James Wagner

It’s probably not technically a pop-up show. It’s also not merely another spawn (if here a silver lining) of our continuing Great Recession, like most of the new spaces hosting new art in New York and elsewhere. Then could we be watching the birth of a Greenpoint Biannual, a shelter for the emerging artists’ own periodic “cross section of contemporary art production”, to borrow a phrase from the Whitney itself?
Barry and I were in the former Catholic St. Cecilia Convent last Sunday for the second time in six months. Once again Father Jim, the pastor of the parish had generously and visionarily turned the space over to some young curators and artists. The Round Robin Collective‘s “ECSTATIC“, both an exhibition and a series of events and performances, assembled by a group of invited artists, ends its four-week run this Sunday. An excerpt from the statement which appears on the show’s website:

While some of the participating artists’ work deals directly with notions of ecstasy, the title of the show does not allude to an overt theme in the work presented; rather, it refers to the process of making and encountering art and the results produced from inspired relationships.

Yes!
Three floors of the formerly-empty rooms of the nearly century-old building are filled by underknown artists with interesting new work in virtually every medium. I had been eagerly anticipating a visit, because of the pleasures we had encountered last September in the show put together by a different group of artists, but almost as soon as we walked in I thought I had died and gone to heaven. There are certainly great pleasures to be found in visiting museums and galleries, but they are nothing like those associated with the immediacy and serendipity of sharing in the work of good artists in any medium when they decide to put on a show with only a minimum of structure or system provided from without.
While some of the work may not completely unfold while competing with the intrusiveness of the abandoned-convent environment (just about the opposite of the clean white box so associated with the exhibition of art in the late twentieth century), in many if not most cases the circumstances of the installations seem ideal, oddly better than what a gallery might provide.
The list of artists includes: Lisa Boumstein-Smalley, Mary Billyou, Amanda Browder & Stuart Keeler, Caroline Burghardt, Lisa Caccioppoli, Ofri Cnaani, Chris Cobb, David Coyle, Jeff DeGolier, Martin Esteves, Gisela Insuaste, Jamie Kim, Stephanie Liner, Deirdre McConnell, Katherin McInnis, Emcee C.M., Master of None, Huong Ngo, Christopher Rose, Stephanie Rothenberg, Dorothy Royle, Matthew Spiegelman, Janos Stone, Cassie Thorton + Action Club, Jenny Vogel & David McBride, and Audra Wolowiec.
For more on “ECSTATIC”, see Daniel Pearce’s piece on IDIOM.


Stephanie Rothenberg
Stephanie Rothenberg installed a fairly-convincing office environment in a room just inside the front door of the convent. This image is of only one of a handful of posters suggesting advertising for an imagined employment agency. From the “Ecstatic” site:

Stephanie Rothenberg’s interdisciplinary practice merges performance, installation and networked media to create provocative interactions that question the boundaries and social constructs of manufactured desires. Her recent work investigates new models of online labor and the virtualization of the global workplace, referencing post-colonial as well as DIY historical precedents.

Martin Esteves Come to Mock Stay to Rock and Audra Woloweic howl and sounds of silence
The advertised sole purpose of this five-foot-tall phallic standing sculpture, the work of Martin Esteves, was to fulfill the role occasionally assigned to its medium: Something you bump into while looking at the art on the walls. In this case, neither the sculpture, which rocks on a soft base, nor the bumpee’s soft rump would likely be harmed.
The filed-down vinyl records mounted on the wall are the work of Audra Woloweic, whose work addresses sounds, forms of communication and, according to the statement on her own site, “ephemeral moments of the everyday”.


Jeff DeGolier Stride 2009 hair, woodglue, duracell batteries, hair, spraypaint, housepaint, electric motor, wire, glue bottle, etc. on found canvas
Jeff DeGolier‘s gently-animated piece appeared to be both an integral part of the disintegrating interior of the old building and its (please excuse the expression in this context) its transfiguration.


