untitled (deli strips) 2005
Author: jameswagner
finally it’s right here: a secret police with matching state*
Jane and Louise Wilson Stasi City 1997 video [still from installation]
All this blithering about to execute or not to execute, for the death penalty or against – all rot, comrades. Execute! And, when necessary, without a court judgment.” – Erich Mielke, GDR Minister for State Security, in a 1982 address to high-ranking Stasi officers [from “Stasiland”]
While still trying to fathom my fellow Americans’ seeming indifference to extraordinary reports about our National Security Agency‘s domestic spying operations I’ve found myself reading Anna Funder’s “Stasiland“.
It’s a terrifying story and it’s incredibly depressing, even if it ultimately ends somewhat happily in 1989 – happily for those who survived. Oddly, and unfortunately, it’s also a story which many Germans seem to want very much to forget.
I have to confess that even I wasn’t very interested in the particulars of Stasi history until recently, in spite of having regularly and almost literally bumped into the physical relics of its power in the eastern neighborhoods of Berlin last fall. It was actually Barry’s idea to order “Stasiland” from the library when we returned from Germany, having heard about its existence while we were there.
Since he was too busy with projects to begin reading it when it arrived, I took up the book myself, at first almost casually, although a somewhat dutifully, and certainly thinking it would be a bit of a drudge. Only then, when I became totally absorbed in this world I wish had only existed in the imagination of George Orwell, did I realize how relevant this brilliant account from both its victims and its perpetrators was to what was going on around me today.
Today’s Germans may entertain the luxury of this selective amnesia about the very recent past, but the course of our own recent political history has made it more and more clear that we, as citizens of the nation which was so important as both model and midwife in the birth of their post-war democracy, must not.
“Stasi” was the common name for the East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security). I think it’s interesting that the increasingly-threatening contemporary U.S. equivalent should go by a name virtually identical to that given to the hated DDR secret police. Ministry of State Security or National Security Agency. There is only the slightest semantic difference between the two, little more than a question of style.
The German victims of an experiment gone very wrong are quite free today, but here in the land of the free and the home of the brave we seem anxious to build our own police state, or we’re at least remarkably indifferent to the construction going on all around us.
If we want to get the attention of a sleeping citizenry, maybe we’ll have to come up with an appropriate nickname for our own National Security Agency, a tab which could hold its own when set next to the one which described the East Germans’ nightmare. My own first thought? “NASY” (with the second letter pronounced “ah” of course)
*
“Well, when the president decides that he can do whatever he wants in violation of the law, including detaining citizens without charges and spying on citizens without warrants, that pretty much is the definition of a police state. It’s the claimed authority that matters, not the extent to which it’s used.” Atrios
[image from Bayerisches Rundfunk]
of superstition and death
Voltaire: not quite an atheist, but an enemy of superstition everywhere
Even, or perhaps especially, in the midst of so much grief being felt in Mecca and all over the world today, I don’t think it’s unfair to ask:
When was the last time we’ve read about hundreds of atheists deliberately drinking poisoned Cool Aid together, or accidently trampling each other to death [again], while passionately pursuing preposterous belief?
[Jean Huber image from University of Chicago, Humanities Division]
Chelsea’s far west 27th Street will never be the same
Jacob Ciocci [installation detail]
Jacob Ciocci [installation detail]
Kirsten Stoltmann [installation detail]
Kirsten Stoltmann [installation detail]
Some half dozen of the most interesting galleries in the city will be opening new spaces on West 27th Street tomorrow night (Thursday). For those who follow these things it should be the most exciting development in the history of Chelsea’s identification as an art destination.
All of the galleries will be immediate neighbors on the block between 11th and 12th Avenues, in the base of a massive 19th century warehouse which towers above a fine old street paved in stone. The last time a party crowd found its way inside these walls it was to visit the Tunnel, whose party ghosts may still haunt this magnificent brick and stone monument to maritime New York.
Our newest hosts include John Connelly Presents, Wallspace and ATM at Wallspace, Derek Eller, Foxy Production, Oliver Kamm/5BE and Clementine. All of them will open their doors early tomorrow evening (the classic 6 to 8 pm, of course).
I was fortunate to get a peek at two of the shows tonight, and I’ve uploaded a few undocumented images above. The first two are from Foxy Production, where Jacob Ciocci has installed his “Inspiration Superhighway” and the second two are from Kirsten Stoltmann’s show at Wallspace, “I Know What I’m Doing”.
For more, see Barry‘s notes and photos.
the American idea of learning; or, what to do with extra cash?
