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Friday, May 30, 2003

Nothing comes of something, doesn't it?

 


The ICA just announced it’s 2003-2004 season lineup and the big local news is that wallpaper wunderkind Virgil Marti will do the ICA ramp in September (which might make it actually worth walking up for a change) and autobiographical painter Sarah McEneaney gets her first solo museum outing in January, 2004 (overdue).

Two interesting, non-local artists also made the cut: British video artist, Gillian Wearing (image is photo by Wearing) in her first East Coast, U. S. museum solo (September) and New York artist Amy Sillman (ramp project in May, 2004--unconfirmed at time of writing) featured recently in Art in America.

As the purveyor of hip, ICA is also orchestrating something called “The Big Nothing,” a multi-venue, “Pan-Philadelphia” extravaganza beginning in May, 2004. A celebration of the Seinfeldian state of art, “Nothing” is still in the planning stages. (In fact, press material says that Philadelphia curators have been cooking “Nothing” since October 2002.)

Artists whose work you may see (at a number of venues) include Martin Creed (finalist for last year’s Turner Prize), Olafur Eliasson (whose work will be at Arcadia courtesy of a 2002 PEI grant), Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine and Robert Ryman.

Venues, in addition to ICA, include the Philadelphia Museum of Art (all that Duchamp stuff), the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Pennyslvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Arcadia University, Schuylkill Center, The Print Center and Rosenbach Museum.

One of my favorite kid movies is Wolfgang Peterson's The Neverending Story, a surreal fairy tale in which “the nothing” is the bad guy, gobbling up all the fairyland characters and making life miserable. I guess that’s another take on the subject.



permanent link  roberta 8:19 AM
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Thursday, May 29, 2003

For Whom the Cracked Bell Tolls

 


On my way to see Bruce Nauman's video “Bouncing in the Corner I” in the PMA Video Gallery (definitely worth seeing, check sketches this week), I was ambushed by the new Christian Marclay video installation -- “The Bell and the Glass,” part of the Museum Studies series that asks artists to create new work based on holdings of the Museum. I almost didn’t make it to the Nauman.

Marclay, a New York video artist and composer, worked with Relache Ensemble to make an homage to two favorite Philadelphia love objects, Marcel Duchamp’s “Large Glass” (at the PMA) and the Liberty Bell. Both objects are cracked and old, and both embody something larger than their makers ever envisioned -- a kind of iconic heroism.

Speaking as one who’s fast becoming cracked and old, I endorse the concept of celebrating old, broken objects.

Beyond that, Marclay’s video collage -- which samples from some of Hollywood’s smarmiest black and white romance flicks and mixes them with footage of Marcel Duchamp extolling the cracks in the glass and with some sexy close-ups of chocolate Liberty Bells being molded-- is a whirling mix of love, implied sex, music and mouth-watering goo. It’s a Valentine even hard hearts won’t be able to resist.

(Music lovers, Relache performed several gigs in the gallery, improvising music that responded to Marclay’s video collage. All that’s left now are the music stands huddled around the split-screen video projections but it’s enough. You can imagine the rest.)
permanent link  roberta 9:05 PM
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Instant gratification

 
No need to wait until the show closes to take home your art if you buy at Creative Artists Network's mini-show hosted by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, 1701 Market Street. “Off the Wall: Small Works,” opening tonight and up for only a week (remember, by the end of the week there may not be much of a show left if things sell), exhibits a lot of swell small works by CAN artists, at affordable prices. I saw prices from $125 to $750. And I could picture lots of the art on my small rowhouse walls, from Erin Murray’s “Untitled 33” painting of a dark land mass nearly obliterating the sky, to Dominic Episcopo’s polaroids (“LA Building," shown here, gives a sense of what his work is like), to Elaine Erme’s dark lithographs of doll clowns to Sandra Davis’ hand-tinted gelatin silverprints of cottages. I got a chuckle out of Satre Stuelke’s “Small Karismatic” multiples, tiny elongated toric shapes on inverted Mr. Softee legs with tv-aerial ears, finished with sparkly automotive paint. But like cars, I’m not sure they’re built to last.
permanent link  libby 6:20 PM
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Artful insemination

 
Kathleen Spicer’s polychrome woodcarvings remind me a bit of Syd Carpenter’s biomorphic work in clay, but Spicer’s subject is intrinsically about the wood itself, about plants and generation and not so much about the human condition. The show is about to be over--like tomorrow. Pick of the show is “Swimmer” (shown here) its blue and brown reflecting the wood grain of a thick, bent tree branch, the delicate petals at one end a surprising contrast. Many of the pieces, although beautifully painted, seemed clunky and not as well thought out. But “Naval Bean Sweet Pea,” which harks back to some of Spicer’s earlier work, is a charmer, ironically for the opposite reason that “Swimmer” succeeds. A poem to regeneration that made me think of a fish as well as a pea pod, and also of wari (that game with stones or beans in holes carved into a board), the piece’s material (wood) plays second fiddle to the form and color and pattern. At Sande Webster Gallery.
permanent link  libby 2:21 PM
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Siah Armajani explains his populist art

 

A Post by Ava Blitz

(Ed. note --Iranian-born public artist, Siah Armajani, was guest speaker at the 2003 Fairmount Park Art Association Annual Meeting held recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sculptor Ava Blitz reports.)

