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Friday, June 18, 2004

Bye til Monday

 
We're doing some testing of our format this weekend and so I'm signing off now until Monday morning.

I leave you with a picture Stella took today when we were at Liberty Place having lunch in the food court on the 2nd floor. (Recommended. Get a window seat)

The view is looking west and what I really love is the overwhelming urbanity of it all. This too is Philadelphia.

Happy weekend, all. Stay cool and safe. Next week Libby'll be back and I'm sure she'll have great stuff about Alaska.
permanent link  roberta 7:51 PM
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Upcoming in New York

 
Opening June 27 at PS 1 are shows that have me all excited. First off, courtesy of an ad in my $8 summer issue of Artforum, I know that Ryan McGinley has an exhibit of never before seen photos. According to the museum's website, this work is a departure from the artist's normal youth/drug/sex culture stuff. Really? From this image advertising the show (full page ad in Artforum) I pick up a lot of the same old same old vibe.

But who cares. Ryan McGinley is Ryan McGinley and a good photo is a good photo. I want to go. McGinley's photos were in Philadelphia recently. See my post and my PW review for more on that.

Also at the museum, "Hard Light" which includes video artist Doug Aitken's 2002 "Interiors" and works by Bruce Nauman,the Swiss team of Fischli and Weiss and others.

Interiors is a piece made when Aitken was in residence at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Read. The multi-channel piece projected on a translucent scrim hung on a house-like frame, is outstanding and if you missed it in Philly, you MUST see it at PS 1.

The opening's for all this is Sunday, June 27, 12-6 pm.
permanent link  roberta 7:19 PM
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Dinner and a movie

 


Dinner

Kutztown University Gallery Director Dan Talley wrote to invite me and all my friends to dinner. That would be a potluck fundraising dinner for John Kerry. Talley had a potluck in May at which time he raised over $1,400, and he's hoping to do even better this time.

Here's the invitation, which Dan extends to you all:

John Kerry House Party & Pot Luck Dinner
Saturday, June 26, 4:00 - 7:00 p.m.
298 Hermitage Street (corner of Hermitage & Silverwood in Philadelphia's Manayunk neighborhood)

We hope you'll be able to join us: bring a dish, your favorite libation, and your support for John Kerry. We'll provide plenty of soft drinks, juices, general snackage, bumper stickers, and campaign buttons.

PLEASE BRING FRIENDS! Remember, Bush has amassed over $200 million that he's already spending on a slew of negative ads. With monies raised at house parties, Kerry is better able to set the campaign tone and agenda.

Dan & Mary Talley

The Movie


Since Talley's potluck is June 26 and Michael Moore's movie Farenheit 911 opens June 25, I suggest dinner and a movie -- this potluck dinner and that movie.

New York Arts magazine, bless their hearts, directed me to Farenheit 911's website where you can play a short Quicktime trailer for the movie, find out where it will be playing in your neighborhood and order tickets online.

In Philadelphia, the movie will be at the Ritz East and the AMC Franklin Mills.
permanent link  roberta 6:08 PM
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Two firsts in the Glorious Harvest

 
"Glorious Harvest" the tribute show in honor of photography curator Michael Hoffman at the PMA is notable for many beautiful images, including a large Richard Misrach from the Dead Animals series (not shown) that to my mind was the show-stopper.

But, as current photography curator Kate Ware pointed out at the press preview, "Golden Harvest" has many blockbuster names and a lot of great images. It's also a show of disparate images, which mirrors Hoffman's broad taste.

Stella, who was with me, was non-plussed by the Misrach but loved the Catherine Chalmers "Sex (after)" a close up of a preying mantis eating its mate which I didn't care for.



All the work is donated by artists Hoffman worked with during his long career at the PMA and with the Aperture Foundation.

Ware said the donations, which she called "a significant addition to our holdings, include two firsts for the PMA collection : a first Robert Maplethorpe and a first Sally Mann. Hard to believe, but true.

