Ghost On The Aisle

Mann & mankind

2009-10-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

My bullshit detector has fresh batteries.
My tolerance for crappy art has reached an all-time low.
So it gives me great pleasure to recommend the Sally Mann show at Gagosian uptown. She's photographing her husband, Larry, who has MS. He retains his dignity, as is her way. The wet collodion process, ancient and fallable, lets her use it as a metaphor for his aging body. {Maybe.} The results are awesome, in the sense of inspiring awe.
I could say Larry still has a fantastic ass, and I could say bring a hankie. Viewer's call.

Sally Mann, "Proud Flesh" at Gagosian
980 Madison Ave. / 76 st.
212-744-2313
through Oct.31
www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2009-09-15_sally-mann/

images, from top:

"Semaphore", 2003
Gelatin silver print
15 x 13 1/2 inches (38.1 x 31.3 cm)
Edition of 5

"Hephaestus", 2008
Gelatin Silver print
15 x 13 1/2 inches (38.1 x 31.3 cm)
Edition of 5

Of Time and Place

2009-01-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

The natural world, alive, turbulent; calm, roasting, and dead. Jason Frank Rothenberg shoots what he finds, mostly landscapes. This is a mini-retrospective, five years worth of color work. The most powerful images depict nature's inviolable power up close: a glacier, erratically coated with dirt, smothers a stream, which resembles a road. Where the two meet there's a maw, like the mouth of a cave. More brutal than majestic (and a terrific backdrop for the last act of Hamlet). In "Ocean", the heaviest print in the show, the waves heave and crash, black storm clouds hover overhead, and a squall disrupts the background. One doesn't talk back to the elements.
The vistas of trees and open spaces are tranquil, affectionate and a little odd, given their neighbors. Vegetation in Texas comes off better, if for the juxtaposition of the dead, broken branches, shed, golden leaves and living, unlandscaped grasses. A subtle tumult.
Rothenberg is a (primarily) commercial photographer in the Art + Commerce vein. He should get out more.

Jason Frank Rothenberg, "Fossils", at Werkstätte
55 Great Jones St.
212-228-2996
through Jan. 24
www.werkstattegallery.com/index.php?mode=home

images, from top:

"Glacier II", 2006
C-Print
42 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches, framed
edition of 5

"Ocean", 2003
C-Print
26 x 26 inches, framed
Edition of 5

Bellissimo

2008-12-24T16:19:00.001-08:00

Fifteen bucks to see a drawing. Okay, it's one of Michelangelo's finest, of the kind of beauty that can only be described as paradaisical. Also "etherial," "supernatural," "eternal," and " I want that."* At first gaze, it's female. The text declares it's male, from one of Michelangelo's models. I don't care. It's a face that remains on the cranium through wind, cold, and extenuating circumstances. It's with me, still. This "Study For the Head of Leda" would have make even Zeus turn into, oh I don't know, maybe something white, long-necked and feathery.
The rest of this sparse (borderline stingy) show reveals the painter as also sculptor, poet and architect. This is nothing new. Yes, there are several more drawings (two handsful) depicting work in progress; they are suitably magnificent. They're from the Casa Buonarotti, in Florence. And although the works are mesmerizing, depicting the body in motion and architectural renderings, one wants more. The bulk of paper (poems, notes) written by the artist is from charming to whatever; reproduction would have sufficed. Subtitling the show "The Man and the Myth" sounds sensational; this discomfort is exacerbated by the lobby shop, where all manner of Michelangelo paraphernalia is hawked, including an insulated coffee mug. The tote bag has the venue and dates prominently displayed; it was suitably on sale.

Michelangelo, the Man and the Myth, at the Palitz Gallery
11 E. 61 st.
212-754-5121 (no, you don't need an advance ticket)
through Jan. 4
michelangelo.syr.edu

*I've been really good this year and discarded my cradle-robbing ways. But now all I want for Christmas is a catamite.

image:
Michelangelo, Studies for the Head of Leda, c1530
red graphite, 354 x 269 mm

