In true New York fashion, we set out for the galleries at 3pm on a Saturday after a boozy brunch. Out of the 22 I wanted to hit, we covered 16 in just over two hours. Some, like Gagosian, we only stayed at for one minute and others only had a few works on display (Salomon and Witzenhausen) while others had us lingering.
Live from Detroit at Fred Torres was one that grabbed our attention (www.fredtorres.com/exhibition-space/2011-04-14_live-from-detroit/). It was the first stop of the day and one of the highlights. In fact, things went progressively down hill from here. Not because the art got bad, but because the pretentious gallery girls who were giving you non-stop attitude, were out in full force. More on that later… This group show had some really interesting works mixed in with some banal pieces. The highlights for me were Leon Johnson’s large dining room table with benches instead of traditional arm chairs. The table was set with heavy bowls with the sides almost cut out and custom-made bent spoons. The bowls were set in what looked like concrete rectangles with the bottom of the bowl a clean, simple Robin’s egg blue plaster. It was a great juxtaposition between the roughness of the block with the smooth tactile bowl. Also at the table were large decanters, some of which were half-filled with a red liquid.
I also loved Susan Gothel Campbell’s diptych video installation, although I only really loved one of the videos. That video was capturing the movement of the clouds over the city sprawl of Detroit at a very rapid speed. The camera was positioned just perfectly under the clouds to give a unique sense of space and a new perspective on the landscape.
From there, we ran across the street to see Chris Marker at Peter Blum
(www.peterblumgallery.com/exhibitions/2011/passengers). These images were all shots on Parisian buses or subway cars and caught various passengers either off-guard, in the middle of their cross-word puzzle or just trying to avoid the camera completely. This show was interesting and some of the subjects were giving you a lot, but overall, it seemed like something anyone could do with an iPhone in any major city. It didn’t really speak to the population of the City, the diversity of race or class. It left me feeling uninspired. So we ran over to see Mapplethorp at Foley Gallery (http://www.foleygallery.com/). There were some great portraits captured in this series. Celebs included Patti Smith and Susan Sarandon (with child), a well-know male genital photograph was also featured. This show was interesting in that the gallery "invited fifty people, one from each state in the Union, to select a single artwork from over 2,000 images in Mapplethorpe’s oeuvre that resonated with them personally. While some participants may have already been familiar with Mapplethorpe’s work, some were not. Each image included in the exhibition is accompanied by a text that explains why the participant who selected it found it to be meaningful". It was extremely interesting to see what each person chose and their personal background and to invent in your own (prejudice) mind what drove them to the image they selected.
Leon Johnson at Fred Torres
Chris Marker at Peter Blum
Chris Marker at Peter Blum
Chris Marker at Peter Blum
Chris Marker at Peter Blum
Mapplethorp at Foley
Mapplethorp at Foley
Up next was Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner (www.joshualinergallery.com), the most disturbing, dark, tormented show we saw all day and therefore (obviously) my favorite. These paintings made with acrylic and spray-paint and only made in black, white and a very unique red. The red color was not a more obviously blood red, but a fluorescent color, more poppy and bright, yet in the context of the works showing massacre and chaos, any fun feelings from this color were squashed and replaced with horror and fear. The Los Angles-based artist is known for his depictions of violence and depravity. The attackers are all in the shadows and all dressed in briefs with little to no features or distinguishable traits. As the press release points out, the attackers show no emotion or rage, while their victims portray the agonizing horror and pain of the attack. The bf liked the work, but he reached a point where we had to leave, I keep exploring the pieces to find the story, the explanation, what had happened. I think that’s why I liked these works, you couldn’t answer those questions – the answer was not there and you had to leave with your own ideas and prejudices of why these attacks were happening.
From there we hit 27th Street to see Harma Heikens at Witzenhausen (http://www.witzenhausengallery.nl/exhibition_detail.php?idxEvent=299). This show was surprisingly small – only six works in total. I don’t have much to say about this show. The sculptures were interesting in their child-like features with adult behaviors. The way she created them yielded a toy-like feel to these dolls, they were characters. According to the press release, the main sculpture in this show was “aileen wuornos, a hitchhiking prostitute who killed seven customers in florida between 1989 and 1990 and was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders she was executed via lethal injection in 2002. heikens depicts aileen wuornos age thirteen and pregnant, consistent with the facts.” This makes the work much more interesting, but I would have skipped it due to our typical time constraints and it was our only stop on 27th Street.
Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner
Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner
Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner
Cleon Peterson at Joshua Liner
Harma Heikens at Witzenhausen
Next we hit up EV Day at Salomon (www.salomoncontemporary.com) only to find one piece from her collection at Lincoln Center where she suspended costumes from the ceiling of the Koch Theater. The piece, titled Butterfly, “composed primarily of a ceremonial wedding kimono worn by Cio-Cio San in the Opera's productions of Madama Butterfly from the 1940s through the 1980s, is Day's response to the tragic story”. I never made it to see these pieces at Lincoln Center so it was great to see one piece up close and it was beautifully conceived. It was worth the stop, but wish I could have seen it with the other costumes she created in this series.
We popped into Lyons Wier to see Mary Henderson’s Bathers series, which I first saw in Miami and was obsessed with (www.lyonswiergallery.com). I am not sure what took me about her paintings, which the gallery calls “hyper-real sociological oil paintings”. Her subject matter is very familiar to anyone who traveled for summer weekends. I think it is the familiarity of the scene that brings me back to adolescent, not that I went to a lake house or had the body of any the men in her paintings. The works are great but it too was a smaller show. I would appreciate a larger exhibition of this work, but will take a chance to see these works in any exhibition.
