Claudine Anrather Dreaming Electric Sheep 2006 oil on linen 72″ x 96′ [installation view, very large detail]
Claudine Anrather Flower 2006 18″ x 20″ [installation view]
31 Grand is showing some gorgeous paintings by Claudine Anrather through December 3 in an exhibition titled, “Beyond the Pale”. The artist’s medium-distance landscapes are painted in oil on both large and small canvases.
The colorful flora and fauna which adorn them are described by the gallery as the Austrian artist’s tribute to the beloved mountains of her heritage, although her wonderful yet somewhat optimistic, rose or parti-colored lens doesn’t quite obscure the tension and messiness which is a part of any real forest, and even more likely in a forest of the imagination. Here the mix is both intoxicating and a bit distrubing.
One very large canvas, not actually part of the show, was hung on the back wall of the office area. The work has not even been titled yet, but for reasons which include one magnificent dragonfly and the exceptional appearance of a solitary human face, I’ve decided to include it here.
Claudine Anrather [title unknown at this time] 2006 oil on linen 60″ x 90″ [detail of installation]
[very large detail of above]
Author: jameswagner
dusk on Kent Street, Williamsburg
untitled (red wall) 2006
untitled (cranes) 2006
Iraq war now as long as WW II, but with no end in sight
American involvement in World War II lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week. As of today, the American war in Iraq has lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week.
There is of course no other equivalence.
rural-ish Village with a dark urban history
Some of the last roses and last leaves of, er . . . autumn, seen Friday through the tall iron fence which surrounds Jefferson Market Garden which, through much of the mid-twentieth century, was the site of the New York Women’s House of Detention.
The institution’s prominent location in the commercial center of a crowded Greenwich Village was apparently a perfect opportunity for the prisoners to, in the words of Wikipedia, “. . . taunt and curse people going about their business on 6th Avenue.” Ah, if the ladies could see the old grounds today . . . .
The notorious [art deco] lockup may have vanished without a trace, but the Rockefeller Drug Laws have continued and expanded its dreary commission. Today the old building’s function has been assumed by an even more forbidding-looking fortress tucked into an increasingly-upscale Chelsea gallery district. It also however sits on the very edge of the incredibly noisy West Side Highway, a site much less amenable to any inmate “taunt and curse” activities, even if contemporary cell windows could open.
More on the history of the courthouse, jail and market complex now loosely called “Jefferson Market” can be found here.
The New York Art Book Fair
Joshua Smith‘s Book Fair posters, seen on a wall near the entrance
It’s way more fun than a regular art fair, and you get to decide for yourself what to look at and how much looking you want to do. We previewed Printed Matter‘s The New York Art Book Fair last night (Thursday) and we can higly recommend the experience (available only through Sunday) to anyone interested in art and in the kind of people who write, edit, publish or just enthuse about art books. It’s a very mellow and happy crowd. There are events scheduled all day long. I promise you will be amused.
For more teasers, see Art Fag City.
J. Morrison‘s installation on the second, or what I called the big kid’s floor, where he and his friends silkscreen “manpurses” to order
Jan De Cock‘s installation on the first floor featured his sculpture, lab attendants, and viewing copies of “Denkmal“, the second volume of his 21st-century evocation of Diderot’s “Encyclopédie.”
inside the book
Barry Hoggard, A. L. Steiner, Nicole Eisenman and Victoria Robinson (woman in background unidentified), speaking of Ridykeulousness
paging through “Ninja”, Brian Chippendale’s new book, at Picture Box
a double-page spread inside Martin Parr’s 2006 book, “Mexico”, located at D.A.P.
Entrance to the Fair is free, and the logistics are:
LOCATION
548 West 22nd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues) New York City
HOURS remaining
Saturday 11am – 7pm
Sunday 11am – 5pm
guerilla gorillas on the wall
I captured these four charming apes on Marcy Street in Williamsburg yesterday afternoon. Their keeper’s name, “GoGorillaMedia.com” appears, rather discretely, on the lower right corner of each poster.
planting the ceiling on a sunny day last week
untitled (ceiling plants) 2006
very blue truck outside Nick Cave tonight
untitled (reflector) 2006
two more “Dangling” reviews
Peter Corrie Untitled (from suite of drawings, “No Time Swan” 2005-2006) mixed media, approx. 16″ x 10″ [installation view]
We have two more exciting blog reviews for “Dangling Between The Real Thing And The Sign In The Window“. Short excerpts appear below.
Heart As Arena uploaded a review on November 6:
Susan’s C. Dessel’s “Our Backyard: A Cautionary Tale” gave me nightmares while I was looking at it. I didn’t even have to wait for sleep. The piece had Abu Ghraib and Hurrica Katrina sharing the same set of synapses in my head, filling the gap with shame and anger and nothing good. When they start hiding the dead it falls to artists to dig up the bodies and throw them back on the road, and Dessel has a very strong arm. You can try to duck, but it won’t help.
Two days earlier, on November 4, Tom Moody wrote:
Inside the gallery, the mood swings back and forth between the dire and the ebullient. . . . . Lots to like (and worry about) in this show.
Barry and I will be at the gallery for an hour or so around 7 this Friday (it’s open 3-8 on Fridays) and from 3 to 6 on Sunday. This is the final weekend for the show, which includes the work shown above.
the continued shame of an entire people
Regardless of whether the Democratic Party gains control of one or two houses in the Congress which convenes next January, the entire nation ought to be deeply ashamed tonight.
After what the Republican majority has clearly done in the last few years to destroy, perhaps permanently, both this country and the entire planet, it should be deeply embarassing to admit that a shift of a mere four or five percentage points in the distribution of party representation is all we can scrape together to show ourselves and the world that we will no longer stand for it.
Sorry to be so gloomy tonight, but I just had to say it.