The good, the bad, and the amazing

2008-10-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

On earth as it damn well should be in heaven. One wants to ask for a prie-dieu, such is the majesty of the Clyfford Still upon entering this new gallery. With its jagged mesas of blue and the topmost talons (red creeping into maroon), this is prime Still. Need more?* It lies in the interior: not as immediate, but there's no dross with this artist.
Trying to elucidate why Still is great is like trying to explain why you're with your lover. Sui generis, his work is as ineffable (and as indelible) as his/her scent.
This most uncompromising of artists "once wrote that painting was a way to find revelation and to 'exalt the spirit of man.'”† The other standout is a large work by Lee Krasner, so stunning one wonders what the fuss was with that guy she was married to. "Another Storm" must be viewed up close: paint is splashed (hurled?), dripped, brushed, smooshed. White and red and everything between. The violence is palpable; the viewer cowers. If this is your first exposure to a mural-size Krasner, read the first sentence of this paragraph. "Storm" is flanked on the left by a mushy/twitchy de Kooning, all Ornette Coleman, and on the right, a bodacious David Smith painted-steel woman. Love the segue.
Ah yes, David Smith. His six sculptures are scattered throughout the show, like saffron. My favorite is "Forging XI", that totem pole of raw power.
Don't miss the whispery room of photographs. Small and unexpected (Minor White an Abstract Expressionist?), these additions stretch the movement. There's also a considered attempt to resurrect a few also-ran painters, but unfortunately, in this company -- especially here -- their failings are all too obvious (aka no frisson whatsoever).
A museum-calibre show in the heart of tourist-country. Twenty stories above them and sublimely quiet. Just you, the masterpieces (many from private collections), and security.

Abstract Expressionism: A World Elsewhere, at Haunch Of Venison
1230 Avenue of the Americas
212-259-0000
through Nov. 12
www.haunchofvenison.com

*Satisfy the urge at the Met. Satiate it in Denver in 2010:www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/arts/design/18mado.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=clyfford%20still&st=cse&scp=1

†ibid.

images, from top:

Clyfford Still
1955 M No 2, 1955
oil on canvas
96 x 114 in. (289.5 x 244 cm.)
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive / The Clyfford Still Estate

Lee Krasner
Another Storm, 1963
oil on canvas
94 × 176 in (239 × 447 cm)
Courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York/ 2008 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

toot toot...

2008-10-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

An announcement, not a review. I'm in a huge group show in Williamsburg.

Metropolis Apocalypse, at Supreme Trading
213 N. 8 st.
through Oct. 31
visiting hours: 5pm-9pm daily
www.supremetradingny.com

War pigs

2008-07-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Etchings by Goya, that master of the human condition. "Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War)" is a searing, haunting testament. From the opening image of a supplicant to the 80th page, "Will She Live Again?", all is harrowing. Brutality is the everyday. Attempted rape, dismemberment, corpses being stripped. A woman engaging in battle, baby under one arm. Violence: relentless and macabre. The despondency of those left. The final works are allegories: carnivorous giant bats and orating barnyard animals. It's be comical if it weren't so horrifyingly timeless.

This series was Goya's reaction to Spain's War of Independence against the French (aka Napoleon). No doubt Eddie Adams and Robert Capa were familiar with it.

Enough has been written about war, and plenty has been written about Goya. The work speaks for itself. Go.

Francisco de Goya, Los Desastres de la Guerra (The disasters of War), at Peter Blum
99 Wooster St.
212-343-0441
through Aug. 1
www.peterblumgallery.com

Images courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

Summer trio

2008-07-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

Arcimboldo's progeny goes to the countryside. Landscapes made out of food: in "Salmon Sea", slices of the preserved fish evoke waves coming gently to shore; pumpernickel rocks provide perspective. A delicate pea pod -- swanlike bean sprout emerging from between perfect globes -- is too gorgeous to eat.* Other images are equally tasty: "Broccoli Forest," "Cabbage Sea," "Fruit Balloons" (which surely belongs on Sir Richard Branson's wall). These color prints (not digital, although the produce is preternaturally vivid) had me howling. My fave was "Fruit Balloons", with rolling fields of prone asparagus, cucumber, and ears of corn. Berries float through the sky attached to the aforementioned contraptions. Curly parsley as a framing device. Carl Warner, what are you smoking and can I have some, please?
Cool and elegant and redolent of forbidden pleasures: Donald Sultan records smoke rings on a black ground. Pearly and crisp, wafting ephemeral/eternal. Formal in their gelatin silver and sorrowfully beautiful.
One wants to sniff (fucking brat) at Mark Gonzalez, who shows pics from his Sidekick. For sure, they're immediate. He's on his skateboard. Snap & split. The photos are laser prints, fer chrissake, with all the low-res (odd colors, highlights blown out) you'd expect from a camera phone. But what colors! A marvelous composition of pink bald pate, straw-yellow hair, persimmon ear and cobalt upholstery had me riveted. Alas, a good chunk of the 158 images is navel-gazingly diaristic.
Oh well. We all know reality is what you make of it.

