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Friday, September 03, 2004

A First Friday preview: Jungles, urban and tropical

 
How nature regenerates over and over again in the Amazon jungle of Guyana and the concrete jungle of Philadelphia is Ron Klein's subject at Pentimenti Gallery. His just-opened installation there, "Looking Down," is his own form of natural regeneration, and like plants, he finds a way to take right over, transforming the white box into a wonderland of jungly lianas and giant liana-based egg and seed shapes.

Using the individual pods that he collected in the Guyana jungle and in the Philadelphia area, Klein drew all over the gallery space. He arranged some in linear waves all over the walls. Others he strung into lianas, using them to draw in space, somehow finding remarkable variety both from the forms of the pods and the way he can make a linear lei into a thingamabob that has presence (left, front-and-center egg shape, "Kakaralli #3; below right image, "ClumpWallaba").

And in what I took as an act of kindness for those of us who like to touch everything that interests us, he has set out a basket of the pods to share with us just how they feel.

I learned from gallerist Christine Pfister that some of the jungle pods that were flat in Guyana curled up on arrival in Philadelphia, and one of the lianas stretches and contracts as the pods curl and uncurl in response to the humidity. One morning the string rests heavily on the floor, and the next, it shrinks up and swings freely (top image, farthest left vertical element, "Trysil").

The gallery space takes on a restful quality--more spare than the jungle, but reminiscent of it. I don't imagine the atmosphere will be the same, however, if you enter with First Friday crowds (image left, vertical element is made from jacaranda tree pods).

The use of such a bounty of multiples reminds me of Astrid Bowlby's collages that take over half a room, and "The River" installation by Clay Studio 1999 guest artist-in-residence Sadashi Inusuka that also took over the most part of a room. Inusuka used 800 individual clay elements plus a slurry of clay on the floor to create an impression and make a statement about preserving nature. And Bowlby's individual elements--collaged, drawn cut-out shapes--rise into the thousands until they create a dense 3-D landscape. Although the work of the three artists seems so different, the key element of bounty and intense procreation seems to underlie all of their work (right, Bowlby's "Yonder").

Klein also showed some small collages of used cigarette rolling paper that were beautiful and also based on multiples, to very different effect. The material, which seems like it is obsessively collected, is transformed into sepia-brown ink drawings that remind me of cedar shakes. The transformation into art has a calming effect on the material and what I imagine to be the process (image left, "1254").

Also at Pentimenti are works by Kay Wood that have a swell sense of color. Some of her pieces, made from four smaller panels, have the feel of pieced fabric, because most of her paint has a woven look. She's working on wood with acrylic, pencil and ink, and with collaged imagery that includes pods and pears and sea shell fossils that talk to Klein's work in the next two rooms (image right, "Appear").

The collaged items are traces of some form of history, be it natural or personal. The personal imagery includes items like a wrinkled glove, a well-worn pair of shoes (image left, "About Time").

The clothing brings some dark emotions bubbling to the top. In contrast, the four-panel, pieced together works seem like paeons to domestic peace, the natural forms recalling childhood memories. In some cases, these small hints of subject matter are barely readable beneath layers of paint, struggling to get their story out. I'm not sure they do, but the paintings are lovely to look at.



permanent link  libby 8:41 AM
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Online funnies

 
I am a fan of online art experiments, as you know, especially ones that don't take themselves too seriously.

I'm excited about this one because it comes out of Philadelphia and it's pretty darn good. The Vacuum, which launched yesterday, is a collaborative venture started by Samuel Yun and Matthew Sepielli, two young Philadelphia artists. The interface is a little oblique and yet after noodling around for maybe five minutes in the architectural, 3-floor framework I figured out how to access the works on each floor.

