Right now I’d say that summer art is art that somehow can survive the distraction of high levels of heat and humidity. In my case that’s a pretty tall order, so I’m impressed that even in my weather-compromised state I managed to register a number of worthies in a relatively-abreviated swing through Williamburg Sunday afternoon.
A peek at a sample of the shows:
Kim Schifino [installation view of a grouping of “Manny”, “George”, “Willy” and “Sam”, silk-screened wood cut outs] This work, installed as shadowboxes, is part of a single-artist show at Cinders Gallery.
Phil Lubliner [installation view of a grouping of three works: “Hot Dogs, Corned Beef, Highland Park” craft paper and acrylic 84″ x 28.5″; “Hot Dog (chicago Style)” clay, acrylic, pen and plywood 12″ x 8″ x 4″; and “Corned Beef (Jewish Delicatessen)” clay, acrylic, pen, plywood and plants 12″ x 8″ x 3.5″] This installation is part of a group show at McCraig-Welles
Max Schumann untitled (Fuck Me Hard and Slow Big Daddy McMac) 2005 acrylic on cardboard 34″ x 68″ [installation view] This piece is part of a group show at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery.
Rob Carter Four Extracts from Stills 2004-2005 DVD color/sound [still from video installation] The video is shown on a player mounted on a wall next to three of the artist’s photo-based works, and is part of several group shows at Dam, Stuhltrager.
Brooke Williams A Wall of Hands 2006 172″ x 72″ [large detail of installation] This is a work mounted in the rear gallery at Outrageous Look, which is also showing art by Tom Burke and Sachar Mathias.
These two thumbnails of images by Tom Burke are from his Outrageous Look show of fifteen photographs taken with a simple plastic camera:
Category: Culture
. . . and so on at Andrew Kreps
Steve Keister Vessel with Effigy Lid 2006 ceramic with glaze and acrylic 12″ x 9″ x 9″ [installation view]
Josephine Meckseper Untitled (Dead or ALive) 2005 metal, mirror, wire, cardboard, jewelry and fur 35″ x 16″ x 13″ [installation view, with works by Colin Thomson, Dike Blair and Curtis Mitchell, together with their arrow links, shown in the reflection]
Sheila Pepe Dagny Taggart’s Tulle 2006 glass, tulle, painted cloth and hardware 33″ x 11″ x 6″ [installation view, with works by Julia Featheringill and Doug Wada in the background]
It’s all pretty chummy and the links or connections are sometimes a big surprise. While I’m not sure how big a thing we can make of the presence of the artists or the works which ended up in the Andrew Kreps gallery last month, I think it’s always a good thing to listen to artists talking about other artists – even if they’re only pointing – and most of these pieces are really stunning. The show continues through this Saturday.
From the press release:
Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Two Friends and So On, a curatorial project by Jonathan Horowitz and Rob Pruitt. The organization of this show is dictated by an unpredictable movement of invitations through a social network of artists.
The first Two Friends and So On took place in 2000 at Andrew Kreps Gallery’s 516 West 20th Street location. For the sixth anniversary of this chain link group show, Jonathan Horowitz and Rob Pruitt invited Jennifer Bornstein to be the first link in a chain of 30, then Jenny asked Chivas Clem, Chivas asked Meg Webster to be the third, then Meg asked Curtis Mitchell who asked Sheila Pepe who asked Dike Blair who asked Steve Keister who asked Jill Levine who asked Lindsay Walt who asked Colin Thomson who asked Andy Spence who asked Susan Wanklyn who asked Jessica Weiss who asked John Newman who asked Hermine Ford who asked Joanne Greenbaum who asked Robert Goldman who asked Michael Smith who asked Joe Zane who asked Julia Featheringill who asked Carl Ostendarp who asked Doug Wada who asked Josephine Meckseper who asked Ania Siwanowicz who asked Alisa Baremboym who asked Liz Wendelbo who asked Tamar Halpern who asked Eileen Quinlan who asked Pascale Consigny who asked HervÈ Ingrand.
Heather Rowe at D’Amelio Terras
Heather Rowe Gates Mirror 2006 old window, one-way glass, wood and wallpaper 25″ x 42″ x 8.5″ [installation view]
Heather Rowe Green Desert 2006 flound floorboards, glass, mirrors, sheet rock, found frames, and shag carpet 67″ x 248″ x 88″ [large detail of installation]
[Green Desert detail]
Finally a blog about a show that can still be seen. In fact D’Amelio Terras‘s only opened their new space two weeks ago, and Heather Rowe‘s new sculptures occupy merely a part of it. In the larger room to the rear the gallery has installed an exhibition of emerging artists working with the readymade. It’s called “Fountains”, a reference to Duchamp’s singularly-eponymous 1917 found urinal.
The artists represented are Sanford Biggers, Carol Bove, Anne Collier, Jonah Freeman, Daniel Lefcourt, Michael Phelan, Noah Sheldon, Gibb Slife and Michael Vahrenwald.
Soutine and and at Cheim & Read
Joel Shapiro Untitled 2006 wood, casein and wire 66.5″ x 23″ x 23″ [large detail of installation]
Perhaps not surpringly, it’s not all painting.
Cheim & Read’s brilliantly curated and brilliantly mounted friends of Soutine show, “The New Landscape/The New Still Life: Soutine and Modern Art” includes sculpture as well as painting. You may have already heard the superlatives of all the critics, so I’ll only say here that I thought this show worthy of every one of them.