The photos in question are Mapplethorpe's "William Burroughs," 1980, (top image) and Mann's "Untitled," 1980s (left)

I highly recommend the show, not only for these two lovely images and the Misrach but for the rest of the who's who in the show, all represented by good, strong work.


permanent link  roberta 10:52 AM
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B-Boy Barbeque

 
I got a call last week from Bret Syfert, B-Boy, book designer and art director for binformed magazine. Syfert (who designed and produced a book for Libby and me) wanted to tell me he made a new book (very cool, I'm in) and say that I should check out the B-Boy Barbeque that weekend, a kind of celebration of all things breakdancing and grafitti, and that I shouldn't miss a group of out of town lady grafitti artists. That interests me so I grabbed Stella and we went.

The first thing we noticed about the three women grafittistas was that they were working from sketchbooks. Now I had always thought grafitti went up fast and spontaneously, but I guess I don't know much. (top image is Zori4* working on her piece. She told me she was from Puerto Rico and came to Philadelphia especially for the b-boy event.)



Next is Fever* who's from Toronto and New York she said. I liked her camouflage pink t-shirt which blended in with her art.

[*Ed. note: this post has been to corrected. It previously had the pictures of Zori4 and Fever confused. Sorry for the error, and thanks, Zori4 for emailing in and setting the record straight.]



Muck, from New York, was doing some precise facial definition on her green-faced elf-girl when we met her.

She told us the artists had an opening at the grafitti friendly Union 237 the night before.

Opposite the rec center is a large warehouse with a mural in progress. It's an aerosol mural with non-grafitti touches and I assume it's sanctioned because there are signs up on the building announcing it as a work in progress.



Stella wondered if the outdoor mural was by another aerosol artist we know, Jeff C, whose work we'd seen inside at Asian Arts Initiative. Philadelphia being small, Jeff C is a friend of Syfert's and Syfert made a catalog of his show which I bought and that's how Libby and I got to meet the book designer. Syfert's book for Jeff C, simple yet sophisticated, honored the work of the other artist but was an art object in its own right.

Syfert, a Drexel grad, told me he's currently applying to graduate programs in printmaking and book arts. His new book, available for $20, is a history of the B-Boy Barbeque with photographs and an interview with Cornbread. Contact information for the book artist is at binformed magazine.
permanent link  roberta 9:01 AM
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Budget victims, round 2

 
Tucked into an upbeat press release about Friday night jazz programming at the Art Museum is this bombshell: no more Wednesday night hours this summer due to looming budget cuts.

Here's how the PMA words it:

Given the constraint of limited resources and uncertainty of City budget appropriations this year, the Museum will suspend its normal Wednesday night programming in July, August and September. During these months, the Museum will be open to the public from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Friday night activities will continue.

Things are looking grim.


permanent link  roberta 8:26 AM
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Thursday, June 17, 2004

Ghostly trace

 
Curator Sid Sachs' Big Nothing exhibit "Trace" opens at Rosenwald Wolf Gallery next Thursday, June 24. Here's a detail from the spooky postcard image (I understand card is late in getting out, so look for it in the mail soon).

The show, with more than 25 artists, includes locals Stuart Netsky, Sharyn O'Mara, Anne Seidman, Jennie Shanker, Kevin Strickland and Bill Walton; and others like Joseph Beuys, Jacob El Hanani, Roxy Paine and Ad Reinhardt who hail from hither and yon and the great beyond. Should be a good show.

My information says the show is up now, but the artist's reception is Thursday, June 24, 5-8 pm. Rosenwald Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, 320 S. Broad St. For more information, call 215-717-6480. (some day they'll get a website, hint hint)
permanent link  roberta 9:23 AM
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Student lounge at Moore

 
When you stop by the opening of "Philadelphia Selections 5" tonight at Moore, be sure to save some time for the "5 into 1" show in the school's lobby gallery. This sculpture exhibit, sponsored by Philadelphia Sculptors, has entries from five Philadelphia art schools and includes some pretty nice stuff. But see it now. The show comes down June 20.

Pietro Mantia's big pink table and pink-framed Modigliani-esque paintings have the scale just about right -- if you're one of Goldilocks' three bears, papa, say. (top image) The plus-sized dining room suite, with its old fashioned, fairy-tale cabin in the woods affect -- is carved out of pink foam insulation and is crafted beautifully. Having tried to carve this stuff once upon a time, I was mighty impressed. The piece's themes of family, beauty and (cold) comfort were a nice fit with the construction material.



