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David Smith,
at Gagosian Gallery
by
Nicolette Ramirez
This exhibition is, in a sense, a preview of an upcoming
retrospective of Smith's work that is scheduled to open
at The Guggenheim Museum in New York, in 2006, and then
travel to London's Tate Modern, before going on to Centre
Pompidou in Paris.
David Smith: Related Clues includes sculpture, drawings,
paintings, relief and sprays from the artist's earliest
creative output in the 1930s up to the time of his accidental
death in 1965. The curatorial layout of the exhibition is
such that the viewer starts with Smith's mature work and
moves in reverse chronological order. In this way, the source
of Smith's later imagery, the evolution of his style and
exploration of various media can be fully appreciated. The
show successfully demonstrates Smith's working process of
simultaneously drawing, painting and sculpting; switching
back and forth between disciplines in order to resolve issues
in the work and refresh his creativity.
For example, the sculptures Untitled (1951), (Study for
Agricola I), and Agricola XXII (1959), utilize the physical
space around the sculptures, which is punctuated by their
various shaped appendages. On the other hand, Construction
December II (1964) stands vertically, a triangular shape
comprised of smaller shapes that suggest images that are
a testament to its time; steel beams, anvils and related
icons of the booming industrial age which, once upon a time,
had stood for a better future. The complex mesh of geometric
forms (cylinders, rectangular boxes) is a rusty brown color
which seems to point to the passing of those times.
This rusty color cedes to a mellower rendering of color
in the stainless steel Two Box Structure (1961). This vertical
totem-like sculpture is capped by a circular "face" on a
"neck" of thin steel. The figurative in the abstract is
delightfully obvious. The stainless steel was worked over
with a grinder, giving the surface a texture that reflects
light from what appear as thick, painterly brush strokes.
Dida's Circle On A Fungus (1961) takes the painterly reference
a step further; Smith painted the back and front of the
sculpture. The generally round form is incised with square-rectangular
shapes. Standing on a black base, this sculpture seems to
hold the potential for movement, as though it were about
to walk away.
In Smith's sprays, figurative and abstract images again
combine to create a vocabulary for sculptural forms. The
spray 6-59 (1959) is a prototype for Two Box Structure (1961)
and Untitled (1957). This work presages a slim, horizontal
sculpture; perhaps it served as inspiration for one of the
Agricola series where organic and mechanical forms merge.
The light and dark spaces of these sprays add a dimension
of depth to the works.
What has been
referred to as "positive and negative space" (with the negative
space as the lighter part where only the outline of the
shape remains, but the object itself is missing or "invisible",
and the sprayed dark area is positive space) thrusts the
forms forward out to the viewer, thus rendering their effect
more powerful than an image of the actual object.
In his early work in the Virgin Islands, Smith relied on
the landscape around him to inspire the subject and media
that would turn up in his drawings, paintings, relief and
sculpture. In Construction (1932) coral, wood, wire and
nails combine to create a smaller, more colorful version
of what would one day look like Two Box Structure (1961).
Throughout his prolific career, Smith worked in various
media, moving back and forth between drawing, painting,
sculpture, relief and sprays. Each discipline informed and
fed the other creatively; a foray into one would facilitate
and release the creative cogs of another. By not having
a set notion of what he was, or what he was "supposed"
to be doing, or why, Smith excelled at everything he undertook.
Through 4/17.
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Sebastian
Blanck, at Michael Steinberg Fine Art
by Joyce Korotkin
Sebastian Blanck's
inquiry into the juncture of figurative and abstract painting
deepens in these recent works that focus on his signature
theme of depicting figures in the shower. Whereas in previous
work he would place his subject behind the diaphanous scrim
of a patterned shower curtain that blurred and diffused
both light and figure, here Blanck places the figure in
the foreground. This simple change makes a radical difference,
allowing the artist more creative space to explore formal
painting issues.
Moody inferences
to romantic scenes take a back seat to the push-pull of
surface versus illusionistic space. With a wink to Damian
Hirst's dot paintings as well as to the Ben-Day dots of
Roy Lichtenstein, Blanck uses the large, hard-edged geometry
of the polychromatic polka dot pattern on his shower curtain
to skew space, which is further complicated by the shifting
planes caused by the folds in the curtain material.
The figures (of
himself and his wife) are worked in a more painterly and
expressive manner as they meld into colored light, then
morph into pure pattern. In Isca, for example, the radiant
golden orange figure dissolves as if refracted through a
lens, at the same time dissolving into abstraction. Details
are spare. The figures are unidentifiable, universal; silhouettes
rather than specific individuals that disperse into a luminous
palette of chrome yellows, deep ultramarine and cobalt blues,
scarlet reds and oranges; the colors of Vermeer and medieval
stained glass. Of particular interest here is the way in
which formalism and evocation co-exist on the same plane.