Click on the <-MB-> space designators on each floor and you're in. (top image is Andrew Jewell's "Morning with audio track," in which the sun rises above the fakest looking mountains I've ever seen while saccharine music (bagpipes and a song about Ireland) goes on and on)



There are five people in the show: in addition to Yun and Sepielli, that's Scott Moore, Andrew Jewell and Leonard Graye.
Happily, the works are short and some are quite amusing. My favorite was Graye's popup error message piece (image right) in which clicking quit or ok takes you into a lover's quarrel in which you can't win no matter what you click. Very very true to life somehow and very funny. Here's the opening error message:

"System Error. The program has preformed a false operation. You don't even love me anymore. Do you want to quit?"

Sepielli and Yun's "Moon 2" (image left) is an interactive piece that spins the abject-looking, meditating artist 360 degrees if you hold your mouse in the right place. Once I figured this out I let myself go wild spinning him right and left like a dervish. Playing "god" was quite fun for a few moments although I wouldn't want the job full time.

Sepielli is The Vacuum's director and his email says they're looking for all types of art but especially new media works. Note: some of the information on the site seems out of date (like the deadline for submitting work for the next show...and the sign-ins at the front desk need a little fixing) but check out the work itself. It's good.
permanent link  roberta 7:41 AM
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Thursday, September 02, 2004

One that almost got away

 


Browsing the PMA’s press site looking for info on the upcoming African art show, I came across this sleeper of a release I either didn’t get or slept through: The PMA has apparently split the top curatorial position in Modern and Contemporary Art into two slots: one for modern and one for contemporary art. (image is "Lion stool," Ghana, (after 1957) from the African art show which opens Oct. 2.)

And, they’ve appointed Michael Taylor to the modern position. He's the newly-created Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, a position specializing in art of the first half of the 20th Century.

Taylor’s been the PMA’s acting curator of Modern and Contemporary art since Nov. 2003 when Ann Temkin left that post to become a curator at MOMA.

A Dada and Surrealism scholar whose focus is on Marcel Duchamp, Taylor is leading the curatorial charge on the upcoming major retrospective on Salvador Dali (February 16-May 15, 2005 at PMA).

Now the museum’s searching for a senior-level curator who specializes in contemporary art (the period from the mid-20th century to the present) to fill the second of the two positions.

permanent link  roberta 1:45 PM
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Sit down, skate, or float away, your choice

 

A couple of shows due to open here soon have locomotion on the brain. Here's the up down spin around scoop:

A Declaration of Necessity for the Public Good at Temple
Seattle environmental- artist Buster Simpson comes to Temple Gallery this week to make chairs. Not just any chairs, but Windsor chairs like the ones used by Ben, George and the rest when they signed the Declaration of Independence. (top image)

Simpson will be building chairs onsite in a "workshop" downstairs in the gallery. Upstairs will be a "showroom" of finished products. Here's the kicker. The chairs will be made from recycled wooden pallets. Now I for one cannot imagine an elegant Winsdor cobbled together from those warehouse staples made from scrap wood, so I'm totally intrigued. The whole thing's about participation in democracy. Where's your seat at the table?

Simpson will work in the gallery September 9 – 14. He will give a lecture on his work and on the project on Wednesday, September 8, at 11 a.m. in President’s Hall on the Tyler School of Art campus in Elkins Park.

Video movements at Moore



Moore College grad Janet Biggs (BFA 1982) comes to her alma mater November 12 to December 17, 2004 to show new and recent video installations like this one. (image is still from single channel video "Bright Shiny Object," 2004).

A quick review of the artist's website indicates she's mucho interested in motion -- wrestling, swimming, horses and other active locomotion-rich activities.


Float and dream at the Fabric Workshop

And for something a little dreamier (a lot dreamier?) Yinka Shonibare's "Space Walk" (detail shown, image by Aaron Igler) claims the heavens for his people. The piece, which includes two astronauts and a space ship, was made in collaboration with the FWM where Shonibare has been a resident artist.


And for floating inside your head, take a walk with Laura Owens courtesy of her lovely embroidered silk prints (also made in collaboration at the FWM). The translation of Owens' trademark forlorn landscape imagery into elegant, tapestry-like cloth works is a great marriage of style and materials.

