Jan 29, 2010: Opening Reception of Harry Roseman's Hole in the Wall at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar

Harry Roseman gave a talk on Friday evening at Vassar on the occasion of the official opening of his installation, Hole in the Wall in the atrium of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at the college. 
Roseman's talk, along with a screening of a video documenting his Woven Walls installation at the Kleinert Art Center in Woodstock in 2008 preceeded the opening.  The main lecture hall was filled to capacity, so a second hall was enlisted, offering a projection of a live online stream of the talk.  

Unfortunately, the webstream had some form of buffering issue and we weren't able to see the entire talk.  A recording of the talk is available for viewing here.
The upside to this technical glitch was that those of us in the second hall were able to go in and view the work before the crush of people filled the space...and fill the space they did.  It got claustrophobic quickly, so I bailed out prior to the performance by Adrienne Elisha of a composition she created which was inspired by the installation. 

It had been too long since I last visited the Loeb.  There's really no better place in the area in which to casually stop in and indulge in morsels sized portions of great work.  The small size of the temporary exhibition and permanent collection galleries offer a remarkable opportunity to get a fix without needing to devote a great chunk of time.  

Artma Auction takes place in Denver, Feb 6, 2010 6-10 pm

Repose oil on canvas 30"x36" 1998

The biennial Artma art auction event is happening again in Denver next Saturday, Feb 6.  from 6 to 10 pm.  The event benefits the Morgan Adams Neuro-Oncology Fund at the Children's Hospital in Denver.

My contribution to this year's event is a bit of a throwback.  It's a piece from 1998 called Repose.

Remember, bid high, bid often and have a great time.

Anthony Easton's pilgrimage to Poughkeepsie - and kork

kork's current offering is a collection of snapshots by Toronto based artist Anthony Easton (his blog).  I met up with Anthony and his friend Pat at Dia Beacon on Jan 17.  The two had conceived a multitasking road trip, the first portion of which focused on visiting religious pilgrimage sites in upstate NY, like the Sacred Grove in Palmyra where Joseph Smith received the revelation that gave form to the Book of Mormon and the Mormon church.  The trip culminated in the installation of Anthony's work on the kork board in Poughkeepsie.

Anthony Easton placing photographs on the board of kork.

Anthony's project on kork consists of the photographic documentation of his vacation/research trip in upstate NY.  
In his statement, Anthony cites the recognizeable experience of suffering through a viewing someone else's vacation photos.  This curse of living vicariously through representations of other's experiences has only been magnified through proliferating technology and the annointment of all as producers of content, banal though that content may be. Anthony invokes the traditional banality of this form of vacation documentation, and gives it the pride of place that any individual gives to the relics of their fondly held memories.  These photos are the very same vestiges of leisure time that find their way into office cubicles on on to desks as rememberences of places visited and things during those non-work times spent away from the workplace.  They're emblems of experience and of the personal flown as flags of home in the pseudo home of the office. 

My contact with Anthony had been limited to short email exchanges until we rendezvoused at Dia the day before installation. 
His endeavor of vacation as form of pilgrimage strikes a chord with one of the underlying tenets of kork:  how do we experience art?  Can a bulletin board in an accounting office become a cultural destination?  For me, the nature of pilgrimage and primary experiences plays a role in the broader implication of this work in this office in Poughkeepsie.  Would someone venture to POK to view the expression of an artist on a bulletin board in an office? Does the percieved value of such a site warrant such a trip? Is it sufficient to simply experience it remotely?  Is it enough to know that something is going on somewhere, and get the gist of it rather than making the effort of getting there?  Maybe, and yes - sometimes no.  Folks are more than welcome to stop into the office and check out the artworks.  They are equally welcome to feel satisfied that what they see online gives them some form of full experience. 
The kork project as a whole partially rests on the calculation of reward divided by effort exerted - both in the creation of the works and the viewing of them. In this case the artist tested that calculation for himself.  
I'll admit to some anxiety when Anthony contacted me last year, interested in creating a project, and willing to travel to POK from Canada, and making that travel part of the piece.  I felt, but restrained, the need to inform him fully of the informality of the project and  he might not want to knock himself out over it.  But his coming is the realization of the kind of primacy of the primary experience that is self rewarding and not dependent on a climax resolution for validation.  I respect that attitude.  I know I'm projecting here, but I read it as an imperviousness to futility. It's a key to living, and making art; to dig a hole, not to retrieve something, nor to deposit something, and if something is found, to feel free to leave it in place, then fill in the hole once again and take something away from the whole endeavor.

This array of office implements and corresponding newsclippings is the most naturally sculptural and consistently enjoyable vision I behold whenever visiting the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Assoc.

November 2009 in Denver: Staged @ Michele Mosko Fine Art and Jessica Stockholder/John McEnroe at Robischon

Angelika Rinnhofer's Varsity I and Varsity V

On November 14 while in Denver,  I served as Angelika's proxy at the opening reception of Staged, a group exhibit in which two photographs from her Varsity series are on view through Jan 9 at Michele Mosko Fine Art.  Poor planning on my part thwarted my intention of carrying around a lifesize photograph of Angelika on a broom handle to get some papparazzi photos of the artist with reception attendees.

From that show Marc Willhite and I made our way to Robischon Gallery for the opening of exhibits by Jessica Stockholder, and John McEnroe.
Stockholder's offering included two sculptural pieces and some half dozen high keyed, dimensional and often furry "monoprints".  Rich and wild and totally refreshing was how this exhibit felt.  The nuances of texture and the effect of the compression of the various layers in each piece simply don't translate in photos - but here are a few for your perusal.  The gallery website has images of all the artwork in the exhibit.

Marc checking out Two Frames, Swiss Cheese Field 36, and Swiss Cheese Field 14

Jessica Stockholder, Untitled

Jessica Stockholder, Swiss Cheese Field 18

Jessica Stockholder, (l-r) Swiss Cheese Field 14, Swiss Cheese Field 20, Swiss Cheese Field 24

Jessica Stockholder, Swiss Cheese Field 20

Jessica Stockholder, Swiss Cheese Field 23

John McEnroe Untitled (Blue Red)

John McEnroe was represented by his pendent nylon forms as well as floor standing assemblages consisting of melted and burnt plastic toys. 
These exhibits at Robischon just closed on December 31.  Both artists are featured in the exhibit of installation called Embrace at the Denver Art Museum through April 4, 2010.

From Robischon, we stopped in to Marc's studio space in RiNo District and then on to Pints Pub to share a cheese and cracker plate.  I lived two blocks from Pints Pub for 6 yrs and had been in a couple times for drinks, but never knew about that cheese and cracker plate - I wish I had, it might have replaced my Friday afternoon happy hour buffet habit at the Church.

2 + 2 = 2010! : HNY!

 My contribution to kork Advent.