Through 5/8.
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Elizabeth
Huey, at Polytechnic at Michael Steinberg Fine Art
by
Nicolette Ramirez
Brooklyn based
artist, Elizabeth Huey, incorporates vivid fairy tale imagery
with science fiction in this series of landscapes that appear
both man-made and otherworldly. In paintings and drawings
that reflect the content of the larger works, Huey uses
a palette of forest greens, earthy browns, celestial blues
and dusky pinks with spots of blood red in between. She
creates a surreal setting in which devils, wild dogs, putti,
angels, hunters and female knights roam eerie forests and
barren landscapes.
In the painting, The Crooked Path (2003), Huey renders a
pastel sky in swatches of pink, aquamarine, grey and green.
In the background we see a patch of windmills and what appears
to be a radar or an antenna. But these familiar references
take on absurd narratives; there is a blonde angel who wields
a sword over a roach infested bubble, a brunette angel pours
white milk over a bathing beauty in a pond while she pulls
up the curtain on "the scene" with her free hand.
These paintings are populated by many such beautiful heroines,
clothed in contemporary garb, or naked.
Various electronic gadgets also populate these strange landscapes.
In Reconstruction (2003) Huey uses oil and epoxy on wood
to create a giant science fiction-like grasshopper that
dominates the picture plane, its half-machine / half-insect
torso hovering above the dark fairy tale surroundings. Characters
introduced in one painting live on in the next; the bathing
beauty, now fully dressed and sporting a halo (while carrying
a sword) is shown looking back on a red brick castle, set
against a brown sky, with snow caps in the distance In the
snow are silhouetted couples. They, too, have halos over
their heads.
Open Season for the Pleomorphic Hunter (2003) shows a male
angel, a female hunter and a young girl whose internal organs
are exposed. We see the bathing beauty again, this time
dressed in a Guineveresque dress with stars around her head.
Whether the young girl is being threatened or defended is
unclear. In complex and multi-layered works, both here and
elsewhere, Huey brings us timeless psychological and physical
conflicts; haunting visions that could be read as parody
or perhaps the real thing.
Through 5/8.
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Size Does
Matter, at Boreas Gallery
by Lily Faust
Viewing large
works can be liberating, intimidating, or, simply, easy.
Size, a quantitative measure, has become a qualitative trait
in contemporary art, and is, arguably, a defining element
in art evaluation. Although the six artists featured in
this exhibition each utilize their individual vocabulary
to create relatively large drawings, it is their unique
approach and specific concern that is more likely to elicit
a shared response than the scale of their work.
In drawings by Amy Kao, David Brody and Lori Ellison, an
elemental unit serves as a point of departure to create
a larger, more complex whole. Amy Kao uses graphite paper
to create markings on a large paper with a small, concentric
marking device. Her work is a blend of the fabricated and
the organic, utilizing a singular icon to produce clusters
of growth on the pictorial plane. David Brody's wall installation,
titled, Fragment of a Much Larger Thing: Elbow, puzzles
and teases the eye; ostensibly building up patterns, the
work creates visual anagrams based on the depiction of a
three-dimensional form.
Reminiscent of
the cross-section of a beehive, Brody's linear drawing sprawls
from a corner of the gallery onto the adjoining walls, entailing
baffling configurations. Through repeated and reverse patterns,
his complex diagrammatic structure shifts between the planar
and the dimensional, aided by colored lines that outline
and segregate real space. Like a visual conundrum, Brody's
site-specific work is best appreciated in the mind's eye.
Similarly, repeating a motif to create a larger vision,
Lori Ellison's self-portrait consists of sheets that copiously
spell out her first name and the word "love" in
ink on tracing paper. Conveying optical subtleties through
repetition, the two words loop around each other, in alternating
rectangles.
The cliche title of this show, Size Does Matter, insists
that scale, whether large or small, is an important consideration
in viewing works of art. A sensible approach to size, in
response to whether it matters or not, would be to ask if
the work would be less or more valid if its size were to
be altered. As such, including small versions of the work
might have created a better idea of how size matters. Seeing
first hand the effects of size on a project would have made
this interesting show even more valid.
Through 5/24.
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Jeff Bridges,
at Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery
by
Joel Simpson
Remember Cinemascope?
In the 1950s this super-wide angle camera technique was
one of Hollywood's newest technical wonders, intended to
make movies more realistic and thereby lure people away
from their tiny television sets and back into the dwindling
ranks of big screen movie theaters. There was, of course,
no such thing as black and white Cinemascope.