Obviously, I am still living for Luhring Augustine, so we had to stop by to see Martin Kipperberger, who I know I’ve seen elsewhere, but cannot remember where (www.luhringaugustine.com). The works were weird. They included multiple sculptures, including one of a manaquin-like figure in a Jazzy which was based on the artist himself. I need to head back to spend some time there and to understand the pieces. There is a level of movement to the works, but the gallery chose to discontinue this element after 5pm - not sure why, seemed pretentious.
Dark, dark, dark! The Kara Walker show was so dark! (www.sikkemajenkinsco.com) I know this artist is known for portraying disturbing works that talk about race and gender relations, especially in historical context. Often she approaches the difficult realities of slavery in the US. Her work has been very well regarded and received. I find a lot of her work to be inspiring and moving. However, these works are more in you face and very offensive. The press release talks about the works as a "narrative, as if they are telling the story of the African American identity out of the rural oppression and into a more promising life in the city". I didn’t find anything promising in these works and maybe that was her point. The gallery points out the “flucuation of identity” that is constant throughout the works. That is clear as some of the works are text on canvas and the one captured below reads “eternally displaced persons”. I hope in a press release you get some more insight into the works and the artist’s mindset and inspiration. I feel we only get a hint of what is really going on. I fear maybe these works are too dark for the market and I wonder if the gallery is holding back as it may hurt the sale of the work to really talk about what the artist is really portraying. I hope not but I cannot find explanation for the darkness in these works from an artist who usually gives you uncomfortable realities in a painfully subtle way, almost sugar-coated. The works she is best known for are cut-out shadows that tell more stories the longer you engage with the piece. These charcoal drawings are very literal and basically hitting you over the head – what is more literal than text on a canvas?
Demisch Danant is a new gallery for me, they specialize in twentieth century European design with an emphasis on the late 1950s through the 1980s. The current show is Philippon and Lecoq (www.demischdanant.com). The pair was active in the 1950s and 1960s and the works on display are definitely giving you an avant-garde approach to mid-century modern. The works were interesting from a curatorial standpoint. The chairs at the main desk were the best part. It was a small show and all furniture so it was easily digestible and added a good mix to our tour.
Kara Walker at Sikkema
Philippon and Lecoq at Demisch Danant
For John Chamberlain’s show at Pace, the gallery doesn’t say anything in their press release about the works chosen for this exhibition (www.thepacegallery.com). Maybe the point of the show is a fuck you to Gagosian since it seems odd they would both show Chamberlain the same month and that Pace just ended their representation of the artist last year. The show had some great large works as well as some smaller table-top size sculptures. I would like to find out more about the process of making these works. As Pace points out in their press release, the artist has used other mediums in his work, but these steel works are what he is best known for and the only work I’ve seen first-hand. My introduction to Chamberlain and my favorite work to date is a thin, long, fence-like steel piece that is made out of thin ribbon-like stripes – it is on display at DIA Beacon (http://www.diabeacon.org/sites/main/beacon), but I would love to see it in the country side or in a garden.
Chamberlain at Pace
Chamberlain at Pace
Although the boyfriend did not like these works, I was very excited to see these pieces. The
John Chamberlain show at Gagosian is the easiest review to write, because there is none. We walked into the gallery and I was so personally disgusted by the attitude of both the guards and gallery girls at the front dest that we walked in and literally turned on a dime and walked out. I did not need to give them any ammunition to continue their ostentatious ways, especially when Pace was concurrently showing Chamberlain’s work. (www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-05-05_john-chamberlain)
For the Keith Haring show at Gladstone, I honestly don’t remember what was on the walls because in the middle of the gallery were two enormous glass cases filled with small notebook pages with fun, playful sketches and drawings the artist did on the move. The sketches were somewhat homoerotic, probably half were penises or penis-related, so I am sure that helped the attention-grabbing. The works were really great because they offered a view into the mindset of an artist whose work is so iconic and well known. These simple works were comical and self-explorative. The larger works on the wall were iconic pieces that are classic Haring - maze-like paintings that are at the same time chaotic and refined. There is a clear story in the works, but you have to focus your attention to get it. With our normal time restraints, the smaller, intimate works were easier to digest and a fresh way to look at an influential artist. www.gladstonegallery.com
Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper (www.paulacoopergallery.com), love, love, love Sol LeWitt. I know its not for everyone but I really love the combination of art, architecture and geometry – it’s simple clean, organized style is always makes me feel like I'm on the graph paper with this drawings.
Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper
Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper
We ran up to the second floor to see Foreclosed at The Kitchen (www.thekitchen.org) but it was way too much to take in with the four minutes we had to see the work. The space is very educational and I don’t fully understand their mission and story, but I promise find out because I am very god damn curious.
Donald Judd at David Zwirner (http://www.davidzwirner.com) fierce little boxes from the mastermind of simplicity and austere contemporary design. Again, we rushed through here, but really loved the tactical quality of these specific objects.
And finally, Jasper Johns at Matthew Marks. The front gallery had a collection of amazing casts all with numbers, in order from 0 -9. These pieces were both simple in their message but monumental in their materiality. I can't say much for the works in the back gallery. The impressions (seen below) in the front gallery were pretty amazing, mathematical and almost educational in a very 10 Commandments way. Just fun, impressive works. http://www.matthewmarks.com/exhibitions/2011-05-07_jasper-johns/)
Jasper Johns at Matthew Marks
Jasper Johns at Matthew Marks