Both the Owens and the Shonibare exhibits open Sept. 8. (image by Aaron Igler is Owens' untitled piece measuring a very large 69.5"x50")




permanent link  roberta 11:33 AM
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More MFA advice

 
Post from Colette Copeland

I spent almost a decade trying to get my MFA--work, relocation, and children all interfered. As a result, I had the pleasure/or not of experiencing many different programs at multiple institutions. I agree with many of the posted viewpoints (previous viewpoints on MFA posted here, here and here) such as time for intensive studio work, developing contacts, etc... (image, untitled video still from Copeland)

Two additional points:

1. In a time when public funding has been eliminated, graduate school may be
the last place where artists are paid to make work through fellowship and
assistantship programs.

2. Graduate school offers artists a supportive community with
which to receive critical feedback on their work. (Most artists I know lament
the lack of community, yearning for those 'dreaded' crit days)

Disclaimer: As with anything, there are good and bad programs. My advice to my undergrads is to always wait a few years before applying to grad school. Usually school is appreciated much more after grinding away in the real work world. I also advise them to do their homework. Just because a school has a good reputation, doesn't mean that it is right for the individual.

--Philadelphia artist Colette Copeland, a regular artblog contributor, is curator for "Death Bizarre," a show opening Sept. 12 at Almanac Gallery in Hoboken, New Jersey. More on that later.

permanent link  libby and roberta 9:43 AM
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004

The luminescence of experience

 
Standing in a translucent oval, the circling wall lit from behind by red, green and blue fluorescents programmed to create a variety of colors that morph seemlessly from one to the next, I pictured myself as a baby chick inside an egg being candled.

The glow and the space are the creation of Olafur Eliasson, the same artist who brought a faux sun room to the Tate Modern that became the must-see event of the London 2003-2004 winter season.

"Your colour memory," Eliasson's new piece showing at Arcadia University, first seduces with the voluptuous colors and then sneaks up with sensory and intellectual fallout (the original yellow is luminous, nothing like this dreary ochre in the photo!).

As someone taking pictures, I had the opportunity to compare what my eyes were telling me with what the camera suggested. There were discrepancies.

When the glow is green, the outside light looked pink to me . My camera showed otherwise(top, see window in distance is not pink). When the glow was blue, my eyeglass frames looked Day-Glo orange. My camera captured the moment but not the orange (right). When the colors shifted say from pink to yellow, a residue of pink stayed in my field of vision, mottling the yellow that was on the walls.

Eliasson's point is that you, the viewer, are at the center of what this piece is. The piece itself offers you an experience, but that experience is what you make of it both consciously and unconsciously, with your senses and with your mind.

Eliasson acknowledges James Turrell and Robert Irwin as his heroes, but his work has a different purpose. Like Turrell, he created a hole in a roof, allowing the light from the sky to move across an interior space, but Turrell's hole-in-the-roof pieces suggest transcendance. Eliasson's hole cast a circle of light crossed by the shadow of metal beams--a more down-to-earth, less ethereal experience.

And like Irwin, Eliasson is concerned with how perception intersects with the reality, but again he brings is work down to earth often by revealing the works behind the illusion, or by making the viewer observe himself or his perceptions.

Part of the pleasure of "Your colour memory" is the way the colors interact with the building. There's also the experience of walking into a black-out room behind a curtained door, and getting a rest from the intensity of the light.

Rest of a different kind came on walking out of the installation into natural daylight. It was rather like walking out of an intense theatrical experience, after which the street looks drab and daily life looks even more ordinary than ususal.

A series of talks in conjunction with the installation looks quite interesting. Highlights include a talk by the artist on Sept. 13, and then there's a talk by Dr. Oliver Sacks (neurologist and author of "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" and other books on perception phenomena). For more on these and other related events, go to the Arcadia link above.

permanent link  libby 4:58 PM
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004

MFA thumbs sideways

 
Cinque Hicks on whether an MFA is a waste of time:

Although you asked for comments from those *with* an MFA, I had to say that I agree with some of the comments below (see posts here and here).