Topsy Turvy, at Janet Borden
560 Broadway
212-431-10066
through July 31
www.janetbordeninc.com

*Good thing the gallery is above Dean & DeLuca.

The inevitables

2008-03-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Death, taxes and the Whitney Biennial. This year it runneth over into the Park Avenue Armory. Skip the video, etc. and concentrate on the building -- the "Veteran's Room" is the showstopper, all Louis Comfort Tiffany run amok. What a visual intoxicant: the faux Moorish, crazy, silver-on-maroon ceiling, the gigantic columns, wrapped halfway up in rusted chain. The radiator grilles are chain mail. The fireplace is tiled in swirly aqua glass. There's enough fanciful wrought iron for it to acquire fetish status. Elsewhere, the lofty spaces are time capsules -- the heavily carved wood, the stained glass, the crumbling walls covered with plastic. The Moose Room is poorly used, but climb up to the balcony for a howler of a view. And for a bit I thought the banging of the steam pipes was a sound piece. Oh, and public access is ONLY through Mar. 23.
Now the museum -- Jedediah Caesar, on the second floor, owns the show. He invented his own medium: the artist filled boxes with studio detritus (paint, bottles, socks, cups), poured in resin, had the hardened stew sawn into slabs, then polished...From afar, it resembles travertine. Up close, identifable things surface -- the serpentine of corrugated cardboard, an artichoke, a walnut shell. Nutso, and bravo. What's Latin for Caesar Fossil? (Looking at the wall of this new material, I felt like an archeologist.) This isn't just transformation, it's alchemy. I love this work.
Need more? "Helium Brick" justifiably hogs the room, a giddily, triumphantly fucked-up, hulking confecton of rainbow colored polystyrene. As pitted as a politician's conscience, it's the star attraction of the second floor. The resin (that stuff, again) reacts with the foam, the result is a Ken Kesey Grand Canyon. Everybody wants to touch it...(Backstory: It was inspired by the filthy, days-old snow of New York City. Evidently, they don't have this substance in the artist's native LA.) This is change you can believe in.
Back on the ground, a few other things I liked: the lush, allusive photograms of James Welling, Phoebe Washburn's daffodils growing in Gatorade (hey, this is NY), Charles Long's albumen prints of abstractish drips on asphalt, in reality great heron excrement (hey, who knew?); his papier mâché, sorrowful, Giacometti-like bird sculptures. Worth contem- plation: Carol Bove's "The Night Sky Over New York, October 21, 2007, 9pm", bronze rods in sync with the sky on that night. Okay; stunning, suspended, etherial bronze rods. Also in sync with the piece over the bar at the Four Seasons -- I knew it looked familiar...

Conclusion: don't sweat the onions.

Whitney Biennial at the Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67 st.
212-616-3930
through March 23

Whitney Museum
945 Madison
1-800-WHITNEY
through June 1
www.whitney.org

images, from top:

Jedediah Caesar, "Dry Stock"
Urethane resin, polyester resin, pigment, aluminum, titanium, wood, and mixed media
Collection of the artist
courtesy D'Amelio Terras

James Welling, "Torso 3"
Chromogenic print , 45 x 34 in. (114.3 x 86.4 cm)
Collection of the artist
courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York

Carol Bove, "The Night Sky over New York, October 21, 2007, 9 p.m."
Bronze rods, wire, expanded metal , 146 x 192 x 96 in. (370.8 x 741.7 x 243.9 cm)
Collection of the artist
courtesy Maccarone, Inc., New York

Reign in blood...

