Saturday Art

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

Francis Alys,
Untitled, 2011-2012

There is so much art to see in New York that I almost never go to an exhibition more than once. There is always something new to see: something that might be wonderful or joyful or powerful or memorable, or maybe all four. Sometimes as I’m walking into a gallery I get a little butterfly inside because the possibility exists that I’m about to have a life-changing experience. It’s a childlike feeling, akin to thinking that maybe today the Good Humor Man is giving out free ice cream. And balloons.

I like that feeling.

But today I revisited several galleries because having seen the shows, I couldn’t forget them. They haunted me.

There is a quality of inevitability to excellent art. I notice the decisions that the artist made, but I can’t imagine any improvement. Sometimes it looks effortless, sometimes agonized, but in either case, the end result has triumphed over the process of creation and now the work exists independent of how it was made and by whom.

I feel that way about the Francis Alys video Reel-Unreel (at David Zwirner 525 W 19th). http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/francis-alys-ny-2013/. I discussed the film last week and still highly recommend it. This week his paintings had a stronger impact on me. They are clearly connected to the film, showing desert landscapes struggling to exist in the same space as film color test patterns. Such a simple idea, and yet so profound when we consider a country (Afghanistan) in which the authorities have tried to censor all outside media influence.

Diana Cooper,
Turf

I also returned to the Diana Cooper show My Eye Travels at Postmasters Gallery (459 W 19th) http://www.postmastersart.com. Ms. Cooper’s witty assemblages of photographs, and objects leap off the wall to trick the viewer into believing the impossible. They look dimensional where flat, drawn where manufactured, and continue to refer to the gallery space in which they are exhibited and the art world at large. These are serious works made with a sense of fun and astonishing skill. I stood far away, I stood as close as possible, I tried to peer behind, and I was desperate to touch them (but I didn’t). Several times I laughed out loud (art gallery numbered pins as design elements). Honestly, I might have to make a third trip before the show closes on February 9th.

Henry Darger

One show that I haven’t had the chance to revisit, but which remains on my mind is the Henry Darger show at Ricco/Maresca Gallery (529 W 20th) http://www.riccomaresca.com/exhibitions/exhibitions_current.htm. I had the good fortune to speak with Gallery Director Elenore Weber today, who reminded me that the Darger works on display were originally book illustrations, and therefore drawn on both sides of the paper. The gallery is having a “turn-the-paintings-around” event this coming Friday evening, February 1st, so that we can all see the opposite sides. I can’t imagine the logistics involved, but I’m grateful for them.

Another Chelsea Afternoon

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

Frank Owen’s Herald at Nancy Hoffman

I was in the gallery district this afternoon, trying to keep up with new shows, interesting shows, and recommended shows, and even after the sun shone brightly and then disappeared, I had a good afternoon. I found myself liking things I didn’t expect to, and ignoring things that should have fascinated me. I love when art is surprising, and I love especially being reminded that ANY genre, approached with wit and intelligence, can be captivating.

Asya Reznikov
My Vanity
at Nancy Hoffman

I started at Nancy Hoffman Gallery to see the show 40 Years, a retrospective and celebration of the gallery which opened in Soho in 1972 and moved to 520 W 27th in 2008. The show is truly delightful, beginning with a very large Frank Owen painting in the front gallery and continuing with 30 more artists representing painting, sculpture, photography, and video. I was charmed by Asya Reznikov’s video installation My Vanity (I, who think a video should have a plot and preferably star Ryan Gosling) and watched it for several minutes with a goofy smile on my face. I could feel it. It was embarrassing.

McDermott & McGough
Just a Memory
at Cheim & Read

At Cheim & Read (547 West 25th) I found a large installation by the collaborative pairing of David McDermott and Peter McGough, who present photo-realist paintings of movie stills as well as abstract paintings on photographs. I shouldn’t have liked them, but I did.