Michelle Posadas' brown living room suite, placed next to Mantia's pink installation, creates a kind of studio apartment or student lounge within the show. When I saw the work yesterday with my friend Jane who was visiting from Athens, Ga., we ran into Moore Curator Brian Wallace who, with proprietary delight, flopped down on the stained brown couch for a chat and to tell us a little about his show (Philadelphia Selections) in the Paley Gallery. (more on that later)

Posadas' installation includes some family photos on the wall above the couch. You can't tell from this small image (above) but the family portrayed -- mom, dad and sis -- belong to a new species -- puppet headed humans. They seemed a typical middle class family nonetheless.



Finally, Bettina Zirkle-Garcia's yellow and red quilt on the wall deserves more than a moment of study. What looks like a hand-stitched piece, made from skin-like fabric (pleather?) and stained throughout with what looked like blood, becomes a kind of a map of the bodily universe with every excretion portrayed. Disease and injury are the obvious references. But with all the open zippers, and zippers within zippers, the piece also evokes sex and the birth of a baby as well.

For the last several years, the sculptors' group has pulled together this great, end of year student show. It's kind of a stealth show but always a great round-up. This year's no exception.
permanent link  roberta 8:18 AM
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Hot time at the Barnes

 
The next two months may be the best times to see the Barnes Foundation. According to their reservations page on the website, you can get in without waiting a month or more. Must be everyone's away at the shore. (image came up when I Googled Jersey Shore. As signs go, it's a nice one)

Anyway, during July and August, you can get into the Barnes with a mere two weeks wait for a reservation.

September is when Judge Ott makes his decision on whether the institution can move to Center City Philadelphia. See artblog's Barnes thread for more on that. And see Tyler Green's MAN. He's obsessed.
permanent link  roberta 7:25 AM
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Columns of artists online

 
Speaking of online registries for artists, White Columns, the alternative space in New York, just went online with a very nice, Flash enhanced registry. No charge to be in it, but it is a curated registry. Take a look.

WC says its database -- of hundreds of artists -- is intended as a public service to artists, curators, writers and anybody interested in following the art scene closely. Further, they say, the registry "includes some of today's most exciting emerging artists, all of whom are without gallery representation in New York City."

Each artist is represented by 15 images which is a generous, one person show. Biographical information and statement is also online.

I peeked quickly at the alphabetical list and began setting up my own "personal list" of artists. I'm always looking for Philadelphia names and I found Rob Matthews and, while he's not a Philly guy, Eric Brown, a sculptor whose show at Project Room in 2000 I remember fondly. (image is 2004 piece by Brown)
permanent link  roberta 7:10 AM
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Yes you will, Yes!

 
..Go to the Rosenbach Museum this afternoon for the 100th anniversary celebration of Bloomsday!

Happy birthday Leopold Bloom and Molly whose one day odyssey on June 16, 1904 is plotted out in James Joyce's "Ulysses." (image is photo of Joyce)

Rosenbach Museum, which is the repository of Joyce's hand-written manuscript of the book, celebrates Bloomsday each year with readings from the book. The readings take place from noon to 7:30 pm on the front stoop of the museum, a very Philadelphia place to read. (Rain Location: Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, 18th & Spruce Sts.)

See the Rosenbach for more, including a list of celebrity readers (e.g., Mayor Street and former police commissioner John Timoney (a Dubliner by birth)).




permanent link  roberta 10:01 AM
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As the wheel turns

 
Switching gears, let me tell you about a sweet little show in West Philadelphia at Klein Art Gallery. "Neighborhood Bike Works" is one of the periodic love fests Klein organizes to celebrate the goings on of a community organization.

This show is devoted to "Neighborhood Bike Works," a fix it up group with outreach to children. NBW has after school programs and classes and offers kids a chance to "earn a bike" through a work program. The bike group donated used bike parts for the artists to create works of art, sales of which will benefit NBW.

It's a big show with 40+ artists, most represented by one work. And while assemblage art tends to be a little sad in affect, some works, like Randall Cleaver's "Time Machine II" (shown at top) have charms that override.

Cleaver's moving sculpture -- the entire clock face spins round, connected to a bike chain that pulls it -- evokes grandfather clocks, fob watches and family traditions in which bikes, watches and clocks pass from one generation to another.


Ebullient is the word for Sam Maitin's "Molly's Bike," (left) in which primary colors splashed on and around bike parts create a cheery graveyard dig of nuts and bolts.