I think that graduate programs are good for three things:

1) carved-out time and space to just be creative,
2) professional connections to the art world, and
3) a simple way to show people who keep track of such things that you're not
just screwing around when it comes to art

--all great things, and all things that can be gained in a hundred other ways. Thanks!

--posted by Cinque Hicks, a regular contributor and fellow blogger

permanent link  libby 6:30 PM
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More Studio Museum

 
"Seeds and Roots," a show from the collection at the Studio Museum in Harlem, proved as interesting as the new work upstairs (see previous post). Some of the images and work downstairs were familiar to me, some not, but so many pieces were thought-provoking and just plain great to look at (right, a photo by Samuel Fosso of himself wearing rubber work gloves).

Along side the black-out graphite Quentin Morrises and sculpture from Alison Saar were pieces from Beauford Delaney and Horace Pippin. (By the way, Morris has a solo show coming up at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Dec. 11 to Feb. 13.)

My favorite painting in the show was "Trees of Life" by Benny Andrews, a landscape in which the tree canopies were in part peachy rear ends amidst the greenery.

There was a lot of work I was glad to see again, like "Venus Baartman" by Tracey Rose (shown left), a photo suggesting Eve in the Garden of Eden, and referring to Sara Baartman, or the Hottentot Venus, a woman taken from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain in the 1800s.

I was also glad to see again Glenn Ligon's "Stranger in the Village" (right), an accusation written in black coal dust glued on a blackened canvas.

The show included work from people of African descent in Europe, Africa and the Americas and was intended to show the range of the museum's collection. It succeeded also in showing its quality. This show, too, is worth a visit.

permanent link  libby 5:36 PM
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Monday, August 30, 2004

Politics of a different color

 
While all that political brouhaha emerged from the art world in time for the Republican Convention (see Roberta's Saturday post), political art of a more enduring sort emerged uptown--at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

I was in New York as a stop on the way to my college roommate's 40th wedding anniversary--she was practically a child bride, and believe it or not she met her husband when she was 14! What I was looking for to keep both me and Murray amused, was a group show with a lot of social content. And since I was staying on 125th Street, the shows at the SMH fit the bill.

The walk on 125th Street in the heat was brutal, but I loved the pineapple- and mango-on-a-stick vendors (right) and I loved the crowds that grew and grew until we were near Lenox, where the crowds were as dense as on Fifth Avenue, and vendors hawked clothes and music and books.

Upstairs at SMH, "Figuratively" showed work produced in nine months in the studio by SMH's three artists in residence for this past year--Dave McKenzie, Wangechi Mutu and William Villalongo. The show was organized by Assistant Curator Christine Y. Kim, who had also curated the excellent "Black Belt" show at SMH (see our posts here and here).

All three artists had plenty to say and they said it beautifully, using self-portraiture mixed with the crazy cultural icons of our times to challenge stereotypes about themselves (a stretch, maybe for Villalongo, but I couldn't help but think that his Cupid was a self-portrait) .

Wangechi Mutu

I'll start with Kenya native Mutu, who had a small piece in the Altoids show that travelled to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (see Roberta's post here and mine here). The piece at the Altoids show was pretty subdued compared to the fabulous work in Harlem--full of explosions, high-tech machinery, fashion magazine cut outs, body innards and outards, and gorgeous painting--mostly of herself (left, "Mushwomb 3," the figure in a USA t-shirt, her arms blown off).

Mutu couldn't fit the wild tresses in "Squiggly Wiggly Demon Hair" (right) on one sheet of paper, I guess, so the hair sprung over to a second piece, which also included a fall of wavy blond hair and a pair of crossed legs, both semi-attached to one of Mutu's trademark contorted bodies. Her close-up face included fashion magazine shiny made-up lips and dark eyes collaged on, suggesting a mask. This is one of Mutu's regular strategies, and she uses the collaged, slick fashion-industry generated eyes and lips in contrast to the vulnerable face or body that surrounds it. The eyes suggest someone looking at herself through others' eyes, examining the discrepancy between who she is and how others see her.