Today wraps up the month of kork Advent emails.  It was fun putting this together.  My thanks go out to all the fine participating artists and all the folks who subscribed and opened the emails each day.   Accompanying the work each artist created was a quote, thought, rant, or definition that each artist scrounged up or concocted themselves.  The text that accompanied my work for Jan 1 is an excerpt from the Forward of E.E. Cummings' book is 5.  Here's the entire text:

F O R E W A R D

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original

or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an intro-

duction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from

original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by

quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz.

"Would you hit a woman with a child?--No, I'd hit her with a brick."

Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision

which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter

very little--somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions,

the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest

in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should

prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses.

It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring

electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara

Falls) that my "poems" are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with

El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless

advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the

merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a

purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon

the title page of the present volume).

E.E. CUMMINGS

My buddy Rich originally cued me into this piece and it really resonated with me as very suitable summing up of much of my sentiments around what I do and my motivations for doing it.
Now I just have to figure out what to do for next year.
In the meantime, the next kork project (Jan-Feb) will feature Canadian based artist Anthony Easton who will be coming down to Poughkeepsie in mid January to produce a series of photographs around town which he will then install on the board.

Update, 1/2/10: I woke up this morning all leisurely like, began reading and then I suddenly gave myself start  thinking that I had a kork Advent email to send out. But that part of my life is over now...

Forget Christmas in July. This is the Christmas in January Super Fine Art Giveaway!!

 CandyCane

I was inspired by the packages of marshallow candies Meine Frau Noodle purchased to send off to family in Germany to use the discarded boxes as frames for small paintings.

 Ribbons & Stitches

I created a series of acrylic on masonite paintings (6"x9") that would be framed by the candy boxes. I liked the paintings, but wasn't crazy with what was going on with the interaction of paint and package. So I made another set using pieces of drywall on which I incised in places and painted with acrylic.

Reindeer Garland

I'm giving away seven of the eight paintings you see here by random drawing to fans of my Facebook Page.  (The candy cane piece at top is already going to my mom.)  There aren't that many fans of the page, so your chance of getting something is pretty darn good.  So if you'd like a chance to start the new year with a little reward, visit the page and become a fan by Jan 3, 2010.  I'll conduct the drawing and notify the lucky winners on Jan 4.

Green Zip

Think about it.  You deserve a treat.  Christmas is over, what do you have to look forward to now?.....A little sweet something arriving in the mail from yours truly, That's What!!

Marshmallow 1

Pachesi

Bauble

Marshmallow 2

Oh Christmas Thing 2009

Christmas decorating came early and inadvertently this year.  Shortly after my open studio in Sept, I did some shuffling here, a little shifting there and before I knew it, voila!, this year's Christmas Thing was very magically born.  It's a good thing too.  I knew after last year that I needed to step away from the crutch of garland and lights to formulate my annual yuletide alter of the mundane.  Although I adore the scent of real garland, and real Christmas trees, I needed to go deeper to formulate the emblems of my Christmases to come.  This year's specimen is a real contender in my mind.
As you can gather from this and previous years' Christmas Things, I don't necessarily strain myself in the fabrication of these yuletide alters. I'm no Clark Griswold. 
But as with any other expression of seasonal cheer, these pieces elevate some designated niche filled with any ordained collection of items to a position that is worthy of gazing upon and projecting upon, any personally held notions of peace, family, giving, or crass commercialization that one attributes to this festive season. 

These amalgamations and the spirit with which I view their creation are as dear to me as any of those memories of the natural or artificial, flocked or not Christmas trees, garlands, tangles of lights and copious amounts of baked goodness of my Christmases past.

There's much about the Christmas season from which I have worked to sequester myself, but those aspects that I do relish; the atmosphere (physical, ethereal, and nostalgic), the taint of expectation, the sense of specialness that is attributed to certain gestures be they grand or not are the things I respond to.  Those are the abstractions (the good things)  formed at the fringe of this massive stress-filled hustle-bustle, overindulged merchandised moment.  And for me, for this moment, these Ritz boxes, that flattened Miller Lite 6 pack carrier, that polka dot sunglass case I found on the street, that stack of cardboard pallet feet from the packaging of our Ikea sofa and that spiral of Astroturf scrap are all imbued with those wonderful notions that waft in on gentle holiday currents.

Meet yer Maykr: Jim White

While in Denver back in November, I paid a visit to Jim White in his studio to pick up his contribution to the kork Advent project.
While there, I shot some images of Jim's space and a bit of the nascent works of various forms he has in progress.

I met Jim in the late 90's at a group exhibit he was participating in at Revolucciones space in Denver.  I was struck by his facility for drawing and his compositional treatments.  I bought two paintings from that exhibit and we've been in and out of contact ever since.

As I'm writing this, I'm recalling an instant during an exhibit I had at EDGE gallery in 2002.  At the same time, Jim had a show up across the street at Pirate.   Having run over to check out Jim's show, I came away feeling very envious of his work.  I can't say now what it was in particular that drew that reaction out of me, and I can't actually remember what I saw - that portion of the memory has been drowned out by response to it.  It's the only time I can remember feeling that way toward someone elses work.  It was a short but sharp sensation.

A box of antique player piano rolls that Jim is starting to use in his collages, such as he did for his Dec 19 contribution to the kork Advent project.

A personalized valentine.

Jim said that he's just now returning to drawing and painting after a period in which he's been involved in creating small foamcore sculptures.  These table top sculpture sit somewhere in between misguided architectural models and a fanciful scheme for cultural merchandising.  Jim thinks of  to these as miniature monuments; each one a lilliputian ode to the heyday of macho plop art.

In time, these pieces will receive some form of paint treatment.  We began discussing possible applications of these for a future kork project....stay tuned for that later in 2010.

Some images of Jim's workspace:

 The two untitled works from (98, 99?) currently hanging in my bedroom.

You can view past Meet yer Maykr studio visits at Maykr.com

In the neighborhood

There's a sculpture that suddenly appeared in the front yard of a house just up the block. I noticed it yesterday on my way to the gym. 
It's an alright piece;  One that I might notice if it were in a public park or civic setting, although it maybe a bit generic in that public sculpture kind of way.  But in this setting (complete with a plaque with artist name and sculpture title: Robert Giordano; First Gate) the work definitely has more of a charge.

Part of this charge comes from the surprising context of this work sitting on a residential front lawn.  It's a slight tangle in relation to the otherwise uprightness of the line of Victorian homes on the block.  Perhaps the only really odd thing about the presence of the sculpture here is that it is not festooned with Christmas lights.  And although the popularity of those inflatable Christmas lawn figures push the envelope of scale even further than this comparatively modest structure,  the other reason I think it works here is the relationship of the work's size to its setting. The sculpture dominates the square of lawn on which it sits in a wonderfully almost-claustrophobic manner.  Lawns are tedious, tiresome uses of space, but here that bit lawn has been deputized into an actual purpose of framing and supporting the sculpture.  The ratio of sculpture to grass here turns the normal sculpture to sculpture park relationship on its head - and it works really well in this situation....unlike this similarly but less successful tweaking of scale in a public work.