Once again America steps up to the plate, or goalpost, to show the world that we understand what edjukation is all about.
Oklahoma State University has announced that Texas oil magnate T. Boone Pickens will donate $165 million to its athletic program.
My favorite part of the story may be the reference to the previous record for an athletic bequest to a university. It seems that the custodians of American institutions of learning don’t put much store in the subject of education themselves:
The amount [of Pickens’ gift] surpasses the $100 million that the Las Vegas casino owner Ralph Engelstad gave to the University of North Dakota in 1998. Half of that was initially intended to build a hockey arena, but the project eventually consumed the entire gift.
And not a penny left over for any of that boring learnin’ stuff.
Before I leave this subject, even a quick check with our memories and the internet will remind us that Pickens and his money are very close to both Bush (not incidently a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans ads) and to the tax-exempt Progress for America, currently spending tons of cash in a campaign to push Alito’s case in the Senate.
For an additional lesson in the values held by this Texas billionaire takeover artist, it’s interesting to see that according to Wikipedia, Pickens and employees of his BP Capital LLC [my italics] donated a realtively paltry $5 million to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. But, hey, what possible connection would the poor people of Louisiana have with the oil business? Well, I’d humbly suggest that their claim to some of his wealth is far superior to that of the beneficiaries of a redundant sports facility attached to an institution supposedly devoted to higher learning.
[Oklahoma State University logo from aggiesports]
Gae Savannah and Michael Schall at Dam, Stuhltrager
Gae Savannah Shasta 2006 fabric, metal, wood 69″ x 15″ x15″ [detail of installation]
Michael Schall Scenic Collection Facility 2005 graphite on paper 42″ x 60″
The gallery is on the edge of Williamsburg, in more than one sense. Since 1998, Dam, Stuhltrager has been operating generously and tirelessly, more or less as a non-profit, showing adventurous work in a tiny space just west of the BQE. In the best tradition of the Williamsburg gallery scene, the two principals, Leah Stuhltrager and Christobal Dam, have from the beginning simply shown work which they found they like, without commercial calculation or compromise.
Lately they’ve been attracting the attention of critics and curators both near and far, and a few months ago they were sufficiently encouraged and emboldened to just about triple the size of their exhibition space. This Marcy Avenue corner now offers even greater temptations to adventurous gallery fans, especially [and here comes a blatant plug] now that our ArtCal listings include a convenient [Google] map to direct art pilgrims still unfamiliar with the cooler precincts which lie east of Driggs Street.
The two shows which opened last Saturday display outrageous, luscious sculptures by Gae Savannah and serious, provocative drawings by Michael Schall. For almost ten years I have been more than a little flabbergasted each time I have encountered Savannah’s wonderful and extraordinary assemblages, and while I had never seen Schall’s disturbing drawings before, I expect I’m going to see much more in the future.
David Gibson curated Savannah’s installation.
We were there the night of the opening. Although the excited, and exciting, crush of friends and the curious made it impossible to grab an image of an entire work in either room that night, I’d already found that these eccentric sculptures just can’t be properly represented except in person, and it would take more than a quick hand-held shot to do justice to Schall’s meticulously-pencilled worlds.
So, as far as this site is concerned we’ll all have to be content with the teasers I’m showing above. The real show is in Brooklyn.
Antonello da Messina at the Metropolitan
Antonello da Messina Portrait of a Young Man ca. 1470 oil on panel 10.5″ x 8.25″
Yes I saw the Fra Angelico show at the Met, but I try to keep this blog focused on what Barry and I like to call “underknown” artists [the still increasingly popular adjective “emerging” is too narrow a word to describe my attraction to the new as well as the obscure in all the arts].
For me the real excitement of my day on the edge of Central Park was a tiny temporary exhibition of work by the Sicilian Quatrocento painter Antonello da Messina (ca. 14301479). It’s a very small, jewel-box of a show which fits into a single dark cube of a room on the second floor of the European Paintings Galleries.
Although I’ve included his beautiful image of the Virgin at the bottom, a piece which the Met notes would have as the highlight of the installation, it was really da Messina’s almost-embarassingly profane portraits of young Italian noblemen that impressed me most.
The image at the top is by da Messina, but the one just below, like several other works included in the show as somehow relevant to his story, is actually by a different artist. It seems that Jacometto Veneziano also knew how to render a handsome face.
Jacometto (Jacometto Veneziano) Portrait of a Young Man ca. 1470 oil on panel 10.5″ x 8.25″
I wish the curators had managed to include either or both of these two handsome da Messina portraits in the show, even if it would have meant sacrificing some of its didacticism.
