Category: Culture

Joshua Johnson Target Practice 2006 enamel on panel 16″ x 24″ [installation view]


Joshua Johnson Fences Work With Thieves 2006 acrylic on panel 14″ x 18″ [installation view]

[detail]

Joshua Johnson is showing eight wonderful new paintings at Williamsburg’s Riviera in a show which ends this Saturday (according to the card, but on their site the closing reads as Sunday). I almost hesitate to show any images here, because they barely begin to reveal the beauty and excitement of the work I saw in the storefront room on Metropolitan Avenue, and they suggest virtually nothing of their surface dynamic.
My shot of the monumental diptych looks particulary inadequate to me. I’m adding it below as a thumbnail image only to give an idea of Johnson’s reach, and to drop just a clue to the impressiveness of his success.
Johnson was born and raised in Michigan. Today he lives in New York. He maintains an excellent blog in, well . . . , fortunately just about everywhere.


Joshua Johnson Four Horses (diptych) 2006 oil, polyurethane, enamel and permanent marker on hollow-core door 80″ x 36″ each [installation view]

I can’t leave this post without sharing a stylized impression of the bright young crowd at the opening December 1.


clean white space

[installation view, showing a large piece by Joshua Smith in the center front and, from the left, works by Holt Quentel, Ofer Wolberger, Jamal Cyrus, Michael St. John, Alice Wheeler, and ALex McQuilkin]

It’s a top pick on ArtCal, and for a very good reason. It’s hot, and very cool. Kathleen Cullen is showing a provocative group show curated by Michael St. John this month.
Can we still use the word “provocative” in the 21st century when describing art? I think we can, and my argument would rest on the fact that somewhere in this country a people either frightened or complacent apparently chose twice in the last six years to install a government whose hideous record continues to mount for all the world to see. This is a people which can and must be provoked, but unfortunately they are not likely to visit a gallery on West 26th Street.
From the press release:

When the Revolution Comes is a heteroglossic meditation on the highly diffuse intertextuality of the moment, presenting works created on the stubborn premise that they are out of step, not versus hot, fashionably unfashionable, against all odds, and, of course, ‘staying the course’, though only in the immediacy of each artist’s own creative evolution. Sincerely, the revolution will never come, and ironically, people still die waiting for its arrival.

The title of the show is “When The Revolution Comes”, and its a doozy. The artists included are Nate Lowman, Holt Quentel, Ofer Wolberger, Nancy Grossman, Josh Smith, Alex McQuilkan, Joshua Weintraub, AJ Bocchino, Ellwyn Palmerton, Jon Boles, Michael St. John, and Jamal Cyrus.

Kevin Christy Untitled 2006 gouache,ink, graphite and collage on paper 22″ x 11″ [installation view]

Monya Rowe is showing new mixed media collaged drawings by Kevin Christy in a show whose serious political imagery would seem to belie its sheer beauty, except that I for one refuse to recognize there is such a dichotomy. Christy reminds us what an artist can do.

Chris Martin Untitled 2006 acrylic gel, oil, newsprint, and banana peel on canvas 48.25″ x 38″ [installation view]


Chris Martin Seven Pointed Star 2006 oil and mixed media on masonite 20″ x 16″ [installation view]


Chris Martin In Memory of Al Held 2005 acrylic, acrylic gel, oil, and newsprint on canvas 43.25″ x 30.25″ [installation view]


Chris Martin [installation view of unidentified small painting in gallery office]

I’m unapologetically crazy about Chris Martin’s paintings, so although the “Abstract” show currently installed at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, includes four other worthy painters, I’m not surprising myself when I take the liberty of only including images of Martin’s work here (the only missing piece is on the ArtCal listing). I suspect no artists have been harmed, especially since the gallery’s site has pictures of each of the pieces included in this very pleasing group show of very new paintings by Phillip Allen, Alison Fox, Alex Kwartler, Martin, and Rebecca Morris.
Even if you don’t share the focus of my enthusiasm you may at least agree with one of my thoughts on the show as a whole that there’s a lot of Johns and Rauschenberg on each of these gorgeous canvases and boards. Of course I mean that in a good way.

