installation view of Derek Stroup’s “Blue Panel”, on the left , and a large detail of the slightly larger “White Panel” on the right (each completed in 2009, of enamel paint on sheet metal, with an aluminum stud below, and measuring approximately 5′ x 6′)
Derek Stroup Shell 1 2008 digital C-print
Derek Stroup‘s show, “Station Pieces“, in the front rooms of Williamsburg’s A. M. Richard gallery closes tomorrow, Sunday. Barry and saw it this afternoon and we immediately designated it a top pick on ArtCat.
In this elegant, and very eloquent small show the artist presents conceptual work attached to imagery stubbornly-familiar to all of us. Stroup also deals with a number of the contemporary art world’s current recognized preoccupations: He incorporates or tackles the subjects of street art, economic devastation, the endangered planet, sculpture assembled from existing materials, hand-made versions of machine-made products, digitally-altered images, realism, abstraction, the new minimalism, text (or its effacement), the recording of built landscapes, and architectural fragments. He pulls it all together with amazing skill, to totally original, and gorgeous, effect, but when we leave its presence Stroup’s art rewards us with questions whose answers will continue to elude us.
The installation may ostensibly be devoted to commonplace proprietary gas stations, but, to begin with, all logos have been completely erased. This was accomplished digitally on the one photograph included, and with thick strokes of paint (much as tags or graffiti are routinely removed by the owners of the property on which they are inscribed) on the three “paintings”, whose surfaces or mountings have been co-opted for use as minimalist, abstract panels – sculptures in fact, since they are rendered on large sheets of riveted steel attached to other elements.
The commercial signs and the apparatuses, having now been rendered entirely anonymous, appear to have lost their purpose, and the world which created them – and was fed by them – may have entirely lost its validity. Or not.
The largest, most ambitious and most complex piece in the show is “Red, White, Grey 2 (Station Exterior)” which, except for its essential conceptual element, might suggest the practice of any number of younger sculptors today, except that the materials Stroup uses are not exactly “found”; instead, designed to assume a specific form, the components were pulled from the racks of suppliers of new construction materials.
I tried to get an image of “Red, White, Grey”, whose nine feet by nine feet dimensions ensure that it fully occupies the larger of the two rooms, but I couldn’t come up with anything which even suggested the awesome impact of the piece I stared at this afternoon.
You have to be there. Really. So this thumbnail can only be a rough approximation:
[second image from artnet]
Obama given Nobel Peace prize? I thought it was a joke
“Coloso” is more than a condemnation of war; it’s an allegory of French imperialism, and as such it also condemns every previous or succeeding imperial crusade, regardless of the real or professed idealism of their apologists
NOTE: Obama had been president for less than twelve full days before nominations for the Nobel closed on February 1.
War is not peace.
I looked at my mail today while I waited for my browser to load, and there I read a note from a friend in Buenos Aires who knows me very well. He was effectively warning me that I should sit down before looking at today’s news. Once securely seated, I went to my news page where I saw the announcement, “President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize”. I thought it was a joke. Totally.
What peace? He’s adopted every one of Bush’s wars, extended some, and if you look closely, he’s not even talking about ending them.
It’s an insult to those who have received the honor in the past, many of whom risked their lives for peace and who did not ride around in armored cars while commanding the greatest arsenal of weapons in the history of the human race – and using them.
It’s like giving the mayor’s son a Ph.D soon after he’s started his freshman year, because he’s said he’s somewhat interested in reading. He’s been tossing everyone’s books into a dumpster since he arrived, but maybe the sheepskin will turn things around. Disgusting.
ADDENDUM: On his own site, candidate for mayor Reverend Billy Talen writes eloquently of the Obama peace prize: “So – it has come to this. War has finally captured Peace. “.
Predator drones will be released tonight destroying the word we always depended on. The flying bomb will go out over the villages, sailing over the sleeping children and prayers and friends stopping for a laugh. The bombs will float and hesitate and change direction from computers in Florida and Missouri and the soldiers at the computers will know that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And so they will be consumers of a war that is now being marketed as a product named Peace.
