Category: Culture

Adin de Masi Nostalgia Severed oil on canvas 60″ x 60″ x 2″


Adin de Masi Saint Angry mixed media on paper 52″ x 90″


Adin de Masi Blowing Boy mixed media on paper 60″ x 84″

I spotted these and other wonderful works by Adin de Masi on a casual visit to the artist-run virtual gallery Projekt30 a few days ago. Please forgive this New Yorker for observing that while Arizona can be a wonderful place (and I have the greatest respect for Art One Gallery for discovering and showing de Masi’s work), on the basis of these on-line images alone it shouldn’t be hard to find a gallery which could bring this remarkable young artist (born in 1980) to the attention of the world way beyond Scottsdale.
De Masi includes a charmingly ingenuous statement on the Projekt30 exhibit, but I think it only describes the occasion of his inspiration; everything else has been left to the drawings and paintings, meaning that for the viewer there won’t be any easy disengagement from these complex images. I prefer it that way:

I am very interested and bewildered by the daily drudgery/effortless ballet of relationships. Muttered insults, exasperating habits, whispered sweet-nothings, all-out debates and violent, delicious kisses become subject matter for these silly/ serious pieces.

[first two images from Projekt30, third image from Art One]

Jacob Ciocci [installation detail]


Jacob Ciocci [installation detail]


Kirsten Stoltmann [installation detail]


Kirsten Stoltmann [installation detail]

Some half dozen of the most interesting galleries in the city will be opening new spaces on West 27th Street tomorrow night (Thursday). For those who follow these things it should be the most exciting development in the history of Chelsea’s identification as an art destination.
All of the galleries will be immediate neighbors on the block between 11th and 12th Avenues, in the base of a massive 19th century warehouse which towers above a fine old street paved in stone. The last time a party crowd found its way inside these walls it was to visit the Tunnel, whose party ghosts may still haunt this magnificent brick and stone monument to maritime New York.
Our newest hosts include John Connelly Presents, Wallspace and ATM at Wallspace, Derek Eller, Foxy Production, Oliver Kamm/5BE and Clementine. All of them will open their doors early tomorrow evening (the classic 6 to 8 pm, of course).
I was fortunate to get a peek at two of the shows tonight, and I’ve uploaded a few undocumented images above. The first two are from Foxy Production, where Jacob Ciocci has installed his “Inspiration Superhighway” and the second two are from Kirsten Stoltmann’s show at Wallspace, “I Know What I’m Doing”.
For more, see Barry‘s notes and photos.

Gae Savannah Shasta 2006 fabric, metal, wood 69″ x 15″ x15″ [detail of installation]


Michael Schall Scenic Collection Facility 2005 graphite on paper 42″ x 60″

The gallery is on the edge of Williamsburg, in more than one sense. Since 1998, Dam, Stuhltrager has been operating generously and tirelessly, more or less as a non-profit, showing adventurous work in a tiny space just west of the BQE. In the best tradition of the Williamsburg gallery scene, the two principals, Leah Stuhltrager and Christobal Dam, have from the beginning simply shown work which they found they like, without commercial calculation or compromise.
Lately they’ve been attracting the attention of critics and curators both near and far, and a few months ago they were sufficiently encouraged and emboldened to just about triple the size of their exhibition space. This Marcy Avenue corner now offers even greater temptations to adventurous gallery fans, especially [and here comes a blatant plug] now that our ArtCal listings include a convenient [Google] map to direct art pilgrims still unfamiliar with the cooler precincts which lie east of Driggs Street.
The two shows which opened last Saturday display outrageous, luscious sculptures by Gae Savannah and serious, provocative drawings by Michael Schall. For almost ten years I have been more than a little flabbergasted each time I have encountered Savannah’s wonderful and extraordinary assemblages, and while I had never seen Schall’s disturbing drawings before, I expect I’m going to see much more in the future.
David Gibson curated Savannah’s installation.
We were there the night of the opening. Although the excited, and exciting, crush of friends and the curious made it impossible to grab an image of an entire work in either room that night, I’d already found that these eccentric sculptures just can’t be properly represented except in person, and it would take more than a quick hand-held shot to do justice to Schall’s meticulously-pencilled worlds.
So, as far as this site is concerned we’ll all have to be content with the teasers I’m showing above. The real show is in Brooklyn.

Gerhard Richter 891-1 Waldhaus 2004 oil on linen [detail, including portion of gallery wall]


Gerhard Richter 892-10 Abstraktes Bild 2005 [detail]


Gerhard Richter 892-12 Abstraktes Bild 2005 [detail]


Gerhard Richter 887-2 Abstraktes Bild (Haut) oil on linen [detail]

Of course he’s virtually an old master and he’s beyond “emerging” or “underknown”, but just as I absolutely had to make the pilgrimage itself this week, I couldn’t resist putting up these very imperfect detail images from the current Gerhard Richter show at Marion Goodman in midtown.
There is nothing else I can add except to recommend this magnificent installation to anyone who can make it to 57th Street before the 14th of this month. You won’t be disappointed.