2008-03-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Blood as medium, blood as metaphor. Blood of a poet, encased in resin: splashed, pooled, spun out like a sunburst, and layered, layered, layered. With a base of clear plexi for support. The gallery's white walls act as a reflector; the panapoly of reds glow. (Deep space, indeed.) Metaphysical and profoundly beautiful, there's nothing else like this. As scarlet tapers into tangerine, ruby trails puddle and crack. "UR 4" is a big bang of color, a pomegranate and persimmon iris. Eagles calls these "energy pieces", they're suffused with a whole lot more than cow blood. "UR" stands for Ultimate Rebirth, which would be nirvana; the hues are the saffron and claret worn by Buddhist monks. As the world turns...another work, "Conduit 1", comprises a peephole of sumptuous crimson, a planetary construct, a primal form pimpled with "sealed-in protein air bubbles". As lit, the translucent disc gains a crescent-moon shadow, cast by the black--actually, preserved blood--surround. I kept on staring and staring; attraction infused with awe. Reproduction doesn't do these paintings justice, they must be seen in person.
Medium as metaphor...

Jordan Eagles, "New Blood", at Merge
205 W. 20 st.
212-929-7505
through May 3
www.mergegallery.com

images, from top:

UR4, 2007
36 x 36 x 3 inches
blood preserved with resin on Plexiglas

Conduit 1, 2007
36 x 36 x 3 inches
blood preserved with resin on Plexiglas

An influential thorn

2008-03-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

Ah, Courbet. The bad boy of 19 c. French painting, a divo, and, crowed the cock, "the most arrogant man in France." So far, so good. This show is huge, comprehensive, and revelatory. The early self-portraits show him as a fine-featured, long-haired romantic, assuredly gazing at the viewer. He's good-looking and he knows it: an alterna-Johhny Depp. The delicacy of his face contrasts with the roughness of the background landscape-- the paint is actually textured. A few years later, "The Desperate Man" makes him the poster child for struggling artists everywhere--AAARGH! the trials and tribulations of creating! Tellingly, he never parted with this painting.
Attitude, don't give me no platitude...Courbet courted controversy: splashing decidedly non-stately peasants across large canvases threatened the establishment. Mon Dieu! Le paysannerie! C'est un scandale! Les grandes peintures sont seulement pour les sujets historiques! (To 21 c. eyes, the fuss seems quaint.) By 1850, when his mammoth "The Artist's Studio" was rejected by the Salon (en culé!), he set up his own exhibit* and issued the Realist Manifesto, vowing "to represent the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my own era according to my own understanding of them." Call this the precurser of photojournalism (Koudelka, Salgado) and later, Impressionism. But his realism was still bucolic (think Dutch) compared to Hogarth's urban grit and just about anything by Goya (sniff sniff).
Courbet handled the psycho-sexual deliciously. With a few sly titles, he veered into not-yet-named conceptualism. Take a look at the life-size "Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine" (click on image to enlarge), which has its own wall: these gals are obviously not "demoiselles". The one lolling on her stomach appears louche --relaxed?-- in every sense of the word. From revealed ankle to post-coital expression, she's different. No allegory here, nothing mythological, and certainly nothing to do with the church. She's sexual, period. The title is an illusion, an allusion to the contrary. And Courbet was nothing if not contrary. But this canvas is only foreplay compared to the next room, a chamber of nudes.
Luscious, racky, ready and ripe, bursting with carnality: a modern sensibility. Oozing sensuality is "Bacchante", a take on a classic but distinctly a voluptuary of any age. She revels in her en plein air nakedness. (This painting is stirring in more ways than one.) "The Sleepers" is something Bertolucci might appreciate, gauzy and soft, inviting yet innocuous. Lesbians, not dykes. Tucked in a side gallery is "The Origin of the World", realism's apo- theosis.† Erotica elevated, not by a pillow but by the title. So, is Courbet playing scientist or Soul Man? The artist kept mum. This oil was for private delectation, comissioned by a Paris-based Turk. The most forthright work of its age, it still has the power to amaze.
The show detumesces with a group of (albeit splendid) landscapes, seascapes, and work he did in self-exile in Switzerland. Only an old, sad man paints pictures of bruised fruit.
"When I am no longer controversial, I will no longer be important."

Gustave Courbet, at the Met
212-535-7710
through May 18
www.metmuseum.org

*a digression: Funny, why does this sound familiar? Why is innovation so often thwarted by those who set the status quo? Are they afraid of the new? Or unable, or afraid their inabilty might become known, to discern between the new and powerful and the new and mediocre? As we all know, progress necessitates change, but not all change is progress.