Charles Barbin's "Bike Parts II" (right) is a great collage painting that weaves together abstract imagery (with very nice colors, line and shapes) and a clunky old bike chain. It works for me.


Carol Cole's "Velocity," (below) a cast paper arrow which shows two interlocking bike gears is nicely reductive.



I've seen many Cole works over time and I'm a fan. This piece with its implied dynamic of movement and speed -- as well as its implication of community (remember the two interlocking gears) captures the spirit of NBW perfectly.




If there was one piece I wanted to take home with me it was Warren Muller's "Untitled" light piece (right). Its no nonsense, chrome-shiny affect is humble and appealing.

Finally, Burnell Yow!'s "Conversation," (below) which made me smile, is a decoupage job, the two bike parts covered with torn comic book scraps held in place under a shiny shellac coating.



You can't see in this mini picture but the two pieces are connected by one bike chain coming out of one open tube and going right into the other open tube. Which is how it is with conversations -- two people filling each other up while being emptied at the same time connected by a single thread.
permanent link  roberta 9:30 AM
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Echoes of budgets past in Baltimore

 
Post by Mark Barry
The Baltimore Office of the Mayors Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture got morphed into the tourism office, Baltimore Office Of Promotion and the Arts.

Everything a city government does tends to be promotional anyway, that's politics.

There's some tension and maneuvering going on over budgeting but art still has a niche in City Hall. The Mayor is interested in using artists and art organizations to develop blighted areas of the city.

There is a small wave nationwide of appreciating the value and potential of a strong urban "creative class," started by Richard Florida and his book, The Rise of The Creative Class. [ed. note--check out Flood's website -- scary for its hard sell approach to the subject and its author, but useful for city rankings on indices like "creative class" and "innovation."]

Happy Bloomsday. -- Mark Barry is a Baltimore artist and regular contributor to artblog
permanent link  roberta 8:43 AM
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Office gone but show will go on

 
This morning's Inky story by Angela Couloumbis fleshes out the death of the Office of Arts and Culture. According to this, the programs handled by the Office -- the Percent for Art initiative for public art; Art in City Hall (one of my favorites for showcasing local talent in a public building); and the Marian Anderson Award -- will carry on -- in other city departments.

On an ominous note, the article says

the Office of Arts and Culture, which receives $400,000 annually in city funding, is the first to be notified that it will be axed as the administration grapples with adopting a budget that contains steep cuts to a variety of arts and recreational programs.

(emphasis mine)

Read . (username: rfallon@philadelphiaweekly.com, password: artblog)
permanent link  roberta 6:55 AM
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Tuesday, June 15, 2004

R.I.P. Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture

 

I learned earlier today something that was confirmed independently just a minute ago -- the city's Office of Arts and Culture, targeted for closure by the Mayor's budget cuts to art organizations, will close June 30. Staff were notified today by Carol Lawrence, director of that office.

"Our budget situation is dire, and the Mayor had to make very difficult decisions in order for the City to remain fiscally responsible," said an email (from a high placed staffer in the Mayor's administration) explaining the situation to other Commerce Department employees earlier today. (Arts and Culture is in the Commerce Department.)

Why this decision had to be made today when the budget hasn't been passed is a mystery to me. But there you have it. Sadness reigns here at artblog -- for those who lost their jobs and for the city so unenlightened it axes a meaningful arts program to save a few pennies.

(image is Philadelphia City Hall, detail, which I shot yesterday after seeing the Comix exhibit)
permanent link  roberta 4:38 PM
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Tom Friedman, visible and invisible

 
Speaking of invisible art, there's a nice story by Adrien Searle in the Guardian this morning about a Tom Friedman show in London.

Friedman, who makes works so tiny they're almost not there, did a residency at the Fabric Workshop in 2001. The piece he made in Philadelphia was a fly's eye view of himself done from a bunch of identical passport photos which he cut into tiny squares and reassembled. Friedman likes to work from life, sometimes using his own body products (hair and ahem other stuff). (image is a spider made from the artist's hair)

I think he's very interesting. He gave a lecture on his work at the FWM and his affect was that of an art monk -- serious and more serious.

Here's my review for PW back then. And here's some more including pictures in my Philadelphia Story for artnet.