McDermott & McGough
Not Prepared For Eternity
at Cheim & Read

At Marlborough Chelsea (545 W 25th), Robert Lazzarini: (damage) was fun and disorienting in a PeeWee’s Playhouse kind of way.

Robert Lazzarini at
Marlborough Chelsea

David LaChapelle
Michael Jackson 02
at Paul Kasmin

At Paul Kasmin Gallery (293 Tenth Avenue and 515 W 27th) I enjoyed the super-creepy David LaChapelle photographs of disembodied wax heads and assorted body parts in various states of decay. The two versions of Michael Jackson were especially and deliciously gruesome.

Yayoi Kusama
Narcissus Garden
at Robert Miller

Robert Miller Gallery (524 W 26th) is showing several works by Yayoi Kusama, my favorite of which is the 1967 video Self-Obliteration in which Kusama puts glow-in-the-dark polka-dots on her cat. I love cats. But it was still funny.

Wang Xieda
Sages’ Sayings 026
at James Cohan

There are two excellent shows at James Cohan Gallery (533 W 26th). First is Wang Xieda: Subject Verb Object in which the Shanghai-based artist makes sculpture based on ancient Chinese calligraphic forms. These table-top sized works create complicated shadows that further the intellectual considerations of flat text versus space. The second is works of paper by Sol LeWitt from the 60s and 70s entitled Cut Torn Folded Ripped in which he achieves a very similar dialogue between what is there and what is removed. Simple, but extremely effective.

Sol LeWitt
Map of Amsterdam
at James Cohan

And finally, I truly enjoyed Francis Alys’ film Reel-Unreel at David Zwirner (525 & 533 W 19th) which follows two boys through the streets of Kabul as one unwinds a film reel and the second attempts to wind it back up. That’s it. But tension built as the crowds grew and the traffic snarled and I wondered where the boys were heading and I hoped they would arrive safely. It didn’t hurt that it was the last stop on my gallery tour and I lay back on a comfortable chaise for my viewing pleasure. And by the way, accomplished and intellectual paintings by the same artist occupy an adjacent gallery. Really? He can paint too? Stop showing off.

Francis Alys
Reel-Unreel
at David Zwirner

SVA MFA Thesis Show: We Object

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

Minseop Yoon

The way I figure it, our first semester in SVA’s MFA Fine Arts program is for getting our feet wet, finding the art supply stores, and convincing ourselves that we haven’t made the biggest mistake of our life.

Patrick Shoemaker

Billy Ogawa

Zaza Acevedo

Mark deWilde

Semester number two is when we start to make art that matters. But we’re still all over the map. We’re juggling subject matter, media, color, meaning, fabrication, and

Jessica Bowman

installation issues. At least. Because making art is the hardest thing we’ve ever done, and now we’re trying to be good at it, while people watch and criticize. And we’re still not sure it isn’t a mistake to spend oh-my-god how much money? in order to leave ourselves less employable than before we started.

Autumn-Grace Dougherty

Which gives the fine arts students only the first semester of their second year to make everything that goes into their MFA thesis

Yae Ly

Denise Hwa-In Yoon

show. Make it. Make it coherent and meaningful. Make it visually and intellectually arresting. And, by the way, how’s that written thesis coming?

Tina Han

The show We Object (curated by Wallace Whitney) which is open at SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery (601 West 26th Street, suite 1502) displays work from half of the class of 2013. The other half will be shown next month. I only give you the timeline so that you will understand the pressure under

Sohee Koo (S. Art K.)

Eric Graham

which this art was created – pressure that doesn’t show in the art itself, which is, by turns, playful, skilled, vibrant, unusual, unsettling, disciplined, undisciplined, unexpected, and arresting.

Bo Kim

Chi Zhang

A thesis show by its nature has no common theme. It is a group of works not created to stand together but forced to share visual and actual space. Sometimes that’s a weakness, but not in We Object.