[image of “Coloso” (painted by Goya or by one of his friends and pupils) from redstateelectric]
NASA pokes at the moon
still from “Le voyage dans la lune“, a 1902 film by George Méliès
Barry came across the story on Twitter late yesterday, but this is an excerpt from The Huffington Post report:
NASA is launching a dramatic mission to bomb the moon.
The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission will send a missile traveling at twice the speed of a bullet to blast a hole in the lunar surface near the moon’s South pole.
Scientists expect the impact of the Centaur rocket to be powerful enough to eject a huge plume of debris from the moon. The moon dust should even be large enough to be seen from earth through telescopes 10-to-12 inches and larger, says NASA.
I don’t know, it might actually be a worthy cause, and the idea of bombing stuff is very American, but attacking heavenly bodies just seems so unfriendly, . . . so, warlike.
It’s just too bad the incursion is unlikely to be exciting enough to distract our armchair warriors in Washington – and elsewhere around the country – from blowing up people and stuff here on Earth.
Okay, my second thought is how come we hadn’t heard about this dramatic mission earlier? Is the NASA’s public relations department that lame? Maybe they were deliberately trying to keep it low key, perhaps to avoid street demonstrations, although by now we’ve all learned that liberal and progressive protest never works in this country.
image from momlogic, found while Googling]
Obama’s wars
Anti-war protesters demonstrate in Times Square October 7, 2001 in New York City. Thousands of marchers participated in the rally on the same day that the US and Britain commenced air strikes against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. [Huffington Post caption]
It could have gone much differently.
I was in the streets eight years ago today, but with a characteristic mid-western idealism continually renewed without any justification, I didn’t believe we were actually going to war. It was just so stupid and wrong, so eighteenth century.
Today some of us mourn the eight years (and still counting) of the wars without end begun by George W. Bush and embraced by Barack Hussein Obama.
They are all Obama’s wars.
Woodrow Wilson’s war, announced as the “war to end all wars”, lasted 19 months. Our participation in the Second World War lasted a little over three years and eight months. Our current series of insane, counter-intuitive, self-destructive, illegitimate, racist, imperial, immoral, and finally perpetually self-propagating wars, waged under the rubric, “Operation Enduring Freedom“, have been programmed from the very beginning to go on forever.
[image, otherwise uncredited, from Huffington Post]
I’ve become unhinged.
I’ve become unhinged. That is, my lovely MacBook Air has become unhinged. The bracket which attaches the screen to the base broke yesterday, so my baby is currently on the bench down the block at Tekserve.
I won’t be able to upload my own images until the patient comes home, probably on Wednesday, so blogging will have to be suspended until then.
[image from UES]
Michael Mandiberg at Eyebeam
Michael Mandiberg GOOGLE 2009 shrinkwrapped laser cut Brooklyn yellow pages
Michael Mandiberg We have never had a year of peace 2009 (in progress) laser cut 3 volume edition of the Encyclopedia of the Third World
[detail]
Michael Mandiberg FDIC Insured 2009
Michael Mandiberg has just finished assembling a handsome installation of his work at Eyebeam. It apparently represents only some of the work he has been doing over the past six months.
Barry and I had a preview of the installation on Monday. Although not currently open to the public except by making arrangements with the artist (see below), this work, along with that of Eyebeam artists In residence, student residents, and other senior fellows can be seen during Open Studios: Fall 2009, scheduled for the afternoons of October 23 and 24, between 3 and 6 each day.
Mandiberg’s one dozen separate pieces consist primarily of old, found books cut with a laser, handsomely shown individually or assembled in groups of two or more and placed on the artist’s own constructions.
Mandiberg goes where no laser cutter has ever gone before. Some of the work physically and dramatically distinguishes important newly-established contemporary technologies from their aging or defunct antecedents (many of which could once have been described as cutting edge themselves), The result is a visual dialogue charged with the passage of time and composed in the empty spaces we see “written” in and on various kinds of reference books.
