show.)

So, what are the kids into these days? What on earth is going on?! Here were my basic unguided observations…

An assemblage of assemblages. Collages, mixed media, combinations of 2-D and 3-D elements…I was pleased to see the variety of techniques being combined and explored. A lot of the assemblages and sculptures felt almost like archeological studies rather than works of art. (But then again, where do you draw the line between the two?) Sculptures made out of found objects, or bits of paper presented together so that their implied backstories reveal some sort of insight. Or something. Well, I do find that sort of thing interesting to a point, but then again I did always like archeology.

Lots of WORDS! Text was everywhere! A word incorporated into a painting, long script filling an entire canvas, a single phrase written in neon across a wall…the growing number of artists who want to same something without pictures amuses me.

What’s going on with photography?! Sculpture and mixed media works were abundant at the show…but there wasn’t a ton of photography. But what there was felt extremely stiff, staged, and calculated. Almost as though they were trying to fill the void once occupied by painting. Lots of posed scenes versus the spontaneity which always made photography so exciting for me.

The kids are all about line. I’m in love with line myself. But most of the artworks relying on line left me disappointed! I found that they fell into extremes: either using overly juvenile clumsy lines or overly calculated sterile geometric lines. (I’m talking about both in drawing and painting here.) Many times the line drawings were done on top of a collage background, like book pages. It didn’t really work. So I’m sad to report I didn’t see as many artists speaking with graceful beautiful lines as I would have liked. Call me traditional in that sense.

The paintings themselves literally had a lot of depth…but were visually flat. Let me explain…Artists creating more non-objective works were really exploring the sculptural possibilities of painting. There were lots of canvases that were altered, constructed, cut up, and manipulated to act more as a relief. And there were a lot of textures being created with playful application of paint. So I found it interesting that the artists leaning more towards realism were embracing a style that was much more visually flat...which isn’t a bad thing. There was a focus on patterns, prints, shapes and lines rather than volume and shadow. I personally enjoyed the combinations of various patterns, which implied textiles and constructed settings in a synthetic cubism sort of way.

There was this weird sexuality prevalent. However, it was more of an exhibitionist/ voyeuristic version of sexuality. Combining the innocent with the pornographic seemed to be the favored formula. Like a woman painted with garishly colorful (clown like) skin tones passively masturbating. Or childishly constructed dolls performing oral sex. For me, to see these works in a sterile gallery full of the prim-and-proper art crowd made these artworks of garish sexuality feel even more forced and artificial.

Reflection noitcelfeR. There was an abundance of artworks that actually included mirrors, which literally incorporates the viewer into the piece. And a lot of the work was about reflecting back at the viewers a digested/abstracted version of their own world. There were also a lot of melted forms in the sculpture realm. Are these pieces about the distortion of reality? Or simply the artist asking the viewer to fill in the blanks? Inquiring minds want to know. Or lose interest guessing and move on to the next booth, as in my case.

It contrasted the industrial versus the handmade. I was surprised by the amount of artworks that celebrated the craftsy-kitchy aesthetic. Many pieces incorporated sewing, glitter, and other craft staples. But in a gritty glitzy way. Heck, there were even a few dioramas! When it was done well, I really enjoyed the homespun twist on contemporary subject matter and I saw its irony. (But please, no more pile-of-rubbish sculptures please!!) On the other end of the spectrum, just as many pieces celebrated a more artificial aesthetic. (In the realm of sculpture especially.) Everywhere you looked there were metallics, foils, high-polish, and this whole shiny plastic thing going on. Neon lights were also popular.

Now on to the pictures! Let's start with some lights shall we...

Yes, there's an embroidered penis on the left. And that's a tongue on the right doing exactly what you think they're doing!

Hey, I'm in the art!

This big mural (on multiple canvas crossing three walls) was by Chiho Hoshima...

See what I'm saying with the photography?

