Category: Culture

I had already planned to do a very quick roundup of worthy shows closing very soon when I saw Art Fag City’s holiday post, “What To See Before Christmas“. Now I was further inspired to go ahead, but not wanting to copy her style (and also because I don’t do xmas or any other conventional December holiday), and finally, noticing that tomorrow is my birthday, I’ve decided to go with the self-referential title at the top.
The Cinders show actually does close tomorrow, Saturday, but the rest will be visible for another one to four days.


Leidy Churchman Three Beards 2007 oil on wood 48″ x 48″

The layered expression within this Leidy Churchman painting gives only a hint of what to expect from “Ridykeulouse Hits Bottom” at Leo Koenig Projekte, a group exhibition “curated with an iron fist” by Ridykeulous, otherwise known as as Nicky E., aka Nicole Eisenman and UnkAL, aka A.L. Steiner.


large detail of Dan Levenson’s “Little Switzerland”

“Nothing Up My Sleeve” at Participant, an homage to Stewart Sherman, includes an installation by Dan Levenson, one of the artists in this truly amazing group show which focuses, in the words of its curator, the artist Jonathan Berger, on the creation of “alternate lived realities through the use of various forms of deception”.


Nicole Eisenman iPod guy 2009 oil on canvas 24″ x 21″

Nicole Eisenman’s solo exhibition of paintings at Leo Koenig’s main gallery is simply wonderful, awesomely humanistic, and one her most exciting outings.


an extraordinarily-detailed print by an artist identified only as Nuvish

Cinders is hosting Le Dernier Cri: vomir Des Yeux for just one more day, displaying a spectacular selection of prints, books and video from a remarkable operation run out of an old hospital in Marseilles by a pair of artists which for 16 years has been producing, in the words of the press release, “legendary volumes of painstakingly handmade, beautiful, vibrant and violent monograph prints, books, and videos featuring some of the most irreverent underground artists in the world”, all in small runs of about 150.
These remarkable prints are also remarkably affordable: $75 sounds like a gift, in more ways than one.


detail of one of Jacques Louis Vidal’s collages at Jancou

At Marc Jancou’s gallery in Great Jones Alley Jacques Louis Vidal’s powerful sculptures and delightfully-abstruse installations are framed on the main floor by a number of large-scale magazine-page-cutout collages mounted along the walls.
The show, “You are What You Look At” is worth every bit of time that can be spared for it.


still from the installation of Tommy Hartung’s video, “The Ascent of Man”

On Stellar Rays is showing Tommy Hartung’s stunning video, “The Ascent of Man“, through this Wednesday. The title is adapted from the 1973 BBC documentary of the same name, and like the original, but with found footage and stop-action photography using his own remarkable models, it documents humanity�s ascent from ape to man.
It’s an impressive followup to the exquisite work he’s shown before, and I wouldn’t want to let this artist out of my sight going forward.

[image at the top from the artist’s website]

Wayne Thiebaud Display Cakes 1963 oil on canvas 28″ x 38″

We’re telling the bakers’ families that cake just isn’t enough.

Yes, yes, the rich and powerful have always been with us, and they have always pretty much controlled what art gets seen, even if they may no longer control everything that gets made. But the playing field was almost wholly altered by the explosion over recent decades in the monetary value of the work they compete for at the top end of what they have made into just another “market”, and most remarkably in the run up of contemporary art prices.
When Barry and I first met with William Powhida to discuss the New Museum’s plan to turn over its spaces to the Joannou collection he agreed that we all knew that this is pretty much how large art institutions operate, but added, “I just don’t like them rubbing my face in it”.
That was several weeks ago. Now it’s become clear that Powhida wasn’t the only one.
In the last decade the speed and breadth of communications provided by the internet has altered the art world even more profoundly than big money, and in ways we’re only beginning to understand. Among them is the demand for transparency and accessibilty.
I’ve started to think that maybe earlier protests and movements for institutional reform in the arts, including but not limited to the one identified with Marcia Tucker and the founding of the New Museum itself, were only skirmishes; this time it might be the real thing. Watching what has been happening on line and elsewhere over the last week or so, I’m more and more convinced that we’ve started something really big, a narrowly-focused critique which has finally taken on a life of its own and gone beyond the current practice of the New Museum. I think it’s particularly exciting to find that there’s such a range of responses to the legitimate questions which are being raised. It makes me think a little of the conversations which preceded and continued within the French regional and national assemblies which eventually made a Revolution in 1789. Well, maybe now I’m stretching.
As a history nut I may be partial to discussions which invoke the past, but I think a commenter whose remarks appeared on Jerry Saltz’s New York Magazine November 16 Vulture post yesterday morning (Wednesday) may have the right metaphor:

The issue here is deeper than this one particular event at the New Museum. There has been some kind of paradigm shift that is not being acknowledged at the top levels of the arts, and they keep partying like it’s 2006. It’s not.
That’s all. It’s the Marie Antoinette issue, let them eat cake…
Something feels illegitimate about the time, as if this current era is holding on too tightly to a time that is already gone. I sense that people are simply saying “move on”. The public, contrary to Jerry’s perception, is not just made up of a bunch of pauper moralists with nothing to say. Sometimes, there is a zest of zeitgeist in the air.
by hellorinis

The rich will always be with us, but maybe, just maybe, we can show them that art is not just another commodity. The aristos can keep their heads this time.

[image from SF MoMA]

Honoré Daumier Le Membre de toutes les Académies [Member of All the Academies] 1842 lithograph 9.5″ x 7.75″ (sheet)

We’re “Art Moralists”, according to the headline above Jerry Saltz‘s second New York magazine “Intelligencer” piece. That headline reflects the attitude of some in the art world who have commented on the objections being raised to the New Museum’s intention to fill its galleries with a show of a part of Dakis Joannou’s collection curated by Jeff Koons, but others are wondering what the critics of that plan have against the museum, the collector, the curator, or perhaps even the art itself.
While it’s refreshing to see an American use a form of the word “morals” and not be complaining about unorthodox sexuality, it’s hugely disappointing to see an art critic whom I’ve long respected, and continue to respect, almost casually dismiss the genuine issues of institutional ethics (which have been raised since September 25th) without bothering to understand them or refute them with a judicious argument.
Saltz isn’t the only commentator who has failed to recognize the merits of the arguments of the people whom he describes as having “harped” on the ethics of the NuMu/Joannou deal, but at least he doesn’t question their integrity. I’ve seen a number of writers do just that, having failed to see the problem. They’re questioning the motives of what one source refers to as the “morality police”, asking what kind of grudge the critics of the arrangement might have against the principals involved.
I have complete confidence in the integrity of my original argument, and it’s pretty much the same argument outlined by William Powhida, picked up elsewhere, and still being pursued today all over the art world. While I cannot look into the souls of other writers and commenters I have no reason to believe their arguments are based on grudges any more than my own: I have always been enthusiastic about the concept and, usually, the reality, of the New Museum; I have to confess to having an almost total ignorance of the details of the current NuMu administration until this issue appeared; I’ve found Massimilliano Gioni’s curatorial input interesting and worthy of attention; and I’ve never made fun of Jeff Koons’s work or doubted its virtues or those of the artist.
The merits of the argument are genuine. I don’t doubt that they can be intelligently disputed, but only if they are understood and if hysterics can be avoided on all sides. Regardless of where the reader stands on the issue now, a calmly-reasoned Bloggy post, published November 12, is a useful reference. It succeeds in moving the entire discussion into a much larger framework. It’s well worth sharing with anyone interested in the arts in America, so I’ve re-blogged it below. [full disclosure: Bloggy is the personal site of my partner, Barry]

Bloggy:

Museums, the art market, and public subsidies
A set of scattered thoughts on the New Museum’s plans to show works from Dakis Joannou’s collection selected by Jeff Koons.

