So Worth Seeing

Nov

11

Chernobyl by Diana Thater

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Went for a walk around the Chelsea galleries yesterday.  Diana Thater’s video installation at David Zwirner was by far the most impressive work out there.

In Chernobyl, Thater juxtaposes pastoral scenery with destruction both apparent and implied, and in the process highlights the relationship between Western industrial civilization and the regenerative potential of nature left to itself. It mirrors a tension between the natural environment and mediated reality that can be seen throughout the artist’s work. The shape of the installation copies that of the movie theater in Prypiat. The work is made from a video re-creation of the theater with images of the zone of alienation layered over it, asking the viewer to see the world in the theater and the theater in the world.

The 6-or-so projectors are arranged to play images in a 360 degree formation.  In certain locations, the viewer’s shadow interferes with the projection, making her shape part of the work.  I watched soldiers, artists, conservation workers and horses dance around my shadow, begging my imagination to consider what I would feel if I were standing in the center of the radioactive zone.

May

26

TODAY – Bushwick Open Studios

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Gilf BOS

I am so excited for Bushwick Open Studios.  There is no better place in the city to discover new talent and find strong affordable artwork.  For a complete director of the 540 shows open during BOS, please click here.  My head is already spinning at the idea of hitting up even a small fraction of these shows.

A must-see who happens to be my bet for the currently emerging artist who will be the next Dali is Justin Orvis Steimer (showing at the Schoolhouse, 330 Ellery Street).  You’ll find me coming in and out of here during the day on Saturday, June 2.

Another show that holds great promise is the street art mural exhibit BOS Official Opening Reception curated by Gilf! in her curatorial debut (44 Wilson Avenue).  You will find me here on Friday June 1 around 8 p.m. (party going until 3 a.m.)

Last but not least, don’t miss Kesting / Ray’s new Bushwick location at 257 Boerum Street where they will be gracing the world with the likes of Swoon and other mind blowing urban artists.

Happy hunting!

Dec

13

Maurizio Cattelan ALL

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Location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Duration: November 4, 2011 – January 22, 2012

From a curatorial standpoint, Maurizio Cattelan’s All at the Guggenheim Museum is a masterpiece. I bow down to Nancy Spector, curator of the show, who managed to pull off this novel and seemingly impossible task perfectly. Every piece, most life-size and together totaling over 50 works, hangs from the ceiling or from another piece above it. In addition to what would have been an enormous job to just get these things up there, every piece happens to also be perfectly placed so the observer has an unobstructed (unless intentionally obstructed) view of each work. Pieces even manage to converse with one another across this wall-less space. I laughed out loud when I came upon a bed containing two men fast asleep. The big billboard sign behind them reads: “Qualle sara la mia prossima donna?” (translating to “Who will be my next woman?”). Spector breathed new life into those pieces by creating a relationship between them.

This brings me to my second point: Cattelan’s work is funny, in a good way. It is difficult these days for art to make us laugh. The world of high art often requires a stern observation, but I found myself giggling all the way around the starkly empty spiral floors of the Guggenheim.  How can one not laugh at a Hitler down on his knees praying?  Or at two cowardly lions peaking from behind a beautiful doorway?  There is virtue in laughter, especially when it is not achieved through witty script forced upon a canvas or its substitute.

Lastly, the exhibit is beautiful. I encourage you to stand below the hoofs of the bottom-most piece, a chocolate-colored life-size horse hanging its head and tail as sullenly as they could go. Maybe you too would feel such melancholy if you were weighing down a life-time of work hanging from the ceiling of one of the most spectacular art spaces in New York City.

 

Jun

12

Passport to Trespass ❧ The End

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June 2, 2011 marked the end of Mikael Kennedy’s creative inception of the Polaroid blog Passport to Trespass.  The adventurous project’s wild run of 6 years, 7 artists books, thousands of miles, and 1,477 Polaroids will continue to live on just not in blog format.

In Mikael’s most recent statement he writes, “As I am shooting some of the last Polaroids ever, I want to take the work off the internet for awhile, to spend some time with each image before I put them out into the world. I’d like to end the way I began: wandering around with an SX70 and no plan.”

Stay tuned for Kennedy’s new Polaroids exhibit titled “Between dog and wolf” coming up this fall in NYC at Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art.

Sep

15

Band by Richard Serra – A New Sculptural Vocabulary

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Band

 

Richard Serra
Band (2006)
Steel and Metalwork 153 x 846 x 440 inches

Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (permanent collection)
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

A few years back, Richard Serra created a sculpture that could not be fully appreciated without the viewer experiencing the piece by walking its wave-like length.  Touching the piece added yet another element to appreciating it.  Serra spoke to us in a different vocabulary.  He evolved his art even in today’s world where nothing seems new or original.

Watch Video here.

