untitled (Cocteau heads) 2009
Of course I didn’t do the drawing, but I want to share it. There’s a lot going on here, most of it by chance. I saw these faces drawn on a very busy ground on an unused advertising board inside the Jefferson Avenue L stop over a week ago and the image I shot then still thrilled me when I rolled through my recent stash today.
This is what the entire board looked like:
Author: jameswagner
“The Human Voice in a New World”: really new music
if “hearing is another form of seeing”*, then seeing is another form of hearing (Jaap Blonk and his “noise”, visualized graphically here, in a scene from “Messa di Voce”)
I know I run the risk of overplaying this description, but the folks who have put together three compelling concerts next week described under the heading, “The Human Voice in a New World“, make music as it might sound had neither language nor musical instruments yet been invented.
Actually, these masters (composers, poets, artists, performers, writers and interactive technology engineers) could hardly ignore the existence of sophisticated language or highly-evolved musical instruments; They obviously have been informed by both. It’s just that they have found a way of introducing us to musical sound in ways that make it seem we were fundamentally innocent of its pleasures until now.
They would also have us see the music, both literally and figuratively. Even without conspicuous visual elements (the most dramatic representation is included in Monday evening’s performance of “Messe di Voce“), these programs appear to be something which could be enjoyed by anyone interested in the experimentation, innovation and originality of emerging work in the visual arts – and the reverse seems equally valid. I know I’m not the only one who thrives on an immersion in the output of the freshest, most creative genius which can be found in both these arts, and I have no academic background in either.
I’m still hoping to speak with just a little authority on the subject since I’ve been listening to a number of these sound artists for decades. Most have been around for years and some of them may be as old as I am, but what they will be doing next week would be very new to almost anyone anywhere. For the tiny few who will make it to any of these performances it will look and sound like tomorrow, because almost none of us has been listening to and thinking about today as closely as Joan La Barbara, Jaap Blonk, Golan Levin, Zachery Lieberman, Trevor Wishart, Joel Chadabe, Richard Kostelanetz and David Moss.
I’ll be there each night; I wouldn’t miss one of these concerts for just about any temptation. They are being presented by the Electronic Music Foundation [EMF]. Monday’s performance, at NYU’s Frederick Lowe Theater, is produced in collaboration with the NYU Interactive Arts Series and is free. On Friday and Saturday, at Judson Church, you’ll be asked to pay all of $15 ($10 for students and seniors).
A generous amount of information, including sound samples and all the details on the performances, can be found on this page of the Electronic Music Foundation site.
The image I’m including below is a shot of the cover of one of my 25-year-old LPs of David Moss, one of the two featured artists on Saturday evening. Look at the list of his collaborators at the bottom of the cover.
his noise is music to my ears
ADDENDUM: It’s the next morning and I’m feeling weird about not including some kind of image related to Trevor Wishart’s concert. He will be collaborating with Joel Chadabe and Richard Kostelanetz on Friday. In the middle of last night I went hunting for Wishart’s name and found an image which had been uploaded onto flickr by Sonic Arts Network. It’s of a revival at the group’s 2005 Expo festival in Scarborough, on the Isle of WIght, of the British artist and public sound activist’s 1977 piece, “Beach Singularity“. A video documenting a part of the day-long performance can be seen here.
although it would have been fun, this Wishart piece is not the one coming to New York
Note: “The Human Voice in a New World” (subtitled: “A series of live performances exploring the crossroads of the human voice and technology”) is not a particularly catchy tag. Even after several days going back and forth to look at the program information I still couldn’t remember the name of the series I’m so excited about; the programs are bound to be much sexier than the billing might suggest.
*
quoted from composer William Hellermann, founder of The Sound Art Foundation in 1982
[“Messe di Voce” is produced in collaboration with the NYU Interactive Arts Series; image at the top from tmema; image at the bottom from flickr]
Paul Gabrielli at Invisible-Exports
Paul Gabrielli Dark Movie 2008 single-channel video [large detail still from installation]
Paul Gabrielli Untitled (Stage) 2008 wood, aluminum, glass mirror, steel, light extension pole, clamp-light, light bulb, enamel 78.5″ x 32″ x 18″ [installation view]
Paul Gabrielli Untitled (See Through Rental) 2008 glass, Ultra-cal, foam, acrylic paint, nail, enamel [installation view]
Barry and I weren’t able to get to Paul Gabrielli’s exhibition, “Closer Than That“, at Invisible-Exports until the last weekend of the show. It was a Top Pick on ArtCal for just two days but it would have been there throughout its run had we seen it earlier. My posting some images now of this [elegant and sexy, conceptual, posterior-minimalist, multi-media including a bunch of may-look-like-but-aren’t-readymades] installation is therefore something of an apology. It’s also meant as a head’s up, intended both for those of us who saw it and those who didn’t, to be on the lookout for his work next time he comes around.