It gave me a lift to see it there.  It also reminded me of how uninterested I am in the bulk of sculpture in sited in natural settings, or conventional civic settings.

I'm intrigued by the thought of having a sculpture tour that takes place in the front lawns of residences, if only for the novelty and the potential for the absurd. 

Drawings

I'm in the fourth day of what I'm considering my year-end, at-home residency.  I'm still in the mode of getting things set up and situating myself in preparation for full on studio time for the next couple of weeks.  Today was a good day.
Pictured here are a couple of small pastels that I've been kicking out in the past couple of months.  I'll be regularly posting the fruits of these coming two weeks at regular intervals...

The downside of today has been that I just discovered that in a recent zealousness to clear disk space, I inadvertently deleted an entire year's worth of Maykr photos.  Fortunately, all of the photos I uploaded to Maykr in the past year are archived there.  Although I was hoping to pull out a couple for a post I was planning here.....and they're gone.  It's the first time I've lost images like this...I generally have a dirth of copies on different drives...

A short night out for Second Saturday in Beacon

We made it out on a very cold Saturday night for Second Saturday.  It seems like it had been quite a while since we last ventured out.  We started out at Van Brunt to check out the Kathy Feighery, Sydney Cash exhibit. 

One of Kathy's larger pieces in the show.

Two of Sydney Cash's paintings.

Mission Church performing at bau, featuring Gary O'Connor wearing a cool hat on guitar.

Peter Iannarelli working his charms on Angelika and Elia Gurna at bau.

We then stopped into School of Jellyfish (my first time) enjoyed some very good gluwine with proprietors Lilly and Oliver and ended the evening at the the BCN/Beahive holiday party at the Beahive HQ.

bau 60: Dec 12, 2009- Jan 3, 2010

bau is holding a reunion exhibit of most of the various member artists from the coop's 5 years.  

In the process of formulating my contribution to the show, my mind immediately tracked back to seeing the character of the space before it became bau.  Prior to our taking possession of the space, I photographed it through the storefront windows.  It was mess and the walls carried vestiges of previous lives as a record shop and as a bar.  Below are a few of those photos.  At the time I was intrigued by the amalgamation of textures, wall paper, florescent paint and posters that were subsequently covered by the gallery's walls.

My response for this exhibit harkens back to this introduction to the location.  I decided that I wanted to create a piece that would reveal some glimpse of that life lurking behind the drywall.  I was given the green light by Gary Jacketti (the sole remaining member of the original 6 artists that started the space) to go forth.

I knew there were interesting characteristics within the walls.  I didn't know what I would end up with once I started cutting into the wall.  As I sawed through the wallboard on Thursday night, I was thinking about how this piece is an expression of my compulsion for archiving and documenting some previous state of something. 

My plan was originally to continue the slice from ceiling to floor.  When I got to around the four foot level, I stopped.  I can't remember exactly why, but I didn't feel anything would be gained from going lower.  What can't be seen in the photos are lines drawn in pencil intended to guide my cutting.  The transition from open wall to an extension of the cuts to the pencil felt right and I guess that's primarily what made me step away.   

Another motivation for doing this piece is that I've been less than inspired by the nature of the work that's been rolling through bau over the past couple of years.  With a few exceptions, the work exhibited has been rather conventional and staid.  I'm not saying anything I do, or what was done in the first year of bau was particularly exceptional, but I do think that there was a willingness among the broader body of artists to take a chance and do something outside of the normal mode of operation for each person.  This sense of exploration may have been manifested in a material new to the artist, or a collaboration that resulted in something unexpected - uncalculated - but whatever it was, it seemed more more evident in the early days (to my perception).   I just don't sense a churning creative vibe coming off the joint that much anymore. As I said, there are exceptions that have been sprinkled throughout the past couple of years.  I particularly dug on the series Art/New York screenings hosted by bau early this year.  Of course it's a matter of personal taste. That being the case, I couldn't see myself simply choosing yet another painting or assemblage to tack on the wall.  It's just not interesting to me, and there wouldn't be anything I can add to a group show such as this that would distinguish it much. 

This piece is an excercise in cutting through the prim fussyness that has, on occasion, befallen the gallery .  It's a gentle jibe, framed in an undulating scallop of kitsch. In the end though, in a room filled with art it becomes, as with anything, just another thing on the wall.

Also participating in bau 60 are: Jane Blake, Michael Gaydos, Carla Goldberg, Tom Holmes, Peter Iannarelli, Gary Jacketti, Joann Klein, Tony Moore, Franc Palaia, Linda Richichi, Angelika Rinnhofer, Christopher Staples, Elizabeth Winchester, Grey Zeien, Lisa Zukowski.

The wall cut along with work by Tom Holmes, Lisa Zukowski and Tony Moore.

Peter Iannarelli's work on the floor between paintings by Linda Richichi and Joann Klein.

Angelika Rinnhofer's video.

kork Advent is in full effect

The collection of Advent works and accompanying texts on the board of kork.  

James Westwater's work from Dec 5 is visible here.

kork Advent is underway.  I'm now in the second week of sending out the daily emails that are part of the project.  The project is a calendar of sorts that lives both in physical form in the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Assoc. in Poughkeepsie, where each day the staff at the office advances the calendar to the next artwork, and as a daily email that arrives in the inbox of subscribers for the month of December.

Putting this thing together has had me thinking of our days and what they mean. 

A day is a wedge of infinity framed by goal posts.  At once an inconsequential, increment and momentous.  

A day can be alright.  Any given day can be your best, your worst, your first and your last.

But how many of us consider the days we pass through?  This one, the last one or the next?  Perhaps plenty do, for themselves, but each day is really a torrent of billions of days for those souls in this world which honor that unit of measure.  

Alastair Dewell's contribution for Dec. 7

Concurrent to my own, there are millions of other people's days.  Some hundreds of them rub up against my own - generally unreflected upon.

 

I heard Lawrence Weiner say in an interview, speaking about his manhole cover works, that his intent wasn't to fuck up someone's day.  He wanted to fuck up someone's life.  

Scores of page-a-day calendars are full of one line buttresses against a bad day.  Messages of empowerment, encouragement and bolster to face and, put a good face, on each day.  In a small way, I think some days in December may be fucked by the advent project.  The array of the artists' works and their accompanying texts demonstrate the abundance of wonderful, demoralizing, or heartening experiences each day holds.  

Autumnal Interlude

The leaves beginning to envelope Trophy just before my departure to Denver.