David B. Smith and Brina Thurston
David B. Smith collaborated with Brina Thurston to de-install her large site specific outdoor sculpture from a show ending at Socrates Sculpture Park, cut it into pieces small enough to fit into his car, and re-install it in a small residential room in the convent. The original sculpture, entitled Master-Station, is a life-size replica of a NYC subway entrance, complete with functioning globe lamps.


Janos Stone I Never Thought I Would Meet Someone Like You
Janos Stone‘s installation began with his creation of a monstrously-muscled heroic nude male figure upon which three distinct images were projected, changing male and female faces of porn actors at the top, pornographic videos in the center, and at the bottom a colorful Second Life figure. I’ve checked out his site since leaving “ECSTATIC” and we both visited with the artist on Friday night at his current show at SLAG Gallery, “LMIRL“, and talked to him about his future projects. My head’s now spinning.


David Coyle I Killed the Monster 2008 oil on canvas 24″ x 20″
David Coyle‘s paintings appear somewhat unremarkable at first, but their severe honesty, humor, and (I don’t think I’ve used this word before) painterly grace brought me back to their small cell-like room several times.


Mary Billyou Subspace Face
A simply-rigged monitor showed Mary Billyou‘s looped video combining a severe frontal view of the artist’s own face with a simple matrix, and was a part of a larger installation with a strong historical context. While it was fairly mesmerizing it remained pretty enigmatic absent more information.


Dorothy Royle
Dorothy Royle’s installation of a glass vase of hand-made forsythia branches just inside a window was literally an unfolding performance: The artist visits the site regularly to gradually open up, and wither. The label informed us also that “. . . bright green leaves will grow from ends of the strongest branches. Inevitably, some petals will fall”.


Emcee C.M., Master of None Reading/Radio Room
The installation by this collaborative, which tells us that its work always “combines large-scale public, social and collaborative event-based projects with a more internal process of self-reflection through fiction, storytelling, and filmmaking. This corner of the building, titled “Reading/Radio Room”, could easily cocoon a visitor for hours.


Ofri Cnaani
Ofri Cnaani‘s art evokes the magic of the ancient magic lantern, but she addresses gender, architectural space, myth and reality in seductive imagery and movement. I first encountered her work in 2008 and I find myself captivated once again.


Matthew Spiegelman
Matthew Spiegelman has assembled several lighting installations inside the convent, each of them abstracted from homey old lighting fixtures and each more infectiously joyful – and oddly spooky – than the next.


Amanda Browder Future Telling 2010 discarded (found): painted canvas, embroidery, marker, fur
Amanda Browder‘s piece was in a room which appeared to include both her own work and pieces done in collaboration with Stuart Keeler, but this piece appears to be identified as her own creation.


Cassie Thornton + Action Club
I haven’t been able to track down anything on the installation identified as “Cassie Thornton + Action Club” (or, variously, “Action Team”), but the planned chaos of the broom closet-size installation pictured here, and the scrim composed of countless found objects of all sizes which has been assembled in front of the third-floor hallway window just beyond, somehow suggested an advanced postmodern intelligence, and the scrappy art which can ultimately humanize it.

[Janos Stone image from the artist]

image from Eric Doeringer’s “Bootleg Series”, in a group combining five individual pieces, 2001-2005, all ink and acrylic on canvas, the works range between 5″ x 7″ and 8″ x 10″


Amy Elkins David, New York, NY 2008 C-print, edition 1/5 11″ x 14″


Tony Feher Untitled 2008 glitter and spray adhesive on unfolded box
11.5″ x 6.25″


Donna Chung Untitled 2005 mixed media on paper 19.5″ x 35″


Erik Hanson Ladies of the Canyon 2007 oil on canvas 20″ x 16″


Colleen Plumb Laundromat 1997 C-print 19″ x 19″, edition 4/10


William Powhida How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality 2009 archival inkjet print on paper 17.5″ x 14″, edition of 20, AP 4/4


Sarah Braman Swimmy 2010 paint on plywood 35″ x 28″


Andrew Guenther Plate Face (green eyes) 200 watercolor and pencil on paper
8″ x 6″

I just took another look at the BAMart Silent Auction site today and I ended up excited on two accounts: for BAM’s early success (many of the works are already above their estimates) and for the terrific opportunities available to patrons and visual art lovers who may have a little extra cash right now.
I’ve uploaded images of some of the works here, but there are some 150+ others on the BAMart site.
It’s not necessary to go anywhere to be a part of the event; the dedicated site shows all the works, describes the details, and makes it easy to bid.
The bidding ends at 8 this evening.

