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Posted by roberta

[Ed. note: This is Shelley Spector's fourth report on installing the Space 1026 work at the Yerba Buena Center. Here's part 1, part 2 and part 3 of her report.]

Finishing touches and personal aesthetics
Thursday, Jan. 12



We all came on today to do the last few things. Shane Montgomery, who headed up the installation from Yerba side, put a 2' x 20' blue tape rectangle on the floor that we were allowed to keep our stuff in till 11 am. Anything outside the rectangle got ditched. (image is Jesse Goldstein's sneaker installation in the lobby.)

We had till about 11:30 to keep stuff in the rectangle. After that, it got ditched.



I came in early to shoot some pictures of the finished installation and finish up my stuff. We all left at different times. when I split at 3PM Max Lawrence and Jesse O were still tinkering. I have to shoot a few more bits tomorrow. (image is the "party" section of the wall)


I headed out to my first non-Yerba/Space1026 experience. Berin Golonu, assistant visual arts curator, hooked me up an appointment to get my hair cut by Jess Cabral at Elevations Salon. Berin rescued me, feeling my urgency to deal with my aesthetics after spending the week dealing with Space 1026's. (image is left of the "party" section)



Jess was great, Elevations was super fancy. Please go visit him if you are in San Francisco and need a good haircut and conversations. (image is Spector and Cabral at Elevations)



I got to run through The Luggage Store before the opening where I saw a bunch of cut paper pieces. I realized I alot of folks are cutting paper. I think Kara Walker is having a trickle down. (image is middle section of the wall at Yerba)



The opening was real nice. In from Philly for the event were Space 1026ers - Caitlin Perkins, Liz Rywelski, Mary Chen and Adam Wallacavage. I think that is everybody. (image is Wallacavage in front of Space 1026 wall)



When I walked in some guard said I couldn't take pictures in the gallery unless I had a press pass -- of course the Spacers scrounged one up. (that's Jesse Goldstein with the pink press pass)


(Installation by Wang Du in Yerba's first floor. (detail))

permanent link   roberta 12:23 AM
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Posted by libby

Are we nuts or what? We drove all the way to Long Branch, N.J. to see the O show.

Long Branch is just north of Asbury Park, and most importantly near what Roberta kept calling the Big O--the Atlantic Ocean.

But the realy draw was the show, curated by MatCH-Art wizards Matthew Fisher & Christine Vassallo for two real-world venues (they have an on-line gallery, too). We caught the tail end of the first venue, the Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts (SICA), even more of an outpost for contemporary art than we imagine The Knoxville Gallery of Art.

But just because you missed it doesn't mean you can't catch it again in March (more about this at end of post).


The "O" show, it turns out is named not the letter o, or the number zero, or so much a symbol as a shape, round, circular, spherical, without corners. We'd been calling it the Oh show (as in the letter o). Ooooh nooooo.

Ooooh, what we saw was certainly not a big ol' zeroooo, although the show was full of round things. They were pretty goooooood. The artists are a mix of New York and Philly folks, some of whom were completely new to me, some not new but well loved. Many of the pieces seem to have been made specifically for the show. But what tickled me oooooverall was the range of artmaking strategies the show covered.


We had hanging multiple crystal balls holding little red plastic three-eyed (or perhaps three-buttoned) aliens inside, from Savako, looking lighter than air but heavy enough to stretch the monofiliment from which they were suspended. Maybe it was the season, but I thought how great they'd look on a plastic Christmas tree, little red alien Santas in no-snow globes. The slick production made me think they were good candidates for CerealArt (image, o show installation shot, with Savako's "Mini Mini Mini Portico," floating in front, polyester, fiberglas and urethane paint).


On the other extreme, there were recycled materials, like Derick Melander's installation, "Grasp 2," an enormous round tower with windows made of stacked and folded used clothes...


...and also like Monique Luchetti's anthropomorphic recycled rag rug, "Weakened by Battle Wounds." This is the second used clothes piece I've seen this month, the other being the huge bales of clothes by Shinique Amie Smith at the Studio Museum in Harlem's Frequency show (post here).


At the other end of the materials spectrum, the exhibit included two of Philadelphia young drawing masters extraordinaire, Rob Matthews and Randall Sellers. The two Matthews pieces are part of his new series of round portraits of people--several of which sold out last month at Gallery Joe's booth at the Aqua Art Fair in Miami. Here's a post on Rob's blog about his series (portrait of Matthews' Colonel JD from "The World Made Flesh Made Graphite" series).