I'm wrapping up a two week trip to Denver which has been full of seeing friends and family, taking in a couple of great exhibits, some studio visits and collecting the Denver contributions to the kork advent project.  I'll be posting missives from the trip in the coming weeks.

Falling down

In preparation for the open studio in Sept, I stuck Trophy in the crux of the tree in our garden. Sometime thereafter, during one particularly windy evening, I'm sure, the sculpture came to the ground. It's still there at the foot of the tree.
There's something affecting for me in its present maimed death-posture. I'm waiting for a process of decomposition that I know will not come; the work is made of wood and styroform. I imagine some molding will occur and the styro will slough off it's pink plaster skin, but perhaps not much else. I relish maintaining the site of incidence. There's a history there even if not significant. As a metaphor for my own activities, I'd like this occurrence to leave a mark, to be absorbed to some degree by it's environment
At the very least I'm waiting for the falling leaves to swallow it up but that tree is slow to let loose of those extensions. In any case, I'm sure the landscapers will come and disrupt the crime scene with a bit of tidying up. I'm apt to let the piece stay over the winter, watch it disappear and then reappear in the Spring before I dispose of it finally.

Coming in December: kork advent

In a season where galleries all over will amassing their stables of artists to entice buyers with an array of small, gift worthy artworks, we at kork are bringing together our own cadre of artists, but we're not trying to sell you anything. Rather, we'll be sharing a little time with you; a month, to be exact.
Advent brings together 31 artists to count down the last month of 2009 on the kork board. In the manner of that desktop stalwart, the page-a-day calender, each day of December will be represented by an artwork accompanied by a phrase, quote or definition of the artist's choosing or contrivance for the day .
The project will exist in physical form at the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Associates in Poughkeepsie and in virtual calendar form as a daily email with each artist's work.
Consider it our gift to you.
You can sign up to receive the month of daily emails at the kork blog or fill out this online form.

Participating artists are: Daniel Berlin, Zachary Harper, Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, Matthew Slaats, James Westwater, Peter Iannarelli, Thundercut, Martin Bromirski, Joseph Liebhart, Theresa Gooby, Gregory Marvin Reynolds, Kirsten Kucer, Marc Willhite, Karlos Carcamo, Alisha Kerlin, Lisa Townley, Sara Wolfe, Carl Van Brunt, Jim White, Jill Reynolds, Bridget Mullen, Robert Lomblad, Steve Rossi, Peter Acheson, Elia Gurna, Mark Creegan, Mark Delura, Itziar Barrio, Angelika Rinnhofer, Sharon Butler, Christopher Patch.

Wandering through Chelsea last week

I may be in Southwestern Missouri this week, but last week, I spent one day down in Chelsea, perusing in some galleries, and here are some of the highlights.

First was a stop in David Zwirner to catch the Raoul DeKeyser and Chris Ofili exhibits, both on view through Oct. 24 and both worth seeing.  

Ofili's Afropop drawings, which I didn't photograph were elegant and funny oversized doodles from the past several years.  These three photographs depict some of DeKeyser's recent paintings which are on exhibit with a selection of drawings from the late 70's and 80's.

 

 

The other highlight for me was the Magnus Plessen painting show at Barbara Gladstone, through Oct 24.  The gallery website has a good selection of exhibition and artwork photos.

 

 

Magnus Plessen

Open studio, now closed.

I decided to pull it all out for the open studio this past weekend.  Pulled it all out.  My thought was to bring out all the work that I have here in Beacon, save for the stuff that's too too embarrassing to show, and the stuff I know simply is nowhere near finished, and put it up for grabs at meager prices.  It's like gifting with a nominal kickback.  The process leading up to the open studio was great, and long, replete with moments of paralysis along the way.  The paralysis comes from my lack of being able to choose which task should next be done...and I end up jumping between two quixotically...

The benefit was that I photographed or re-photographed virtually every work I have in my possession here in the studio.  That process was fulfilling and productive.. Anyway, here are some picks, before and after the fact.  Incidentally, I opened my studio as part of the city-wide Beacon Open Studios that took place all weekend long here in town.  It was a good weekend.  Now what am I going to do?

 Some mighty fine goodies brought in by the Funky Baker.

 

The paint roller cover column I erected over the week.

 

 

 

 Marc Schreibman's photographs on the front of the house.

 

  Elia Gurna's installation on the porch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Trophy in the tree.  I'm thinking I might let this disintegrate up there through the Winter.

 

 

 

 

 A cupboard installation.

 

"Carrie Moyer Camou", a very recent work.

 

An incidental work created by me, inadvertantly, and claimed by Peter Iannarelli as his own creation.

My night out

 

 The throngs outside the Robert Miller Gallery.

I spent a couple of nights down in the city last week.  On Thursday night I went down to Chelsea and did a seven block sprint through a ton of openings.  It was all pretty much a blur.  I dug some of the work at the Mark Bradford/ Kara Walker show at Sikkema Jenkins.  It was very crowded so I didn't stick around to see the Walker video.  A few paintings in the exhibit Abstract Abstract at Foxy Productions have stayed with me.

  

I ventured up onto the highline for the first time.  I only walked it for a couple of blocks.  This being September 10, the pillar of light at ground zero was illuminated once again.

  

 

Only because she is too damn adorable

does she get her picture posted today.

My Doings this week

 Peter Acheson pulling out some work.

On Wednesdsay of this week I went up to have a studio visit with Peter Acheson in Ghent, NY.  I've posted several pics over at MAYKR.  Peter will be running down to Beacon to create a few interventions around our place for the Beacon Open Studios which will be taking place on the weekend of Sept 26 & 27.  More on will be forthcoming.

 

From Ghent, I stopped in to the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Assoc. in Poughkeepsie to install some security envelope collages I've been working on recently.  I put several up in the conference room.  The day before, I installed the newest kork project which is a collaboration between Brooklyn artists Bridget Mullen and Christopher Patch called Faces or Friendships.

  

  

  

 

  

Faces or Friendships on the kork project space.

In Ellenville, Torrent part deux

 

Week before last I installed the second of the Ellenville works.  Here's the statement I posted with the work:

The Ellenville Public Library's monthly book discussion for July was on Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  I read the book and partook in the discussion which was held on July 22.

This installation is based on the experience of reading the book and listening the reactions to it during the book discussion.

Water for Elephants traces a moment in the lives of folks living and working on an itinerant circus crew during the Great Depression.

What became clear to me during the discussion, was that the book unwittingly tapped into the trend in which financial analysts and commentators in the news have frequently compared the current economic and fiscal situation to the the crisis of the Great Depression. 

 

 These comparisons have abated somewhat since earlier in the year, but it illustrates the importance of memory and history in contextualizing our current state of being.  

