Category: Culture

on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Williamsburg


some did chores


some partied in the sun


and some of us enjoyed galleries, including the street gallery

[the third image is a detail of the painted stoop outside The Front Room Gallery on Roebling Street]

a new musical based on Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard, the evangelical movement, and US

I’ve been a little tardy in announcing two affordable benefits for performing arts groups that interest Barry and myself. I’m especially late with my The Civilians plug, as their show goes off tonight, but sometimes a last-minute notice can be as effective as any other, and there’s still time to celebrate with this very sharp group.
Artistic Director Steve Cosson describes a bit of the origins of the group’s work-in-progress, “Save This City!”:

Three of us came out in June and went to New Life and I think the first time we really sort of got it, like “Oh! this really seems to be the center of America right now. I mean, you’re in the middle of this church with 7,000 people and the minister is talking about his relationship to George Bush and Ariel Sharon and other world leaders. I think the world we come from knows that the evangelical movement is this big influential thing in politics, but they don’t really have an understanding of the scope of it or what it means, or what that kind of Christianity really means, or what it is beyond its political effect on the national elections. And other than that they find it kind of scary and freaky.

Tonight’s performance will include members of the company perfoming songs from the new show.
Jump here for a quick look at the 2005 benefit.

The independent playwright organization 13P is also having a cabaret benefit, eleven days from now, at Joe’s Pub on April 29th. See their website for more details.

[image from newspeakblog, via The Civilians]

Christopher Lowry Johnson Platform 2007 oil on canvas 66″ x 78″ [large detail of installation]

[detail]

This is not a walk-thru show. Actually, this is probably true for most painting shows (at least those where the gallerist/curator has any creds at all), but this one is even more special. It seems quite muted at first, but given a little time, its rewards are great.
Christopher Lowry Johnson has an exhibition of his latest work at Winkleman in a show titled “Chorus”, his third solo turn at the gallery. The show closes on Saturday.
I recently walked into the space at the end of a long afternoon of gallery visits and sat down on the bench in the middle [yes, a bench in a gallery – a bench, how extraordinary, and how helpful for both visitor and art!]. I stared at the large, very white-ish, canvas across from me, expecting to work with it only as a beautiful, complex abstraction. I had been immediately attracted to its drama and beauty as I walked in, before I knew anything or saw very much, but then something happened. As I sat looking at this canvas its impenetrable layers of oil opened a wonderful, very grand window on images both abstract and concrete, a world undetectable at first or even second glance.
The remaining works, although much less abstract, are no less beautiful or profound in their impact. Johnson’s technical skills are matched by what seems to me to be an extraordinary appreciation of history, and no less the history of painting itself.
Oh yes, while Barry and I were there on Saturday, one of New York’s best art critics slipped into the gallery, but sadly stayed only a minute or so. I think it was a mistake, and a loss for scads of readers.
In any event, if you can make it to West 27 Street in the next few days, you might want to do so, especially since it was impossible to get a decent photograph of the work, and “Platform” in particular.
I’m ambivalent about relying on statements and press releases for an appreciation of work generally, so I tend to read them rather lightly, and usually only when baffled or feeling in need of what I call the “instructions” supplied by a gallery or museum. In this case the two-paragraph text supplied on the gallery site can provide a very useful jumping-off point, although I confess I was fortunate to get some insight directly from the owner/director Ed Winkleman himself. Heck, are Paula, Jeffrey, Matthew or Mary always there when you could use their help? We love the smaller galleries, for this and so many other reasons.


Christopher Lowry Johnson Creamed 2006 oil on canvas 30″ x 38″

More images can be found on the artist’s own site, although he grants that “the elusive ‘platform’ . . . continues to escape accurate documentation”.

Probably not invited.
This Swoon drawing is attached to a wall just outside the commercial galleries on West 22 Street.

UPDATE: I’ve received a comment from Adrian that the work is not that of Swoon, but either Elbowtoe or Armstock. Can anyone confirm which it might be?

Liz Bougatsos

from left, Josh Diamond, guitar, Liz Bougatsos, vocals, Tim DeWitt, drums, Brian DeGraw keyboards

These are two images of Gang Gang Dance performing at the Rhizome benefit last night. It was a great concert program: GGD followed Professor Murder and YACHT. I didn’t bring my own bulky Fotoapparat, and it was almost the end of the evening before I thought to ask Barry if I could use his micro-camera.
We went with Rachel Mason and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, a guarantee we would have even a bigger blast.
[more links for Rachel and Matthew]

Elisa Lendvay’s dramatically-lighted sculpture, and (parts of) part of the opening-reception crowd [installation view of “untitled (Chalice)” and “Lund (Demystify)”]

[detail of “untitled (Chalice)”]


Elisa Lendvay Field Sky Under 2007 steel, wood, acrylic, wire, chenile stem, papier-maché, acrylic paint 64″ x 48″ x 27.5″ [installation view, with “Overlook Mountain” visible on the wall]