Gallery Joe artist Sharon Horvath also had a terrific piece, "Not Yet," that evoked stadia and roller-coasters and erector sets. I suddenly wondered if she was thinking about the failing Phillies or some other lagging team, who are not yet ready for the Series.


Other local faves included in the show were a Mark Shetabi peephole garage, a small Jim Houser on wood, and a Nami Yamamoto installation (another piece from her "Primordial Soup" series; there's one up at Vox right now -- see post, and there was one at the airport). Familiar work or new work, they still make my eyes go o-o, o-o, o-o. The James Rosenthal lavender cast-resin medallion, hung above the door, announcing Bible Belt, looked great in this setting. Its possibilities as a cowboy's belt buckle suddenly took on new overtones thanks to "Brokeback Mountain." Also local with work I recognized was Laura Ledbetter, whose tiny store-bought people against painted backdrops I remember from Spector Gallery (image, Rosenthal's "Bible Belt").

I have to mention three other pieces in the show:


"Sold" by Jordan Tinker wins the post-modern prize, a little white-coated teddybear-buddha sitting on the floor, contemplating a small red canvas that's a painting of an artworld sold dot. The execution is elegant, and the concept is nailed (image, "Sold," acrylic on found object, acrylic on canvas).

Artist stuffed teddy
longing for red satori
a perfect round dot.


The cartoony pair of oval canvases, "Friends of Bob," by John Phillips, managed to be googly eyes at the same time that they were faces in exaggerated motion. The colors here were straight out of the Leave it to Beaver kitchen, and the simple means of achieving eyes, nose and mouth with o's and ovals captured moderne along with the colors. What's even more amazing to me is this work uses the most conventional of materials--wax and pigment on board. (How many artists named John Phillips are there? I assume this one is from Chicago since he has a Chicago gallery). Hey, someone help me out and tell me who Friends of Bob refers to (image, "Friends of Bob").


And lastly, I have to say something nice about Joel Edwards' "Mary's Baby," a small, creepy oil on wood painting of a slightly off-looking couple with Mona Lisa smiles holding a very very red baby in front of a vacant green-and-gold aura (image, "Mary's Baby").

Others in the show include Lisa Beck, Louis Cameron, Moriah Carlson, Orly Cogan, Mark Dagley, Rob Grunder, Francis Holstrom, Jasper Johns (a print, but a funny one!), Chris Kasper, Laura Ledbetter, Jim Lee, Noah Lyon, Andrew Masullo, Tom Moody, Matthew Northridge, John Phillips, Savako, John Torreano, Alice Wu, and B. Wurtz, whose pie pan paintings, which look a lot like colorful African phone-wire baskets, we had seen a long time ago at Feature Gallery in New York (see post).

I found something of interest in nearly every piece in this show, and there were a lot of them. [info added 01/15/06: To see more images of what's there, you can take a look here on Roberta's Flickr site.] The exhibit will travel to the Berrie Center at Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ, opening Mar. 29.matthews, robedwards, joelhorvath, sharonluchetti, moniquemelander, derickphillips, johnrosenthal, jamestinker, jordan

permanent link   libby 2:45 PM
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Posted by roberta

[Ed. note: This is Shelley Spector's third report on installing the Space 1026 work at the Yerba Buena Center. Here's part 1 and part 2 of her report.]

Wednesday Wrap, Jan.11

Report by Shelley Spector


Lots happened today. Almost all the art is up. All the video, computer and music components are working and set up. We had to be done by the end of the day and we almost are. Looks amazing. Check out Juxtapoz for pictures and a blurb.


Gonzo trimming the wheatpaste.


Jake Henry and Gonzo with the bronze skateboards.


Andrew Jeffrey Wright and Crystal Kovacs' Philly hair weaves.


Jesse O wearing white gloves. They made us wear them.


Royal Art Lodge posing in front of Space 1026 main installation. That's Marcel Dzama on the right, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber.


The main wall with art on top and "fissues."


Becky Suss and Ben Woodward rolling up the mess at the beginning of the clean-up.


Courtney Dailey working on the cake event.


Jesse O and Ted Passon (of Padlock Gallery and Small Change) with a video they made together.


The big wheatpaste wall with art on top.


Instant Coffee installing.

permanent link   roberta 4:28 PM
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Posted by libby

Legendary local editor Dan Rottenberg, whose Welcomat offered a lively mix of opinion and politics, has just come out with a new online magazine on the arts, The Broadstreet Review. Last time we talked, Rottenberg was hoping to get it up and running in November, I think. Better late than never. It looks handsome, indeed, and fills a need for coverage of the more traditional and classical art, music and performance in town.

