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Saturday, July 19, 2003

Domestication of the big cheese

 

I'm sorry to get back to the ICA space and Polly Apfelbaum (see Roberta's July 15 post), but I thought the hangar-like space was no problemo. The gray walkways between the pieces were like hallways, and the rugs were heartfelt explosions of color, trying to domesticate and control the space, trying to humanize the bad old world with little cell-like, labor-intensive pieces of domesticity metasticizing to reach over and cover what's not so organic, not so human.

I want to add that the grid of paired color swatches in "Compulsive Figures" reminded me of Richard Tuttle (see image above), but took it off the precious wall, made it of a precious, delicate material, and then dared you to step on it. Wow. That was great and justly deserved.
And "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" made me think of Eva Hesse's "Repetition1," (see image) but cleaned up and somewhat changed in subject matter to color. Yet some body references remain.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I hope someone gets back to Gerard's post from earlier this morning.
permanent link  libby 8:27 AM
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And now a word about something old

 

Post by Gerard Brown

This has nothing to do with anything y'all have been talking about, as interesting as it all has been....
But could someone (preferably an artist with real thoughts on the subject) please explain the allure of the old to me? At an artists' talk at Vox this evening, listeners were treated to rapturous soliloquies on the merits of "old" pornography and "old" video games[image of Atari joystick]...is there something inherently corrupt about the SIMS that no one is telling me about? Should I only visit vintage porn sites if I'm really arty in Philadelphia?

Part of what I'm getting at (f you haven't noticed) is whether historical distance is a signifier of authenticity that can be - at the end of the day - trusted. Is making art from contemporary porn (in the manner of late 90's Jeff Koons--[image is one of Koons's "Made in Heaven" sculptures from 1990) inherently less interesting? Is the Atari version of Space invaders somehow innately more compelling than Super Mario or Lara Croft (see Miltos Manetas for an argument on this subject)?
Help! I await y'all's thoughts...
many thanks,

Gerard Brown is a Philadelphia artist and writer who teaches at University of the Arts

permanent link  roberta 7:31 AM
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Wednesday, July 16, 2003

John Currin's conservatism and Lisa Yuskavage's Fischl-ism

 

Post by Sid Sachs

[For more on the Currin/Yuskavage thread see post dates listed in "hot topics"]
I guess I meant "conservative" in that the paint handling is traditional, skillful, of the hand. And what is done with that skill is untraditional and breaks rules. I think it is also so with Tom Nozkowski, David Reed, Sean Scully, Bill Jensen, Giorgio Morandi etc.... This doesn't have perjorative connotations to me. I think there are others who break tradition and also make new ways of handling material i.e. Pollock, Frankenthaler, Hesse, Tuttle, Benglis, Apfelbaum, Warhol. I was trying to contrast Currin with Yuskavage who in my estimation has problems with the handing, facture, space etc and the shock of the new. She is the Eric Fischl for a new generation and who needs that. [Image is "The Bed, the Chair, Jetlag" by Eric Fischl]

--Sid Sachs is Director of the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at University of the Arts

permanent link  roberta 6:15 PM
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Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Precious space

 

Astrid raises an interesting point about the ICA’s cavernous space and its effect on Polly Apfelbaum's work. [See her post of July 9.] The museum’s ambiance downstairs is more like an airplane hangar than a gallery. (DIA's space in Chelsea seems this way, too. Image of Dia's Rosemarie Trockel exhibit -- closed for the summer, re-opening in October.) What seems to work best in these spaces is art that becomes an airplane, that is, art that's “big” enough to create a wow in and of itself. (Last year's Space 1026 installation did this, as did the Wall Power show and Bruce Yanemoto’s video fireworks, to name a few.)

What also works is art that creates intimacy with the viewer--art that makes the space irrelevant. Charles LeDray drew you in with his small, intricate pieces focussed on the human body. Even Lisa Yuskavage did this. Her work focussed on such private aspects of the body that it forced aside all thoughts about the ICA’s external space. Who cared?

Apfelbaum’s floor-bound work (See image of "Reckless") is neither an airplane nor is it particularly intimate. With the exception of “Bones” and “Compulsory Figures,” both of which evoke the body directly as a vulnerable, mortal object, the rest of the work is like the Milky Way, beautiful and fascinating but outside the human experience.