But that's what actor Jeff Bridges has essentially given
us ? in film stills ? in this series of behind-the-scenes
panoramas taken over a 25-year period.
Although most of the subjects in Bridges' photographs are
"celebrities" (including the photographer) there
is more substance here than one might presume. We see people
at work, from the perspective of a working actor.
There's Barbara Streisand before a mirror in her dressing
room. There's director Peter Bogdanovich in shades holding
his fingers in front of his eyes, lining up a shot ? taken
from inside a car ? and six crew members trailing off to
the left; or Michele Pfeiffer standing on a piano in the
distance, with all the filming apparatus and crew surrounding
her during the filming of The Fabulous Baker Boys; or Bianca
Jagger watching from behind the butt-end of the painted
set (with other backstage activity going on) during the
shooting of The American Success Story; or Robin Williams
entertaining the inmates of a sanitarium on an off moment
during the shooting of The Fisher King; or a family shot
of the photographer's brother, Beau Bridges, shaving in
a men's room and flanked by an arching row of sinks and
a receding row of urinals.
Bridges uses the
wide-angle bending of horizontal lines that some take as
a disadvantage with panoramas to great effect. Celebrity
name-dropping aside, Bridges' most bizarre shot is from
underneath a ballerina; crinolated crotch as chaste heaven.
3/5 through 4/24.
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Paul Neagu,
at Gallery 49
by Mary Hrbacek
The Abstract Gamma
Hyphen series by British-Rumanian artist Paul Neagu comprises
Neagu's major artistic focus from 1975 through 2001, reflecting
a preoccupation with the H form in the word Hyphen, his
signature vision that is defined by connections, both metaphorical
and literal. Neagu's graphic works from the Anthropocosmos
series (1971 - 1973), in the lower level of the two-tiered
gallery space, reinterpret the visual relationship of the
space they occupy. There is a prodigious array of wood and
steel sculptures, graphic works, diverse multi-media paintings,
and drawings on paper.
These works elicit a light-hearted spirit of fun that derives
from the tactile, sensate qualities of the wood and metal
sculptures. Inspired by farm implements and other functional
tools, the work evokes primitive associations with simple
children's puzzles, transcending their functional aspects
through a lyrical sense of toy-like forms.
Some of these graphic works and paintings on paper convey
their quixotic meaning through recurring elements; clear
edges, flat color fields and circles containing visual information.
In Wallachian Panel (1993), (screen print, oil pastel, charcoal
on paper, 22 x 30 inches) an L-shaped form that suggests
a blueprint, can also be interpreted as an abstract head
and neck.
The energetic, expansive Gamma series of paintings bursts
with mini-brush strokes hurling from a central format. While
referencing scientific phenomena by visually replicating
the "Big Bang," these images also suggest human ecstasy.
The term "hyphen" implies an extended vocabulary of connections.
Through these sculptures the artist transports the viewer
mentally through time and space to an era of primitive wood
and iron implements, concluding the journey with stainless
steel tools that hint at the present. The abstracted shapes
in Hyphen Elm (1984-86), (wood, steel rod, 13 x 18.3 x 20
inches) are set on a modular three-part puzzle-like base.
Multiple meanings abound; the upper piece resembles a hybrid
prehistoric animal, a plough handle, a musical notation
or a question mark. The "wheels" suggest a baby's curled
chubby legs. The composite piece evokes themes of music,
movement, work and play.
In some cases the Hyphen series paintings are two-dimensional
replications of the sculptures that reinterpret the H form.
Hyphen Phallus Self (1984 -1991), (pen, ink on paper, 22
x 30 inches), features an ingenious vertical appendage surrounded
by freely splattered ink markings. In Catalyptic Hyphen
(1984), (watercolor, pencil, oil on paper, 22 x 30 inches)
Neagu pushes the hyphen shape into pictorial space behind
a grid of drips. Repeated geo-shapes interact with guided
accidents that create splatters, squiggles, marks and lines
representing human and cosmic energy. In these unassuming,
insistently personal works the artist conjures a convergence
of poetry, science and spirituality.
In the gallery's lower level, the Anthropocosmos works from
1971 - 1973 add insight to the less structured later Hyphen
series. In two works, Monk I and Monk II (1981), (watercolor,
screen print and mixed media), the artist employs optical,
map-like, three dimensional elements suggesting skyscraper
windows with juxtaposed segments. The viewer has a birds-eye
illusion of a vertical look straight down at the narrow
streets (or lined divisions) below. A large embedded figure
composed of three-dimensional windows slowly emerges into
our optical awareness; bald and nude, it appears to be a
barefoot ritual figure on bent knee. The windows, seen from
different perspectives at the same time, are grafted onto
each other.