Its first issue leads with a piece by Robert Zaller on why moving the Barnes is a big mistake, even as he admits that the Barnes board and management screwed up big time. (For some reason he thinks they'll do better if left to their own devices). Zaller's argument about the Barnes move swallowing inordinate quantities of local arts funding dollars, thereby starving other local art institutions, is his strongest point.

Hooray for more art coverage. Given the piss-poor amount of in-print coverage these days, online is gaining daily in the importance of its reviews.

permanent link   libby 4:16 PM
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Posted by libby

Just in from Leeway Foundation:

Inclusion of Trans Artists--In October 2005, Leeway passed a resolution to include all trans artists in all grant programs for 2006 onward. As a historically women's foundation created to support artists who are underrepresented and under-funded in society because of their gender, Leeway now sees the inclusion of all trans artists (people who identify as transgender, trans-sexual, and genderqueer) as integral to our work. Leeway is at the beginning stages of a long-term trans-inclusion process...

Enough with the trans already.

(image, Nan Goldin"s "Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC 1991." I am unable to discern from Leeway's jargon if these two would fall in the trans category. I know M and JP are transvestites, but do they identify as transgender, trans-sexual or genderqueer? Would they themselves have to call up Leeway or the William Way Center to sort out their Leeway gender identity?)

In the interest of clarity, I'd like to propose that Leeway instead say "artists who identify as female as well as artists who were born female?" Simple. No jargon. Fewer categories. Clear. And more useful for people who feel their genders defy categorization.

The verbiage is part of a new regime over at Leeway. I'm not so sure the new regime is for the better, even though, when I first heard their new goals for supporting art and social change I thought it was a good thing. In fact, I still think it might be a good thing in terms of local social change.

But the accompanying focus on all the arts as vehicles for social change does mean sizable chunks of Leeway money have been diverted from the visual arts in Philadelphia. Maybe this is like the white guys complaining about affirmative action. Then again, maybe this is really like robbing from Petra to give to Paulette. So excuse Petra for saying, Ouch.goldin, nan

permanent link   libby 3:34 PM
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Posted by roberta

Don't look for me in the Weekly this week. They bumped my interview with new PMA Curator of Contemporary Art, Carlos Basualdo, which is now scheduled to run Jan. 18. It happens. Instead there are two items, one, a Cassidy Hartman story about Antonio Puri and the theft of his paintings New Year's eve from the Art Alliance. Here. Libby covered the theft here and also reviewed the show (pre-theft). The other story is by artist Ben Yagoda about seeing Jacob van Ruisdael's paintings in 1972 and then revisiting them three times recently in the huge Ruisdael show at the PMA. Here.

permanent link   roberta 9:27 AM
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Posted by roberta

[Here is Gallerist Shelley Spector's second report from the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco where she is curating and helping to install Space 1026's entry into the Peer Pleasure 1 exhibit which opens tomorrow. Part one of her report is here.]

Q Where are you staying?



SS Space kids are staying at Hotel Maxwell not the Savoy (I have no idea where I got that from)

(image is Spector (l) and Ben Woodward installing Adam Wallacavage's photos. Wallacavage is the documentarian of the group and a great street photographer. His first exhibit at Spector was a wall-spanning grid of photos.)

Q how many hours a day are you all working?



SS It's been roughly 10 am to 10 pm. Wednesday we'll meet up at 9 am because all the wheatpasting has to be done by 12 noon because we have to have enough time to let it dry before paintings and other art can get hung on top. (image is Courtney Dailey working)

Q Met any Yerba people you'd like to mention?



SS Yerba staff has been really nice, supportive and helpful. They have tons of resources here, and I think we will all come back spoiled from all of the good treatment and extra hands. I want to tuck two of the installation staff in my suitcase and bring them back to Philly. (image is the poster installation wall which seems to show every Space 1026 poster ever made.)


There has been lots of documentation going on. Some video. Some for various websites (including Juxtapoz which is doing a piece for the Magazine too).



Lots of pictures being taken of people taking pictures. (image is Clint Woodside cutting screen print images)


Q anything else you want to share?



