Author: jameswagner

Dmitri Vilensky (and the group Chto delat/What is to be done?) Sandwiched 2004 video documentation of an action by the group [large detail of video still]


Anatoly Osmolovsky Russia, our holy country! Russia, our beloved country! 2001 chair, tape recorder and sound, dimensions variable [view of installation, with standing figures listening to the Russian national anthem*]


Gluklya and Tsaplya Trilogy: Triumph of fragilities, Immersion, Memory to Poor Lisa 2002 video performance and installation of ten dresses, DVD 4 min., 15 min. 30 sec. [large detail video still from projection of “Triumph of fragilities” (the ten dresses are not included in this show)]


David Ter-Oganyan and Aleksandr Korneev Illegal Library 2004 video documentation of shoplifting, with installation including books, wood, metal and paint, dimensions variable [large detail of installation]

There are no images jumping out at you when you first walk into the gallery. You’ve heard the show of activist Russian artists was put together by the same young curator, Elena Sorokina, who installed the very interesting current group show at Momenta. You’ve just walked in from an unshaded street on a hot and humid afternoon and you think you need to see something visually exciting, and certainly not too complicated.
At first there doesn’t seem to be much of anything there. The main gallery at Schroeder Romero looks more like an installation in a library, or perhaps a room in one of those earnest Soviet (or post-Soviet) museums you think you know all about from books and photographs.
Then you start looking around and you realize that someone is introducing you to a rich vein of intelligent art created by young Russians who are not comfortable with the government and system they have been given. The institutions and lords of the post-soviet system have even less use for their critical and creative output, even their survival, than our own reactionary order has for their equivalents here.
The notes which accompany the labels of each piece provide both an introduction to the sadder side of contemporary Russia and to the artists who may understand it best.
Some time in your tour of the gallery you’ve realize the exhibition actually is exciting. It’s also not too complicated, unless you think about it. And, like any Russian, you will be thinking about it, even if you’re not.
Worth a big detour.
From the press release:

Schroeder Romero is pleased to announce the group exhibition “Russia Redux #1” curated by Elena Sorokina. It is the first from a series of exhibitions which are to take place in New York in the upcoming season.
This multimedia exhibition features works by twelve artists and artists’ collectives, who are informed by such issues as communities, strategies of resistance, Soviet history and its post-Soviet developments and are concerned with problems of representation of local art scenes to international audiences as well as with the notion of “national construction” in art exhibitions.

*
The soundtrack of the installation is the current National Hymn of Russia which, historically, went through several spectacular transformations. It was officially adopted as the national hymn of the USSR in 1944. The lyrics were written by Sergey Mikhalkov, but revised in 1977, as Stalin’s name was removed. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia adopted the pre-revolutionary Russian National Anthem without any lyrics, which never gained any popularity. In the end of the year 2000 the melody of the Soviet National Anthem was reestablished as the National Hymn of Russia. The lyrics were revised by the same author, Sergey Mikhalkov, who removed notions such as “Communism” or “Soviet Union”, no longer in existence. [notes from the curator]

Derick and Barry stopping to [examine the scrawny Queen Anne’s Lace] in the park

Much too long ago, while it was actually still calendar summer, I wrote that I was going to put up some images from the show, “Sport”, still installed at the time in Socrates Sculpture Park. Today on the 5th of October these sculptures are long gone, but the weather which inspired them lingers on. They looked good in the sun two months ago and they still look good on a screen on this balmy October afternoon.


Anne Thulin [sport] 3a: to deviate from type b: as bud variation 2005 vinyl, fabric, glue and sand (3) 72” diameter [detail of installation]


Collier Schorr Reaching (H.T.) 2002-2005 ink jet on seamless vinyl 10’ x 28’ [large detail of installation]


Alix Lambert WildCard 2005 cement, cast bronze and pipe 16’ x 15’ x 5’ [detail of installation]


Peter Simensky Eyes On The Prize 2005 mixed media 10’ x 15’ x 30’ [installation view, including sports Barry and Derick]


Type A Prize (folly) 2005 aluminum and auto body paint 72” x 60” x 20” [cup] overall dimensions variable [installation view]


Tim Laun HangTime 2005 sod, spray paint, Jugs Football Machine and Wilson official NFL footballs, dimensions variable [detail of installation at rest]

Luis Lara Malvacías, Untitled Shoes (From Series Channel Sur) 2005 blue plastic shopping bag, buttons 12.5″ × 4.75″ × 4.25″ each

The gallery space itself is perfect, and a perfect fit for the neighborhood. It’s a very well-designed small cube cut into the side of an old industrial or warehouse building. It sits on a Williamsburg street which has not yet been rendered suitable for a Starbucks. One concrete step up from the sidewalk, with an industrial gate which can be lowered at night as a modesty shield to indifference or a protective barrier to vandalism, its aesthetics are totally fine.
I have to admit that we stopped at Galería Galou with our friend Dan mostly because we knew it was on the path between some familiar galleries and lunch outside on a beautiful late summer afternoon. But the show we saw last Sunday, “Venezueland”, would have been worth a detour, even without the interest of its concept and geographic focus. From the press release:

Venezueland is a virtual space where a new generation of Venezuelan artists merges and engages both in individual investigations and related creative processes. In this fertile, dynamic ground there is a steadfast pondering of memories from a country now immersed in political upheaval, and of the unstoppable flux of information generated in the urban context of New York City.