This piece deals with those analogies of economic hardship, using a mixture of signals from the book and my own use of pattern and repetition which carries, for me, significance to familiar human activity and the flow and altering power of the passage of time. 

The topical backdrop of the book is further made current by the very nature of the 10x10x10 exhibit which specifically announces the economic reality of vacant storefronts around Ellenville, and one strategy - that of utilizing the currency of an art industry - to revitalize, reinvent, or simply enhance the economic and cultural landscape of a locale.

Like Ellenville, there are thousands of towns and cities that have set the table to entice fortune to drop in for dinner.

  In the novel, the circus is the institution that thrives on the sweat and sacrifice of the individuals who in turn are dependant on that institutional mechanism.  The disintergration of the circus in the novel is an apt metaphor for not only the recent financial collapse, but on a longer term, the fate of communities like Ellenville that have long hoped find a remedy that will fill its empty storefronts.

  

I had intended the work to utilize two tables that had been in the space everytime I'd visited since early May.  Since much of my painting recently has involved creating patterns, I was taken by the idea of creating a meandering checked tablecloth.  The tablecloth also seemed an apt image of thoughts of abundance and sustainance in a time when those concepts are of so much concern to many.   Of course, the day that I actually arrive with my tablecloth piece in hand, the tables are long gone.

In keeping with the spirit that guides the creation of my work, I improvised.  Using some large cable spools and air ducts lying around in the space to create new tables.  I initially felt this effect was more informal than I had hoped so I returned a week later with two tables.  

Now, I think a better solution that would be a hybrid of the two.  I prefer the substance that the presence of the spools offers, but the draping, particularly in relation to the cut out areas worked better with the actual tables.

  

  

  

 

My Summer vacation part 5

 

A few shots of the bombed out squatter's paradise, art center and tourist mecca that is Tacheles.   We wandered through the halls and Maggie's Farm out back on our first night in Berlin.  Before walking on.  Just last week, NPR ran a story about the hive of artist studios and the resident's fight against the building's owner which hopes to re-develop the site.

The only regret I have from the entire trip are the photographs I didn't take of the prostitutes lining the Oranienburger Straße.  They were stunning in their superhero outfits; like pnuematic comic characters cast into living form, without the masks and capes, but fully clad in all the incarnations of skimpy, skin tight shiny spandex and pleather you can imagine.  I vow to bring back photos next Summer. 

  

  

  

  

My Summer vacation part 4

 

How many schools in the US are named after visual artists?  Let alone ones who worked in such a bold, direct manner like Max Beckmann?  A quick google search found an elementary school in Albequerque. This sign adorns the front of the Max Beckmann Grundschule or elementary school in Worzeldorf Germany. You'll notice they did cleanse the picture of the cigarette he holds in the original image 

.

  

Also in Worzeldorf, these streets sure are named after funny sounding trees.

On the road to Berlin:

  

  

 

 

  

  

  

There's something comforting but creepy in Germany's skin toned (caucasian, of course) taxi's.

  

Compostionals:  The Berlin Philharmonic

Here is my attempt to copy the photo Angelika took at the Orianenburger Strasse Unterbahn stop, which ended up on the cover of the US release of Chris Whitley's album Reiter In.  I didn't quite nail it.

Public Displays of Affectation

Here's a 180 degree sweep of my view just prior to the panel discussion on public art held in the Learning Lab at Dia:Beacon on Aug. 8.

 

Dan Weise of Open Space Beacon and Electric Windows, Cabot Parsons, Chair of the Beacon CityArts committee and Ty Marshal of Floor One and one of the organizers of this year's WOMS.

  

The lovely audience waiting for a stimulating talk.

  

  

From the fore to the back:  Steven Evans, assistant director of Dia Foundation at Beacon, Sara Pasti, director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, NY,  and you can just see the arm of artist Garin Baker.

The panel talk was held in conjunction with the opening of Windows on Main St. in Beacon.  In preparing my thoughts on public art, I began thinking of the various examples of public art that I have seen and have had an impact on me.  The initial question posed to the panel was to relate an instance of significance in interacting with a work of public art. 

As I let others on the panel talk, I recalled an interaction with a wholly unofficial form of public art.  Around 2000 someone had nailed a series of loose informal paintings on cardboard to telephone poles along 13 Ave in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver.  There could have easily been over twenty five of these pieces on either side of the street stretching for at least 10 blocks like psychedelic incomprehensible garage sale signs.  My recollection was that these pieces must have stayed up for a couple of days, and I'm certain I had driven past them three or four times because I began to covet them.  I then set out to make two of my own cardboard paintings and I "traded" them for two of the works.  That work represented a moment of sharing and communication.  I think that moment and the subtleness with the work which it had presented itself in the environment has greatly influenced my approach to all of the projects I've organized.

Considerations of Public Art are different from the non "public" variety.   In general, it's saddled with many complex factors that pull on it in one way or another.  It's hard for any work to stand up to those pressures, and few examples do so strongly.  Of course the tyranny of the democracy of taste and personal affrontary are no more front and center (with the exception of healthcare reform) than the topic of public art.  I remember having a quick conversation with John Grant, the former public art administor in the  of the Mayor's office of Art and Culture about the caliber of Denver's public art.  I don't remember the nature of the exchange, but he left me with the appreciation that even bad public art can act as a physical record of a community's values and sensibilities ( in the case of Denver, those values tend to favor giant, infantalized representations, mostly of loveable animals.)  That notion has stuck with me, and I can appreciate even the public art I consider bad for that very reason (exceptions to this being the Borofsky piece which I still find loathesome and is a product of an illinformed and tasteless abuse perpetrated by the previous Mayor's wife, and  then, the wayward allocation of percent-for-art funds for what amounted to the creation of a sign for the Denver Pavilions shopping center.

Get that chair a horse!: Donald Lipski's Yearling in front of the Denver Central Library photo via bonjourpeewee's flickr page, and the largest chair in Bavaria.