†(Can it get more real? mmm, it could...glisten.)

p.s.--The Met is really missing out on revenue. Why no Courbet condoms?

images, from top:

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
The Desperate Man, 1844-45
Oil on canvas
17-3/4 x 21-5/8 in. (45 x 55 cm)
Private Collection, courtesy of BNP Paribas Art Advisory
Photo: © Michel Nguyen

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine, 1856-57
Oil on canvas
68-1/2 x 81-1/8 in. (174 x 206 cm)
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
The Origin of the World, 1866
Oil on canvas
18-1/8 x 22 in. (46 x 55 cm)
Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Nobody does it better

2008-03-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

Sixteenth century Florentine bliss, as personified by several score of drawings. Under the patronage of the Medici, Michelangelo and cohorts (and followers and acolytes) executed sketches for the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio. (Modern-day plutocrats please take note.) There's Pontormo's study of two men: one figure is in motion as if caught by a strobe, position after position loosly rendered over the previous. The effect is strikingly modern, the line quick and free-flowing. Sig. Buonarroti has only two drawings here--one of a man's leg (but what a leg! the depiction of the thigh muscles is extraordinary--aah, but you knew that) and the other, the bust of a woman. The lady is classical, with a fantastic hairdo, and her demeanor is calm. Forgive the way-off left nipple and focus on her face. What was he thinking??? Bronzino was thinking of a magnificent nude man seen from the back. Supple, natural, fluid, graceful. Tactile, like a Bruce Weber model. This figure was meant to be life-size, as part of the private chapel of Cosimo's wife. Just the form to stare at while she's on her knees, praying. (Consider it a marital aid: she gave him ten children.) And women? Pivot for his lady that owns the show. This "Gentlewoman" (I cannot glibly call her a dame) whispers serenity and aloofness. A beguiling beauty, too, in that clear Mannerist way. I found this portrait mesmerizing; one could build an entire novel around it.
And so it goes. Andrea del Sarto, Baccio Bandinelli, and that diligent biographer/artist Vasari.

This exhibit isn't travelling, so you will.

I'm kind-of stingy with the appellation "masterpiece", but here you've got enough of them to last the evening. The pleasure is sensual.

"Michelangelo, Vasari, and Their Contemporaries: Drawings from the Uffizi", at the Morgan Library
225 Madison Ave at 36 st.
212-685-0800
through April 20
www.morganlibrary.org

p.s. In exchange for waiving admission on Friday evenings, the Morgan subjects its visitors to the sawing of a live string quartet. You are warned.

images, from top:
Pontormo (1494-1556)
Two Studies of Male Figures, 1521
Black chalk and red chalk, red wash, heightened with white chalk (v.)-Red chalk (r.)
11 1/4 x 16 1/16 in. (285 x 408 mm)
Gabinetto Designi e Stampe degli Uffizi; 6740 F

Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo) (1503-1572)
Male Nude Seen from Behind, 1540-46
Black chalk, grey wash on paper tinted with yellow ochre
16 5/8 x 6 1/2 in. (422 x 165 mm)
Gabinetto Designi e Stampe degli Uffizi; 6704 F

Nailing it

2008-02-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

A series of stark, scratched (in the DJ sense) portraits of men, heads only, on squares of wood sawn from a plank. Faces smeared with interior turmoil: Raskolnikov in charcoal encaustic. Vigorous brushstrokes border on violent. Arresting, to be sure. An animalistic intensity, with scars. This is forceful and confident work, tinglingly good. These ten paintings are shown in two groups, they deserve to be kept that way by some perspicacious collector.
Wood of a different variety is found in the other room, where giddily dick-centric, loosely childlike drawings make the innocent (yeah, in Bushwick) blush. Collison's definately wagging his tail here, but covering his ass by titling these "crass". That is, on his site. Here everything is untitled. Hmmm... Perverted with a soupçon of perverseness (which is interpretive) and a sprinkling of quirk. Ink on found paper: old manila envelopes, tatty file folders: discards. Often the sexuality is "deviant" and the figures' dialogue, deadpan. Throughout, the artist maintains a sense of play, especially in the non-sexual pieces. These exude a sense of warmth and, perhaps, memory.
(click on image to enlarge)

Collison is a young, classically-trained artist who includes "explosives expert" on his resume.