Sep

15

Brasilia: A Melancholy for the Dark Room

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Gervasio Batista
Untitled 4 (1958-1960)
Digital C-Print (2010)
24×24 inches Edition of 15 and 48×48 inches Edition of 15

Brasilia is curated by Brazilian photographer Murillo Meirelles
Location: 1500 Gallery @ 511 W. 25th St. #607 New York, NY
Opening: September 15 through November 27, 2010

Brasilia is a group exhibition of vintage photographs celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Brazil’s capital.  The show presents images portraying Brasilia being planned, constructed and inaugurated from 1958-1960.  From a documentary point of view, the show is interesting and vibrant, event if a bit sparse with only eight photographs included.  The images portray a city planned and built from scratch in the very center of the country as Brasilia replaced Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil in 1960. The photojournalistic images highlight the idealism of Juscelino Kubitschek’s socialist government and its team of visionary urban planners, architects and landscape designers including Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx.

From a photographer’s point of view who spent her high school and college days cooped up in the dark room, my first reaction to Brasilia is melancholy.  The images themselves make it beautifully clear that they were shot on film – they are soft and their contrast is nonabrasive.  I find the imperfections of each work as interesting as the entirety of the composition itself.  For better or for worse, these photographs have been reproduced as Digital C prints.  Modernity is upon us and has become the ultimate necessity.

Sep

13

Mia Brownell . A Playful Critique of the American Food Industry

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Brownell Stomach Acid Dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

My first though:  Meat, carcasses, really?  My second thought:  My god this work is brilliant!

Brownell’s paintings are captivating and mystical.  Her work fuses together traditional still-life techniques and scientific models of proteins sublimated by notions of American dyspepsia.  “Whenever I’m in an American supermarket, I am transported to a unique place without seasons. Walls and pyramids of perfectly lit produce stop time and quote biblical notions of Eden.  The synthesis of these natural and artificial states creates ambiguity that I find captivating” – muses Brownell.

Beyond being brilliant, Brownell is also extrememly well accomplished.  A tenured Professor at Southern Connecticut State University, she has had solo shows in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC, and her work has been reviewed and featured in countless publications including The Village Voice, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washingtonian Magazine, Art Voice and the San Francisco Weekly.

“[Brownell's work is] a postmodern fruit cocktail that marries today’s fascination with genetics and the building blocks of life with old-style painterly seduction….Like the Dutch masters before her, Brownell evokes a celebration of plenty.” - Cate McQuid, The Boston Globe, June 14, 2007

If interested in learning more about the artist, visiting the artist’s studio or purchasing work, please contact TincaArt at info@tincaart.com.

Jun

07

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Stroll Through History

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Henri Cartier-Bresson

@ the MOMA through June 28th.

Walking through the Moma’s Cartier-Bresson exhibit  is a mesmerizing journey through a piece of history that feels so close to our hearts if so far away in time.  The retrospective is beautifully curated by Peter Galassi and consists of 300 photographs raging in spirit from journalism to honest and raw voyeurism to intimate portraits of iconic figures; Matisse being a personal favorite.  The pictures capture European, Asian and very briefly, African communities.  Born in Paris, Cartier-Bresson spent 50 years traveling almost non stop around the globe.  Curiously, he stayed away from former French colonies.

See the exhibit, it’s breathtaking.

Mar

21

Brian Leo: This Air is Full

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March 18 – May 2, 2010

Cat with HooverLocation: Leo Kesting Gallery, 812 Washington St., New York, NY 10014
Website: www.leokesting.com

Brian Leo’s latest exhibition, This Air is Full, questions the media’s role in terror, lies and propaganda. Leo’s genius became apparent to me as I looked at the pieces together, as a collection of Leo’s commentary on the world we all live in, its problems and its hilarity, from environmental destruction to tabloid sex scandals. In Leo’s world, nothing is off limits. But, there is beauty in the midst and I found it in a gold leaf crane flying against a textured white sky.

Mar

05

Bobbi Van: Exploring the Duality Within

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Bobbi Van China

 

Bobbi Van (2009)
China
Mixed media on plexi
30 x 24 inches

“Out beyond wrong doing and right doing there is a field of luminous consciousness. I’ll meet you there.” – Rumi

By painting in reverse on clear plexi surfaces, Bobbi creates a transparency in which to explore duality: what is between movement and stillness, transparent and opaque, sound and silence, thought and action? Bobbi reveals to her viewer an alternative window into her work. Her first strokes stand at the foreground of her paintings; her last caresses remaining mostly hidden behind what came before. This inversion creating the in-between that is a natural source of contrast, conflict, inspiration and harmony for Bobbi.

“My objective is to achieve a space that is intuitively balanced in light, color and motion; one that speaks to our strength, vulnerability, and our awakening within.” – Bobbi Van

Bobbi’s work is unique. The fervency, frequency and size of her strokes reflect her emotions as she paints. Her work has been shown in museum shows and galleries around the country. She is held in numerous collections around the globe.

If interested in learning more about the artist, visiting the artist’s studio or purchasing work, please contact TincaArt at info@tincaart.com.