Antonello da Messina Portrait of a Man ca. 1475 oil on panel 14.25″ x 9.75″
Antonello da Messina Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere) 1475 oil on wood 13.75″ x 15″
Oh yes, the show does include a very, very sad Ecce Homo portraying an extremely vulnerable (and approachable) Christ which is unlike anything else produced by the Renaissance.
Antonello da Messina Christ Crowned with Thorns possibly 1470 oil, perhaps over tempera, on wood 16.75″ x 12″ [large detail]
At first I thought da Messina’s homoeroticism was all in my own head. But when I was home and able to look at the images again, and when more beautiful youths turned up in a quick Google search, I became convinced that the artist really loved men. The revelation was nearly as exciting as the moment several years ago when I came across, on an obscure pedestal behind the Met grand staircase, a 1st century Roman silver cup with reliefs of two men enjoying themselves in scenes of exceeding profanity. There was no curator’s note on the homo thing at that time either.
But of course there was plenty here on the Virgin.
Antonello da Messina Virgin Annunciate ca. 1476 oil on panel 13.5″ x 17.75″ [large detail]
[the two thumbnail images are from Web Gallery of Art]
Gerhard Richter at Marian Goodman
Gerhard Richter 891-1 Waldhaus 2004 oil on linen [detail, including portion of gallery wall]
Gerhard Richter 892-10 Abstraktes Bild 2005 [detail]
Gerhard Richter 892-12 Abstraktes Bild 2005 [detail]
Gerhard Richter 887-2 Abstraktes Bild (Haut) oil on linen [detail]
Of course he’s virtually an old master and he’s beyond “emerging” or “underknown”, but just as I absolutely had to make the pilgrimage itself this week, I couldn’t resist putting up these very imperfect detail images from the current Gerhard Richter show at Marion Goodman in midtown.
There is nothing else I can add except to recommend this magnificent installation to anyone who can make it to 57th Street before the 14th of this month. You won’t be disappointed.
J�hannes Atli Hinriksson at HaswellEdiger
J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Dr. 2005 video [large detail still from installation monitor]
J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Untitled 2005 mixed media collage 23″ x 20″ [installation view]
J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Piet� mixed media 6.25″ x 4″ x 4″ [installation view]
It was a show at HaswellEdiger, so as usual I knew I had to pay attention. The opening reception two nights ago was so crowded however, that there was little chance then of digesting the work being shown.
I’ll be back, and not just to sit in front of two videos which were advertising their charms very effectively. As I stood about talking to friends I was becoming more and more engaged with the videos, sculptures and paintings of the Icelandic artist J�hannes Atli Hinriksson. I found it difficult to leave any of the bizarre images scattered about the room: Even without any other information to help they were quickly becoming both more and less inscrutable.
A tease from the gallery press release:
The work of J�hannes Atli Hinriksson, although Western in its visual assault approach to aesthetics, is still somehow rooted in the sense of drama, irony and animism found in the legends of his native Iceland. His start-stop animation videos, complete with stripped down audio tracks of howling Nordic winds, put claymation metal-heads slackers and other hybrid fuck-ups through a series of neo-Norse, mini sagas that ultimately challenge the viewer to pinpoint where destruction ends and creation begins.
Jesus, just visiting
the eyes have it
As I write this it’s already the early hours of January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany and traditionally the absolute finish to the long holiday which celebrates the birth of the founder of the Christian religion.
But of course there’s another story behind the seasonal image I’ve uploaded above.
I don’t have a religious bone left in my body, but I can’t ignore a pretty face. A number of years ago Barry and I were in New Mexico where we stopped at one of the more important Mexican colonial country churches. Attached to the beautiful ancient adobe stucture and just beside the sacristy was a fairly serious gift shop. We were alone in its two short aisles for a few moments, so we were able to discuss between ourselves (but still carefully sotto voce) the purchase of this delicate ceramic figure of a baby Jesus sporting some pretty amazing eye make-up.
We were both very much afraid that the middle-aged Franciscan who managed the shop might realize that our interest in the object was not wholly devotional, but the weight of experience assembled during my extended Roman Catholic childhood and our two very straight faces managed to carry the day.
Every year since that day we’ve placed the pretty little tyke in a thin bed of straw on a prized side table in the parlor every year around the period of the ancient pagan feasts of Yule and Saturnalia. Oh yeah, we give him a small pair of wooden dreidels to play with while he’s there.
We figure Jesus needs a vacation from all the Christmas fuss. And besides, we really like kids.