Adam Collison "It's Not Their Fault", at 3rd Ward
195 Morgan Ave. Brooklyn
718-715-4961
through Feb. 28
www.3rdward.com
www.adamcollison.com

photos courtesy the artist.
top: "Untitled" 2008, charcoal encaustic on wood, 12 x 12 in.
bottom: "Untitled" 2005, work on paper

Anti-axis, bold as lust

2008-01-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

Corners never had it so good. Lynda Benglis and her lead, flowing like Lucien Freud's depiction of fat. Richard Serra's propped plates of steel, viewing section taped off and a uniformed guard to make sure you don't transgress. (Insurance, you know.) James Turrell has his own room, as befits an artist who works with light. "Munson, Blue" punctures one corner's darkess. The eyes adjust, the blue is startling, the lit polygon a jolt. That gray plywood beam diagonally wedding two walls is by Robert Morris. It's sufficiently overhead to make the neck crane. One passes beneath it to Serra's other submission, another pairing of steel slabs; these have their own tight space, as the jutting corners of the steel penetrate the sheetrock. Ever so slightly, ever so firmly.
This is a spare but sonorous show, and it is absolutely stunning to see such work. To stroll through a ballroom-sized gallery* with one's attention swivelled to the margins. In a sense, the art's observing you.

90˚ The Margins as Center, at Andrea Rosen
525 W. 24 st.
212-627-6000
through Jan. 26
www.andrearosengallery.com

*okay, okay, there are actually only two pieces on the main space. The Benglis huddles in the antiroom... ..

Photo by Christopher Burke, © James Turrell

Pricked, deeply...

2008-01-03T23:27:00.000-08:00

Through the eye of the needle a thread flows. It dips and flutters, Ginger to the needle's Fred. In this packed exhibit the needlework arts are exploded. From Emily Hermant's lying booth --embroidered fabrications, delicately impaled on the curved walls (construct your [virtual] own inside)-- to Andrea Dezsö's comically stiched exhortations (courtesy of a superstitious Transylvanian mother), there is crispness, lyricism, pathos, and mirth. In "Afro Abe II" Sonya Clark pimps a real five-dollar bill, endowing Lincoln with a gargantuan 'fro. The french-knotted yarn extendes above and beyond the note. Dig. Actually, Clark is examining identity, as hair contains DNA. Uh, you don't need to know that to appreciate the work. The image can be enough, and I think it should be on a t-shirt.
Another play on the familiar are the worked panels of Marcia Docter. "Well Behaved Girls" codas with "Rarely Make History": Marilyn's skirt is abreeze, the icon wears Liberty's crown. "Don't Fuck With Me" shows a feisty Liberty (popular gal), one sleeve rolled up, and the threat "I have PMS and I'm armed" sewn at the bottom. A needle and thread are stuck into the margin of the piece. Sharp and knowing but no Steinway grand; more design than art (sniff sniff). (Um, what's the name of this museum again?)
No embroidery exhibit is complete without something by Angelo Filomeno. When this Dante of the zigzag hits his machine, collectors swoon. His work is instantly identifiable and never disappoints. What the hell this guy is on, I don't know (Albrecht Dürer, for starters), but his imagery is simultaneously flamboyant and macabre: in "Death of Blinded Philoslopher," a talon pierces a scull's eye socket, out of this vacancy spews a veritable aria of red swirls, tendrils, beetles, flowers, all hushed by red dragonflies. All sewn on iridescent-silver silk shantung. Is it over the top? Define "top"...
Another artist who draws with thread is Shizuko Kimura. Working from live models, she captures the sitter with minute, spare stitches, but the defining curve of thread isn't anchored. This gives the work an uncanny quality, quiet yet somehow amazing;the result lies somewhere between the Renaissance and Alexander Calder. She really deserves to be showing at the Drawing Center.
Taking the stain to a higher place: pinpoint it and embroider it, embellish the splaccident in screaming colors, give it a posterized feel. "Imagery of contamination" becomes the center of attention and another in the dept. of why didn't I think of of that? Thank you, Nava Lubelski, for mainlining humor into the lower level of this show, and allowing this viewer to exit with a face contorted from supressed guffaws (that's why writers carry notebooks).