Klara Liden Bodies of Society 2006 DVD 4:50 mins [still from installation]


Josef Strau [installation view, three sculptures]
Reading Lamp 2006 mixed media lamp 49″ x 9″ x 9″
The Dependent Lamp 2006 mixed media lamp 58.5″ x 46″ x 20″
J Lamp 2006 mixed media lamp 53″ x 23″ x 13″

Something new. And something old, or at least not straight off the rack. One of New York’s most important non-profit spaces is inaugurating what the gallery describes as the “White Columns Annual”, in a show which runs until December 20. This first visit to a re-contexualization of art shown elsewhere in New York during the previous year (and deemed worthy of a second look) was organized by Director and Chief Curator, Matthew Higgs. Future annuals, we are told, will be the responsibility of independent artists, curators and writers [including bloggers?].
As this show is fairly cerebral a second visit might be in order even if the visitor had seen each of these pieces in their earlier presentations. The artists are: Fia Backström, Thomas Bayrle, Walead Beshty, Jeff Burton, Lucile Desamory, Graham Durward, Siobhan Liddell, Klara Liden, Ari Marcopoulos, David Moreno, Ree Morton, Matt Mullican, Stuart Sherman, Josef Strau. My immediate favorites were Klara Liden‘s erotic video and the literary lamps of Josef Strau, all illustrated above.

[I’ve neglected my blogging duties lately because of holidays, homeywork, guests, sinuses, and the distraction of preparing for a presentation at NYU (more on that in another post), so for a while I’m going to try to make up for lost time by doing only brief art posts with a minimum of text; at least I stayed home and didn’t head to Miami]

The Whitney at Altria program previewed its last full-size, two gallery installation last night, where I learned that future shows will not occupy the Sculpture Court (will the building change the name of the space?). Exhibitions will be limited to the confines of the smaller gallery starting next spring. The new show, with the catchy title, “Burgeoning Geometries: Constructed Abstractions”, includes work by Phoebe Washburn, Charles Goldman, Jason Rogenes, Jane South, Tara Donovan and Diana Cooper.
I was reluctant to show only one or two images here, although I do have my favorites even in a show as strong as this one. I’m only going to include images of large or small portions of one piece by each artist. Between the problems presented by the crowd, the complexity of the spaces, and the scale of the work (some of the art is enormous) I found it impossible to get full shots of most things. The details you’ll see here might do little more than even out an excellent playing field. Especially since for the most part three bold dimensions are involved in each of these pieces, for those who can make it, nothing will do but a physical visit to the site.


Phoebe Washburn Minor In-House Brain Storm 2006 mixed media, dimensions variable [interior detail of installation]

[exterior detail, seen from the sidewalk outside the installation]


Charles Goldman Scrapwood Sculpture (110Gx8) 2006 55-gallon steel oil drum, 100 gallons of scrap wood, 2-way Plexiglas mirror and mixed media 100″ x 60″ x 60″ [detail of installation]


Jason Rogenes Locus found polystyrene, electrical elements, fluorescent lights and cardboard 456″ x 48″ x 48″ [detail of installation]


Jane South Untitled (Tracing Parameters) 2006 hand-cut and folded paper, ink, acrylic graphite and balsa wood 108″ x 144″ x 20″ [detail of installation]


Tara Donovan Untitled (Pins) size #17 straight pins 40″ x 40″ x40″ [detail of installation]


Diana Cooper Emergency 2004-2006 paper, felt, vinyl, acrylic, ink, foamcore and map pins, dimensions variable [detail of installation]

[okay, not so brief after all; maybe the next time]

Trevor Paglen Janet Pass By/Cactus Flat, NV/Distance ~19 miles 2006 2-minute video loop [still from video installation]

Trevor Paglen The Workers/Las Vegas, NV/Distance ~1 mile 2006 8-minute video loop [still from video installation]