And here's even more if you're obsessed.
permanent link  roberta 10:53 AM
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58 works is NOT nothing at Arcadia

 
I was worried about the visuals in Arcadia University's Big Nothing show “OPEN,” a show about works that lie below the threshhold of normal perception -- a show that looks like an empty gallery.

Now call me cranky but I like a little visual in my visual art. So I emailed Arcadia gallery director Richard Torchia for reasurrance that the trip to Glenside would be worth my while. Torchia co-curated the show with Sandra Firmin, former Arcadia intern now associate curator at University at Buffalo Art Gallery.

The director wrote me back and assured me that among the 58 works, most by local artists but some by international art powerhouses (Sol Lewitt, Robert Gober, Paul McCarthy, Yoko Ono, Lawrence Weiner), there’s a lot of visually gratifying work. Much of the work is installation/ performance based and came with instructions the gallery staff had to follow to implement. Without email and digital cameras, Torchia says, the show couldn’t have gone on.

Here’s Torchia’s quick list of what’s in store:

-no photos or videos

-lots of drawings

-one of the most disorienting pieces by Sol LeWitt the curator’s ever seen

-Randall Sellers’ first ever mural -- four days in the making (top image is a Sellers drawing)

-a rainbow made out of thread

-a wall of sugar cubes

-a large glow in the dark mural painted on ceramic bricks (visible at night only)

-stuff to find (Angela Bulloch's casts of chewed gum and Kevin Reay's large scale airbrush graffiti)

-architectural interventions that need to be experienced viscerally

-works involving fragrance and sound (a live radio broadcast)

-works involving prayers and curses...

So there now, rainbows, sugar cubes and a treasure hunt. We can all go out there Sunday night (8-10 pm) and know there's something to look at. The artist’s reception should be fun says Torchia. (No lecture but they’re serving dessert.)
permanent link  roberta 10:07 AM
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Surprises and familiar faces in Philadelphia Selections

 

Before inliquid began its online database for artists, there was the Moore College of Art and Design slide registry. For many years, the free registry of local artists' works existed in file drawers and was used as a resource by curators in the region looking to put together shows. Somewhere along the line, Moore got the idea to pull together its own show based on what's in its (now also online) database. Opening Thursday is "Philadelphia Selections 5," the fifth in the series.

The eleven artists whose work will be in the Levy Gallery were selected by Moore Exhibitions Director Brian Wallace. Philadelphia gallery goers will be familiar with most of the names. But a couple are less familiar or belong to artists whose profile is not in the star range as yet. (top image is work by Liz Rylewski; below is painting by Arden Bendler Browning, both artists in the show)

It's always good to see that kind of range in round up shows like this. It bespeaks the willingness of the curator to mix it up a little.

Speaking of databases, you'll find much material on some of these folks in artblog's database (if I can toot our horn a little).



Here's the lineup: Steven Baris (painter who just showed at Schmidt Dean), Arden Bendler Browning (abstract painter and 2003 Tyler MFA), Joy Feasley (Vox Populi alum and Fleisher Challenge artist whose drawings were recently in "affect" at Ursinus) and Aaron Igler/LURE (photographer and organizer of those rooftop video projections), Rain Harris (ceramic artist and Fleisher Challenge artist featured recently at the Clay Studio), Daniel Heyman (upcoming Fleisher Challenge artist and printmaker featured at ADM gallery), Nadia Hironaka (Vox Populi member and Fleisher Challenge artist whose videos appear around town with regularity), James Johnson (new to me), Ephraim Russell (new to me), Elizabeth Rywelski (Space 1026er known for her K-Mart photo spread seen in the last Arcadia works on paper show), and Bekhyon Yim (mixed media artist whose social critique were seen at Nexus).

The opening reception's from 6:30-8 pm Thursday, with a walk-through by Wallace and Carlos Basualdo, Moore International Discovery Series advisor, at 5:30 pm. Show's up to Sept. 3.



permanent link  roberta 7:32 AM
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Monday, June 14, 2004

Tyler grad's Clinton portrait unveiled

 
Carol Markel wrote me to say that Simmie Knox, whose official portrait of President Bill Clinton was unveiled earlier today at the White House, was a Tyler School of Art graduate.

Knox, the first African American chosen to paint a White House presidential portrait, is a Tyler BFA as well as an MFA.