Elisa Lendvay Patinkin 2007 found material, papier-maché, acrylic paint 26″ x 6″ x 6″ [installation view, with small, unidentified work at the base of the plinth]

Elisa Lendvay Odilon 2007 wood, hydrocal, steel, rug, acryic paint 64″ x 12″ x 12″ [large detail of installation, with “Ghost Stick” visible in the corner to the rear]

Elisa Lendvay opened “Fabled Agents“, a show dominated by her sculpture, in the second space at Moti Hasson on the same night Dan Rushton’s painting show, “Lonelier Than God”, opened in the room on the street front. Both exhibitions were the artists’ first solo shows in the gallery.
The two installations oddly complemented each other, even aside from the fact that they shared both a physical and conceptual removal from what is usually called an objective reality, and each approached that role in its own distinctive way. There was also a stimulating contrast in the medium each artist chose to exhibit here, but the pieces absolutely did share completely (and generally to their profit) in some very theatrical gallery lighting.
I love these odd pieces for their sensuality as much as for their cunning. They seem very much alive, and they’ve been sitting inside my head since I saw them at the opening two weeks ago. The show also includes several very beautiful small works on paper, and I’m told she works as a painter as well. Maybe we can see them next time.

Ludwig Schwarz [large detail of “The Four Seasons (Season Premier)” installation of four works, each untitled 2006 oil and enamel on canvas 72″ x 72″]


Marjorie Schwarz Untitled 2006 gouache on linoleum 12″ x 12″ [installation view]

Marjorie Schwarz Untitled 2006 gouache on digital print 8″ x 10″ [installation view]

I think this is a gallery to watch.
What am I saying?
Maybe I mean this is a gallery I’m gonna watch.
So maybe you don’t have to.
Maybe I’ll get back to you on this.
Meanwhile, demonstrating that no one should depend on this site for sufficient notice even of stuff I really like, I’m only now uploading a few images from a double show which closed three days ago at Clayton Sean Horton’s SUNDAY gallery.
The paintings in the main space were by Ludwig Schwarz. Marjorie Schwarz showed drawings and collages in the project room.
SUNDAY is a neat and very welcome little space in the Lower East Side on Eldridge Street and I was excited about it even before learning that Jacques Louis Vidal has been asked to fill the main room in a show opening June 21. Vidal was in the show Barry and I curated last fall at Dam, Stuhltrager.

drawing by Brian Degraw, artist and Gang Gang Dance member, for an album by TK Webb

Remember these guys? I did I post almost two years ago about a show of internet-based art, hosted by Rhizome, installed in the New Museum’s temporary quarters on 22nd Street. Rhizome is a young community of new media artists, curators, critics and enthusiasts, and they’re hosting a very interesting and almost totally affordable benefit next monday night.
This very special occasion, for which non-members will be asked to put up $35, is actually a concert featuring what the invitation describes as three genre-bending bands: Gang Gang Dance, Professor Murder and YACHT. Here’s more:

Each band integrates a wide range of musical influences and instrumentation to create innovative sounds and style. This line-up of new music will celebrate Rhizome’s commitment to emerging forms of art, across sound, video and digital technologies. The evening will be introduced and mc-ed by computer artist Cory Arcangel [Cory Arcangel, folks!], and will also include a silent auction with work by artists, such as Kristin Lucas and Alex Galloway, who work with the Internet.

Full disclosure: Barry and I are on the Honorary Committee, but that just shows we’re even more enthusiastic about this thing than we can possibly let on.
You may head here for all the details on the concert.

[image from thesimplemission]

Since I’ve already been writing about Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s art for over two years, it’s very difficult to believe these images of his work are taken from his Cooper Union BFA show for a degree just completed only this spring. I can’t imagine what he’s going to be able to do by the time he reaches 30.
The first picture captures one of the last moments of his sweetly weird performance piece, “Free Movement In The Shadow Of The Staircase: Bodiless Rainbowdance”, mounted in the school’s Great Hall on April 5. The others are of some of the many works, drawings, collages, photographs and sculptures, installed in the galleries of the Lublin Center last week. These particular images are of two medium-sized collages and four small sculptures on a shelf. None of them were identified, nor did they really have to be.

Ryan Sarah Murphy Untitled (Plots) 2000 wood, 10,000+ clothespins, paint, gesso, glue, each component 34″ x 21″ x 6″

Ryan Sarah Murphy‘s installation was lying in the sun of the east window, just to the right of the door, when I walked into Outrageous Look last Sunday. I checked out the beautiful Gavin Green show in the gallery’s main spaces, and went back to the window. I was captivated.
It’s now inside my head, as if I were still looking at it. I can’t really adequately account for this. It’s a simple pair of found wooden frames enclosing thousands of upright wooden clothespins, everything whitewashed. I see more than one metaphor working here, but in the interest of your own visit I’ll keep them to myself.