Gandy Brodie Meditation on a Kosher Tag 1963 oil on canvas 71.25″ x 60″ [installation view]
Susan Rothenberg Untitled 2005 graphite and oil on paper 77.5″ x 58.75″ [installation view
Philip Guston Lamp 1979 oil on canvas 32″ x 36″ [installation view]
Louise Fishman Green’s Apogee 2005 oil on canvas 88″ x 70″ [installation view]
money for art at Schroeder Romero
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Ken Solomon Steakhouse Waiters – Made With Tip Money 2006 cut paper 15″ x 20″ [installation view]
Ray Beldner 36 Squares of Cash (after Carl Andre’s 36 Pieces of Zinc, 1967) 2002 sewn U.S. currency, cork and wood squares 72″ x 72″ [large detail of installation]
Schroeder Romero just struck their very cool and very green summer show, “Money Changes Everything”, featuring works on and of paper – of [mostly U.S.] legal tender – by Michael Asente, Ray Beldner, Barton Lidice Benes, Robin Clark, Peggy Diggs, Jed Ela, Stuart Elster, Kim MacConnel, Elizabeth Sisco, David Avalos and Louis Hock, Ken Solomon, Oriane Stender, Mark Wagner and C.K. Wilde.
“butch queen realness with a twist” at John Connelly
New York City Breakers, excerpt from TV show “Graffiti Rock” 1984 video [large detail of still from installation]
Lillian Schwartz Papillons 1973 music by Max Mathews, video [large detail of still from installation]
Anonymous Vogue Balls: Battle Ball Finals (realness with tits performance II) 2004 DVD [large detail of still from installation, itself an excerpt]
Paper Rad Furs Gone Wild 2003 DVD [large detail of still from installation]
I guess we made it just in time. But we didn’t, really. It’s gone as of yesterday, and we only saw a few minutes of the screening. “Butch Queen Realness with a Twist in Pastel Colors”, is described as an ongoing video program curated by Assume Vivid Astro Focus and it was being shown for one short month in the John Connelly Presents gallery annex.
This wonderful program should be installed permanently in theatres accessible to people everywhere in the world. Yes, I think the program would have to change over time, although perhaps it should only be lengthened, even though I understand it’s already four hours long.
Together the four works whose stills are shown above are on the screen less than eleven minutes. I wish we could go back and camp out for a while; After these last few weeks, I’m definitely ready to shut down the outside world.
Derek Eller in summer mode
Peter Caine The Patriot 2006 mixed media animatronic sculpture 100″ x 128″ x 124″ [large detail view of installation]
Fritz Welch Props to Rez Fink 2006 wood, paper, cardboard, plaster weld, hoodie tape, graphite, etc. dimensions variable [large detail view of installation]
During most of the summer Derek Eller will be showing a group which leaves plenty of space between the aesthetics of each piece. These sexy pieces cover virtually every medium, and they seem to have little in common but their lack of commonality, and that’s enough for me.
This fine “Summer Group Exhibition” includes D-L Alvarez, Peter Caine, David Dupuis, André Ethier, Andrew Guenther, Chris Hammerlein, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Keith Mayerson, Dominic McGill, Michelle Segre, Alyson Shotz, Fritz Welch and Randy Wray.
There are more images on the gallery site, including a detail of the almost-enigmatic “Patriot”, but as there’s no statement, we’re mostly on our own. [I often like to look at what Barry and I call the “instructions”, especially when I’m totally baffled, but most of the time I can take my art straight up, as nature intended.]
“Flight Plan” at Morgan Lehman
Jenny Laden Airborne 2006 oil on panel 14″ x 22″ [view of installation]
On what was thus far one of the hottest days of the summer, any show with the tag “Flight Plan” would be welcome. The work installed at Morgan Lehman this month doesn’t disappoint the visitor looking for distraction and relief, even if the only real soaring experienced is that of the spirit.
The artists included are Brook Caballero, Dana Carlson, Orly Cogan, Sean Cavanaugh, Kirsten Deirup, Franklin Evans, Philip Knoll, Jenny Laden, Dona Lief, Jeffrey Milstein, Amy Ross, and Paul Villinski.
My capture of Laden‘s painting was pretty successful, but I obviously couldn’t include images of all the pieces here, even those that pleased me the most. Under the circumstances then I suppose it’s a little perverse of me to upload a peek at two works on paper which are not in this show but which were created by an artist who has two other drawings that are.
My image of one of the framed drawings, Franklin Evans‘s “FFnineplayers”, didn’t make the cut mostly because of my technical error with the camera. Like much of the art in this show however his delicate, condensed, heavily-worked and textured paper works must be seen in person to be appreciated. Before we left Barry and I were invited to look at two of his drawings just before they were wrapped for transport to the gallery’s Lakeville, Connecticut location where a small group show opens August 12.
This is what I saw on the table in the back of the gallery on 10th Avenue on Wednesday:
[a large detail of each of two works on paper by Franklin Evans]
ADDENDUM: Evans is curating a show at Moti Hasson, “Twist it Twice”, which opens tomorrow.
Carol “Riot” Kane at 31 Grand
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Carol “Riot” Kane Inner Sanctum [view of installation]
31 Grand has this wonderful piece by Carol “Riot” Kane in their self-described “summer [group] show”, titled “other worlds”. While I can’t say the installation isn’t summery [I don’t know anymore what a summer show is – if I ever did], I wouldn’t describe the work as particularly light. And no, that’s not a criticism.
The other artists heating up the space on Grand Street this month are Fanny Bostrom, Magalie Guérin, Mara Herdmann, Francesca Lo Russo, Christa Parravani, and Anthony Pontius
More of Kane here.
faced postbox
I saw this rusty postbox sitting on a canted sidewalk at the edge of a West 22 Street mid-block construction site a few days ago. Someone who had been by before was kind enough to try to make it more visible to the rest of us.