Category: Culture

tHe FinaL rUn iNs [detail of installation, including a bit of “unique miscellany”]


Kalup Linzy The Pursuit of Gay (Happyness) 2007 digital black and white video with sound [still from installation]

We were at Taxter & Spengemann this afternoon, but we had totally missed the excitement of the opening, a performance by the random hardcore band “tHe FinaL rUn iNs” (Ben Brantley, Nathan Carter and Matthew Ronay), whose sets, instruments, glitter and ragged concert remnants (including the semi-trashed fish tank above) now line the walls of the main space at the gallery. After a look around at this very site-specific installation we headed upstairs, where currently there’s a lineup of four artist films in the gallery’s self-described “Blockbuster Summer” exhibition.
Confession: We picked out one of these four shorts on the remote mounted on the wall, Kalup Linzy‘s “The Pursuit of Gay (Happyness)”. I glued myself to the screen all the way to the end of this delicious little love story, starring the artist and Joshua Seidner (pictured). My favorite line was Seidner’s woebegone response, as ‘hero’, correcting ‘lady in distress’ (Linzy) when she refers to important parts of her lover’s anatomy, ” . . . our cottontail . . . our peter!”, while the voice of Bernice Edwards sings “Butcher Shop Blues” in the background. But in spite of their serious temptations it was a bit too warm inside to stay for the others* today. Absolutely must return.
For the first quarter of Linzy’s piece, see this one-minute-plus excerpt on YouTube:


*
including two 1964 films by Lance Richbeurg and Pete Broadrick

Peter Fox SOME WORLD 2007 acrylic on canvas 34″ x 54″

[detail]

[oblique detail]

Williamsburg’s The Hogar Collection, which was located on lower Grand Street, west of Bedford for several years, has moved a number of blocks up-island, to new quarters on the other side of the street*, just west of the BQE. It’s a neat space, and on our first visit there last weekend we walked into a beautiful two-person show, a collaboration with eyewash.
I had seen the work of both Peter Fox and Jeanne Tremel before, and both of them are looking more interesting than ever.
Hmm. More abstractions showing up on this site: Is it me, or is this a trend?

*
luckily it’s on the south side, which means work can be hung (to great advantage here) on a secondary white wall facing the street, just inside the large and handsome four-square front window

Jasper Johns Green Target 1955 encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas 60″ x 60″

What can I say?

Ad Hunt The Ambassador 2007 oil on canvas


Beth Letain Every knee shall bow 2007 oil on canvas

A show called “Place Setting”, of work by students at the MFA program at SUNY Purchase College was installed at Williamsburg’s Supreme Trading, for only one week unfortunately (apparently an academic tradition for graduate shows). It closed this evening.
The paintings of AD Hunt and Beth Letain stood out in particular, but the larger group would have done any number of schools proud. The other artists, going down the checklist, were Chris Kaczmarek, Andrew Small, Parsley Steinweiss, Jeff Pash, Paul Bernhardt, Melissa Skluzacek, Kristen Gavin, Alec Spangler, Ali Dell Bitta and Sarah Sharp.
The show, of works in many media, was curated by Thom Collins, Director of the Neuberger Museum of Art at the college.

large detail of a fragment of a Byzantine floor mosaic (circa 500-550) with a representation of Ktisis, “a personification of generous donation or foundation”, according to the plaque which accompanies this piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sharp viewer/readers will have noticed by now that an advert has appeared on my site for the first time, on the upper left corner of each page.
I thought that if I were ever to start this sort of thing, this would be the perfect time to break a five-year tradition of private publishing.
The spot is for NURTUREart’s benefit tomorrow evening, and yes, Barry and I are being honored at the occasion. It’s all a bit embarassing, and to mention it again would be even more embarrassing if the institution wasn’t such a great cause.
There are still tickets available, starting at $75, and the event is conveniently located in the Chelsea gallery district (although I imagine many Williamsburgers will argue about the convenience of Chelsea).
Hope to see you there.

Ron Davis Ring 1968 polyester resin and fiberglass 11.25″ x 56.5″ [installation view]

On Friday I saw this piece by Ron Davis hovering over the information/members desk at the Museum of Modern Art. Delicious. Looking like nothing so much as a shiny, candy-colored flying saucer, it was love at first sight, and I completely forgot what we had come up to ask for. Fortunately Barry was much more focused, and we quickly got the day passes we wanted for our three guests.