In a later work, Discovery (1997 - 2000), (ink, pastel,
enamel and pencil,
22 x 30 inches), the carpenter's benches in a semi-circular
group are transformed into what appears to be modern city
buildings, with spiraling black and white squares wafting
skyward like eddying black smoke. Bits of white paint punctuate
the picture surface in an altogether convincing poetic amalgam
of forms; rectangles, tables, buildings, tornadoes and the
energy emitted by a tall H that stands for Hyphen.
Neagu's works persuasively realize his ideas in artistic
physical forms. He wants to sustain the conceptual edge
of his art without diminishing the importance of its physical
material attributes. He places special emphasis on the sanctity
of human the capacity for fantasy, work, sex and contemplation.
He celebrates the oneness of life, linking eras in history
and culture with extraordinary lyricism, while eschewing
didactic allusions.
Neagu attempts to preserve human qualities like imagination,
inventiveness and feeling; to protect them from becoming
lost, abandoned, automated or dehumanized.
Through 5/4.
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Gerardo
Rueda, at Chelsea Art Museum
by Nicolette Ramirez
Spanning almost
fifty years of the artist's career, this retrospective of
the Spanish Constructivist Gerardo Ruedathe includes paintings,
sculpture, drawings and assemblages. Rueda often uses a
combination of several different media in one work to satisfy
his preoccupation with space and volume, and the geometric
shapes that create illusions in his work.
The reduction of line, color and form is another preoccupation
of Rueda's that points to Minimalism as an influence in
his abstractions. This reduction in form and color palette
is evident in such paintings as Landscape with Blues (1957).
In muted browns, creams and baby blues, strong horizontal,
vertical and diagonal lines create triangles and rhombi
that make the work vibrant. In Untitled (1958) two tones
of Indian ink on drawing paper show a lighter reflection
of the dark abstraction in front of it. The fluid brush
strokes and the reflection of images imparts this work with
a vibrant feeling.
In a series of oil paintings from 1960-1964 Rueda's painting
leans strongly towards minimalism. In Grey Composition (1960),
a black background is painted over in huge vertical swatches
of grey, reminiscent of the effect of a dirty eraser on
a blackboard.
This grey is also
seen in Burgos (1961), a completely grey composition with
built up paint in the lower part of the canvas, creating
a textured landscape that is open to interpretation. This
build up of paint to create abstract forms is also seen
in the paintings where primary colors are employed. Blue
at The Limit (1964) takes the paint out to and then onto
the frame itself. In White Painting (1963) a circle and
a square punctuate the otherwise flat, white surface.
In more relatively recent work, such as Handwriting (1992),
Rueda utilizes a wooden structure to create space and depth.
Three horizontal bands of blue, white and red paint are
punctuated on the line by cuttings made to resemble the
lines of an elementary textbook, the kind on which children
learn to write. Memory (1996), an architectural sculpture
that employs short and long cylinders, cubes and rectangular
forms, relies on different shapes and textures to evoke
an urban landscape; thick metal plates with rough edges,
thin sheets of squares in a grid pattern, plates with keloid
scars, raised hatching and incised holes.
Running currently with Rueda's retrospective, a notable
group show of fourteen woman artists (from the 1920s to
1970s) provided a unique context for the work.
These artists include
Marlene Tseng Yu, Grace Hartigan, Louise Bourgeois, Pat
Steir and Joan Mitchell in a show called Presence. This,
in addition to the museum's permanent collection of the
works of Jean Miotte, an early proponent of L'Art Informel.
1/1 - 2/27.
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Grapefruit:
Yoko Ono in 1964, at ISE Cultural Foundation
by Lily Faust
In a narrow gallery,
participants sat on the floor in a circle and touched each
other in silence. There was no time limit to this work,
and it was executed quietly. Yoko didn't speak other than
to give instruction. She was also one of the participants
in the event. Some people were shy in the beginning, but
eventually found their own ways of expressing the act of
"touching." We all awakened our sensations by
touching, which was rarely an issue in the art world.
These words, excerpted from a reproduced text in an exhibition
at New York's ISE Cultural Foundation, belong to Takahiko
Iimura, a writer who was present at the Touch Poem Event,
held at Tokyo's Naiqua Gallery in 1964. That was the year
artist Yoko Ono collected her poems and instruction pieces
in the revelatory book, Grapefruit. It was also the year
she decided to return to New York City after a two-year
hiatus in Japan.
Now, precisely
forty years later, in an exhibition curated by Midori Yamamura,
1964 serves as the time frame in which Ono, as a member
of the Tokyo Avant-Garde, carried out many of her innovative
performance instructions and interactive paintings. The
exhibition concentrates not just on original and reproduced
artwork by Ono, but archival photographs and documentation,
including the artist's and the participants' recollections
about her work from this period.