SS Today was a pivotal day. You can pretty much see what the final product will look like even though there is more to do. (image is the final product coming along -- the main wall with lots of installers installing)



It got a tiny bit stressful. We conflicted over a school of fish that runs through part of the exhibit. Ben said we had "Fishues." (image is Woodward's lobby installation, complete and installed.)
woodside, clint
dailey, courtney
wallacavage, adam
spector, shelley
woodward, ben

permanent link   roberta 8:57 AM
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Posted by libby

We got an email around a month ago from a place called The Art Gallery of Knoxville (Tenn.). One of the gallery directors, Chris Molinski, wrote:

We're a new experimental space in Knoxville, TN - just opened in November. This January will feature "Global Groove (Nation Building as Art)", an exhibition of artists dealing with the issue of "global" in contemporary Art. The artists are Sarawut Chutiwongpeti, Valéry Grancher, C M von Hausswolff, Phill Niblock and Superflex (with a further discussion of work by Gordon Matta-Clark and Nam June Paik).

(image from installation in Knoxville)

We were both so impressed by the international group of names from Bangkok to Sweden. Woohoo Knoxville. We wanted to know more. So we asked a bunch of questions (this is not the editorial we, but both Roberta and I).

Here are excerpts from our back and forth with Molinski:


Q. Who are you guys?
A. The Art Gallery of Knoxville was founded by myself, Leslie Starritt and Bryan McCullough. We met at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001. We each are practicing artists (age: in our mid 20s). My focus is on new media (video, sound) - while Bryan and Leslie tend to focus on work in sculpture and painting (image, Grancher's downloadable, hand-drawn Google page from the "No Memory" project).

Q. And why Knoxville?
A. The interest in Knoxville came up because Leslie grew up in a nearby town. When we were searching for a place for the Gallery - Leslie told us about the Knoxville area. We visited and decided it was perfect.

The Knoxville Museum of Art has shifted focus over the past few years - the management is young and has an interest in making the Museum stand out by investing in new artists. The current exhibit of work by new media artist Jim Campbell is excellent.

One of the reasons we created this space was to create exhibitions that are open, experimental, and expand the potential audience for contemporary artwork. We are interested in how artwork / ideas can be translated across barriers of culture and place.

Q. Are there other galleries doing this type of global/internet art? if so, who and where?
A. Global / Internet Art is becoming an important issue. There are certainly large groups of people who focus on it (For "internet" art - I would immediately suggest rhizome as an important resource) and artist today are often working within the idea of "global" and using the internet as a primary medium.

Cabinet Magazine recently published an issue on "Fictional States," about "Micronations" - independent, often fictional, states.

I think the idea of Nations as Art has much in common with the work of Marcel Broodthaers, Andy Warhol, or Marcel Duchamp.


We are exhibiting "The Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland" by the artists CM von Hausswolff & Leif Elggren . In this artwork the artists created a new country, Elgaland-Vargaland, which claims territory of all borders. The kingdom claims the physical space between counties as well as abstract borders, as the space between ideas (image, stamps from Elgaland-Vargaland).

This work looks directly at one of the main concerns in "global" art - how people are connected, and how these connections can be understood around both physical place and a broad culture of ideas.


We will also be screening a documentary on The Principality of Sealand, "E Mare Libertas," by Framed Nation Films (image, Sealand).

Q. What's the art scene like in Knoxville?
A. Knoxville is an amazing town - the art community here is rising, particularly in regard to emerging art. The Knoxville Museum of Art has shifted its focus toward promoting emerging artists and lesser known work. The University of Tennessee is in the city, and the art school there is wonderful. Knoxville is a beautiful part of the state and it feels as though there is a real energy here.


Q. Do you see any irony in being anti-globalist as well as embracing the most globalist of tools, the internet?
A. Well ... the issue really is not being anti-globalist. I think many of the "global" ideas reflect some sort of utopic ideal where all people can be connected in order to understand and help each other. However, there's no question that globalization has hurt many people and can be used as a very negative term (image, a 1997 installation by Chutiwongpeti).

I am generally against abuse of power and harm against the human rights of others, but not against the idea of "global" communities.


Q. Tell us about the artist who made Guarana Power.
A. Superflex is a group well known for their art invested in social action. They create work with and around a particular community. Here the artwork Guarana Power, enables a remote village of farmers to produce a beverage independent of the large corporations (image, bottles of Guarana Power).

Q. What does Guarana Power taste like?
A. Guarana Power has a surprising taste - kind of like a natural ginger ale, but you can't quite put your finger on it.

Q. Who do you hope to attract to your gallery with this work?
A. The goal is to create a larger community of people interested in viewing / participating in these types of discussions. At the moment, the gallery is trying to expand our website and get an increasingly diverse range of artwork online. We are interested how the Gallery can create discussions of artwork that extend beyond the traditional exhibition space.