Patrick Armstrong Virgo and Libra 2007 epoxy and gesso on paper 22″ x 30″ [installation view]

[view from one side]


Dorothea Rockburne Gravity Wave (Direction Painting #2) 1993 Lascaux Aquacryl, Beryl Artistic and Flasche on gessoed wood panel 40″ x 24″ [installation view]


Steve Keister Frieze I 2007 earthenware with acrylic 5″ x 56″ x 3″ [installation view]


Galeria Janet Kurnatowski is showing a bright sunny show of contemporary abstractions with a dark-ish title, “Corpse of Time”, curated by the artist Ben La Rocco. The art however is anything but cadaverous, and the works actually seem to talk to each other, quite animatedly in fact.
The oldest piece is from 1993, but most of the work is quite recent, produced by a group eight men and women representing perhaps a half century of age difference.
The Greenpoint show includes painting and sculpture by Patrick Armstrong, Morgan Croney, Linda Francis, Steve Keister, Dorothea Rockburne, Carol Salmonson, Don Voisine and Chuck Webster.

Richard Serra Intersection II 1992 [detail of installation]


Richard Serra Intersection II 1992 [detail of installation]


Richard Serra Torqued Ellipse IV 1998 [detail of installation]

This isn’t really a review of Richard Serra’s show, which tomorrow opens to the public at the Museum of Modern Art. He’s been around long enough to be familiar to anyone reading this blog, and the work doesn’t change enough to provoke eyes which normally delight in emerging art.
Unfortunately, because of MoMA’s photography prohibitions on work the museum does not own, I can’t show images of the large installations inside, on the second and sixth floors. I was only able to to take shots of these two pieces installed in the sculpture garden. They’re details only, because in still photography that’s how this stuff looks best; Serra’s sculpture is essentially about the experience of moving through it.
A few thoughts on the show:
* It’s about sculpture alone, so it doesn’t seem to be a true retrospective (I think my first Serra love object was a black paint stick drawing).
* Oddly, the exhibition doesn’t include still or moving images of important work missing here, and this is an artist who makes much of the importance of specific sites for his sculpture.
* There’s not much really new; Serra is doing what he knows and what the public has finally come to like.
* Don’t miss looking straight up when you first enter the gallery rooms on the sixth floor.
* I haven’t decided whether the bird mess [white flecks on the third image above] on the pieces outside is a net plus or minus.
* The latest work, installed on the second floor, is very, very big. I worry about filling our flat files, and we can’t afford to rotate work hanging on our walls; don’t I covet just a corner of his storage space!
* This sculpture is very photogenic; I would love to be let loose with my camera in the interior galleries: minimal sculpture for minimal photography.
* Favorites? “Sequence”, from 2006 is great fun, because the course through its inside circuit seems endless (the piece looks great in the overhead shot printed in the show’s brochure), but I really love the lead pieces from 1969-1970, and then there’s the mid-70’s “Delineator”, which almost makes me swoon.

four details of Dan Perjovschi’s drawings, the third taken through an opening in the wall on MoMA’s third floor

In spite of their seriousness and the pain they evoke, the humor and compassion of Dan Perjovschi‘s delicate childlike drawings in the atrium at the Museum of Modern Art are totally infectious and, perhaps surprisingly, a great use of this huge space. It’s interesting that the gargantuan works of Richard Serra are installed elsewhere in the building.
Barry loves the “no smoking” symbol on the tank turret.
Perjovschi’s entire piece is titled, “What Happened to US?”, touching on responsibilities both personal and corporate. I’m very sorry we missed the two-week performance, his installation of the work.

Fiona Banner Nude Standing 2006 pencil on paper 106.25″ x 69.25″ [installation view]

[detail]

I spotted this drawing by Fiona Banner from the floor of the atrium space at MoMA yesterday. It’s hanging on the third floor and part of it can be seen through a cutout in the wall. It’s a very beautiful thing, a new acquisition for the Museum, but I’m not surprised that I was attracted to it, because of what I had seen the last time I saw the artist’s work. Here is a 2006 post.
Please excuse the imperfect image (although MoMA’s own is even less adequate, and the reflections on the plexiglas here do seem to add another level of mystery to the work).