As I'm typing this, I'm recalling another extended relationship I had with a sculpture near the South Platte River where it runs through Littleton, CO.  The work is metal; essentially an upright disc that rotates on a low pedestal or plate.  Each side of the disc sports a triangular "removal" that cuts into the form, without interrupting the circle's profile.  The sculpture is a dark bronze color with perhaps a slight hint of rust.  The two "removals" on the disc's flanks are enameled in yellow and green respectively.  I don't remember ever seeing the work rotate, but it was often in a new orientation each time I passed it on my bicycle commute.  I considered this sculpture to be a cold, generic piece of minimal plop art (I didn't articulate it in that way at the time, but that's the gist of my feelings)  However, one encounter with that work that changed my perception of it.  It was the kind of morning that had a dense layer of ground fog, with very low visibility, but it wasn't entirely dark and grey.  The sun was shining above the fog, so the effect was more of luminous atmosphere.  Coming upon the sculpture in these conditions transformed it into a conjunction of hulking shadow emerging from the nothing, pierced by an arrow of radiance in yellow. Shock and awe was the result.  The lingering effect of that sudden found form of respect is that even when criticizing a work negatively, I conciously leave the door open for the potential, slime though it may be, that a previously dormant power within a work may arise at some point under the right circumstances.  The treasure and the pleasure of public art is found in the multitude of inconsequential interactions generated by its presence within one's routine.  These instances shape the individual and in so doing, the artwork too.  In an essay in "Plop: Recent Projects of the Public Art Fund", 2004, Tom Eccles, former director of the PAF in NYC equates the work of public art to a piece in a private collection - not the prized gem that's showcased over the fireplace, but the piece that's hanging in the hallway, on the way to the bedroom, the piece with which one has a glancing recognition, but it's presence enters the consciousness subtley, shaping the tone of an experience.   

 here's a guided tour of Denver's Ugliest Public Art as determined by one individual.  One of the works on the list has sparked the most recent public art debate.  Luis Jimenez's Blue Mustang was an eternity in the making and it ended up dispatching its maykr into eternity.  I've flown in and out of Denver just once since the work has been installed.  I long thought the proposed piece was overwrought, underwhelming and downright chincy.  But in person, and at night with phantom eyes a-blazing, its an outrageous, creepy, hardcore sight.  It's raw, uncoothe and kitchy with a tough of Ug - exactly what the West can exemplify, proudly.  There are several facebook groups that laude the work, and one sizeable one that wants it gone.  I dig it.  And, if for no other reason, this work deserves a long life on its prairie perch because of its triumph over its over man, like the bull that bests the toreador.

Anyway, I don't know how informative our panel talk was, but I had a great time.  Unfortunately there ended up not being much time for exchange with the audience.

Dan Weise's panel discussion notes.

My Summer Vacation part 3: affinities

 

A shopping trip to the grocery market in Schwabachturned into a consumer product safari.  

Above, Bavarian pickles, below, a granola box diptych painted earlier this spring.

 

 

I began really looking at grocery lables and packaging almost two years ago when I started hording cereal and granola bar boxes.  Only since last fall have I really begun to figure out what I'm doing with these things.....some of them, anyway.  I'm struck by the color and compositional elements.  Factor in the novelty of unfamiliar products and packaging, and the appeal is amplified.

  

 

 A Depletion Drawing from 2008.

  

 I've taken to eating Ritz crackers just for the boxes.  Here's my collection so far.

  

 

 

A Boxer painting from 2008

Pudding!... I hope.

Being easily amused.  I marveled at lenth at this upside down swingset reflection 

seen in the window of A's childhood attic bedroom.

 

One of my new Value Pack 24 Bar Landscapes

Grosse aus

In a previous post I mentioned the seemingly ubiquitousness of Katherina Grosse while I was in Germany.  Well, she's followed me back home.  Tonight, listening to a podcast from the Tate Modern (a 5hr, 53 min Contemporary Painting and History Symposium), there she was speaking of her work.  I'm halfway through the episode now, and it's pretty good.  Not as dry and crusty as some of the Tate's programming.  I like the offerings withing the Tate Events podcast, but man, some of the theorists they have speaking can wring the life out of the most lush subjects. A recorded conversation with Lawrence Weiner was very entertaining, but another conversations that included David Batchelor Richard Dyer on the color of white was just such a one, which was surprising an disappointing because Chromophobia was soo good.

Back to Grosse's work, I respect her program and what she's doing with the medium of painting.  It's just distant and cold, which is contrary to the hotness of her gesture, and as she sais in her talk the prevalence of sexual energy and love that is infused in her concept of action.  In her discussion, she mentions her project at the Neues Museum in Neurnbeg and two other concurrent projects in Germany.   I've not seen her work in person, and her installation at the Kunsthalle in Berlin had just closed when we were there.  She was also taking part in a gallery group exhibit we didn't have time to see.  

The Nuernberg work felt a bit perfunctery and constrained.  As I said, ambitious, but just felt like it missed the mark.

My Summer vacation, part 2: Sunday in Schwabach

 

 My eye has been drawn to geometric pattern and almost repeating forms over the last year

and our little stroll in Schwabach is sure to provide fodder for new variations.

  

  

The colors of the windows nail this one for me.

  

 I really dig the punctuations of peeling paint.  

   

 Beauty. 

  

  

  

  

 Still not sure what to think about this one.

 

  

Back home in Katswang, the pharoah gets his stripes and the neighbors' 

pattern clad bathroom.

 

WOMS panel discussion on public art at Dia:Beacon, August 8 2pm

Windows on Main St is coming around for the fifth year starting on August 8 and it feels so luxurious to have stepped away from the project and to not have to be hustling to get the thing ready..

Well, there is one thing I'm doing for it. 

There will be a panel discussion on the topic of public art at 2 pm on Saturday August 8 at Dia:Beacon.  I'll be on the panel along with Steven Evans, Assistant Director of the Dia Foundation at Beacon, Sara Pasti, Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art & Beacon City Councilwoman, Cabot Parsons, Chairperson of Beacon Arts & Cultural Development Committe, Garin Baker of the Orange County Arts Council and Dan Weise, Open Space Gallery in Beacon.

My Summer Vacation, part 1

I've been living the bachelor's life for the past couple of weeks.  My German half is in Germany for another few weeks toiling away on her MFA.  But at the beginning of July, we spent 12 glorious days together in the motherland.

A view into the photo gallery of the Museum Industriekultur.

We arrived in Nuernberg within an hour of each other on separate flight.  We immediately scooted over to the Museum of Industrie Kulture to deliver a couple of A's photographs for her two person exhibit with Beatrice Haverich which was to open the next day.   

 

Beatrice's photographs of public swimming pools.

  

This show is a homecoming of sorts for both A and Beatrice.

For A, it's the first time she's shown her work in Nuernberg and this work owes much to her upbringing in the home of Albrecht Durer.   Angelika cut up a few prints from her Felsenfest and Selensuche series into postcard sized pieces, then on daily basis she mailed these postcards to her parents.   Three of the works were ultimately treated in this manner.Originally conceived as a way to mitigate the cost of shipping the work to Germany, it had the secondary encapsulating various possible themes of the exhibit.  Angelika's collaborator, her mother, reassembled the works by stitching them together.

 

 

 

 These groups of photographs are almost fetishized by some for their classical mastery and beauty and perhaps their familiarity. The of slicing and mailing thes works undercut the preciousness of the photographs.  They are afterall really a form of conveyance for the concepts behind them.  This physical interference of the image marks the close of this stage of her work while signalling possible future directions,  I think it would have been nice if the post office was more creative in it's role in the collaboration and lost or truly mutilated some of the cards.