Pantelis Klonaris

This is art that would work alone, but also works wonderfully in a group show. It argues, creates contrasts, creates synergies, and surprises the viewer. After seeing

So Na Lee

all of the galleries that combine to make up the show, I found myself starting over in the first room to see it all again. It is a feast; not moveable like Paris, but still ephemeral. These artists may never show together again, and this exhibit closes on January 26th.

Cassandra Levine

Mickalene Thomas and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

Reminder to self: the pictures in newspapers and art journals are no substitute for looking at real art.

I finally made it to Mickalene Thomas’s show Origin of the Universe at the Brooklyn Museum (closing January 20th, so hurry). I would have been there sooner, but first I had to find Brooklyn. (Sorry, new to the city.)

I got to Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s retrospective Tender Love Among the Junk at MoMA P.S.1 in December (it runs through April 1st).

The work of both artists is layered, flamboyant, colorful, sparkly and shiny, with an undercurrent of the sadness that comes from betrayal in childhood, institutions that have disappointed us, and growing up into a world that is difficult.

That very sadness makes the sequins and the hard work and the passion of each artist poignant and brave. They are not whistling in the dark, they are lighting the dark and creating joy where there was none before.

Ann Hamilton’s the event of a thread

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

It is rare that an art installation inspires exuberance in viewers, but also rare that an installation so involves viewers in participating and creating the art.

After a too short run, this show just closed. I saw it right at the end, but next time Ann Hamilton is at work in my area, I will rush to see her work so that I can go back and back and back.

It was such genius that I forgot it was art, forgot that it had taken an amazing lot of work to install, and just thrilled to swinging and watching the swings move the curtain, while the curtain moved the swings, and the earth spun perfectly in harmony.

The Invention of Abstraction at MoMA

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Elizabeth Cook

František Kupka
Localization of Graphic Motifs II

For those of you who think that Abstract painters are taking the easy way out compared to figurative artists (the “my kid could have made this painting” school of thought), I have one piece of advice: try it. Try to create the illusion of space without reference to nature. Or harder, try not to create space at all. Try to make compositions that engross and delight and perplex without including nudes or flowers. Paint polka-dots without accidentally turning them into tablecloths. It’s really difficult. I know – I keep trying.

The current MoMA show Inventing Abstraction is an encompassing look at the origins of abstract art. For a complete rave review, read Roberta Smith in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/arts/design/inventing-abstraction-1910-1925-at-moma.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=museumofmodernart

I’m only disappointed that the show doesn’t discuss why individual artists across Europe and Asia suddenly began abstracting their paintings in 1910. This is as revolutionary as Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz inventing the calculus separately at the same time. Where did abstraction come from? What caused men and women to abandon figuration in favor of something so incredibly new? (And I don’t include Cubism in the new. Cave paintings are cubist. They came from the natural instinct to depict objects as we know them instead of as we see them. Ask any six-year-old artist who puts 4 legs on every dog, no matter his point of view.)

I’ve always assumed abstraction came from the wave of revolutions that swept through Europe, but those were mid-19th century. Surely the artistic response would not have taken 60 years. And I’d like to blame the Russian Revolution and World War I for giving artists a new and bleak view of the fracturing of the world. But those occurred several years after the beginnings of abstraction. I’ve been told that it was our ability to see the world from the sky: hot air balloons and the Eiffel Tower. But they also predate the paintings by a wide margin. Some people say that abstraction was a reaction against photography, but again the timeline doesn’t work.

Perhaps it was the intellectual building-up of what turned into the first World War. Perhaps it was artists seeing the world around them as out-of-sync with their experiences of inequality, and the growing feeling of monarchy as archaic. Perhaps abstract art was not the result of World War I, but a reflection of what caused it. Maybe abstract art made revolution possible.

the least untrue / elizabeth cook

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue." -Gustave Flaubert

Category Archives: review

Saturday Art

Another Chelsea Afternoon

SVA MFA Thesis Show: We Object

Mickalene Thomas and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt

Ann Hamilton’s the event of a thread

The Invention of Abstraction at MoMA