J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Dr. 2005 video [large detail still from installation monitor]


J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Untitled 2005 mixed media collage 23″ x 20″ [installation view]


J�hannes Atli Hinriksson Piet� mixed media 6.25″ x 4″ x 4″ [installation view]

It was a show at HaswellEdiger, so as usual I knew I had to pay attention. The opening reception two nights ago was so crowded however, that there was little chance then of digesting the work being shown.
I’ll be back, and not just to sit in front of two videos which were advertising their charms very effectively. As I stood about talking to friends I was becoming more and more engaged with the videos, sculptures and paintings of the Icelandic artist J�hannes Atli Hinriksson. I found it difficult to leave any of the bizarre images scattered about the room: Even without any other information to help they were quickly becoming both more and less inscrutable.
A tease from the gallery press release:

The work of J�hannes Atli Hinriksson, although Western in its visual assault approach to aesthetics, is still somehow rooted in the sense of drama, irony and animism found in the legends of his native Iceland. His start-stop animation videos, complete with stripped down audio tracks of howling Nordic winds, put claymation metal-heads slackers and other hybrid fuck-ups through a series of neo-Norse, mini sagas that ultimately challenge the viewer to pinpoint where destruction ends and creation begins.

Nayland Blake The Big One 2003 white nylon 192″ x 180″ x 6″ [large detail of installation]

This is almost certainly going to be the last post to include an image from the December Miami shows.
I found this wonderful outsize work by Nayland Blake so irresistable – on many levels – that I had to share it. “The Big One” dominated the booth of London’s Fred at PULSE.
Were the edition large enough, and if I had an extra, aircraft hanger-size bedroom and a trust fund I’d get me two of these humungous sleeping bags. One would be kept for contemporaries and posterity, museum-virginal, displayed or loaned, and the other would always be available at home when, . . . needed.
Sure it’s scary [see next paragraph], but it’s also damn delightful.
For anyone new to Blake, here is an excerpt from Sarah Valdez’s review in Art in America of Blake’s show at Matthew Marks last fall:

Bunnies and extreme physical ordeals–the two main ingredients of Nayland Blake’s work–turned up again in his latest show, “Reel Around.” The recent offerings also found the artist treading, typically, between the sinister and the hilarious, between the transcendent and the banal. A huge, fluffy, white rabbit suit some 16 feet in length, The Big One (2003) was sprawled out like an enormous animal-skin rug on the floor of the main gallery, doing a good job of controlling the cavernous space. The oversize costume also brought to mind other times the bunny has shown up throughout Blake’s oeuvre. Though probably inscrutable to the uninitiated, Blake’s lop-eared albino mascot references a range of cultural signifiers related to the artist’s identity as a biracial gay man, including Brer Rabbit, Playboy, drugs and the real-life rabbit’s proclivity for fucking. To those not in the loop, however, the piece may have appeared a good, soft spot to take a nap.

I suspect it’s down-filled.

Jack Pierson Psycho Killer 2000 plastic [sic] 10″ x 40″ x 36″ [view of work as installed lying on floor, with ambient lights eliminated]


Jack Pierson Black Jackie 1991 acrylic paint, plywood, silver and black rain curtain, cigarette and ash, christmas lights, color gel (dimensions variable) [large detail of installation, with ambient lights eliminated]


Jack Pierson Breakfast, Hope  Dinner, Fear 1982 plastic panels and lettering 20″ x 15.75″ each [installation view]

While we were still in the midst of this wonderful installation Barry had said that the Jack Pierson show at Daniel Reich felt like a small museum retrospective. I totally agree, but I would add that it’s a interestingly selective survey, since there are almost no photographs. in “Jack Pierson: Early Works and Beyond – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.
Hmmm. Would I be reading too much into the curious omission of examples from a medium through which most people came to know Pierson’s art if I were to dwell very long on it? I mean, is photography supposed to be over?
I certainly hope not, and not just because it’s the only form I’ve ever worked in myself. For at least thirty years I haven’t been able to think of photography as distinct from the aggregate of the other visual arts, and so I’ve always thought it strange to see “photography” indicated as a separate category in so many gallery listings. Also, ever since I began regularly visiting galleries I’ve been uncomfortable with the fact that some only show photography, while others show everything but photography. While it survives in some quarters, the distinction has gradually dissolved over the years as even smaller and less nimble imaginations within the wider world of monied art [shopkeepers and hoarders] have had to come to terms with the fact the artists themselves have increasingly refused to have their work pigeonholed.
Pierson of course should not be described as a “photographer”, and he never could be. Actually, in 1992, when I first saw his work it was in Tom Cuglioni’s SOHO gallery and there wasn’t a photograph in sight. Instead I saw just a breathtaking, but incredibly casual installation of a lot of hand-written notes (mostly to self) on white paper.* They expressed, individually or collectively, what appeared to be the lovesick (sexsick?) longings of an artist who seemed to know some of my own private obsessions very well.
He still does.
Anyway, it’s a great show and you still have until the end of this month to see it.

*
I couldn’t find texts or images from the 1992 show, but see Alison Jacques Gallery for examples of relatively recent word drawings by perhaps a more grownup [and more cynical?] Pierson

Valerie Hegarty Among the Sierras with Woodpecker 2005 [pretty large detail of both installation and admiring naturalist]

Guild & Greyshkul showed this wonderful paper creation by Valerie Hegarty in their booth at NADA Miami early this month.
Note that Hegarty seems to have installed an ivory-billed woodpecker as the villain of the [Bierstadt] piece. This magnificent bird was recently sighted in Arkansas after having been declared extinct in 1920.

Big, wonderful surprise when I rounded a partition and found these two beautiful new images by Scott Treleaven inside John Connelly‘s booth at NADA! Treleaven will have a show in the gallery’s new space on 27th Street in February.