The amusing piece by Luis Lara Malvacías shown in the image above happened to photograph very well. The works by other V-land artists are no less worthy of attention however, even if they may not all be as comfortable in more than one discipline as Malvacías appears to be.
I just got an email announcing that his choreography will be performed at Danspace later this month. Now I’m bummed. Barry and I will be out of the country when “Badman” is performed here.


Dan and Galou

at ease

The memorial for Bill Bartman will be celebrated at 2 pm on Saturday, November 5 in the Society of Friends Meeting House. The beautiful, very simple brick 1860 building is located off the western boundary of Stuyvesant Square. See directions and map.
Everyone is welcome, and yes, there will be cookies.

NOTE: Anyone who might have one or more good photo images of Bill, and especially if they are of Bill with a group of people, is asked to call the Art Resources Transfer (A.R.T.) office at 212 564-2262. A slide show loop is being assembled by his friends.

Jonathan Podwil Huey 2001 Super 8, digitally animated, continuous loop [still from projection]


Jonathan Podwil Meeting, 1983 2005 oil on linen 2 panels, each 36″ x 42″ [detail]


Jonathan Podwil LA Palms, Baghdad Palms 2004 oil on linen 2 panels, each 10″ x 12″ [detail]

Sometimes you see a single work by an artist and even if it doesn’t tell you a lot about the oeuvre, it’s enough to make you want to see more. When you do see more your appetite may only have begun to be wetted. If you are lucky enough you may eventually see an entire show devoted to her or his work or, even better, you may be invited into the artist’s studio, where the magic starts.
I thought I knew something about the work of Jonathan Podwil after seeing it here and there across the city, or occasionally on line. I was intrigued by his paintings from the very beginning in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that they were representational. They weren’t representional in any obviously eccentric way, but I sensed that here there was much more going on than just a surface standing in for an airplane, an automobile or a figure.
I knew that he was also known for his hand-made videos, but I had not really been able to see enough of that work to understand what it was all about, and I certainly didn’t suspect that it was really closely related to the paintings.
Then we visited his studio and for the first time I saw everything come together. He does paintings and he does films, and while sometimes a particular inspiration will inhabit only one discipline, at other times what is essentially the same image is treated in both of these two related but very different mediums.
Podwil has recently begun to work with much larger canvases than he had in the past, and his strong brushwork is definitely very happy with this bolder scale and it loses none of the subtleties of the earlier work. Interestingly, I think the videos would be just as successful in larger projection as they are in the relatively miniature, exquisite scale I’ve seen until now.
The paintings, perhaps because they are paintings, require less information about process for an understanding of their appearance – and their success – than do the films. The oils are worked over and over before they are left to themselves. Sometimes he cannibalizes his own paintings, and this means the surface drama may have started long before the painting we’re looking at was even begun.
For the moving pictures, Podwil sometimes uses found 8 mm film, sometimes images he finds on line or almost anywhere else, and sometimes footage he’s filmed himself (sometimes including the use as his subjects small model planes held in his hand or suspended from above his camera). He then scans individual frames of the 8 mm or his own Super 8 film in order to create digital files. Finally he manipulates the images and assembles them into a digital video. The video artifacts are a natural product of this entire process.
I suppose many if not most people would find Podwil’s choices of subject fairly idiosyncratic, yet somehow they all seem pretty natural to me. As much as I’d like to believe it’s because I’m weird, I think it’s because of the strength of his conception and its execution.
But for many people the appearance of this stuff may be deceptive: I was hooked early on, and my enthusiasm for these paintings, and now the films as well, has continued to grow. Some people however might still have to be encouraged to stop and smell the paint and the acetate.
I usually hate making comparisons or even suggesting similitude, but if Goya were still painting today he too would probably enjoy a visit to Podwil’s studio.
Full images of the dyptichs whose details are shown above can be seen by clicking onto these thumbnails:

Podwil Meeting

Podwil Palms

For a look at a few more paintings and to see four videos, go to his website.

[images in the thumbnails from Jonathan Podwil]

Adam Cvijanovic Love Poem (10 Minutes After the End of Gravity) 2005 Flashe and house paint on Tyvek [detail of large room-size installation]


Adam Cvijanovic Love Poem (10 Minutes After the End of Gravity) 2005 Flashe and house paint on Tyvek [detail of large room-size installation]

I snapped these images on the fifteenth, so it’s taken me over two weeks to get them up onto this site. I blame it on Katrina.
I love Adam Cvijanovic’s latest show at Bellwether, but then I think eyes which wouldn’t have yet to be born. The fact that his murals are absolutely crazy about the camera is only a wonderful bonus.
I wish I could introduce him and a patron to some deserving performance space with the bare surfaces of its foyer, hall, stair hall or ceiling dying to be brought to life. I’d buy a subscription for life. I now understand why Tiepolo was so popular with his contemporaries.
The show is titled “Love Poem (10 Minutes After the End of Gravity)” and it’s up until October 15.