untitled (construction netting) 2005
Author: jameswagner
Ann Craven and good company at Gasser & Grunert
Ann Craven Pink twig III [detail]
Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert have installed a very impressive summer garden show in their very urban quarters on West 19th Street. I’m leading this short post with a detail image of one of the works in the installation rather than the picture of the entire piece with its neighbors because, I think, it works so much better on the scale of this small screen. Much of the surface of Ann Craven‘s luminous oils have the soft focus of pastels and their extravagant beauty can barely be suggested in reproduction, but this small detail of a branch packs a lot of punch even in a few square inches.
I love her work, as much for its seductive beauty as for its totally uncynical goof on the popular excesses of cuteness and its reproduction.
Ann Craven [installation view of Pink twig I, Pink twig II and Pink twig III, each 2005, oil on canvas, 60″ x 47″]
The other artists in the show are Ena Swansea, Petra Singh, Will Ryman, Elizabeth Neel, Bart Romberg, Laura Stein, Jeannie Weissglass, Benjamin Cottam, Debora Warner and Joyce Kim. They make an odd assembly, especially for a show entitled “Flower Power,” but these aren’t your mother’s daisies.
Jeannie Weissglass The Garden 2005 wallpaper, ink pencil and oil paint on wood panels 84″ x 144″ [installation view]
Dennis Kane’s range
Dennis Kane Them 2003-2004 acrylic on canvas 48″ x 81″
Dennis Kane Seen 2004 acrylic on canvas, two panels total 36″ x 62″
Dennis Kane Potlach 2004-2005 acrylic on canvas, four panels each 14″ x 19″
Dennis Kane That 2005 acrylic on canvas, two panels, 26″ x 24″ and 19″ x 16″
Dennis Kane Post 2005 watercolor and pencil on paper 22″ x 36″
I think this post is something of a first for this site. It’s in the form of an on-line gallery of work by a single artist, Dennis Kane. I’m uploading these images because I really like the work, because these are great jpegs and because this is the only way most people can see it – until he’s picked up by a gallery with real walls rather than pixels.
In the interest of full disclosure, Kane was a friend and excellent conversational company long before we ever saw his art. We own one of his drawings but would like to live with more of his work. When we finally visited his studio last year Barry and I were greatly relieved to find that we didn’t have to feign enthusiasm for his creations. I’m no good at feigning.
The paintings and drawings are beautiful, but Kane’s images, while rarely abstracted, don’t reveal their secrets easily. His higher education was focused on philosophy and fine arts. I may be stretching an analogy, but this is work composed by a musician. When not in his studio in Queens Kane may be found working in that most abstract art of all. For the past twelve years he has worked as a dj under the name Citizen Kane [“a wide range of the leftfield, slept on, forgotten stew” – rhythm(ism)].
From an essay by Takashii Tsude:
His works address issues of power as it manifests itself across the terrain of cultural signs. Drawing from obscure film stills, images found in the daily newspapers or in his own photography, Kane molds and constructs paintings and drawings that are both emblematic and open to an extended conversational reading. The nature of the image and technique varies, but the concept of engagement with the viewer remains consistent. Kane avoids didactic narratives, a consistent formal approach, and a heavily repeated iconography. His works are however united in their visual weight. Although not painterly, the work achieves presence through the specificity of each image, and the rigors of his presentational approach.
Closeups of two of the works:
Them [detail]
Seen [detail]
[images furnished by Dennis Kane]
Tom Hurndall? – but “old news” is no news, we’re told
[unless it helps the White House – or the NYTimes]
Sophie Hurndall, Tom Hurndall’s sister: “. . . but there are thousands of cases out there where people don’t have the weight behind them that we have.”
UPDATE:
In Britain the media is interested in the Battle of Trafalgar and Tom Hurndall, even though both are dead. We get runaway brides and the ten commandments on a lawn. If you live in the right place once in a while you get a peek at a real story, but only a peek and only on terms supported by a larger agenda.
Lest anyone think that the nationality of the victim is key to the quality of justice extended or press coverage provided, the story of the very American Rachel Corrie is more than a caution. Oh, and she and her family were just as photogenic, just as white, just as blond as the Hurndalls. The usual popularity of the type is familiar to everyone in America; viz. the description of the ubiquitous missing children and young women in never-ending reports on the pretend-news programs of CNN and Fox. Sometimes war and politics trumps everday racism, even in America.
In a tiny article [scroll down] on page 8 today, the NYTimes reports that the Israeli soldier who killed Tom Hurndall two years ago has been found guilty by a military court.
For more, see this BBC story for a description of the crime, and this one for a bit on the trial itself.
The defendant was led out of the court in handcuffs and tried to attack a number of photographers and cameramen filming him.
More than 50 people crowded into the small courtroom on a military base in southern Israel, to hear the verdict – which took more than an hour to read out.
In addition to the manslaughter verdict, [Taysir] Hayb was found guilty of obstruction of justice, incitement to false testimony, false testimony and improper conduct.
The court was told Hayb fired at Mr Hurndall from an Israeli army watchtower, using a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight.
Witnesses said Mr Hurndall, from north London, had been escorting children away from gunfire when he was hit in the head by a single shot.