Knox was a student of Markel's husband, Richard Cramer, the retired Tyler painting prof (and Wisconsin boy).

Read about the White House ceremony here and about Knox here.

Excellent.

photo copyright NY Times

permanent link  roberta 7:25 PM
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Paper Incoming II -- Vox Populi

 
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The concept driven video, sculpture, prints, drawings and paintings by members of the Boston collective, ONI fit right in at Vox Populi, whose members also make concept-propelled work in video, sound-sculpture, prints, drawings and painting. (Here's a resource page I found on ONI. They don't appear to have a website.)

ONI, which operates an art center in Boston's Chinatown, is an activist-type group dedicated to nurturing young talent and art with social themes. I read that the group is having some trouble with its landlord at the moment and that may account for their show at Vox this month.

The show's got young, energetic work, and while overall there's a high degree of professionalism I'd say it's an ok outing, with a few pieces that walk in the shadows of other artists' work and don't go far enough afield.


Digital collages by one Oni member (sorry I don't know the name) merge photographs of nude children whose heads are Jon Benet look-alikes with a drawn background right out of Henry Darger. The whole seemed pat and obvious in its message about child-porn in the art world. (image top) [Ed. note: this paragraph originally attributed the collages to Jennifer Schmidt. That was incorrect.]

Beth Brideau's large drawings, which evoke landscapes broken down to some absurd level of shape and inference look made from watercolor stains on paper enhanced by delicate pencil marks encircling the shapes. (image) They seem process-driven and because of that, and because of the stain aspect, they called to mind Ingrid Calame, famous for tracing stains on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and making paintings from the stains.



Fabian Birgfeld's infinity mirror piece, too, seemed to walk too close to Yayoi Kusama's mirrored infinity box now at the ICA. (image is detail) Birgfeld's light show inside his tall narrow cube seems to be a video of a tree which has been doubled and mirrored on itself for a Rorschach-like effect.

In each case, the art would have been more reverberant had it gone past the source material and into more personal realms.



The sound-sculptural pieces by David Webber and Timothy Bailey are notable more for their audio affect than for their sculptural presence.

Webber's piece (shown) includes live pine trees, twin peaks atop a white utility cart. The affect is ordinary enough until you set off their audio component, something you're invited to do by a "please touch" sign nearby.

The sound you trigger with your touch is a whine akin to a chain saw (or maybe the world's biggest bumblebee) and after an initial shock of recognition, the sound drove me out of the room. A conceptual anti-logging piece? a forest on wheels? I couldn't think because of the noise pollution.



Bailey's piece, twin figures stylized ala Giacometti, were rooted at the bottom with drum cymbals for feet. (image is detail) The cymbals, which had been torn and broken, were "stitched" with wire in nice, even cross-stitching. The piece's audio hissed at you like a steam radiator although I couldn't figure out why. Perhaps the objects were snakes, not figures. The cymbals were labelled "crash" and made by Zildjian or Sabian and that may have been a clue about ethnicity or something. But the piece didn't hold my interest long enough to puzzle it out.



Daniel Lefcourt's paintings of black, coal-like rocks on unprimed linen get my vote as best of show. (shown is detail) Their sometimes shiny, sometimes matte surfaces, which changed as you moved from one space to another in the gallery, had a "Dick's House of Rocks" charm. (You know, one of those places in Colorado to buy spiffy rocks and gems). In their matte form, they reminded me of Anish Kapoor's wondrous black holes in his sculptural rocks.



Justin Lieberman's narrative video (shown) of a lonely, mushroom-headed, jockey-shorts wearing hippy who smokes a little, drinks a little, shoots guns a little and finds true love then gets whacked by some rednecks is low tech in the extreme and far too long. Even though it was didactic (anti drug, anti gun) I give it props for the mushroom head conceit which was amusing and openly readable (kid with disability? confused pothead?).

Rounding out the crew is Daniel Dueck's small painting of trees attached to a wall-spanning drawing in yarn that suggested a constellation of Christmas lights.

All in all, the show seems a little academic for a socially-active collective but I am happy to make the crew's acquaintance and hope they settle with their landlord.