The inclusion of diverse documentary material extends the
boundaries of this show beyond a purely visual event to
a historical, cultural exploration of her life philosophy.
Striking at the core of the commerciality of the art system,
and focusing on the introspective and experiential nature
of art, Yoko Ono's work serves as an early example of the
then nascent Fluxus and Conceptual art movements. Her work
is also underpinned with the aesthetics of Zen Buddhism,
an Asian school of thought that emphasizes meditation, self-contemplation
and intuition as a path towards enlightenment.
Ono's work is
implicitly about enlightenment, self-discovery and intuitive
understanding. Her "instructions" for performances,
containing a single word directive, such as "Fly,"
invite the viewer to act on his own, and thereby create
an unplanned drama. By keeping her instructions to a minimum,
she allows participants to reach within themselves, and
react, forcing an interaction that reaches beyond the formal
boundaries of art.
Among the numerous art historical items on display, the
exhibition includes a piece of black fabric from the Cutting
Event of August 11, 1964. The wall text for Cut Piece includes
instructions for a single performer: Performer sits on stage
with a pair of scissors placed in front of him. It is announced
that members of the audience may come on stage?to cut a
small piece of the performer's clothing to take with them.
Performer remains
motionless throughout the piece. Piece ends at the performer's
option. And a second version, this one for the audience,
reads: It is announced that members of the audience may
cut each other's clothing. The audience may cut as long
as they want. These are subversive, playful instructions,
challenging the behavioral norms of the time. Inciting an
unlikely rebellion on stage, although within a gallery context,
they offer an honest questioning of the limits of human
behavior while encouraging personal expression. Unlike the
single-word directive of the Water Piece and the Fly Piece,
the instructions for The Cutting Event border on perilous
territory; dealing with the paradoxical issues of aggression
and submission, life and death, obedience and rebellion.
Without committing to a conventional narrative, Yoko Ono's
performance work and instructions are centered on the perceptual
experience of life. This, from the vantage point of a human
being, an entity imbued with self-consciousness and a long
social history, contemplating its identity by questioning
the very premises of "normalcy" within its artistic,
cultural and social institutions.
In tandem with the experimental essence in Ono's work, the
exhibition invited artists Nancy Hwang, Hiroko Kikuchi and
the two-artist collective, Praxis, to interpret Ono's instructions
for Touch Piece, Cut Piece, and Water Piece, respectively.
Water Piece, whose original version by Yoko Ono simply states,
"PIECE FOR NAM JUNE PAIK NO.1/ Water./ 1964 spring"
is an open-ended piece, one that could easily be tied to
the Japanese preference for under-statement.
During its interpretation
of Water Piece, Praxis, the husband and wife team of Delia
Bajo and Brainard Carey, concentrated on a specific act,
the washing of hands, imbuing it with a significance that
transcends the everyday activity. As the audience lined
up behind a cloth panel to participate in the mysterious
performance, Bajo and Carey, each, washed the hands of the
performance guests, using perfumed liquid soap and moisturizers.
As such, this simple act invited associations of a contemplative,
spiritual nature inherent to the innocent physical exchange
between strangers. This work, as in the performance of the
washing of feet, referenced the liturgical context of the
washing of the feet by Christ. It inspired interpretations
of kindness and generosity, giving voice to a less austere
and less formalized version of the art world.
Through 5/15.
Ed Note: ISE Cultural Foundation is located at 555 Broadway,
New York 10012.
212.925.1649 www.isefoundation.org
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Ying-Yeuh
Chuang and Yi Chen, at Plum Blossoms Gallery
by Nicolette Ramirez
This two-person
show, The Hybrid, by Ying-Yeuh Chuang and Yi Chen brings
together the paintings of Yi Chen and the ceramic sculpture
of Ying-Yueh Chuang in a unusual juxtaposition.
Ms. Chuang's colorful ceramic sculptures yield strangely
beautiful and intricate forms. Both animal and plant-like,
these sculptures recall sci-fi creatures from imaginary
tropical waters. Baby blue starfish forms, with textured
flowers, capped in cream and blue are what make up Plant
Creature, Group No.3 (2003). Whether grouped like this series,
or large and singular, standing on their own, or hanging
in the air, these ceramic sculptures represent a novel execution
of an age old art.
Yi Chen paints the human form with a bit of John Currin.