Q. What's next at the gallery?
A. Feb. 1 - 25 will be a remarkable show by Jaime Bravo. Jaime is an emerging artist working in fiber. He creates large sculptural work from old formal gowns and corsets (image, a piece by Bravo).

Q. Where's he from?
A. Jaime grew up in Mexico, and currently lives in Chicago.

Q. Did you sell anything or is that not an issue or a goal for the gallery?
A. We are interested in selling things in order to support the artists and to continue the work of our gallery. To be honest, it is often hard to get people to spend money on art - but yes, things sell.


Q. Do you expect to be showing any local work or is your mission to bring international art and artists to Knoxville?
A. Both - we're hoping to work with the local community as much as possible. Our interest is also in working with international artists - often people who have never been to Tennessee. We are hoping to create a "global" conversation where people can make and experience artwork separate from their physical space.
chutiwongpeti, sarawutbravo, jaimegrancher, valeryvon hausswolff, c.m.superflexelggren, leif

permanent link   libby 5:36 PM
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Posted by roberta

[Ed. note: Gallerist Shelley Spector, friend and mentor of many of the Space 1026 collective and whose gallery represents a number of the young talents, was asked by the group to curate their installation at the Yerba Buena Center's show Peer Pleasure 1 which features Space 1026, and two other collectives, Instant Coffee and Royal Art Lodge. Spector and several Space 1026ers went out to San Francisco to install the show and the gallerist promised to report on everybody's progress -- and sanity -- during the trip. We got her first post this morning and are hoping for more tomorrow. The show opens Thursday.]

Post from Shelley Spector
Day 4 Space 1026 at Yerba

The seven members of the installation crew have been working for four days. There is a beautiful wall of screen prints that is based on the wall at Space 1026. (photo to come) There is a huge collaborative wall that incorporates screen prints and individual works of art of space members and friends.



Ben Woodward is doing a wheat paste collage of his characters in the main lobby area. Ben's piece is about 10 feet across and begins about 15 feet up in a 2 story lobby wall. (image shows Gonzo sitting in the Yerba lobby with some Woodward cutouts on the floor waiting to be installed.)

[Because life is no fun if it's not a little random we asked Spector, a regular contributor to artblog and a pal, to answer a few questions to flesh out her trip, which we imagine to be exciting, frustrating, fun and exhausting. Here's what she wrote back.]

Q What hotel are you at?

SS I'm at the Commadore Hotel and others are at the Hotel Savoy. My hotel was totally on the cutting edge in the late 80's.

Q any good food tastings?

SS There is a huge Whole Foods near Yerba complete with whole food alcohol. Thai and burrito tastings are going well.

Q how many hours a day are you all working?

SS From last Friday and we must be out this Wednesday night before the opening

Q are the other collectives installing too?

SS Instant Coffee came Monday, Royal Art Lodge today

Q is it raining in san francisco?



SS Not yet but I am typing this really fast because it is supposed to rain today and I want to beat the rain. (image is Becky Suss working in the long hall)

Q have you had time to go to San Francisco MoMA across the street?

SS Not yet, good days for sight seeing will be Thursday and Friday

Q what happened day 1, 2 and 3


SS Planning, unpacking layout and first layer wheatpaste. It took a long time before anything went up. (image is Woodward (r) and Jesse Goldstein working)

Q anything else you want to share.

SS I think Space 1026 will get more opportunities like this because the installation will be beautiful. Four space members made a book -- a real book -- to go along with the show and it is also beautiful. Space 1026 is really representing.

Q when's the opening and will you be there?


SS Thursday night. Lots of people are coming out to show their support. I will be there too.
[to be continued]
spector, shelley
woodward, ben
suss, becky
goldstein, jesse
gonzo

permanent link   roberta 4:48 PM
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Posted by roberta

[Note: I'll come back and put more links and pictures in later. You can see pictures of the entire show at my flickr site.]

Story Time

Maybe you know it already but here it is, the plot summary of "Logan's Run" 1976 starring Michael York, Farrah Fawcett and Peter Ustinov. The movie was the trigger for the Logan's Run exhibit curated by Damian Weinkrantz at Padlock Gallery (see previous post).

(image is Kris Chau's "Run Farrah Run" ink and graphite on paper. Farrah plays an attendant in the face replacement spa in the movie. Logan goes there to get a new face.)

Plot Summary
(Thanks to imdb for nice abstracts of the movie.)

It is 2274. Some type of holocaust has decimated the earth, and the survivors sealed themselves into a domed city near Washington, D.C. To maintain the population balance, the computers that run the city have decreed that all people must die at 30. This system is enforced by "sandmen" : black-clad police operatives who terminate (kill) "runners" (those who attempt to live beyond 30).