One piece, a work in progress (surprisingly, lasers take their time), is titled “We have never had a year of peace”. When finished it will comprise the three volumes of the “Encyclopedia of the Third World”, lying on their spines next to each other, open at a random page in the middle where the artist has deeply burned the name and year of every war fought by this peace-loving republic since 1890.
Another body of work consists of a wall display of cast-off volumes describing how to make money. Mandiberg has “whittled” with a laser into their hard front covers to describe the logos of, according to the artist, “all of the failed banks of the Great Recession”.
Not directly related to the re-worked dictionaries, encyclopedias, phone directories, or investment monographs are some breathtaking laser-cut drawings of the security patterns ordinarily found printed inside those familiar small mailing envelopes used by banks and similar institutions.
Those interested in seeing more images, or in visiting the space where these exquisite, yet powerfully-resonant pieces are installed, should go to the dedicated page on the artist’s own site, where he advises:
Eyebeam is currently closed to the public, but if you would like to see this installation you have two options. Contact me (myfirstname@mylastname.com) to set up a time to meet, or come by the Eyebeam Open Studios, which will be October 23rd and 24th from 3-6PM.
introducing Idiom
Idiom.
It’s beautiful (I love the blue logo), and it’s very smart. That’s exactly how I wish I could describe everything in the world. Unfortunately I can’t always arrange it. But Barry and I are going to have a lot to do with this new thing we’re putting together, along with some very beautiful and awesome-smart people, so we’re certainly going to be working on that beautiful and smart thing.
We’re hoping our efforts will please visitors as well.
Idiom is our collaboration with a few other arts fanatics in the creation of a digital magazine, which we’re describing as an online publication of urban artistic practice. As announced in today’s press release, we will be asking creative and articulate “emerging artists, writers and arts professionals to report on, review, and otherwise cover overlooked or under-thought aspects of the larger creative community, Idiom offers a local, engaged counterpoint to the prevailing discourse of contemporary art.”
That means all the arts, although we anticipate a heavy emphasis on the visual arts.
Stephen Squibb will be the editor, and the senior editor is B. Blagojevic.
NURTUREart benefit October 12
This year’s NURTUREart benefit will be on October 12th, at Claire Oliver in Chelsea. Barry and I will be there. It’s one our favorite non-profits and one of the most fun events of the year (okay, they like us too, and the price is right). It’s also a terrific opportunity to acquire some great stuff while at the same time supporting both emerging artists and emerging curators.
Raising money for the arts is obviously tougher than ever this year, but this event offers a precious opportunity to forget for a night that not everyone believes that great art can exist even when it hasn’t been bought by the right people.
For the first time ever, all of the works which will be available at the benefit can be viewed on line. Have a sneak preview here, and join us on West 26th Street less on Día de la Raz.
Also, note that tomorrow, Wednesday will be the last day to take advantage of the early bird admission price, so hurry down to your local internet line.
SOSka Group’s “Barter” at Cardboard Gallery in DUMBO
SOSka Group Barter 2007 digital print
We weren’t in DUMBO long enough for the judgment to mean an awful lot, but for both Barry and I the highlights of our visit on Saturday to the “Art Under the Bridge Festival” were several of the pieces shown in the video_dumbo space and the Cardboard Gallery down the block, which hosted “Barter“, an installation of a work by the Ukrainian art collective SOSka Group.
In another world, how many eggs would you trade for an image created by Lichtenstein? How many buckets of potatoes for that Komar and Melamid? Which of your laying hens would you give for the Cindy Sherman?
From the Cardboard Gallery’s announcement:
In SOSka’s video Barter (2007) the artists arrive at a local village and set up a display of artistic reproductions by Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman and others in hopes of trading them for food with the local farmers. While the video offers a playful glimpse into the perceived value of art, it also provides a telling social commentary about conditions in post-soviet Ukraine from the point of view of those who are insulated from the geo-politics of the western cannons and from the contemporary art world, including the artists themselves. The video will be accompanied by a series of photographs that document of the farmers posing with their selections and interior shots of where and how they have chosen to display these works in their homes.