More flat and angular than Currin's rounded, voluptuous
women, Yi Chen's men and women are androgynous; the women
seem a little "butch" and the men look like transsexual
hookers. A series of collages on view, not for sale, show
Yi Chen's working process. His subjects are an amalgamation
of various body parts combined into one person; a nose from
a Western fashion idol, an eye from an Asian pop star, an
ear from perhaps one of any number of cultural icons from
other parts of the world; not unlike the process of plastic
surgery prevalent in Western cultures.
Hilary (2003) and Beth (2003), a brunette and a blonde,
respectively, are portrayed against a background of blue.
Curiously deformed, Chen's paintings are all strangely beautiful
in their misshapen imperfection. Both artists create something
new from recycled forms in a global cultural environment.
Chuang from flora and fauna and Chen from the world of fashion
magazines and consumer culture.
Through 5/15.
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The Whitney
Biennial 2004
by Nicolette Ramirez
In its 72nd incarnation,
this year's Whitney Biennial boasts a roster of 108 artists
and collaborators who comprise a survey of important contemporary
art made in the last two years. These works come from painting,
sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, film, video
and other media.
Every Whitney Biennial garners its supporters and detractors,
and this one is no exception. The opinions of veteran art
world denizens ? jaded by their own culture fatigue ? are
sharply contrasted with the opinions of young and idealistic
art enthusiasts who realize that art museums are often the
last to grasp the winds of change; what new gallerists and
independent curators have already been onto for years.
A perfect example of this is Assume Vivid Astro Focus. This
Brazilian group of collaborators has been on the art radar
for some time and their work has impressed many with its
brilliant tropical colors and psychedelic content.
Mixing electronic music with appropriated and original imagery
AVAF has created an installation that draws us into another
world; an all-encompassing experience that engages all of
our senses.
Another work that utilizes sound and sight to create a holistic
art experience is Craigie Horsefield's El Hierro Conversation.
In this work, four walls of atmosphere are created from
filmed conversations with the inhabitants of the most western
isle of the Canary Islands. Showing the terrain, flora and
fauna, society and culture of El Hierro, this piece brings
the viewer into the present life situation of the region,
evolving over the course of several hours of film.
Another artist, Fred Tomaselli, addresses the human body
in his mixed media works. Colorful and psychedelic, Tomaselli
uses flowers, seeds, pills and capsules that reference the
body as a form, making a correlation between bodily senses
and artistic enjoyment.
Cecily Brown, noted for her sexually explicit content, painted
white scenes of sensuous sleep haunted by batty figures
in a black background. Also working in black and white and
crossing generational lines, Robert Longo's charcoal drawings
of waves captured the power and dynamism of the ocean.
Another artist playing with water was Yayoi Kusama, whose
installation Fireflies on the Water (2002) depicts a monumental
experience of being out on a lake at night with fireflies
hovering over the water.
In addition to the museum exhibition, the Whitney Biennial
also features scheduled film and video screenings. Isaac
Julien's documentary BaadAsssss Cinema pays homage to the
"blaxploitation" films of the seventies that flourished
briefly and just as quickly disappeared. Moreover, for a
second consecutive time, this year's Whitney Biennial has
partnered with the Public Art Fund to create works by Paul
Mc Carthy, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Liz Craft, David Altmejd,
Yoyoi Kusama, Dave Muller and Olav Westphalen in Central
Park.
Through 5/30.
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Koichiro
Kurita, at John Stevenson Gallery
by
Joel Simpson
The images in
modernist nature photography fall along a gamut that runs
from pure reverentiality to pure form. When exploring other
than the grandiose aspects of nature (the drama of mountains,
canyons and skies), more provocative photographic images
these days tend to fall on the formal side of this spectrum
since the classic black and white nature photographers (
starting with Ansel Adams and continuing through the Westons
pere et fils, Minor White, Paul Caponigro, and Wynn Bullock
among others ) seem to have covered the territory well in
the balanced center between depiction and form.
Koichiro Kurita's work in this exhibition, titled Yin-Yang,
is a frank celebration of form. Hand-crafted platinum prints,
most of them 16x20 inches in size (mounted in 24x30 inch
frames) use ice, snow, water, wood and various grasses as
actors in the drama of light, line and texture. The photographs
were taken in the nature preserves of upper New York State
and in the Japanese countryside.
The majority of these images are sensitive treatments of
familiar subjects:
wood texture, a tussock-clump of phragmites, reeds and their
shadows on snow, a Cape Cod stairway framed by wilding bog
grass and surmounted by windblown leafless woody silhouettes,
streaks of sunlight on a fern field and a truncated layer
of snow separating compressed reeds below and displaying
bending cattails above.