Final note, there was no list for the show and no wall labels -- just the artists names on the walls in the corners of the rooms. So I might have made some mistakes of attribution. Hope not. Maybe someone can tell me if I did.



permanent link  roberta 1:00 PM
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Paper incoming I -- Space 1026

 

Space 1026 and Vox Populi host out of town guests this month in group shows of like-minded collectives from Boston (Oni at Vox Populi) and Brooklyn (Change Agent at Space 1026). There's lots of works on paper in both shows. Here's the CA spin. Next post up, Oni.

Change Agent

Change Agent, a five-person art, design and music group with a focus on street culture and activism, has put together a show that's one of the most visually satisfying (i.e., least chaotic) outings at the Space by an out of town group. The work is cooked to perfection -- it's spicy and agreeable. My review this week at PW is about this show. Here's a preview.

Orien McNeill's wall drawing with 3-D components (detail above) depicts a Star Wars-type world seemingly at one with and under siege by big robots. All time and space has been collapsed in this work to create an eerie, depopulated fantasy world. Fish glide in the sky, propelled by mechanical means; twin towers rise up out of water and are bridged in the upper floors by a pagoda-type dojo.

The drawing, done (I believe) in marker -- freehand -- is something. Details like filagree flourishes in the architecture and in one place a space ship entry to a building evoking an open maw of a shark -- only here the teeth are tiny, perfectly depicted sewing machines -- make this more than teen notebook drawing.



Other notable works are by grafitti artist Swoon, whose woodblock prints hang by clothespins on lines in front of the windows. The work is figures and it makes for a kind of ghost tribe hanging around. (image shows one of Swoon's figures installed in an outdoor location.)

Charlie Pratt's aerosol painting, Mosco's dragon-esque painting on the wall and Mode Raw's oversized, digitized image produced and printed via fax transmission (around 45 pieces of brownish white paper glued to the wall) are nicely done, and share something of the experimental energy of Space 1026.



Speaking of which, don't miss the artist's book (image), a cardboard affair with turnbuckle fasteners, cut and paste images and hand-written statements by each artist. The last page is a very funny computer printout. It's a parody of a corporate flow chart and it depicts the alternative collective's various "departments" and their interactions.

This work is young and earnest. But there's a professionalism throughout that indicates hard work and commitment. Check it out.
permanent link  roberta 8:49 AM
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Sunday, June 13, 2004

Sundays in the park with Janet

 
Today's NY Times story by Sarah Ivey reminded me that Janet Cardiff, Berlin-based Canadian artist famous for her arty audio walks is leading the troops on a stroll again. (user name lrrfartblog; password artblog)

This time, Cardiff's site is Central Park and the walk, called "Her Long Black Hair" (image) takes the walker through the southeast quadrant with the artist whispering instructions, poetry and some control freak demands "Don't look back," etc). The piece debuts June 17 and runs to Sept. 13.

Libby and I and our friend Bay took a Cardiff walk in the Carnegie Museum of Art library at the 1999/2000 Carnegie International. It was the high point. Disorienting, paranoia-producing, and a lesson in self-awareness (just how well do you fare when being controlled by another?), the audio and video tour was conceptual enough to keep you thinking and weird enough to throw you into a kind of self-questioning. It's outward bound for the visual arts crowd, I guess.



The way it worked in Pittsburgh was you got a headset connected to a small video monitor that had a pre-recorded tour of the space you were walking through -- only the video was slightly different and threw you into a space-time conundrum). (image) For example, actors were hired for the pre-recorded video. They were also hired to be in the museum while you walked through it. But they were doing slightly different things in real time than in the video. I can't remember if this was pre-Matrix or not but it had some of that Mr. Smith body-cloning feel to it -- and, a little bit threatening for that reason.

Read a Q&A with Cardiff at the Carnegie's website.

The Central Park walk, called "Her Long Black Hair" is sponsored by the Public Art Fund. According to their information, this walk includes a cd, headphones and a pack of photographs for visual cues. The walk's free but reservations are required a day in advance. See the PAF website for how to reserve.

Of course the big news locally is that Cardiff is working on a piece for Eastern State Prison, courtesy of a PEI grant to independednt curator Julie Courtney. I'll have more for you on that shortly. Here's some info from PEI.

The Dickens-era solitary confinement establishment, a creepy walk under any circumstances, seems an enlightened site for a Cardiff out-of-body, out-of-time experiment. See Libby's post for pictures of the prison and some of the current art projects on view.
permanent link  roberta 8:45 AM
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