The video itself is totally compelling on a number of levels. Its conceptual question, addressing the commodity value of iconic contemporary art images once they have been removed from their cultural origins, is hardly more riveting than its documentation of some compelling people inhabiting a very different culture, to whom these images are introduced as “pictures”. Notice how carefully these people think about the art; they tell us why they like it, and even where they’re going to put it.
I wanted the grainy moving pictures to go on and on, and more than that, having traveled in other countries through rural villages not unlike Velyki Prokhody, I envied the artists their opportunity for engagement.
You can watch the entire video here, but you’ll miss out on the ambiance inside the cardboard box where we saw it projected.
There’s more information on SOSka here, and you can find the home page of the Cardboard Gallery here.
[initial image from newcityart]
New Museum commits suicide with banality
Jeff Koons Ushering in Banality 1988 polychromed wood sculpture
Jeff Koons seems to have said it himself, years ago.*
Banality.
Many of us have been worrying about the New Museum for some time, including fans who were around at the time of its founding, but I’m not talking about money worries. The institution was founded by Marcia Tucker in 1977, who conceived of it, in a description published on its own web site, as “a place with a scope lying somewhere between grassroots alternative spaces for contemporary art and major museums that show only artists of proven historical value.”
The New York Times reports today that in February the zigzag Bowery tower will host a show of work from the collection of Dakis Joannou, one of its own trustees, chosen by Jeff Koons, who is a close friend of the Greek billionnaire. The article tell us that Joannou’s collection includes, other than work by Jeff Koons, art by other celebrated artists, and mentions Maurizio Cattelan, Urs Fischer, Robert Gober, Chris Ofili, Charles Ray and Kiki Smith.
Zowie.
Is this even legal? I mean, this is supposedly a non-profit, and aside from the self-serving aspect, it looks a lot like insider-trading; I see lots of money flying around, and I’m wondering why we shouldn’t ask, cui bono?
I don’t think Marcia would consider a show of work by established artists, curated by one of the country’s most-established artists, and selected exclusively from the collection of one of its own wealthiest, and fully-established trustees to fit the dream – or the reality – which once described the New Museum.
The outrage doesn’t stop with the Joannou takeover. The same Times piece tells us that the cozy NM/Joannou/Koons project will “inaugurate an exhibition series called ‘The Imaginary Museum,’ which will showcase the best private collections of contemporary art from around the world that are rarely seen by the public.”
Those contemplated museums may be imaginary, but the real institution we used to look to for excitement is fast disappearing, if not already gone.
If the New Museum had to fit something into their calendar at the last minute, why not pick some emerging curators to pick some emerging artists and fill all those floors with excited visitors who won’t stop thinking and talking about art. (In fact, the directors should be doing this anyway, with deliberate planning, and not as a desperate solution.) The art they’re inviting into Marcia’s rooms belongs in the older museums she critiqued for their cowardice, and if big collectors can’t yet part with their stashes, but still want a larger public to see it, let them invite that public into their homes, as so many have done for years in Miami, Berlin or elsewhere. If they’re afraid the carpets will get messed up, tell them to rent a hall. We’ll all come – after touring my fantasy show of emerging art at the New Museum.
ADDENDUM: I had originally wanted to make this a very short post, not trusting my anger, but now I can’t resist linking to this publicity piece which appeared in Artforum last summer. I already knew about the Koons-styled Joannou yacht, but it was through seeing this beautiful, satirical flyer/poster piece by Pedro Velez that I was directed to the article which had inspired it. Velez says that we can each use his image as we please, adding: “it’s a public piece of art…” Now there’s a concept.
It helps to have seen the Artforum images first (if you have the stomach for them), but here’s Velez’s poster:
poster by Pedro Velez from “Dakis Joannou and the Yacht that Conquers” (2008)
*
I just had this thought: Maybe it’s all a joke, that the whole project could be a way for Koons to have a laugh with us all. If so, I doubt the Museum is in on it.
[top image from joeren’s blog; bottom image from the artist]