This excerpt from the gallery press release ends with a provocative question which follows the description of Gabrielli’s work as:
. . . experiments in form designed to encapsulate the physical manifestation of a single thought, with all its lyricism and paradox. His pieces represent both interior visions and the very real destruction of the well-defined and corporeal. They stand on the anxious fulcrum of categorization; when distinctions between forms and material disappear, or are made to disappear, what is left standing?
For more information on the artist and on the program of this smart new Lower East Side space, see this interview on the newsletter ARTLURKER with Invisible-Exports owners Benjamin Tischer and Risa Needleman.
confirmed: men go into heat (but no one really notices)
Maybe hold the Speed Stick. [Robert Mapplethorpe Untitled (self-portrait) 1973-1975 Polaroid photograph]
Scientists have very recently discovered that when men become aroused there’s a verifiable shift in their body odor, and that women can tell the difference between sexual sweat and workaday smells by processing the odors in different parts of the brain, although they don’t consciously realize it.
The headline in the New York Times article reads: “Varying Sweat Scents Are Noted by Women [my emphasis]”. The new scientific study which announced this, as reported in the January issue of The Journal of Neuroscience”, was made exclusively with a group of heterosexual men and heterosexual women, but I think that the results would be duplicated were the test conducted among homosexual men.
We’re all communicating with smell, even though we don’t consciously know it.
Before eager queers jump up and down with optimistic hopes, I have to add that it seems neither “gaydar” nor any of our other talents would help at all in advancing the usefulness of this newly-confirmed tool in our sophisticated evolutionary mating kit: One psychologist who was not involved with the study, Adam K. Anderson, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, has cautioned that in spite of the conclusions of the report we shouldn’t conclude that men now know what it is that pleases women [or homosexual men, I would add]. “[the scientists] didn’t find activations of typical reward centers or regions associated with pleasure,” Anderson said. “It’s just as likely that [these women’s] brains are picking up a man in heat that they are not particularly attracted to.”
Oh.
So we can’t know if we appear to the beloved as anything other than smelly. The latest scientific news doesn’t offer any scientific shortcut to mating. Whether we’re het or homo, it seems that our guy-pheromones can’t do it all for us; we’re still going to remain pretty dependent on our more culturally-developed contrivances, like conversation and social graces, if we want to know what square we’re on when we’re thinking of hitting on an an unfamiliar her or him.
[image from “Mapplethorpe: Polaroids“, via The Morning News]
en plein air: 23rd Street studio
concentration
The story is that when I looked out of my window last Thursday afternoon, on the coldest, windiest day of the winter, I saw this painter and his rig. I had often seen him planted elsewhere on the block, often, as here, painting the Chelsea Hotel across the street, but on those occasions I would have been too respectful of his privacy, or maybe just to self-conscious, to intrude on his concentration with my camera.
This time it was different, since it was unlikely I could disturb him and equally unlikely I or my machine would draw anyone’s attention. I took this picture and later returned to the window (without the camera) to see if he would still be there. He was, but I now saw that a young woman was standing at the driver’s side of the car seen in this picture, looking a little puzzled, and a somewhat older man was standing in the street ahead of it pointing to something in the area of the left front fender. Then I saw a smile of recognition come to the woman’s face and she stepped forward to pull and gather up what turned out to be a large, bunched-up clear plastic bag. It had probably become stuck somewhere on the car. She thanked the helpful stranger, walked over to the curb and plopped it in the midst of the painter’s bags, each of them strapped to luggage carriers. She returned to the other side of the car, slipped into the driver’s seat and drove off.
She had apparently remained throughout totally unaware of the artist’s presence, and of his equipment as well. Probably she was only sufficiently aware of her environment to see some vaguely trash-bag shape already sitting on the curb, and that was where her own offending litter would be deposited.