There was a shadow sculture (the sculpture itself is made of trash actually) by Tim Noble and Sue Webster but I forgot to take a picture of it! So here's the biggest version I found online, it's pretty funny...

These are matchbooks presented here--the whole archaeological aesthetic...

I love the manipulation of the traditional "canvas" like these here (that's Elsie Wayne on the left)...

Not too many illustrator types, but here's one I saw I really liked...Sandra Scolnik.

I loved the imaginative pieces by Los Carpinteros (they're a group of artists), their style reminded me of Wayne Thiebaud.

Why paint it when you can simply write it?

I love these two abstracted landscapes, they were more like relief sculptures. (Wonjulim and Jacob Hashimoto)

Raise your hand if you like sculptures made of random stuff put together!

But add some glitz and it's classier...

Glitter! Kitchy glam!

This pictures amuses me...who's in the art versus who's buying the art...

A rare realism sighting! I loved this one...Carl Hammond.

This is a John Waters piece...who knew!

The Conspiracy of Art

2008-04-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

I recently read the book The Conspiracy of Art by Jean Baudrillard. He’s a French philosopher who shocked the art world by declaring that art has ceased to exist and it was a big conspiracy. I just had to read it, even though he admits he’s terribly contradictory. But hey, his ideas on reality helped shape The Matrix. Go figure. So here’s what he says in case you find contemporary art as baffling as I do…

How did we get to this point?!

So, modern art had good intentions. "Let’s liberate the art object! Let’s embrace abstraction!" But by liberating the object it chained the object down to a hidden structure, one even stricter. We paradoxically moved to even more reality with our efforts to unveil elementary structures…something more real than real. With abstraction we moved towards the analytical exploration of an object, to find the truth of it and shed the mask of figuration. But art is a super illusion, not a progress toward analytical truth. Oops.

Then Duchamp signed a urinal…The readymade was a point of no return, rather than the point of departure that most thought it was. The readymade gave us a double curse…the immersion into reality and then conceptual absorption. Now there are no more apples, just the reconstruction of apples by the appleologist of what an apple once was. Art became ideas, signs, allusions, concepts.

…and modern art exploded! There was an explosion of movements in the 20th century (which Baudrillard calls an orgy), a liberation in every way. All possibilities exhausted. Modern art shed everything justifying its existence as art. Wheeee! We explored all the paths of production, fantasies, dreams, and ideals. But then Baudrillard asks, "What do you do after the orgy?"

Finally, Warhol killed art. Warhol was responsible for completely renouncing art by turning commodity into art. It was more like an anthropological event. He successfully abolished the subject of art, the artist, and the creative act. (He was a busy man.) The avant-garde had wanted to occupy nowhere…so Warhol took it there. In a way, modern art was a great disappearing art…to make art disappear. Baudrillard thinks art is now in an irreversible coma, almost like art survived its own suicide attempt.

And aesthetics is dead, too. Duchamp caused the banality of the world to pass into aesthetics…hence aesthetics became banal…hence traditional aesthetics is over. This means critical judgment isn’t possible, because how can you argue with art that declares itself meaningless and banal? He calls the current incarnation of aesthetics transaesthetics.

So, what IS art now?

Art is a conspiracy…because art has ceased to exist in the traditional sense. It’s a tacit agreement we’ve all made in the art world where we’re still upholding privilege but simply going through the motions. The mystification of images has allowed art to hide itself from thought, and enjoy the critical disillusion and commercial frenzy. Good luck trying to challenge or denounce it, because as soon as you enter the system you are automatically a part of it. (Viscous cycle!) The viewer is now a consumer who moves through it all to test their enjoyment/ non-enjoyment of the works. They don’t understand anything most of the time, they simply consume.

Art is democratic…hence no longer special. Paradoxically, the effort to democratize art only reinforced the privilege of the idea of art. By allowing everyday objects to ask the same insoluble questions as those formerly reserved for aristocratic artworks now makes everything equal…villagers rejoice! Everything is art! So now there is no more art object at all, only the idea of art. But we no longer take pleasure in it, only the idea of it. Since anything is art and since anyone can join, there’s nothing special about it anymore.

