James Wagner

Beeoff Tentacle TransatlanticReverb 2004-2005 installation detail

neuroTransmitter Offshore 2004-2005 installation detail

Mariam Ghani Kabul: Constitutions 2003-2005 installation detail

I was a little scared. Would I understand it? What would I say to those smart people? It seemed to be very much about technology, and I’m barely able to function as a basic blogger, even with my partner/webmaster’s kind and regular ministrations. But Barry really thought we should go, and I have to admit I thought that even this klutz really shouldn’t miss tonight’s reception at EYEBEAM.
The event was described as an evening of tours and talks with the artists of their current installation, “Work In Process.” It turned out to be great fun, and it really was a revelation. Maybe our first exposure to the six projects wouldn’t have been so worthwhile without the extra help of the artists’ guidance, but I know I’m going back, whether or not they’ll be there next time. You don’t really have to know much about what’s going on behind the curtain.
The works were all beautiful, but if some were less so in what many would call a conventional sense there were great compensations in the success of some very original concepts.
Jenny Marketou uses a tiny spotter camera suspended from a red balloon to confound a world fettered by the machinery of surveillance. NeuroTransmitter investigates the history of extra-territorialism and its popular voices. The Swedish collaborative Beeoff creates tethered overhead sculptures lit beautifully from within by projectors which communicate with each other over the internet. Bec Stupak has installed her own beautiful and wacky three-dimensional concept of a DVD zine with the collaboration of more traditional paper zine artists; here technology is totally in the sevice of creative and exceptional individualities. KnoWear’s attractive and very minimal installation was disturbing for its dramatization of the ineluctable personal impact of a corporate futureworld. The unfolding of a more elementally-human contemporary world, specifically the complex process of building a national constitution documented in Mariam Ghani’s space brought tears of joy to my eyes; I found it almost impossible to step away from the wizardry which had recreated Kabul’s 2003-2004 Loyal Jirga in a former garage on 21st Street last night.

For more information on the work of the six artists or collectives in residence who contribute to this show, see the exhibition link on the EYEBEAM site.

Gwon, O-Sang On the languishment of 340 pieces 2000 C-prints, mixed media 79″ x 25.5″ x 12″

Los Angeles’s 4-F gallery (unfortunately the site hasn’t been updated for quite a while) has opened a solo show, “Deodorant Type & The Flat,” of work by Seoul-based artist Gwon, O-sang.
I originally knew nothing more than what the press release told me and I’m on the other side of the country (of the world?), but the image at the top of this post has haunted me since I first saw it one week ago. I don’t know much more now, but the only other work I’d seen then definitely didn’t discourage my interest. I’ve included it below.
Some clues from the gallery’s scented statement:

[The show] will consist of floor-bound sculpture that embodies his notion of deodorizing photography’s historical odor by filtering it through the third dimension, and large-scale photographs (jewelry, watches, cosmetics) taken from advertisements that have been collaged in real space and re-photographed to flatten the viewing field

There’s a peek at his studio here, via crazyseoul.


Gwon, O-sang The Flat 6 2004 Lambda Print mounted on Sintra with UV laminate 71″ x 90″

[images from 4-F]

As I indicated he might, Barry has now done a post explaining what Luke Murphy actually does to create his computer art and enthusing about its wonderful painterly animation.

A lot of artists are working with technology and art, but I don’t think that many of them pull off using the strengths of technology, such as writing a program which then generates the art (possibly in random ways like a high-tech bow to John Cage), rather than just using it as a useful animation or painting tool. I think Luke Murphy does pull off that feat. The works are engaging and beautiful, plus there is an intelligence to them that one can appreciate.

In a subsequent post he has some good words specifically addressed to the artist’s very accessible web site.

Sterling Ruby Geometric Study 2005 inkjet print with red pen on paper 13″ x 19″

Sterling Ruby 90-Degree-Cryer 2004 Lambda print mounted with sintra and plexiglas 20″ x 25″

I’ve seen Sterling Ruby‘s work in Foxy Production‘s rooms before, and it pulls me in every time. I can’t explain why. Even once inside, there seem to be so many questions unanswered; in fact I think that includes most of the questions, but you can tell he’s very serious about asking. While I admit his investigations are of a kind which wouldn’t occur to me, or perhaps to most any viewer, they manage to give his unique aesthetic an extraordinary intensity just for their being posed.
Yeah, I really like them.
One caution: The two images above don’t manage to do justice to the actual work, on view in the gallery as part of a very good small group show, “Geo,” until February 12.

[both images from Foxy Production]

Julia Scher Security Landscape of the Year 2004 metal, monitor, Styrofoam, camera, knife, string, metal frame 24″ x 47.75″ (dimensions vary with installation) installation view

In spite of their other, more social pleasures, opening receptions are never a good time to see a gallery or museum show, so I will have to suspend most of my usual (innoxious) judgments about the new Artists Space exhibition, “Log Cabin.” The name of the show is a reference to the scary national right-wing gay organization (and much-abused victim of unrequited elephant love), the Log Cabin Republicans, and it aims to examine the impact of reationary politics on representations of the queer experience and on the creative expression of queer artists.
Jeffrey Uslip, the young curator, has assembled an interesting group, and I’m delighted that it includes a number of names with which I’m totally unfamiliar.
But of course some were more than recognizable. I’ve written about Scott Treleaven several times in the past and I think I’ve watched the fluid development of his collage work almost from its very beginnings with a zine and a brilliant video. Because of that and because it is installed very smartly in a separate room in the Artists Space environment his contribution (which is actually something of a mini-retrospective, although that seems ludicrous, since the artist looks barely out of his teens) came together and really stood out, at least for me, even in the midst of the large enthusiastic crowds which came out of the cold on Tuesday, the night of the opening reception.
I will definitely go back for a better look at each of the other artists’ work, much of which I confess was pretty baffling without enough room to see it or a proper scorecard. Among many other pieces only half-seen that night, I’m curious about Allison Smith’s sculpture installation, “Flagging Stack Arms,” Terence Koh’s “29 seconds of attraction,” K8 Hardy’s “Trying to Talk,” Paul Pfeiffer’s video “Empire,” which is described as of three-month duration, Julia Scher‘s “Security Landscape of the Year,” and the very un-Republican imagery of Ken Gonzales-Day.
Andrew Solomon managed to garner two separate, modest-size spaces with two very different works, and he deserved both of them. We love Dave Burns! I hardly had more than a glimspe of the various video works spread throughout the rooms. Dean Sameshima’s photographs are always sexy (even when they include no human figure) but that’s always only where they start. Any show in which Glenn Ligon’s work (here, one piece descibing four wonderful texts* on canvas) is among the most accessible is definitely worth some serious visiting time.

*

Glenn Ligon Especially If it’s a Girl #1 2004 oil and acrylic on canvas 30″ x 30″ detail

the complete text of this section of the piece reads:

You can’t talk about fucking
in America right? People say you
dirty. But if you talk about killing
somebody that’s cool. I don’t
understand it myself. I’d rather
come. I’ve had money never felt as
good as I felt when I came.
Don’t nothing matter when you
getting a nut – especially if it’s
a girl, especially if it’s a girl.