That said, I loved it all. But I think Astrid is right that Apfelbaum’s pieces, which look quite different in more intimate spaces, didn’t get their best showing in the big space.

Come to think of it, the piece that works best in the ICA might be the wallpaper which creates a hazy veil of color and makes the walls fade away. It's a stealth bomber if you will. Apfelbaum's work is at the ICA until July 27.
permanent link  roberta 10:54 AM
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Sunday, July 13, 2003

Precious commodities

 
The aura of preciousness, the standard requirement for selling art, is nowhere in sight in the shows at Space 1026. The scruffy floors, the uneven lighting, the sometimes-somewhere white wall space mean a general disregard for art-world niceties like the pristine white box gallery with carefully spaced works on the wall and on pedestals and under vitrines.

That doesn’t mean 1026 has nothing to offer.

And what it offers in a typical show is a dizzying exuberance and creativity, sometimes unedited, unexpurgated, and at times undigested and incomplete.

The exhibit now in place--work by art installers from the ICA, many of them accomplished and recognized artists--seems less a show and more a documentation of artistic process and effort.

(Before I go on, I want to mention the gallery talk there with the participating artists, led by Ellen Napier, Associate Director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum on Friday, July 18, 6:30 p.m.)

The process is laid bare in two group efforts--a full-wall painting to which all the artists contributed, according to show spokesman and participating artist Robert Chaney, and a 3-D installation called “The Grasshopper” (shown above), which reminded me of a melting cupcake and Cinderella’s coach and fairytale woodsman’s hut rolled into one--and if you had been there for the opening bash, you would have observed a piece of the process plus the treat of watching “The Grasshopper” roll around the space.

While both pieces have their charms--I’m especially taken with “The Grasshopper” for its windows filled with small objects unlike any knicknacks your typical woodsman would own--this is less about a refined work of art and more about artists having fun, inspiring and playing off one another.

And that seems to be what Space 1026 is about, a cauldron for synergy, although it’s not clear to me that in this case, the level of synergy that seems to inspire the Space 1026ers transferred over to the ICAers, who have less in common with one another. But even the most diverse artists could, at times, benefit from a little shot of synergistic (is that really a word?) inspiration.

And those who come to look could best get that sense of creativity gone wild if they attend the opening-night happenings, like the one for this show, which included partying and music, some of it contributed by artists involved in the show.

I am not saying opening night is everything, and I’m not saying there isn’t stuff worth seeing, like the Sarah McEneaney takes on her dog (shown above right “Fort Zach. State Park, Key West, FLA,” not for sale).

And I’m not saying there isn’t stuff worth buying, like the touching Eric McDade paintings (shown here the sad tale of stuffed animals in zoo cages).

Some other pieces I liked included Tomo's (Takatomo Tomita) mushrooms and assorted little figures (some shown below), Chris Hensel’s “Inventory,” a plastic-covered, sewn-together booklet with tiny pictures of all his possessions (shown below), and Clint Takeda’s small, square paintings (shown last image).
The colors and texture of Paul Swenbeck’s rocky piles were rotten-egg weird and luscious at the same time. Shannon Bowser’s concrete pyramids and crater on springy wire were the bobble-head versions of the wonders of nature (wait until the national park gift shops get their hands on these).
The viewer and the buyer must face the challenge of sorting through the pictures and other works, which are hung chock-a-block, skied to neck-craning levels, the good works next to, above or below the incomplete ones, no value judgment implied by how things are placed.

Multiplying the challenge for a viewer or buyer is the lack of labeling. Is this a Joy Feasley? What’s its name? How do I buy it? Or is it even for sale? Whom do I approach about purchases? (The answer is Robert Chaney at the ICA.)How do I reach him? (The answer is email him at rchaney@pobox.upenn.edu). How do I explain which work I want to purchase? I certainly couldn’t always get across to Chaney which cartoons had caught my eye.

Well, the business side of art is not Space 1026’s forte. And neither is careful display.

But what the gallery offers is precious in its own way--a free-wheeling community of artists, that puts out plenty of stuff that’s worth seeing, and also some stuff that’s still half-baked.
permanent link  libby 9:53 PM
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