Art is stuck in the past, stuck recycling itself. Since art has closed its circle of evolution, it now lives in its own little self-referential world. It seems destined to recycle itself endlessly (like fashion styles) as an infinite retrospective of what preceded us. The avant-garde used to project itself into the future, but finding itself displaced in the past it now it creates a regressive utopia. With transcendence gone, contemporary art has this general melancholy about it as though it mourns the image and aesthetics. The art objects only exist in relation to each other in a closed system of signs.

Art is null, reduced to nothing. Since art is recycling all its past ideas anyway, it only makes sense that waste, nullity and insignificance are fashionable. Galleries now manage art byproducts with waste as a prominent theme both in materials and styles. Artists tried to see things for what they really were by nullifying them, and as a result art has confiscated banality and mediocrity as values. Which I think is a shame.

Art is banal…it IS reality. Art is now SO immersed in reality that it is reality. And reality is art. (Oh, double talk!) Before, art was about inventing something other than reality through illusion. Art and reality would potentialize each other, but now that they are not differential poles they have lost their force. They’ve cancelled each other out. There’s no need for the art object to present the worlds reflection back at itself, since the world has swallowed its double. We’re now in this meaningless hyper reality that’s completely transparent and marketable. (But hypervisibility can just extinguish sight…) Art is now all disillusion rather than illusion. It can only now make a paradoxical wink, like reality laughing at itself.

Art is a performance. Since art is reality and there are no art objects, art is now what’s discussed in the artistic community that frantically stares at itself. Each person engages in their own virtual performance in this closed circuit, contributing to the general suffocation. When art embraced the infinite and deregulation, these things lead to the death of it by raising art to the level of performance.

Art tries and fails to be ironic. Artists claim to transcend, to see things twice removed, to be null, to be "true simulators" of pure appropriation…but they’re simply sly and pretentious. Today our irony is worn thin like an advertising gag and has lost its playfulness and kitsch. The innocent nonsense of Duchamp is over. Art has become quotation, simulation, and reappropriation. Painting sadly now denies itself, parodies itself, and then spits itself back out.

Art is indifferent. To be an authentic contemporary painting means it has to be as indifferent to itself as the world has become. Art no longer regards you as the viewer, and it no longer pays attention to you. Instead of being seen, the art is being absorbed and consumed. Strangely, our indifference has become a true social bond.

Art is useless. Thanks to Duchamp, by making any object useless makes it art. (Hence the waste theme only reinforces the notion, "Look, I’m useless!") But it’s a contradiction…because uselessness has no value in itself! The art market is making a spectacle of nonsense and using it for capital! Brilliant. Ironically, when every object is a so called aesthetic object then nothing will be an aesthetic object. Go figure. And older things, coming from the past and therefore useless, automatically acquire an aesthetic aura.

Art is excess. Lack isn’t the problem…it’s surplus and obesity. There is too much of art and simply too much of too much. With new technologies art became all preparation, manipulation, and multi-media hybrid mixing. But more is not better! We have forgotten that subtraction brings force and that power is born of absence.

What should art do?!

With all this pessimism, does Bauldrillard offer any hope? Enigmatically. He calls for a new illusionist to create the emptiness where pure events can happen. Since art is confronted with commodity in modernity, he thinks art should seek salvation in critical denial, go further in formal and fetished abstraction, and escape exchange value by radicalizing it. (Umm, how do we do that?)

Unfortunately he doesn’t dish out any real hope for the future of art. But one of the few optimistic things he said was, "Ideally, art is the solution to problems that are not even raised." That’s enough hope for me!

I’m gonna go make some art right now.

PS--If you actually like this aesthetics stuff, I wrote a summary of The End of Art by Donald Kuspit in a past blog in case you wanna check it out.