Logan, a sandman, is sent on a mission to find "sanctuary," which is a code- word used by the master computer to describe what it believes is a place to which runners have been escaping. Logan begins to question the system he serves and after seeing for himself that there is life beyond the dome, he returns to destroy the computer.

(image is Jonathan Weiner's "Sandman" graphite on paper.)

3-0

Making art about the fear of turning 30 (or 40, 50, 80 come to think of it) is a great idea for an exhibit. But fltering the thoughts and art through the lens of Logan's Run, one of the most loopy sci-fi movies ever, reined in the fear and focused it on that metaphorical zone where art does best. So instead of introspective angst-laden navel-gazing stuff instead you get work that's zippy, cartoony and funny or arch.

(image is Caitlin Kuhwald's "group of hands one," gouache and ink on paper, showing the 30-somethings' hands with electronic implants in them which turn red when the person nears age 30.)

Ever since Leonardo there's been sci-fi art. In the 20th Century artists like Alexis Rockman -- and a lot of the Juxtapoz/Jonathan Levine crowd (including Jonathan Weiner who's in this show) -- mine the territory of space and the future fantastic. It's a good place to be especially now with artificial limbs and pacemakers; cloning and gene therapies; induced comas, pandemics and voice-command software are part of the news and of our collective mindscape.

Run

Running is a big motif in a movie all about running. Hands are also big. (Characters in the movie have electronic implants in their hands that change color as they age and when they're approaching 30 the color is red -- and that's when the assassins start chasing them to kill them.)

David Dunn's video piece "Logansfun, Explogansrun" (image above) takes clips from the film and clones Logan running for his life.


Dunn miniaturized the runner and turned the sequence into what looks like a decorative motif of tiny people appearing to emanate like laser beams from the eyes of another character. I've never seen anything quite like it and I'm sorry my picture doesn't do it justice. (image above is another shot from Dunn's video, this time focusing on hands -- and runners)

Robot

Max Lawrence's circuit box icon (pictured with Curator Damien Weinkrantz pushing buttons) is sweet and who doesn't love to push buttons and play with the art? Unfortunately the piece is not for sale. Lawrence also made an audio piece based on the movie using some robotic voice technology (the software that generates the robo-voices that answer phones). Lawrence's audio was played at the opening where it collided with the movie's soundtrack and made for some eerie listening.

Orgy

There's a brief, tame orgy scene in the movie and Thom Lessner's screenprint on glass mounted in front of crumply tin foil (pictured) captures the lackluster spirit of the movie orgy perfectly. Completely unsexy in a deadpan sexy way.

Clothing

In a movie full of oddball clothing (from spandex to what look like Roman togas) it's appropriate that some art tackles the fashion front. Adrienne Manno's "Perfect World" jacket embroidered with a motif from the movie is a standout piece. Not only does it signal sympathy for the plight of 30-somethings but it also announces the wearer's status (instead of hiding it.) (image is Manno's jacket under Alex Da Corte's word piece)


Manno's jacket is joined by two more pieces about the fashion realm of running from 3-0. Two drawings by Heather Jo Wingate, one a paper doll with cut out clothes and the other, a graphite on paper drawing of panties with a pulsing red electronic dot in the center are elegant and smart. (image is Wingate's panties drawing.)

Weinkrantz, curated Lubrica Mi Vida at Ashley Gallery. His talent round-up here is solid and the output is great. Others in the show are: Aron Wohl, Carrie Powell, Miriam Singer, Jayson Musson, Jesse Goldstein, Emily Glaubinger, Luke Ramsey, Brielle Duym, Tim Gough, Chris Ward, Annette Monnier. Laura McDade contributed an essay.

And long-overdue kudos for the hard-working Padlock Gallery crew:Molly McIntyre, Ted Passon and Q who started it in 2004 and Charlie Cottone, who came on board later. Passon and David Dunn run Small Change film screening enterprise and SC is having a screening of some animations with live music and performances Saturday, Jan. 21, 9 pm. at Vox Populi. $7

The evening's called "Art Nerds and Band Geeks: and the bill of fare is attractive: Andrew Jeffrey Wright will have an animation and performance; three animations by Brent Green with live soundtrack by French Toast. (Green just got a Creative Capital grant and will be screening things at Sundance, Passon told me.) Also animations by Juliet Wayne (whose art in city hall case I found intriguing) with live soundtrack by Bulkhead.