Armajani was a true delight to listen to; a mixture of friendly schoolteacher, anarchist, comedian, warm leftist rebel, wise philosopher and everyman. He showed slides of some of his equally delightful work, from the Louis Kahn lecture room at the Fleisher Art Memorial -- warm wood and strict geometry influenced by Shaker (and Quaker) design, to his most recent project, a small bridge for Nashville, with comfortable curves and a space not unlike a Connestoga wagon that shimmers beautifully at night. (Image of "Gazebo for 2 Anarchists" at Storm King Art Center)


American icons of architecture and transportation are important in his work -- a locomotive car mounted atop of a bridge in Beloit, Wisconsin, or a series of trailer-like compartments (of Home Depot essence) that create a walkway. Armajani told the story of his engineer who asked to do the landscaping on this project. The artist granted his permission, and when he asked the associate how he came up with the design (suburban tract landscaping), the engineer responded that he simply copied the landscaping of his own home.

Armajani was born in Iran (since 1961 he has lived in Minneapolis) and he has a fascinating and quirky reaction to American popular culture. There are some similarities with the work of Venturi and Scott Brown, but I found Armajani’s sense of design more lyrical, popular and possessed of a poetic edge. Poets and poetry are, in fact, a great influence and presence in his work. He often quotes the work of poets as part of his public works.

The lecture was full of down to earth stories and images- a mix of culture and politics and beautiful design. Armajani is not fond of the mass art of Stalin and despises bad guys like Franco and Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson.

“Public art is not universal in that it is connected to its sense of place, culture, community and politics,” he said. The artist does so many picnic shelters because he “likes to see people happy; and people are happy when eating.” He also is a bit of a recluse “I love people, but mostly conceptually.”

As in all public art, there is the conflict between doing work that the public understands and not compromising the artist’s integrity and creative vision. Armajani believes in democracy in art, not public art as a glorification of the artist. He believes in a discussion with the public, but at the same time, he says, “Art is not social work..not a community planning scheme.” And democracy is not “a descent to the lowest common denominator” but a raising up of the public taste.

--Ava Blitz

permanent link  roberta 7:16 AM
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Monday, May 26, 2003

What's happening

 

Post from Libby

I usually trust Ed Sozanski to be thoughtful.
But I have to agree that the review on "A Happening Place" was misplaced, misbegotten, and mysterious.

My reaction was, who did he write this for? Who did he think his audience was? Certainly not Philadelphians, who would be misinformed if they understood from the review that this was a show to skip (and I don't think a reader could come away from that review with any other response).

This is a show worth every cent of the $5 admission, and how many art shows can you say that about, huh? And how many shows at the Gershman Y would you have paid $5 for. In this show, the Y exceeded itself, and that's because the art is great. (Wayne Thiebaud pies on left were not in the show; his "Club Sandwich" was).

Furthermore, the art, all by itself, raises the issues of historicity, the shift in point of view in the '60s, the wry focus on commodification--of the art world and of the culture. And the show is an opportunity to see the art in the scale and a milieu that belonged to that time. The Christo is petite next to his now more-familiar work. So is the Claes Oldenburg. So is the Andy Warhol. It's great to see these guys pre their explosion into megaspace.

You know, Philadelphia always gets criticized for not tooting its own horn. So here's a show that toots the Y's own horn, and the horn of the women who got plugged into the New York electric sizzle early on and brought it home to Philadelphia. Y not toot a little for a change?

And lastly, I suspect that Sozanski, with typical Philadelphia self-denigration, was embarrassed to say this show was great because he thought the New York critics would be his readers and would look down their noses at the ebullient boosterism which is so un-New York cool.

Hey, you out there, if you haven't seen this show, you will be missing a chance to enter the '60s ethos and feel the fun.

--Libby

permanent link  roberta 9:58 AM
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Sunday, May 25, 2003

It Happens

 


I read Ed Sozanski’s harping review about “A Happening Place” in today’s Inquirer and was stunned. (See Libby's much better blog post of May 23 -- or my summer round-up feature in the May 21 Philadelphia Weekly for more.) Sozanski’s bitch is that the show is self-congratulatory and not art-historical enough. I want to know what’s wrong with a little bit of self congratulation by a community art organization that’s still going strong after 40 years. As for art history, the show celebrates some of Philadelphia’s own (little known) art history -- and who else is doing that, pray tell.

In addition, the installation’s superb, the art looks wonderful, the documentation does what it’s supposed to do. How can you complain?

When a community art center (this is not a museum we’re talking about) wants to celebrate its history and do so with a swell exhibit, it’s about empowering themselves for the future. Maybe Mr. Sozanski doesn’t care about that but I do. The future of the Philadelphia art scene depends on the community venues -- not the museums which tend to overlook and not support the locals. But that’s another story.
permanent link  roberta 9:27 AM
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Polly wants some color

 


One of the nice things about being an art reviewer is getting to meet the artists and coming away with a sense of the human being behind the work. I’m not a formalist in my orientation anyway. In fact, I think formalist discussions about art kill it for most people. I’m for conveying the zip and the crackle -- anything that will actually make it interesting enough for a viewer want to spend time with the art.

I met Polly Apfelbaum at the ICA before her retrospective opened. She took me through the show. A bouncy lady with a Prince Valiant bob and a nice sense of humor, she was a delight. Many of her concerns with art-making are formalist. She uses systems in her color-selection and she’s about breaking the barrier between painting and sculpture and about order and chance, serendipity and control.

But in addition, she’s all about people -- and beauty. Her floor-bound work -- which she invites open interpretation of -- is rooted in a domesticity that is immediately accessible. The works look like rugs, flower petals, bones, cells, blankets, etc.

“Oblong,” a wallpaper piece made for the ICA show, gets the artist excited. “You have to do something new or you go crazy,” she said.
Apfelbaum calls the piece the world’s biggest painting.” It’s pure color system at work, (ovals of color starting with yellow and ending with black from floor to 2nd-floor ceiling) but since the dominant color is white, the thing has a ghostly quality. Unlike her other, more corporeal works, "Oblong" is a mirage.

permanent link  roberta 9:20 AM
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