I can’t end the story without allowing that the artist appeared to be no more aware of his environment than she was: He didn’t seem to notice any of what had just transpired, including his bags being mistaken for trash. In fact, he never looked away from his canvas. Ah, the singular concentration of the artist can apparently be sustained even in the open air.
UPDATE: All thanks to the folks at “Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog“, I’ve learned that the artist is David Combs, who used to live in the Chelsea, and may now have returned.
WAGMAG benefit at The Front Room tonight
William Powhida Sellout [item #76]
One sign of the almost proximate arrival of spring is the announcement of the annual WAGMAG benefit. Once again it’s again time to help out our indispensable guide to Brooklyn galleries (it now covers all of Brooklyn!), by purchasing tickets for the artwork drawing tonight at The Front Room Gallery.
Some really great art, including the William Powhida piece shown above, have been donated by artists and galleries who know how much this publication does for the community, and want to give a bit back.
The rest of us have a chance to help by showing up and purchasing an opportunity to select from the bounty shown here. If you and your valentine are already committed elsewhere tonight, you can also buy one or more tickets on line (they are only $200 each) and indicate your choice with a WAGMAG proxy. All tickets guarantee a work of art, and entry to the party is free.
As I wrote last year, I can’t say enough about Daniel Aycock, the generous artist host.
For details, see this post on the ArtCal zine.
LOISAIDA: Cuchifritos, Lisa Cooley, CANADA, V&A
Taylor Davis Swordfight 2006 plywood and pine 16″ x 19″ x 33″ [installation view]
one of nine panels included, mixed media on plexiglass, 8″ x 10″ each, from a series by Katherine Streeter
Mark Barrow Bric a Brac 2008 acrylic on hand-loomed linen textile by Sarah Parke 15″ x 14″ [one of two parts, the first part 16″ x 14″, installed to its left
Anthony Pearson Untitled (solarization) 2008 framed solarized silver gelatin photograph 19.5″ x 16″ unique [view of installation, not including mat]
Michael Mahalchick Ham Ray Nay 2008 mixed media 33.25″ x 27″ x 2″
Erik Lindman Twilight 22 Electric Kingdom 2008 oil on canvas 14″ x 11″ [installation view, including site-specific shadow cast by etching on glass door]
This look at some shows on the Lower East Side is the fourth and last of the current series of visits to gallery neighborhoods.
The current show at Cuchifritos, “A Relationship Left For Dead on the Lower East Side” is my nod to tomorrow’s holiday, but the curator, Bill Previdi beat me to it, probably many months ago. It’s a compact and very smart installation about relationships inspired by a photo album given to him by a friend who had found it somewhere in the neighborhood served by/serving this gallery, a non-profit space described on its web site as having a focus “on contemporary art as it relates to community, social issues, and public space.” When we saw the show on the day it opened Previte told us that he knows nothing about the two men who appear in the pages of this album left on a curb nearby, but if they should happen to see the show and recognize the photos it would be returned. I haven’t heard if either or both have turned up, but Previdi is closing the show with a reception from 4 until 6 – on Valentine’s day.
Lisa Cooley is showing the first of a series of three-person shows, in the words of the gallery statement, “juxtaposing a canonical artist with both an established and an emerging figure”. Not surprising for this gallery, this is an exquisite installation which places Binky Palermo on the wall opposite the entrance, with works by Anthony Pearson (b. 1969) and Mark Barrow (b. 1982) trading places and dancing on walls to the right and left.
CANADA is showing Michael Mahalchick in “For What It’s Worth“, and its pleasures are definitely worth a lot, beginning with the image on the invitation and the website. How can everyday leavings be made so wacky and beautiful at the same time? My favorite line in the press release: “�For What It�s Worth� is a celebration and ritual offering to the collective ewwwwww.”
Barry and I both decided we had to get to Mott Street for the current show at V&A, if only on the basis of a piece we had seen last month in a group show at BUIA by the Chinatown gallery’s featured artist, Erik Lindman. Lindman’s piece in that show was called “Zac Efron in Highschool Musical 3 with my iPhone � Magic Johnson Theatre”. His solo show on the Lower East Side, “House Wine, House Music” includes four paintings, one shadow and a photograph, all of which are described as an attempt to make art that is anonymous. In the oils he may have to actively create what he is able to find ready-made with his camera, but when he erases pigment and representational shapes to describe negative spaces on his canvases he is seeking the same end, what the gallery notes describe as “A conscious lack of intention through attention to negative spaces.”