The most compelling images utilize water surfaces to launch
a light gradient, from opaque bright to transparent, which
contrasts with the discreet forms of leaves, logs, stalks,
lily pads, and rocks. For example, Distance, Catskill, NY
2003, frames a knurled cloud chiaroscuro in a water reflection
into which we can see the subtle parallel stems of water
plants, bending with the current, their tips breaching the
surface, forming microcosmic nuggets of reflection. These
delicate compositions of light and dark, line and gradient,
texture and smoothness, literally demonstrate that in nature
opposites balance, segue into and interpenetrate each other;
hence the show's philosophical title Yin-Yang.
Through 5/15.
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Shimon
Okshteyn, at Nohra Haime Gallery
By TOVA BECK-FRIEDMAN
Having come of
age in the former USSR, Okshteyn was trained in the tradition
of Russian classicism. Since immigrating to the United States,
his work has gone through a stylistic transformation that
has embraced hyper-realism in his meticulously crafted graphite
on canvas drawings.
This show, comprised of nine new works, continues his exploration
of grisaille photorealistic drawings. Prior to this, Okshteyn's
drawings consisted of everyday recognizable objects, from
old hats and clothing to common appliances. By rendering
such items larger than life, he would imbue them with a
presence that was not there before; this was how Okshteyn
investigated the world around him. His subject matter, no
matter how mundane, took on an aura of a private history.
Here, however, Okshteyn examines something that is not so
much an object as it is an idea; the brush stroke, the universal
symbol of the vocabulary of Painting. The paradoxical nature
of this inquiry creates an intriguing ambiguity.
Before he can
make his hyper-realist drawings of brush strokes, the artist
has to first create them. By turning thick impasto paint
into thin graphite drawing, he creates an illusion of a
third dimension. What we are seeing is a disorienting vision
of heavy paint applied thickly, which, upon close examination,
turns out to be thin gray varnish. In another twist, heavy
impasto paint strokes, often associated with primary colors,
are painstakingly translated into a gray scale utilizing
graphite rubbed into the canvas.
The almost square shaped canvas, (44x42 inches) with images
that bleed into its edge, give these two-dimensional works
a sculptural quality. We enter the pictorial space to find
ourselves in a different world; an abstraction of the building
blocks (brush strokes) that would otherwise comprise the
picture. And indeed, as we examine these drawings, they
conjure different images.
In Untitled III we can see a Chinese landscape painting
of rock formations, while Untitled XI depicts rock texture.
In Untitled IV and Untitled V, there is an allusion to American
Abstract Expressionist painters' use of brush stokes that
cuts through the surface, while Untitled VII brings to mind
Hokusai's woodblock print of Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Okshteyn's carefully rendered graphite drawings employ only
shades of muted gray, from light off-whites to darker charcoal
hues, in this successful bid to observe, in near scientific
detail, the underlying and most basic element of what makes
a painting tick. Musingly dubbed A STROKE IS A STROKE IS
A STROKE, this show is not so much about the physicality
of brush strokes; it is more an attempt to grapple with
the mystery of painting by looking far beneath its surface.
Through 5/8.
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Marie Jose
Burki and Mie Yim, at Lehman Maupin
by Lily Faust
In her new silent,
three-channel video work, De Nos Jours (Of Our Days) Marie
Jose Burki takes the viewer on a Sunday stroll through vast
lawns on which groups of people picnic. Her camera pans
slowly across green parks, at the eye level of the picnickers
who are lounging on the grass, drinking, reading and otherwise
relaxing.
Burki's process
of excerpting and synthesizing similar groups of people
on what might be separate but similar lawns, at separate
but similar leisurely moments, creates a generic context
that is impersonal and leisurely; much like a casual, sun-filled
Sunday afternoon. The evidence of the day can be witnessed
in the cigarette packs and soda cans, the sandals and the
Tupperware, the magazines and the bicycles, waiting idly
to be picked up or discarded. In this easy atmosphere, the
homogenous nature of those enjoying the day is obvious.
Mostly white, mostly young, mostly wearing similar sportswear
and gadgets, as if affirming the culture out of which they
grew, the denizens of Of Our Days, with their backs turned
to the viewer, reflect the contemporary, urban psyche of
their class. The probable scenarios that could arise through
Burki's lens would only mirror the essential character of
its quiet; a sense of complacence and reserve, bordering
on alienating the viewer by its unwillingness to take note,
look back, or return the gaze. The video image is rippled
by the presence of several narrow, vertical, white panels
that rest against the white screen, breaking the smooth
projection of the images.
These panels instill visual rhythms into the piece, paralleling
the homogeneity of the video characters. The softly undulated
image, as projected against the angles of the leaning white
verticals, is reminiscent of the pace of the video-maker,
who walks, undisturbed, among those who are oblivious to
her activity.
