Category: Culture

Youssef Nabil Red Egyptian Nightgown 2007 hand-colored silver gelatin print 15.75″ x 10.75″


Youssef Nabil Amir, New York 2006 hand-colored silver gelatin print 15.75″ x 10.75″

I just thought I had to think about these images a bit more, maybe look around on line and get some context before I could make any public judgments. during the press and VIP opening of Armory.
I’d seen work by Youssef Nabil at least once before. I was probably even more suspicious of my attraction to it then. When I saw these and several other photographs in the display of the Cape Town gallery Michael Stevenson the week before last I thought, maybe it was time to give them a chance. Even though it was early in our visit to Pier 94 Barry and I were already performing gallery triage and I ended up just taking a snapshot of one of the photographs shown above before we slipped past whatever they might end up to be offering.
Besides, I supposed my job that day was to look for the new and the fringe. Most of the work which I had seen by Nabil was softly illuminated by hand-colored images of beautiful young men, sometimes including their costumes and their bedclothes. This is a hook to whose appeal I cannot claim immunity, but I’m automatically suspicious of easy seductions when it comes to the claims of art.
I’m now willing to say that Nabil’s best work seems to be the real thing. It may just be a hangup of mine, but I think I still have some problem with his more straightforward portraits. I will admit however that in the context of the awesome world which describes this artist’s youth and his continued inspiration even what I would describe as the less anomalous images survive their more obvious lures.
Nabil is Egyptian. In fact he’s a Cairene, and therefore a citizen of one of* the world’s oldest and most sophisticated cities. It’s the vitality of early Egyptian cinema and his nation’s barely-expired tradition of the hand-colored photograph (portraits, streetscapes and landscapes) that inspire his own live narratives: Each of these photographs is very much a story to be shared with an audience disposed to watch, and read.
For more discussion of the work, see these essays which appear on the gallery’s own site.
I didn’t see this diptych at the fair, but I thought it was worth sharing here:

Youssef Nabil My time to go, self-portrait, Venice 2007 hand-colored silver gelatin prints (diptych) 15.75″ x 10.75″ each

*
Egypt is pretty old, but its cosmopolitan capitol was founded barely a thousand years ago

[all images from MichaelStevenson]

Scott Treleaven [installation shot of a small framed collaged drawing]

Now that’s an interesting headline, even if it is inadvertently misleading.
Scott Treleaven just opened a show at John Connelly here in New York. I haven’t made it over yet, although it is just down the street and there are any number of reasons why I have to call it a must-see. I’ve been under some weather until now, so I’ve had to be content with this unidentified drawing I saw at the Armory late last month, in the booth of the Athens gallery, The Breeder.

Rob Churm’s “Endless Hair” (Indian ink, biro and felt-tip pen on paper) on the left and “Untitled” (biro and felt-tipped pen on paper) on the right, each from 2007, the first 8.25″ x 6″ and the second 8.25″ x 6.25″ [installation view]

“Harry” from 2007 (Indian ink, biro and felt-tipped pen on paper) 16.5″ x 11.75″ [installation view]

The Glasgow gallery Sorcha Dallas displayed some terrific drawings by Rob Churm in their booth at Armory. There was never any doubt some of them would show up on this blog. The only question might have been which, but they were all so good I decided it didn’t matter.

Friedrich Petzel showed this wonderful/awful “Blue Mickey” by Joyce Pensato at Armory. The charcoal and pastel drawing measured 67 by 60 inches.

[detail]

Ann Craven‘s wonderful big Panda shown by Shane Campbell at Armory

Kelli Williams Wet Bar 2007 oil on panel 26″ x 12″

Kelli Williams visits a palace in Baghdad, in this exquisite little painting shown by Leo Koenig at Armory

Kasimir Malevich Soccer Player in the Fourth Dimension (1915)

I’m a really bad PR person. Until now I’d neglected to tell people about a forum on video art which is connected to “WHITE BOX SPEAKS“, and now there’s only one day left of a full schedule of events which began seven days ago. I’m obviously bad with the fourth dimension, but I’m doubly bad this time because I was actually invited to the last presentation. It starts tomorrow (Sunday the 30th) at noon and I haven’t written about it.
The forum of which I’m to be a small part is “CURATING TIME-BASED ART: THE FOURTH DIMENSION”, but I think the discussion will address more than the concerns of curators alone. The event was organized by VideoArtWorld. It’s at White Box, which is located 525 West 26 Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. The moderator will be Blanca de la Torre and the participants are Amanda McDonald Crowley, Natalie Angles, James Wagner, Eric Shiner, Marco Antonini, Heide Hatry, Micaela Giovannotti, Raphaele Shirley and Michelle Handelman.
Following the discussion, there will be a terrific video screening program, also at White Box, starting at 2pm. Go to VideoArtWorld for the complete afternoon program.

[image from wikimedia]

Thomas Hirschhorn Tool Table 2007 2 wood planks: 98.5″ x 118″ each; 12 trestles: 39.25″ x 31.5″ x 31.5″ each; total of all elements: 236.25″ x 98.5″ x 39.25″ [detail of installation]

I haven’t had a chance yet to post anything about Armory or any of the other New York art fairs which are distracting so many of us this week. But I did want to give some indication that life goes on somewhere behind this site, and I thought my detail shot of Thomas Hirschhorn’s installation in the Armory stall of Berlin’s Arndt & Partner might be an appropriate comment with which to start. Maybe you have to have been there, but the awesome ambivalence of Erasmus’s essay, Hirschhorn’s reference, and my own use of both here works for me.
I once had a crush on Erasmus (there was a lot to like, and I thought he was hot), so I read the whole darn thing in Catholic prep school.

Ian Pedigo Summit Associates 2008 newsprint, calendar pages 42″ x 50.5″ [installation view]


Ian Pedigo Already No Longer the Same 2008 wood, laminate, tape, paint, PVC sheet 11.5″ x 25.5″ x 37″ [installation view]


Ian Pedigo Saying it was Disproportionate 2008 wood, magazine clipping, tape, vinyl poster, permanent marker 42.5″ x 63.5″ [installation view]

Ian Pedigo in “Titanium Pro” at Klaus von Nichtssagend