Williamsburg: Peter Fox, Aron Namenwirth, John Bjierkle
Peter Fox Big Self Portrait 2009 acrylic on canvas 73″ x 73″
small acrylic by Fox for which I don’t have the information
Aron Namenwirth Party City 2006-2008 48″ x 60″ x 3″
installation view of John Bjerklie’s “When A River Changes Its Course”
[a more detailed view]
The “tour” which began in Soho continues into a third day with a look at some shows in Williamsburg galleries.
Peter Fox has shifted from abstractions to representational and text works with the colorful and gently-risible show, “Moving Target“, currently hosted by The Hogar Collection, but his trademark relief technique, which uses countless multicolored blobs (“blobilism”?), survives unaltered. Curiously I’ve just noticed that the image I first thought would be the only one I’d use to illustrate the show happens to be the only black and white painting. Also, while I really like the new direction, I’ve now decided to add an image of a recently-completed piece I saw hanging in the gallery’s office. It’s only about ten inches high, but it shows that Fox abstractions haven’t yet run out of things to say.
Aron Namenwirth’s dynamite show at VertexList has been extended through February 28, but by appointment only. No sweat, that, and it’s definitely worth the phone call. For access to the Bayard Street space call Namenwirth at 917-301-6680 or 917-301-0306. This beautiful body of work at first suggests little more that simple blown-up pixilated photographic imagery perfectly rendered in paint, but this elegant, precisely-drawn simplicity is deceptive. The artist starts with small JPEGS which frequently depict political or spiritual figures. I don’t pretend to understand how he has done it, but some readers may get further with the help of excerpts from an interview the artist had last December with Erika Knerr. Namenwirth is describing what’s going on in the painting shown above. He had just said that another piece (which appears to be just as abstract) has four images in it, and that each one occupies a different grid, meaning there are four grids in the final work. He goes on to say that “Party City” also has four images, and that they compete with one another, in the end becoming the brilliant blur you see:
Aron Namenwirth: Basically the images all occupy one of these four pixels so there are four images sitting next to each other on four separate grids and they just obliterate each other.
�Party City� is [composed of] four images, a Chinese stockbroker, guys with suits with golden shovels breaking ground for the Chinese version of the NASDAQ, the building is designed by Rem Koolhaus, and a group of soldiers from Darfur with shovels and guns. All these images are off the internet. The fourth image is a group of people, friends of my mom, Cynthia Bloom, at her memorial service. I planted all these flowers in the sand, so all these people where around the flowers in the sand thinking about her.
I don’t know what to say here about John Bjerklie‘s installation at Parker’s Box, “When A River Changes Its Course“, especially since you’re probably going to want to visit it – and I say “visit” advisably. Most of us may have seen the inside of a gallery turned into something of a dump more than once before, but this show, with the distinction of its being littered with old TV sets, both working and clearly defunct, will probably hook you if you manage to come in while our host, Bjerklie, and [insert name here] are engaged in a quite shrewdly-mad conversation about art while inserted inside two separate screens. Meaty stuff, but lots of fun.
Chelsea: Derek Jarman, David Diao, Alyssa Phoebus, Vlatka Horvat, Sarah Greenberger Rafferty
Derek Jarman In the Shadow of the Sun 1974 Super-8 (transfer to DVD) color 54 minutes [still from installation]
detail of David Diao’s installation, “I lived there until I was 6�”
Alyssa Phoebus Good Woman 2008 graphite on cotton rag paper 96″ x 53″ [installation view]
Vlatka Horvat Birds Shelf 2009 modified wood table-top, 13 photo-sensitive bird figurines [installation view]
Sarah Greenberger Rafferty Strapped (Sanitorium Chair) 2009 painted galvanized steel and bandages [installation view]
Continuing the neighborhood tour started yesterday I’m uploading images, and little else, of some shows I’ve thought worth sharing.
Elizabeth Dee is showing four early, amazingly-innovative and almost painfully-beautiful Derek Jarman films. They are accompanied by an installation-specific sound design by the artist’s friend and collaborator, Simon Fisher Turner. It’s a great treat, but Jenny Moore, the gallery’s director, told me there’s more to come: Beginning March 7 and continuing for three months an exhibition of 18 rarely-screened Jarman films will be installed two blocks north of her gallery, at X, a new nonprofit space which will occupy the old Dia Art Foundation quarters on West 22nd Street. Beyond my immediate pleasure in learning about the Jarman show, the arrival of X sounds to me like very welcome news for everyone. I know I’m not the only one who misses the ambitious large-scale projects which were installed for months at a time on that building’s five spare, elegant levels. Dia’s tenure of that old garage began in 1987, the year I moved into Chelsea. The foundation moved out early in 2004 and I’m still mourning the loss of a fascinating neighbor.