Another work, Chicken (2002) is centered on the process
of chopping up a whole chicken into its various parts; the
wings, the thighs, legs and feet, as well as its innards.
The efficiency with which the "butcher" (whose
face we cannot see) completes his task makes the de-construction
of the chicken even more transgressive, referencing a system
of annihilation that brings to mind human-on-human acts
of violence.
In complete contrast to the video works of Burki are the
colorful pastel drawings of Mie Yim, which are displayed
in an adjacent room. These works, like storybook illustrations,
focus on portraits of stuffed animals in pastoral settings.
Informed by the compositional balance and simplicity of
Far Eastern visual culture, they contain the distilled forms;
suggestive of mounds of earth, nearby, or of lands, faraway.
Placed within the fuzzy topography of a dream-like environment,
Yim's characters project button-eyed stares that glare out
from the picture toward us, as well as toward each other.
Linked to images of childhood, they re-create the reality
of make-believe, where narratives of long ago might be sparked
to life again.
Through 4/24.
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Tribeca
Film Festival
by Lily Faust
This is the 3rd
installment of the annual Tribeca Film Festival, the film
industry event which was started in 2002 as a cultural anti-dote
to the events of September 11. Held in venues adjacent to
an area that used to be called Ground Zero, the festival
was intended to rejuvenate battle scarred lower Manhattan.
Since then, however, it has been garnering an international
reputation as the place to discover new talent.
Showcasing diverse
points of view, the festival's first-timers include not
only new directors, but also world premieres for films never
tested before an audience. Unlike the Sundance Film Festival,
which has become a launching pad for independent titles'
commercial success, the Tribeca Film Festival is still innocent
enough to offer genuine access for new films to find an
engaging audience in an international setting. With over
200 selections that include groundbreaking films, documentaries,
experimental art films, features, and shorts, this year's
festival holds great hope for visual and narrative excitement,
rumination and fun.
The eclectic slate of movies is rich in exciting stories
and documentaries.
There is definitely something for everyone, especially New
Yorkers. With its skyline, characters, institutions, and
attitudes threading through these narratives, the city serves
at least as a background, if not as a star, in many of the
films. Brother to Brother directed by Rodney Evans, which
won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance, 2004, centers on
issues of race, identity, and art; capturing black America's
cultural essence through memories of the Harlem Renaissance.
The Time We Killed, experimental filmmaker Jennifer Todd
Reeves' free-form narrative, shows the visual correlation
between a fictive and a material world. The film, which
won a FIPRESCI Prize at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival, tells
the story of an agoraphobic New York writer who is unable
to leave her apartment. Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art
of Competitive Eating, with footage from Nathan's Fourth
of July Hot Dog Eating Contest and other competitive eating
events, (including one for matzo-ball eating), depicts the
progression of Crazy Legs Conti from a spectator to participant.
Enriched by journals, intimate interviews, conversations,
revelations, and archival footage, the documentaries give
an insider's look into the often poignant, humorous and
powerful journeys of the individual. Some of the personal
stories reflect the sexy and the intimate, as in the video-journal,
Point & Shoot, by director Shawn Regruto; or the unexpected
and the hilarious, as in the documentary based on 19401s
female wrestling shows, Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss &
Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling, by Ruth Leitman.
Among the documentaries that must not be missed are, Carey
Schonegeval's Original Child Bomb, a meditation on war and
its aftermath; and A Social Genocide, Fernando E. Solanas'
militant film-essay on Argentina's socio-economic devastation.
Solanas, who won a Life Achievement Award and Galas at the
Berlin and the Mar del Plata Film Festivals, constructs
his documentary on chronological developments and facts,
framed by chapter headings, in a nod to silent cinema. The
Prisoner of the Iron Bars - Self Portraits is the Brazilian
director Paulo Sacramento's extraordinary documentary about
survival and death inside a Sao Paulo house of detention.
Through a program that enabled the inmates to videotape
their immediate environment, Sacramento captures the harsh
realities of prison life, along with the innovation and
music that holds up the human spirit.
Liu Sen Dou's The Green Hat,Aleksei German, Jr.'s The Last
Train, Luna's Whore and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes
are some of the international and American titles that would
likely strike a chord with main steam audiences. The roster
is full. Given the prospect that the majority of these film
might be difficult to catch again, selecting the right movies
to view in just nine days becomes a matter of personal preference
and pressure.
During a brief encounter, when asked about his personal
favorites, Peter Scarlet, the festival's Executive Director,
responded, "This year's film slate offers the best
selections from across the world. Reading through the festival
guide is a good way to start selecting, and I highly recommend
all the movies from China and Iran. And then there are many,
many more." For more information, please check the
festival web site:
www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
5/1 through 5/9.
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