So, to reiterate, Logans is a great show. To get in and see it email the curator at simplesemantics@yahoo.com.
da corte, alex
wingate, heather jo
manno, adrienne
kuhwald, caitlin
dunn, david
weiner, jonathan
lawrence, max
weinkrantz, damian
chau, kris
lessner, thom

permanent link   roberta 8:38 AM
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Posted by roberta

lawrence logans 2
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

In the last week, I've seen three exhibits that excite and incite with their fun art and excellent curating. "O" the MatCH-art-curated exhibit at SICA (more on that very soon), "Parts to the Whole" curated by Elizabeth Grady at Vox (see Libby's post and I'll have more about that too) and "Logan's Run" honcho'd by Damian Weinkrantz at Padlock. (I photographed all the shows and they're all at flickr. If you want to go see just click on the picture above.)

Running with Logan

"Logan's Run," a 23-artist round-up, is focused on the 1970's sci-fi movie "Logan's Run" starring Michael York. The pre-Star Wars movie (which has some great visuals in addition to some laugh out loud low-tech stuff meant to evoke a high tech future) invents a world in which people are hunted down and killed before they turn 30. The movie is unintentionally camp and very engaging.

Weinkrantz, himself on the cusp of third decadehood, asked each of the artists (also in the same age range) to see the movie and make a new piece in response -- and to price it for sale to appeal to the under-30 crowd (cheap). The resulting show is funny (a little) camp (a little), earnest (a little) and full of downright beautiful art -- at drop-dead great prices.

(image is Curator Weinkrantz demonstrating Max Lawrence's interactive circuit board "Runners Renewal." Look at it big and you'll see delicate screen printed imagery of a decorated face.)

Look for part two of this post later today. And to see Logan's Run the exhibit contact Weinkrantz by email at simplesemantics@yahoo.com.
lawrence, max
weinkrantz, damian

permanent link   roberta 7:41 AM
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Posted by roberta

Post from Zoe Cohen


Last week I took a trip from Philly down to the DCCA for the first time. I agree with Roberta's assessment that the look of the Dcca's galleries suggests higher-budget art, but I'd go the opposite direction from your wish for the center to push towards bigger-name work.*

The design and look of the place doesn't neccesitate equally corporate, established, or well-known work. I found it refreshing to have such a "clean well-lit" place for more local work. I was however hoping for edgier, "younger" work in the galleries, like my feeling towards much of Philadelphia gallery art, I found these shows a bit safe and easy-viewing. (image is a repeat form by Cohen measuring 2 to 3 feet across and made of recycled cardboard, string, zippers)

--Zoe Cohen is a former Philadelphian getting an MFA at Brooklyn College. You can see her work in "repeat after me" at the Flux Factory in Queens.

---
*NOTE: I didn't mean to imply I wanted bigger name artists or higher budget art at the DCCA, just that I wanted more things with daring and some intellectual heft. We have plenty of that locally. I'd like to see it more at DCCA.
cohen, zoe

permanent link   roberta 7:15 AM
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Posted by libby

After reading about Robert Rauschenberg in New York in the Philadelphia Inquirer I have to respond by writing about what's up in Philly, and it's new work and it's brilliant (in the British sense, my dears).

In Vox Populi's "Parts to the Whole," independent curator Elizabeth Grady has brought together a group show of utterly fresh-looking work from 11 artists, one of them a Vox regular. It's the kind of show we traipse around Chelsea hoping to discover (Jae Hi Ahn, "Sea Flowers (Pink #2)").

There's so much great stuff to see that I couldn't edit down my pictures, so I put them all up on my flickr site with labels so you could browse through. I see Roberta also has her photos up, so here's a link to her Flickr site.

The premise to the show is that each piece is made of multiple parts, not necessarily matching. It's taking the idea of art-world multiples away from the minimalist industrial clones of Allan McCollum, say, and putting it back into the hand-crafted.


So the plastic, high-industrial colors of Jae Hi Ahn's "Sea Flowers," a sort of kelp forest of virtual eye candy that you can walk through, are assembled of many small, hand-assembled pieces, and the resulting objects are then assembled as an installation (image, "Sea Flowers").

Ahn's gorgeous pinks and greens are reason enough to see the show, and they remind me of the giant plastic bead hanging ornaments of Susan Chrysler White that we saw at the Affordable Art Fair--decorative, delicate and flamboyant all at once. But Ahn uses surprising materials and methods, making forms that spring from nature, not from household decorations. And in so doing, she glorifies something over which we, as humans, have no control.