[images from the BAMart site]

large detail of a still from a video of Iannis Xenakis’ “Pithoprakta” (1956), which has the composer’s sketches and renderings accompanying the piece itself [currently installed at the Drawing Center]

I love music, especially unfamiliar music, and since I’ve now been listening to the stuff for a good part of a century, that means my taste may not be shared with most people. The music of Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) is a case in point, but judging from the fuss being made over this composer recently, and that without the excuse of a major anniversary, maybe I’m about to go mainstream for once.
It’s been a couple months since I first decided to do a post about the wealth of opportunities we’ve been given lately to hear the Greek-born composer’s powerful and very idiosyncratic music. It’s now the middle of March and most of the concerts to which I’d been looking forward have already happened. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only been to two. The first was �Xenakis & Japan�, at Judson Church February 28, an evening of music and dance devoted to the composer’s interest in Japanese music and theater and presented by the Electronic Music Foundation.
I find it extremely difficult to write about music on this blog, even though all my life it’s been at least as important to me as the visual arts, and probably more so. I’ve had no significant education in anything other than the liberal arts (which, contrary to what some think, actually do not actually include any form of “art”). I am able to write about the visual arts at least tentatively, from my position as an unlearned, passionate observer, and not least because I have the help of a camera. The performing arts however are a serious problem for me, since I am normally unable to photograph the art, and stock promotion photos which are seen over and over again bring nothing new to the subject. The performing arts are an incredible challenge.
In fact I had little excuse to miss the opportunity of writing a short bit about Xenakis, since here there was a real possibility of including images. I’m thinking of the beautiful studies with which the composer rendered his aural creations on paper (creations which he sometimes described with performances in light and space as well). Maybe only John Cage‘s own lyrical (yes, lyrical) drawings could match their output, their dynamism, and their beauty.


score for John Cage’s “Chess Pieces” (1944)

There were some eight or so concerts of Xanakis’ music listed on the press announcement released perhaps two months ago by the Drawing Center, and over the following weeks I learned about a number of others. We’ve now moved beyond all their dates, but the composer/architect/artist’s sketches and renderings remain on view on Wooster Street (with pretty extensive musical accompaniment on headphones) through April 8th.
In the second recent concert I attended in which his music was programmed it seemed to have been designed to play a minor role, as surprising as that may seem to anyone acquainted with it. In a concert at the Paula Cooper Gallery on Tuesday evening Xenakis was only one of three contemporary composers featured and his contribution was both the shortest and the only one which did not require a dozen or more players.
In addition to the visual art she exhibits in her eponymous gallery, Paula Cooper has always hosted, in the description found on the gallery site, “concerts, music symposia, dance performances, book receptions, poetry readings, as well as art exhibitions and special events to benefit various national and community organizations”. The page also reminds us that, “For 25 years until 2000, the gallery presented a much celebrated series of New Year�s Eve readings of Gertrude Stein�s ‘The Making of Americans’ and James Joyce�s ‘Finnegans Wake.’�
I remember many of these occasions, including two important ACT UP fund-raising auctions Cooper hosted in 1990 and 1991, which were extremely important for AIDS activism, and for me.
Gertrude Stein came back to the the Paula Cooper Gallery this week, through a performance of Petr Kotik‘s “There is Singularly Nothing”. The instrumental frame of the performance, by his own instrumental group, The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, was an intensely-elegant affair. This roughly one-hour work, which incorporates a delicious text [“Composition as Explanation“] from Gertrude Stein, an American treasure, was first performed in the early seventies and re-invented, with different directives to the four singers, for the March 16 performance.
Collaborating with the SEM for the evening was the new-music concert series, Interpretations 21. A small vocal ensemble, augmented by Thomas Buckner and Gregory Purnhagen, who had solos in the Satoh piece, was shared by the two larger works.
The concert had begun with the world premier of Somei Satoh‘s “The Passion”, an oratorial using an abbreviated version of the Christian biblical text described by the name. I cannot account for the choice of subject by a Japanese composer whose own experience and music are both actually founded in the philosophies of Shintism and Zen Buddhism. I did recognize some poetic allusion, although perhaps accidental, in the fact that the performance of this Passion took place in a room dominated by a full-size sculpture of the scaffold used to hang the workers known as the Chicago anarchists or “the Haymarket Martyrs” in 1887. The installation was created by Sam Durant, the artist currently being exhibited in the gallery, whose recent work work has dealt with capital punishment.
Xenakis’ 1976 virtuoso piece, “Mikka ‘S‘”, for solo violin, followed the Satoh piece. The performer, Conrad Harris, stood high above the audience, at one corner of the scaffold Durant intended, bare of all but its familiar water dispenser, to double in function as a worker�s break room.