Somehow, Mutu gets into her pieces feminism, body politics, racial politics, racial identity, racial beauty, consumerism, violence, technology and fashion--all teetering on the brink of confusion and explosion yet holding together for the most part.

David McKenzie

Sculptor and videomaker cum prankster McKenzie had me laughing along with all of Harlem with his video "We Shall Overcome" (left two images). He donned a Bill Clinton mask that covered his whole head and walked up 125th Street, waving, shaking hands, and handing out leaflets as Louis Armstrong and a gospel choir sang "We Shall Overcome" on the soundtrack. It was one joke over and over--the stranger in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood finally turns up--yet each encounter, with people and their multitude of reactions, held me gripped and wanting more.

Another video, "Self Portrait Pinata" (right) recorded a party for children at the Queens Museum in which the children cheered on as a young man whacked at a pinata of the artist. The event was at once funny and horrifying, bringing up memories of lynchings and beatings. Even the pinata's conservative look--light blue shirt, khakis, glasses--couldn't protect him. After the pinata spilled its treasure, children thrust their legs into the broken-off pinata legs and shuffled along, or thrust their heads into the pinata body. Their imperviousness to the plight of the pinata, which had become a human to me, was disturbing too.

And McKenzie's persona reduced to a kitschy object again shows up in his video, "Watch the Sky," (top of post) in which his face and eyeglasses appear again, his features exaggerated, over the face of the Little Bill float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade--transforming himself into an ambiguous superhero/antihero caricature.

And a short-short video of the artist lifting a lit-up finger tip to his nostril, thereby lighting up the tip of his nose. It was worth the price of admission.

Of McKenzie's sculptures, my favorite was a waist-high cardboard boom box, "A Small Monument." It was open to contradictory interpretations--a source of pride, a source of embarrassment. The choice of Kraft-paper brown reinforced the ambiguity. At the same time, the piece managed to raise questions about what makes something worthy of being raised to monument status. I was just looking through Roberta's Ben Katchor book (see post), and he too raises that question. So is it white folks values? black folks values? this year's values? last year's?

William Villalongo

Villalongo offers wry commentary on the state of race relations in America with flat, large painting/collages full of hard-edged shapes intertwined and influenced by baroque paintings. He paints in layers of acrylic over black velvet and adds crowds of putti, cut out of paper, and laid on the surface. The colors are beautiful, rich, and restful, making the intense compositions possible to look at. These are visual tour de forces that look like hard-edge acrylic designs until you look closer. He also makes cut-out line drawings on black velvet paper with similar subject matter.

In "Love Before the Colonization of Mars," putti and aliens -- all dropped down from outer space to a gorgeous jungly environment-- have an orgy, and in "Dirty Diana and the Beast with 40 Eyes" (right), quoting from William Bouguereau's "Nymphs and Satyr," Villalongo shows Cupid (himself?) being dragged by sexy ladies to an uncertain fate as putti lurk beneath the greenery or get chewed up by the 40-eyed pink beast in the right hand corner. These images show a world without rules, where playfulness and danger are love partners.

The paper cut-out pictures (right) are also filled with ancient, mythological beasts and references, but the content also veers into lynchings and stereotypes. Wild, polytheistic, writhing nature and compressed imagery take on a less humorous tone in these intense images that rely less on the latest in pop culture.

The gallery notes avoided mentioning the name Kara Walker in the discussion of these cut-outs. I can only suppose it's the writer trying to protect Villalongo from the vitriol that has been thrown at Walker for the ambiguities in her use of silhouettes to redefine stereotyped views of African Americans. But anyone using cut-out paper to grapple with racial issues has to be aware of Walker's silhouettes. Villalongo is also working in black and white here, and although he cuts out the lines, not the fill, he too is using the past, its stories and its imagery, to redefine the present and take possession of it.