Ahn's various creations are paired with local artist Nami Yamamoto's "Primordial Soup," and the pairing seems just right, both visually and content-wise. Yamamoto said she was interested in how bubbles, when they attach to eachother, change their shapes to accomodate the coupling. And don't we all (image, detail "Primordial Soup #4)?

In another witty pairing, Grady put a pair of gardens in the back room, and they both looks so great together that I wondered if they were part of the same installation.


First, Julie Hughes and Pete Goldlust's flower paintings and polymer clay sculptures threaten with beauty in an installation called "Oviposirehashitor Infidelphia." Hughes' gorgeous explosive giant floral paintings on paper gives the feeling of tiny Alice in the caterpillar's garden. There's a Victorian microscopic examination of the wonders of nature here. At the same time, the flowers, which stand out from the wall, are embellished by fabulous shadows painted on the wall behind them, creating a wallpaper effect as well as a subtle feeling of menace. Goldlust's little sculptures of action-figure size goth critters and weird tiny garden gazebos and follies make the scale of the flowers even scarier (image, detail, "Oviposirehashitor Infidelphia").


Flowing into that installation, Charley Friedman's epoxy-coated egg shells pinned to the wall create gestural flower stems that wow for the simplicity of the concept and the material. The shells practically glow, and the yolk-coated shells punctuate the delicacy of the white-on-white installation. Spring is here (image, detail, "Flower Garden").


And tucked in a corner of the room, Bethany Bristow, whose work we saw at Scope last year, plays off of both these installations with lots of yellow feathers, her bottle pieces, and her corn syrup puddles, with one of Friedman's egg shells on top, stuffed chicken feathers under glass. More spring to brighten up the winter gloom. Bristow has her feather-and-glass confections tucked in a number of places around the gallery. My personal fave, besides this one, was the one on the corner of the counter, a place for beers to be served along with sheafs of papers telling about the show, the artists and the pieces, and not a normal place for art (Bristow's "Wander" in the garden room).


Her use of corn syrup is in keeping with David Meyer's flour and acrylic giant cast pill shapes on the flour, "Plausible Certainty," and with Ahn's "Ingredients" piece, made of latex, boiled salt water with spices (soy sauce, tea, seseame oil, coffee and hot pepper powder) or her delicate "White Fungus," of rice flower and glue. I am reminded of Ed Ruscha's making prints from berry juice, but the pieces in this show take the food use one step further. I'm also seeing these safe materials as a kind of counter-toxicity movement in an art world where poisonous epoxy has taken the health threat of art materials to new levels. There's something so very odd, going back to Friedman's "Flower Garden," about coating egg shells and yolk, traditional cross-cultural symbols of life and birth, with deadly epoxy (image, detail, "Ingredients," by Ahn, which spreads across the wall like a sea creature, a star fish or amoeba).


Just a few more notes I can't let pass about the show. David Baskin's "Fruit Knoll" looks like a wild, Baroque version of Stephen Robins' classical concrete fruit bowls at the Convention Center. Baskin's fruit is uncontained and ultra-sexy. Even his smaller arrangements have a sexiness and fecundity that seems the opposite of nature mort ("Fruit Knoll").


And Gelah Penn's "Criss Cross," a tangle that calls up Sarah Sze's delicate precarious structures and Eva Hesse's tangles of ropes, holds together what is normally the video lounge at Vox (image, detail, "Criss Cross").


Mike Peter Smith's toy-inspired constructions highlight man hoist by his own petard, existential little Frankenstein dramas of man confronting his creations. Sometimes the human is visible, sometimes we as the artgoers are the human facing the wonders we hath wrought (image, Smith's "Vendor Carts").


And finally, Jessica Bader's pair of oxymoronic log cabins combine the romance of roughing it and togetherness with their opposites. The couple live in two different houses and roughing it is not so romantic if the logs are made of porcelain. The anthropomorphic quality of the pink cabins raises lots of questions about romance and its failures (image, "Little Pink Houses for You and Me," porcelain and glaze).penn, gelahfriedman, charleygoldlust, petebaskin, davidbader, jessicasmith, mark petermeyer, davidahn, jae hiyamamoto, namibristow, bethanyhughes, julie

permanent link   libby 2:45 PM
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Posted by roberta

sarah mceneaney watsons
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

I got a postcard recently announcing that Sarah McEneaney was now represented by Tibor De Nagy Gallery in New York. Excellent news! When I saw Sarah over the holidays she told me she was going to have a show there in April. New works!! Can't wait. Click the picture to see this work big on my flickr site. It is amazing.
mceneaney, sarah

permanent link   roberta 11:32 AM
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