A postscript, from the text of the Kotik piece, Gertrude Stein on “modern composition”:

Those who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical.

[image of Cage’s notations from greg.org]

not a puppy in site

Wednesday’s schedule for #class began at 2 with a “Feminist Tea Party” hosted by artists Caitlin Rueter and Suzanne Stroebe. I saw some of it at home on the streaming video (while drinking coffee) but was unfortunately not able to make out most of the discussion. I arrived at Winkleman just as they were leaving with the accoutrements (tablecloths and porcelain cups; the finger sandwiches, cookies, and cupcakes presumably having already been shared with the issues).
Man Bartlett was just about to begin his own much-anticipated 24 hour event, “24h #class action“, described on the site as “a marathon group intervention involving systematically blowing up hundreds of skinny balloons and popping them, without creating or harming any cute little puppies.” Any reference to proceedings inside the big bucks Olympian “art” world of bright shiny stuff, paid santa’s workshop helpers, and undisguised commerce – certainly including the current New Museum show – is not a coincidence. More from the artist:

A simple physical action, over time, can radically shift consciousness, specifically when combined with �real� and �virtual� social interactions. It is in this context that �24h #class action� plans to poke a pin into Koonsian psychological dramas.
Beneath its surface this intervention is an exercise in futility and one of joyous absurdity. The balloons will only take their long, phallic shape, without further form, and will eventually be liberated or executed. Is it possible to both celebrate and critique? Does it matter that risks were taken by Koons (and others) to create this ridiculously expensive series? Is ambition alone worth applause? Is the fact that 5 balloon dogs were fabricated a triumph? Is it �relevant?� What I�m grappling with is a complex relationship to the artist�s work, and really to all Art and Everything. And duration exposes fascinating avenues in the headspace to drive down.
Or, you know, we�re just blowing up balloons that we get to pop at the end, which is fun too.

the artist contemplating his canvas


and getting into his metier


less than 24 hours to go


Shalin Scupham joins the “group intervention”



the artist during Magda’s presentation

Bartlett and his helpers began blowing up balloons at five, but took a break a little over an hour later when Magda Sawon of Postmasters Gallery arrived to host “Ask the Art Dealer.” She had vowed to “truthfully answer any and every question posed to her as long as it does not involve her weight, social security number or other people’s money.” She was incredible. Barry and I had already thought of her as a community hero, but now she belongs to the world.


Magda holds the room enthralled

Ed Winkleman, the gallerist who made #class possible, was also in the space yesterday, with the third session of his own intervention (as a gallery owner) in what he had titled, “Shut Up Already…I’ll Look at Your Art!“. The project, the fruit of an artist’s “anonymous proposal”, according to Winkleman, (someone tell me whether that anonymity is still being maintained) has him working out a pledge that he would spend a portion of his time during #class in viewing, for no less than 10 seconds each, images submitted via an open call on the internet. The third of seven rules specifies that he and his guests would be “monitored by a volunteer as they view the work to assure full compliance with the rules.” On Wednesday his monitor was the artist Bernard Klevickas. Images of work he has seen can be found here.


a very open call