The Israeli army initially disputed this account, but under pressure from Mr Hurndall’s family and the British government it ordered a full investigation. It later indicted Hayb, a member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority [my italics].
The identity of the defendent serves to further dramatize the story as both a personal tragedy and as representative of the much larger human disaster fed by the U.S.-supported Israeli government occupation policy, the incompetence of Palestinian leadership, and the silence of good people everywhere.
[image from BBC News]
“Mirage” at Alexander and Bonin
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Felix Gonzalez-Torres “Untitled” (Beginning) 1994 plastic beads and metal rod 115″ x 79″ [installation view]
view of gallery installation, including a detail of Iza Genzken’s Untitled 2001, and on the wall behind, three Weegee gelatin silver prints from the 1950’s: (dancer), Self-Portrait, and (gold painted stripper)
A wonderful show, beautifully installed, but how could it be anything else when the entrance just inside the door at Alexander and Bonin is defined by Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s fabulous beaded curtain?
Art from as far back as 50 years ago looks as fresh as work produced as recently as this year in service of the theme, “Mirage,” around which the exhibition was built by its curators, Julie Ault and Martin Beck. Okay I don’t quite get the show’s conceit from reading the press release, but it looks good and something interesting seems to be going on here.
The other artists with work here are the Atlas Group, Lewis Baltz, Jennifer Bolande, Robert Bordo, Moyra Davey, Peter Fend, Rodney Graham, Emily Jacir, Robert Kinmont, Mary Lum, Stephan Pascher and Florian Pumhösl.
Matthew Benedict at Alexander and Bonin
Matthew Benedict The Children’s Hall 2002-2005 diptych: plastic weaponry, chicken wire, brocade trim, enamel and latex paint on 2 wood panels overall 84″ x 98″ x 5″ [installation view]
No, this isn’t something you’ll find in an armorial hall or the basement recereation room of that weird guy down the street who never talks to anyone, this is an art installation composed of plastic toys freely available and in fact actively hawked to children everywhere in America.
Think about it.
The Children’s Hall [detail]
I missed Matthew Benedict’s recent show at Alexander and Bonin, but I saw this exciting piece on an upper floor yesterday. I’ve been haunted by the informed imagery of the artist’s paintings for years, and Benedict’s sculptures continue to provoke the mind and the eye.
“Minets À Polis” at Cohan and Leslie
Rob Fisher‘s Twofold (flooring, wood, pipe and plaster) in the foreground, Chris Larson’s C-prints Barn Razor No. 1 and Barn Razor No. 2 on the wall
Minneapolis artists taking Minneapolis apart and sometimes putting it back together. Great job!
The work being shown at Cohan and Leslie is by Fisher, Larson, Alec Soth, Aaron Spangler, Todd Norsten and David Rathman.
“Atomica” at ESSO and Lombard-Freid
Sarah Ciraci Bikini 2005 wall drawing with black light sensitive paint, variable dimensions [installation view]
ESSO Gallery and Lombard-Freid Fine Arts have collaborated on an exhibition entitled, “ATOMICA: Making the Invisible Visible.” This one is not for the faint of heart. On the 60th anniversary of the nuclear age, since we have accepted the idea of using its horrors as an an appropriate political instrument, that’s unfortunately the way it has to be.
Williamsburg beach
last Sunday, folks parked at Grand Ferry near its successor crossing, the Williamsburg Bridge, here a dark bow across the East River with the towers of two earlier spans beyond
the group at Plus Ultra
Jeff Hand Liz (on Box) 2003 faux fur on board 10″ x 8″ x 3.5″ [installation view of a three-dimensional piece]
Plus Ultra‘s summer group show absolutely refuses to succumb to the languor of the season by offering lighter fare, and the work manages to survive an assault of light and heat which can easily frustrate less survigrous work.
I’m being a bit dishonest in illustrating this post with a Jeff Hand piece which is not included in the show itself, the larger and equally wonderful Parasol (after Goya). But I saw Liz in the rear of the gallery and it got to me in spite of my relative indifference to the icon represented by the icon. I thought it needed more exposure (I mean the faux-fur one).
I managed to get a few snaps of pieces which actually are in the show, and while I’m including them below this text they certainly do not represent the limits of its fascinations. The complete catalog includes Nancy Baker, Leslie Brack, Amanda Church, Jennifer Dalton, Nicholas Gaffney, Kate Gilmore, Joe Fig, Rosemarie Fiore, Jeff Hand, Christopher Johnson, Alois Kronschläger, Thomas Lendvai, Max-Carlos Martinez, Analia Segal, and Andy Yoder.
Oh yes, the title of this great tease of an exhibition is “The expression of elemental passions… (or, damn everything but the circus), so there’s the summer part after all.
Joe Fig Joe Namuth’s Pollock #8 2004-2005 polymer clay, plexiglass, wood, oil, enamyl and acrylic paints 12.5″ x 12.5″ x 12″
Leslie Brack L.B. 2003 oil on panel 19″ x 22.5″
Christopher Johnson Oriental Sauna / Warren, Ohio 2005 oil on linen 20″ x 16″