I’ve learned quite a bit about David Diao in the last few days because of my visit to his solo show at Postmasters, “I lived there until I was 6�“. I had lots of catching up to do (let’s say my ignorance was embarrassing), but I’m now appreciating the strength and beauty of his art and the weight of his personal history. I’ve also learned that we share what some might call an immoderate interest in architecture, the abstraction and reality of “home”, and the urge to look back at one’s beginnings, the sort of thing which often comes with a certain maturity in years. The show, or project, at Postmasters is an aesthetic and psychological reconstruction of his family’s compound in Beijing, from which he and his parents and relatives were forced to flee in 1949 with only 24 hours notice. The paintings are inspired necessarily by very imperfect memories (the house is gone and there are no pictures), those of the 6-year-old Diao and a few surviving members of his family.
The title of Alyssa Phoebus’s show at Bellwether, “Lay in the Reins“, appears to be something of an exhortation, and the titles of individual works expand on the theme: “Rough Sex With a Big Man”, “Harder Harder”, “You Ain’t a Beauty”, and “The Cruelties That Attend the Rites of Love” among others. These dramatic graphite drawings of lines and text on gorgeous handmade ivory rag paper are pulled from popular songs and expressions, but in the artist’s hands the words take on a musical life of their own. Just don’t expect a sentimental ballad.
The Kitchen has two shows curated by Matthew Lyons, Sara Greenberger Rafferty’s “Bananas” and Vlatka Horvat’s “Or Some Other Time“, each with work in a number of very different mediums. [For a short video of Horvat’s singing “Birds” see bloggy.] I liked some of what I saw but was somewhat nonplussed about much of the work. I said “nonplussed”, not indifferent or displeased. I have to admit that I went into the space cold and I couldn’t get much out of the press release. Because The Kitchen’s web site is almost impossible to use, I see I won’t be learning any more unless I go back. Because I respect Lyons, and have enjoyed following Rachel Uffner’s program for several years now (both artists have shown in her gallery), I intend to do just that.
Soho: Davis Rhodes, Stephen Sprouse, Ben Jones
Davis Rhodes Untitled 2008 enamel on foamboard 96″ x 44″ x 8″ (each) [installation view of two separate works, each described identically]
a detail of the Stephen Sprouse show [installation view including “Iggy On the Cross”]
Ben Jones [detail of entrance to installation, “The New Dark Age”]
I didn’t want to lose another race with time, so I’ve decided that before they close I’d do a few posts pointing to shows I think worth a detour. I’ll be grouping them more or less by neighborhood, but including only the most abbreviated description. I hope not to make a habit of this, but lately I’ve seen so much I liked that I’d never have time to talk about it all.
The first stop is Soho.
I felt almost physically provoked by the painting/sculptures of Davis Rhodes in a three-person show at Team Gallery which also includes work by Gardar Eide Einarsson and Stanley Whitney. Rhodes’s medium is enamel on foamboard, in various thicknesses. Except for one diptych propped against a wall, painted on a thicker board than the others, they stand by themselves, with the help of the artist’s horizontal arches.
Stephen Sprouse is making another comeback. This one is being launched from Deitch Projects Wooster Street, but Sprouse isn’t here to enjoy it. Because of his early death in 2004 we have no idea what he would think about this look backward. “Rock on Mars” is a retrospective of the body of work created by the designer and artist during an erratic rocket of a career which both fired up and was fired on by a mix of and pop and punk culture which never totally disappeared; I think it just moved to Brooklyn. And now hard times are back: If he were still with us, Sprouse might feel more at home today than he had since he started out.
Ben Jones really is at home in 2009. His show at Deitch on Grand, “The New Dark Age”, is both totally of and way beyond whatever we mean by “today” – both the culture and its systems. Jones, who is part of the collective Paper Rad, is enjoying (I hope as much as we are) his first solo run at the gallery, where the work, described in the press release as “between-media video sculpture, light painting, and ‘drawing in the digital age'”, is also a mesmerizing amalgram of comedy and terror. Pay attention to that show title.