• Many people have argued online via blog posts or comments that the collection is so interesting that it doesn’t matter what the ethics are in presenting it at the museum where Mr. Jouannou is a trustee.
• I for one don’t want to see some of the limited resources and spaces available to show art in this city devoted to a huge exhibition mostly composed of previously-market-validated living artists that we have all heard of already.
• The New Museum and other museums receive public funding, to say nothing of the subsidies represented by the tax exemption of donations of art and money. The 990 for the New Museum for 2008 shows over $940,000 coming from government grants.
• Because public funding is still a relatively small percentage of their operating budgets, museums and other non-profit cultural spaces must raise money from wealthy patrons, foundations, and other sources (which are subsidized through tax deductions or the non-profit status of foundations).
• This is a country that has trouble convincing taxpayers that guaranteeing decent education and healthcare for all American children is something government should do. If that is considered a luxury in the USA, the use of tax-exempt art museums to show works (owned by wealthy collectors) by artists who have been successful in the commercial art market is a rather decadent use of public subsidies.
• If the market is how we decide what works of art are important, then the market should find a way to cover the costs of presenting these works to the public. The curatorial, educational or scholarly mission of museums is tossed aside, and thus the rationale for providing subsidies, other than the tourism draw of such institutions, disappears.
• Abandoning the assistance that non-profit institutions have provided to emerging artists, unknown artists, and artists whose work is not successful in the commercial art market will further undermine public support for any kind of funding for culture, which is already pretty shaky.

[image from Lacma Collections]
abcgallery/olga’s gallery]

In the second of the New Museum’s public forum series of monthly seminars, “Propositions”, Nikhil Chopra presented a three-part lecture/performance over the weekend, delivering “Yog Raj Chitrakar and the Traveling Troupe“, in sections described as, hypothesis, research, and synthesis.
The image was taken near the beginning of the artist’s program on Friday evening, when he offered his hypothesis. Chopra, costumed and performing as a mime throughout the evening-length lecture/performance, is seen playing a flute to accompany the beginning of a video and slide show recording the start of the adventurous and magical story of a road trip to Kashmir, later described to the audience as “paradise on earth”.
Chopra regularly tore off a section of brown paper from the large roll seen at the bottom right. He would tape it to the wall, covering the sheet with maps and texts drawn in charcoal, then, returning to the roll, he repeated the process with another sheet – for another page in the story.
This is the text on the sheet seen above:

Yog Raj Chitrakar
(mapmaker and draughtsman)
would like to get the
fuck out of the city,
on the road, making
drawings, dressed like
a fruitcake, chronicles
of the landscape as it
changes.
do you want to
come along?
call A 646 346 0333

Earlier he had announced the odyssey with these lines:

destination Kashmir – disputed area [arrow pointing toward his map]
performances from Bombay to Kashmir
on the road six months
from village to village
town to town – chasing
ROMANCE

The ambient sound of the video, like the lecture itself, dispensed with any voice-over. It was composed of three or four basic elements: There was the thrum of the engine and smooth whine of the transmission of the truck-like vehicle in which they traveled, and the rhythms of the South Asian songs, both traditional and Bhangra, unwinding from the dashboard cassette player, but this counterpoint was punctuated by the sound of conversations in languages unfamiliar to most in the audience, whenever the party of vagabonds would pause or stop.
Throughout the performance Chopra returned again and again to a carousel slide projector and an old Victrola at the left of the platform stage, changing the still images and switching wonderful old 78 rpm records in harmony with the video and his text drawings.
The musical (and extra-musical) complexion of the evening was a striking change for an artist whose work is usually presented in almost total silence, at least in my experience over the last few weeks.
Barry and I were unable to go back Saturday afternoon, so this post is a completely inadequate account. The resolution of the proposition, the complete story of Chopra’s story, has to be left to another. If someone who was able to attend the “resolution” and wants to describe it, I’d be happy to publish the account either as a comment to this post, or, if I’m pointed to something elsewhere, to link to it in an addendum here.

detail of Nikil Chopra’s enormous charcoal mural drawn en plein air on Ellis Island last week

Barry and I returned to the New Museum on Sunday to witness the conclusion of Nikhil Chopra‘s performance. Bloggy has the story, and more pictures.
We’re both astounded that there hasn’t been more coverage of this extraordinary piece. The installation itself, including videos of earlier performances, remains in the lobby gallery through most of the winter.
We will be there again tonight at 7 for his lecture.






The last 45 minutes were probably the most moving moments in a performance perfectly matched to the situation of the museum’s Glass Gallery, not least because of the changing physical disposition of the people present at the time, inside and outside of the space.