After the opening we spent a couple of days hanging out in Nuernberg, visiting friends, going out.  I picked up a handful of great exhibition catologues at the Kunsthalle for 3 Euro each. I made a solo visit to the Neues Museum and caught an entertaining, comic/tragic exhibit by Wiebke Siem.  Katharina Grosse, whose name suddenly seemed to be appearing everywhere in Germany had an indoor and outdoor exhibition of works.

 

Katherina Gross' work at the Neues Museum.

 

Her work is impressive in scale, ambition and flash, but in this instance it's just feels typical in a "meh.  It's pretty I guess" kind of way Typically irreverent, typically unmonumental, typically oversized.  Maybe that's a good thing, however I felt I could spend more time contemplating the relationship between the museum facade and series of cocktail tables arrayed on the same plaze in anticipation of an event later that evening.

TORRENT installation no. 1

 

Saturday marked the opening of 10x10x10.  Here are some pics of the first installation.   

  

This installation is a gesture that alludes to the realm art, and ideas existing in service of the financial.  Indeed much art owes its very existence to economy, industry and financial success, and the utilisation of art as promotion may well be a suitable quid pro quo, but so much of it is is presented in exhibitions like this one which have more to do with promotion than actual engagement for its own purpose.

The signs are works create by a handful of fine artists, who are:  Steve Rossi, Erica Hauser, Todd Sargood, Franc Palaia, Heather Sardanopoli and myself.  I have posted a map denoting each of the artists signs here.  The for rent signs are displayed and supported by an ad hoc framework of my own artwork.  The pieces cum structural elements are actual paintings and portions of broader works both from over the past couple of years. It is the signs that are the focus of the installation.  Although they are created by artists, embued with their personal sensibilities, they are still function, mostly, as signs.  The artwork that supports the signs is more marginally visible, and not frontally so.  The motif of asking artists to create For Rent signs also refers to the sillystupid "art" projects like Cows on Parade that cast artists in the role of tchochke decorator centered around the unifying theme of a fiberglass sculpture lawn ornament in the form of cows.....or cats.....or bulldawgs.  A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting where a representative of some Hudson Valley event was speaking and one aspect the organizers were planning was an exhibit of artist painted oars.  Really enlightening.  High culture, for sure.  It's essentially the concept of artist as sweatshop worker volunteer with the artist's "visibility" is offered in lieu of payment.

  

My next visit to Ellenville will be next week to participate in a book discussion at the Ellenville Public Library.  The book to be discussed is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  I finished reading it this morning.  I imagine the next installment will factor this experience in some form when it .  

 

  

A mix of older work (Ardour) and more recent endeavors.

  

 

The canvas is part of "Making One's Way" from 2005, with two parts of Garden Variety from 2006.

  

 Below are a couple images from two of the other artists with window installations.

 

One view of Elizabeth Peters' installation.

 

Ryan Roa's fixtures of notty pine at a former video rental store.

10x10x10 Opens Saturday in Ellenville, NY

I'm at the tail end of a trip to Gemany at the moment. I'll reutrn to the States on Friday. The 10x10x10 exhibition opens the following day, July 11th with an opening from 4-8pm in Ellenville. I have a couple of last minute tweaks needed to finish the first installment in a series of installations I've planned.

Pictures of things seen in Neurnberg and Berlin are soon to follow here on the blog, as well as photos from Ellenville.

10x10x10 opening reception in Ellenville, NY, July 11, 2009

The 10x10x10 project opens on July 11 in Ellenville.  The exhibition will open that day with a reception which will be "A Little Taste of Wawarsing"  from 4-8pm (as I understand it the village of Ellenville is actually surrounded by Wawarsing).  Here are the other artists participating in the exhibit:
Dina Bursztyn from Catskill, NY, Josua Goode from Ft. Worth, TX, Renee Iacone from Ghent and Manhattan, NY, Suzy Jeffers from Rosendale, NY, Sarah MacEschen from Tilson, NY, Saul Melman from Brooklyn, NY, Elizabeth Peters from Rhinebeck, NY, Ryan Roa from Newburgh and Manhattan, NY and Susan Ross from Kerhonkson, NY. 
I mentioned in an earlier post that my approach will be to create a series of installations and projects which will evolve through the run of the exhibit in response to the time I spend in Ellenville. 
The first of these projects is TORRENT or FORRENT.  I've made a call for artists to create For Rent signs, the purpose for which I'll get into later.  These signs will be arrayed in the form of a window installation and will also be included in a web project.  The subsequent projects will stem from this first one by way of intuitive confluence of thoughts and experiences....

Lost in the Mail

I'm hoping one of my most recent projects doesn't gall the US Postal Service too much. Above and below are images of my test case for the Missives. The Missives are 4x6" mashups of my pre-digital life. As I make these little works, I'll be randomly sending them out to friends, family and strangers alike. They are collages of various multiples of snapshots, bad or blurry photos and other misc. material. I was doubtful that this one would make it through at all. There was a sliver of thickly cast latex paint at the top which I knew would not have made it through the sorting machines. I was surprised and pleased that less than 3 days later, sans the latex paint and one collaged wedge of photo. Impressive service. I tend to produce a lot of stuff work, and it tends to pile up sometimes. This piling up is part of my process - sort of like aging a wine or a cheese. At some point either the work or I am mature enough to finally administer the coup d' grace and reach a "completion" for the piece.
But it's refreshing to put something together and ship it out straight away. To share it more directly and immediately. The Missives are part of my renewed initiative to share my work more immediately. Each Missive is numbered and archived on my website, along with the date I mailed it and the zip code to whence it was sent.

If you, dear reader, are interested in being added to the club of random Missive recipients, shoot me an email with your mailing address at info[at]christopheralbert[dot]com and you too can intermittently, and unexpectedly be blessed with a little blessing of strangeness in your mailbox..

Ellenville Promenade

I took a little drive to Ellenville, NY yesterday. I'll be one of the artists participating in the 10x10x10 project this year and my jaunt was an initial scouting trip to get the lay of the land. Now entering its fourth year, 10x10x10 is an storefront exhibit has followed the formula of 10 artists from 10 Hudson Valley communities in ten vacant storefronts---although this year, one of the artists hails from Texas.
I originally met 10x10x10 organizer Judy Sigunick last year when she came to Beacon to participate in the Windows on Main St. panel discussion. Here are some of the sights as Judy, Rhinebeck artist Elizabeth Peters and her daughter and I did our walkthrough.
What am I going to do for the project? I don't know. I've got a list of various ideas and concepts growing right now. What I do know is that my installation/project will have different components that I want to evolve and transform through the run of the exhibit.
The project opens on July 11 and it will run through the end of October.

This is not my spotted and ever folding face!