All three of these artists are worth a trip to New York.


permanent link  libby 5:21 PM
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Drawn to it outside, Part II

 
Libby told you about the new Northern Liberties gallery, Hyder Gallery, in her June First Friday post.

Back then, gallery owner Frank Hyder told us about a large mural he was working on with collaborators Paul Santoleri and Henry Bermudez. The mural, a few doors south of the 629 N. 2nd St. gallery, is done now and having a "christening" this Friday, Sept. 3, 5-8 p.m.



"Hanging Garden of I-95" is a 30'x120' multi-panel collage based on the drawings shown here (top, left and right). The gallery's website has working photos of the piece's translation to full color mural. See here.



In the scale-up and conversion to the big, public piece, you lose the hand-drawn quality but gain incredible tropical va-va-voom color. (The enterprise is sponsored by the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program by the way.)

In the nearby gallery, drawings used by the artists to create the mural are on display in the back room. In the front space is recent work by the three artists.
permanent link  roberta 10:13 AM
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Drawn to it outside and in, Part I

 

My inbox is on overload. Several juicy items have intimate acts of drawing at their heart but take place in extroverted settings. Here's a peek at one. More later on another one. And for even more, see my PW review next Wed.

Ben Katchor all over the place

I went out to Swarthmore yesterday to the McCabe library to see the drawings done by Ben Katchor, the graphic artist and MacArthur genius (class of 2000). I was not familiar with the work except for having seen a few panels pulled out of context here and there. I'm sorry I'm giving you only a few panels out of context here but the larger storyboards don't translate well into tiny illustrations on artblog. (top image is black and white single panel cartoon, larger than most in the show)


After spending an hour with this large, 25-storyboard show I ran right out and bought a book -- "The Beauty Supply District," (one of Katchor's Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer books.) Katchor's drawing is superb -- muscular city-scapes with just enough detail and seemingly no false starts. And the stories are rich with social commentary -- about cities and people. They're humorous, inventive and altogether captivating. (image is detail from panel ruminating on overuse of electricity -- the guy can't keep his eyes off the lights running down the aisle. He's oblivious to the movie.)

The show at McCabe is up until Oct. 12. I highly recommend a trip out there. There's a formal reception for the artist on Sept. 28, at 4 p.m. and Katchor, who apparently performs his work as well as drawing and publishing it, will give a performance later the same night (8 p.m.) in the Science Center, Room 199.

Alert for cartoonists: Katchor's giving a one-hour drawing and writing master class on Wednesday, Sept. 29 (1:15 to 2:30 p.m.). All events are free and open to the public. To register for the master class call 610-328-8489.



What I really loved about the whole Katchor enterprise is the mind at work creating worlds both wackily inventive and stingingly subversive. One story line has grafitti artists cleaning up the city scape and gilding -- everything from a subway entrance to a bridge. (image) The city powers are unhappy because the gilded city is so high maintenance so they run around applying gesso over everthing. The topsy-turvy take on grafitti versus official public response is just plain funny.


Katchor at the Fringe

Meanwhile in town at the Fringe Festival, Katchor and musical collaborator Mark Mulcahy have a musical theatre piece celebrating the mysterious and wonderful Rosenbach brothers: The Rosenbach Company: A Tragicomedy.

The marriage of the whimsical book artist Katchor and the idiosyncratic Rosenbach brothers (collectors of furnishings touched by celebrities and first editions of many of the world's great books) is inspired.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library produced it in conjunction with their 50th anniversary. Performances will take place at The Adrienne Theater on Friday, Sept. 10, Saturday, Sept. 11, and Sunday, Sept. 12, with a post-show conversation with the artists following the Saturday matinee. $15 ($12 students, seniors, & Rosenbach members) Call 215-413-1318 or order online.



permanent link  roberta 7:40 AM
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