The still and video images each look like they were grabbed from some totally benign context, even when you’ve already begun to understand the artist’s intentions, but soon the identity of the reality represented by these documents begins to register with a thud. Although Trevor Paglen‘s powerful and disturbingly beautiful multi-media installation can be seen at Bellwether until December 23, it is decidely not a holiday excursion.
From the press release:

Over the last five years, Trevor Paglen has developing unique visual strategies to explore the “black world” of classified military and intelligence activities. To produce his photographs of secret military installations Paglen uses powerful telescopes and employs astronomical techniques to capture his subject from dozens of miles away – a proprietary technique he terms “Limit-Telephotography.” The sheer distances, heat, and atmospheric distortions captured in his work result in photographs that often take on the qualities of impressionistic paintings.
Paglen is the first and only person to have photographed several of the CIA’s “black sites” overseas – a collection of secret prisons whose existence (but not locations) the CIA has only recently acknowledged. These never-before-seen photographs will also be on display. Other works on view include a diverse collection of patches and symbols worn by people working on secret military programs – programs that do not officially “exist” – and forged signatures from the corporate documents of CIA front companies.
By confronting us with images of a world that cannot be seen with the naked eye, and that do not “officially” exist, Paglen asks the viewer to meditate on the limits of vision, abstraction and the nature of evidence as he performs a series of stunning interventions into the history of landscape photography.

The almost certainly deliberate antiseptic, virtually laboratorial environment of the installation only increases their horror. Trevor Paglen’s “Black World” at Bellwether gallery is actually our world. None of us needs his 7000mm lens to discover the reality of government terror conducted in our name around the world, but we can be grateful to Paglan, and Bellwether, for the art which will make its face impossible to forget.

Claudine Anrather Dreaming Electric Sheep 2006 oil on linen 72″ x 96′ [installation view, very large detail]


Claudine Anrather Flower 2006 18″ x 20″ [installation view]

31 Grand is showing some gorgeous paintings by Claudine Anrather through December 3 in an exhibition titled, “Beyond the Pale”. The artist’s medium-distance landscapes are painted in oil on both large and small canvases.
The colorful flora and fauna which adorn them are described by the gallery as the Austrian artist’s tribute to the beloved mountains of her heritage, although her wonderful yet somewhat optimistic, rose or parti-colored lens doesn’t quite obscure the tension and messiness which is a part of any real forest, and even more likely in a forest of the imagination. Here the mix is both intoxicating and a bit distrubing.

One very large canvas, not actually part of the show, was hung on the back wall of the office area. The work has not even been titled yet, but for reasons which include one magnificent dragonfly and the exceptional appearance of a solitary human face, I’ve decided to include it here.


Claudine Anrather [title unknown at this time] 2006 oil on linen 60″ x 90″ [detail of installation]

[very large detail of above]

Joshua Smith‘s Book Fair posters, seen on a wall near the entrance

It’s way more fun than a regular art fair, and you get to decide for yourself what to look at and how much looking you want to do. We previewed Printed Matter‘s The New York Art Book Fair last night (Thursday) and we can higly recommend the experience (available only through Sunday) to anyone interested in art and in the kind of people who write, edit, publish or just enthuse about art books. It’s a very mellow and happy crowd. There are events scheduled all day long. I promise you will be amused.
For more teasers, see Art Fag City.


J. Morrison‘s installation on the second, or what I called the big kid’s floor, where he and his friends silkscreen “manpurses” to order


Jan De Cock‘s installation on the first floor featured his sculpture, lab attendants, and viewing copies of “Denkmal“, the second volume of his 21st-century evocation of Diderot’s “Encyclopédie.”

inside the book


Barry Hoggard, A. L. Steiner, Nicole Eisenman and Victoria Robinson (woman in background unidentified), speaking of Ridykeulousness


paging through “Ninja”, Brian Chippendale’s new book, at Picture Box


a double-page spread inside Martin Parr’s 2006 book, “Mexico”, located at D.A.P.

Entrance to the Fair is free, and the logistics are:

LOCATION
548 West 22nd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues) New York City
HOURS remaining
Saturday 11am – 7pm
Sunday 11am – 5pm