Untitled (Iccipoo) 2005 wood plaster latex cpr mask
I attended a musical performance of a selection of E.E. Cummings poems yesterday at a senior center across the river in Montgomery, NY.
I was presented with a new sensation as I waited for the performance to begin. For the first time ever, I was looking around at the older people around me not as they are now (as older and elderly folks) but as they might have hadbeen. It was strange.
I saw them as a projection of how they are now, but in some unreal facsimile-of-old-age-way, as if an example of really bad facial prosthetic makeup that makes young actors appear like their elderly selves had been applied to the faces of this Sunday afternoon crowd. Their elderly features felt fleeting at best and totally bogus.
I imagine this shift in vision is the result of my own aging. My mind's eye sees a reality that is altered in the mirror.
My own sense of self is still so weighted in that hadbeen of me that it must be producing a visual empathy with the 'geries' and seeing how they may still see themselves.

Taking some fresh air

As July came to April this weekend, studio operations moved outside. I expect I'll be working on the porch, in the yard and in the garage a lot this Summer.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon stretching canvas on portions of produce crates that I picked off the street in Chelsea a year or two ago. I also rooted around my stockpile of wood to rip down into stretchers for a bunch of new paintings. And, I helped A created a wearable camera rig for her current video project. It's amazing what you can do with 15$ of PVC pipe and an old back support belt. Hopefully, we'll get images of her wearing the contraption soon. It's like a living sculpture.
With the newly found weather-induced energy, I realized that I've got a lot of work to catch up with all the ideas that I've been brewing up for new work. I'm anxious to make the most of the available time in the next several weeks to lay the groundwork for a bevy of new pieces this Summer.
These crateworks have me in a Gilligan's Island-kind of mood which I imagine will influence my approach. I'm using up various thin strips of canvas I've had on hand on these things, weaving the strips on some pieces.
This time spent out of doors has me thinking in earnest about the next Kamp Maykr....which I hope to put together in September....or so.

Mini update

Groundcover? oil on canvas and wood, 12x15"
I've been remiss in my lack of posting of late, particularly in regard to what I've been working on. So here's is the briefest of peeks into what's been cookin' 'round here lately.

fandf (jm) oil on canvas 16"x22"

Jenny's Lights, Out (ruby/amber, ruby/jade) oil on cardboard 14"x23"

Missive #1 collage on photo 4"x6"

March viewing excursions

A's skirt, digitally modified to fit the mood of the day.
On two Saturdays in March I made a jaunt down to NYC for some art oriented expeditions. On the 7th, A and I headed down together to Pulse. We then parted ways as she met up with her pal Peggy, and I headed down to SOHO to check in on the Habitat for Artists installation at the recently opened NY outpost of Ecoartspace. After hanging you with the HFA contingent that had made its way down for the opening, I hustled up to Denise Bibro Fine Art to catch the Artbloggers panel that was organized by Olympia Lambert and which included Joanne Mattera, Hrag Vartanian, Libby Rosof and Roberta Fallon , Bill Gusky, and Brent Burket.

Saturday morning soccer action on the pier outside of Pulse.


Habitat for Artists at Ecoartspace.

The blogger panel at Denise Bibro Fine Art.

On the following Saturday, I met up with Peter Acheson to do a late morning run through some galleries.





We started off at Josh Smith's show Currents at Luhring Augustine, where we spent much time debating Smith's intentions. Both of us responded positively to the show. I like straight out stream of production - good and bad- represented in the show. I also respond to the flattening out of the hierarchy of material, presenting paintings on canvas side by side with digital prints of paintings pasted on panel at the very same scale as the works on canvas. In some ways, his work speaks about slaying the sacred in art, but I found a certain structure within the gathered works that he did not betray. Certain types of mark making seemed relegated to the paintings and a particular set of the mixed media painting/collages, but another selection of collages were completely devoid of the same treatment. I'm not sure if this was part of a deep seated aesthetic strategy, or an abiding to some invisible barrier, either way, it served to undercut the entire, balls to the wall approach he seems to want to embody.
The different bodies of work within this entire body were divergent enough that the works themselves seemed to provide a palate cleanser. As some work was more memorable than the rest, the lesser works...or whichever ones appeal to you less take on the role that empty wall space would provide - giving a buffer between the vibration of the pieces that matter. I picked up the exhibition catalog, and if image per dollar cost is any measure of worth, then it's a real value, clocking in at around 600 images for $40. The catalog, showing two images per page with no text equates to a cache of film frames rolling through a barrage of works, some of which I learned from the gal at the counter were not even finished. Knowing this really brought it home for me. I dig the flat, holistic apporoach to his process.
above and below: more Josh Smith.

Dana Schutz at Zach Feuer, through Apr 25.

The highlight of the day was discovering Jim Lee's work at Freight and Volume. This show lacking in the spectacular provided so much of a thrill to both of us. the inventiveness and quietly clear vision of this work forces air in to my lungs. I can't say enough about this show. I certainly don't have any smart words to lend it's description. F&V's website has more detailed images of the work.





A trippy Carroll Dunham at Mary Boone.

Our selection of gallery visits was rounded off with a stop into the Leon Kossoff show at Mitchell Innes and Nash. Really sumptuous, physical work from the '50's that been rarely seen as the artist has stringently guarded these pieces. My favorite piece is in a back room, but all of these works have so much presence, and given the generally muted palette, there's a lot of chromatic life eminating from all of these works.
a detail of Kossoff's oozing layers.

Russell Bay McKlayer

Denver artist Russell Bay McKlayer died last month at the age of 48. Russell was one of the founding members of EDGE gallery. His work has always been graphically bold, and editorially direct, loaded social and political content.
News of Russell's passing brought to mind yet another loss to the EDGE family when Roger Beltrami died in early 2004. Roger and I exhibited concurrantly in at EDGE in 2002 just before I ended my six years as an associate member of the gallery and moved to NY, which gave me an opportunity to get to know him a bit better. I didn't know Russell on an intimate level, but I liked him very much, and I appreciated his presence in the group. As it happens, when I was back in Denver last October, I stopped into EDGE on an evening when Russell's most recent opening was being held and we were able to chat briefly. Ken Hamel of denverarts.org posted a few photos of Russell with his work in that exhibit called "I never said that I was brave".
In my view, both Russell and Roger lent a more pointed, radical nature to the character of EDGE as an entity and the losses of both remarkable individuals in relatively short order is profound.

In 2005 I organized an exchange show between the members of EDGE and a group of artists from Beacon NY. The concept of the show revolved around work that would fit into a standard flat rate USPS priority mailing box. The work of the Denver artists was on exhibit at Spire Studios here in Beacon. The image above shows Russell's contribution to the show. I have to dig around in my papers to retrieve the title information.... The work is paint and collage on a wooden cigar box which fit into the mailing box in its folded position and when opened, expanded into a vertical diptych.
My thoughts go out to Russell's family and friends.