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, at the Museum of Arts and Design
40 W. 53 st.
212-956-3535
through March 9
www.madmuseum.org/site/c.drKLI1PIIqE/b.3085755/k.98EF/Pricked_Extreme_Embroidery.htm

images, from top:
Sonya Clark, American, born 1967
Afro Abe II, 2007
Hand-embroidered, French knotted thread on five dollar bill
Overall: 3 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (8.3 x 15.9 cm)
Collection of the artist

Angelo Filomeno, Italian, born 1963
Death of Blinded Philosopher, 2006
Embroidery on silk shantung, linen, crystals
42 x 122 in. (106.7 x 309.9 cm)
Collection of the artist; courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York
Photo: Michael Bodycomb

Shizuko Kimura, Japanese, born 1936
Models in New York (detail), 2006
Hand-embroidered cotton, silk and synthetic thread on muslin
Overall: 8 ft. 2 3/8 in. x 43 5/16 in. (2.49 m x 110 cm)
Collection of the artist; courtesy Snyderman Works Galleries, Philadelphia

Nava Lubelski, American, born 1968
Side Dish, 2004
Hand-embroidered thread on ink-stained cotton canvas
Overall: 12 x 12 in. (30.5 x 30.5 cm)
Collection of the Art Bar Project, Ithica, NY

Streetwise, on canvas

2007-12-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's start with a delectable image of Michelangelo's David holding a Kalishnikov. At 86" x 56" you can't miss it. At $13,000 it's sold. As spraypaint on canvas, there are a few more in the edition. Indubitably, it's the work of the originator (and maestro) of the stencil brigade ("Every time I think I've painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier." Banksy, 2005). Well-hung between two other full-lengths, it grabs, and retains, the eye. Insightful and inciting.
Also arresting is the work of D*Face. Provocateur ("Talk minus action equals zero"), Brit, and master skewerer, he modifies/improves upon a dollar bill: "Washed Up" instead of the name of the familiar founding father, a skull substituted for the portrait's face, said face festooned with taloned antlers. Warhol's Marilyn also get the treatment. True to his moniker, the lady has one eye gouged out and sports winged horns growing out of her temples. This image is available (sorry, sold) in four color combinations. My fave transubstantiation was "Cli Che". No explanation necessary.
Strange is what comes up for Blu. This Bolognese usually paints entire walls -- exterior walls. Here he's represented by small drawings, cartoonish pen and inks meticulously drawn and fully realized. Oh, and scary as hell. They're shown in their own room, and if you've ever been hospitalized due to mental instability, bring a friend. "Page 2" (no formal titles) depicts a man at his toilette, his reflected face is comprised of entwined tentacles. Another shows a guy's head neatly sliced open, other heads emerge and emerge, like mutant Russian dolls. Ow. And so it goes, quietly and disturbedly.
Space Invader uses tiles, not paint. A double portrait of Sid Vicious is made up of 588 Rubik's Cubes. For real. The pixilation is incredible. This artist usually installs his "invader" mosaics in the cityscape, hidden in plain sight (psst: there's one just to the right of the Andrea Rosen Gallery, look down).

It's always odd to see street art in a white wall gallery. In a way, the work feels denuded. So it's refreshing to glimpse Blek's signature rodent scampering close to the floor (one's to the left of the David canvas), Microbo's patterned stencils on the wall, and Blu's wash of grayish brushstrokes covering his space. Call it contextual.

Graffiti has come a long way since Lascaux.

"The Streets of Europe" at Jonathan LeVine
529 W. 20 st.
212-243-3822
through Dec. 29
www.jonathanlevinegallery.com

A tree grows in...

2007-12-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

...Williamsburg! Alexandra Newmark shows a forest of twisted felt trees, stuffed forms head-high in white or red. Aah, punctuation. Gnarled branches with oval holes, channelling Izamu Noguchi (or Dr. Suess?) in spacial complexity if not in material. Mutant creatures hover among the "trunks": a cyan ostrich-like thing, pompoms at the end of its pipe-cleaner tail; a yellow oversize beret parked upside-down; a multi-teated quadriped with spiraled antlers. Uh, make that fallopian tubes.
One wants to hug these mohair beasts. My visitor of choice was a black critter, sporting three horns and four legs and a saucer-shaped body, squatting about 6" off the ground. Oddly, the press release states that the forms "can be frightening and alien." Well, yeah, if the wine is sour. (I guess the operative word is can. At least Newmark embraces the panopoly of interpretation, thereby allowing the work to exhibit a rich, interior life and avoiding shaggy, shedding dogma.) I found them comic, charming, fantastical. I was happy here.

Alexandra Newmark, "In the Forest" at Front Room Gallery
147 Roebling St.
718-782-2556
Fri-Sun 1-6 & by appt.
through Dec. 16
www.frontroom.org

On the wall

2007-12-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

One comes upon it as one comes upon many a Donavan work: all at once. Silver Mylar tape formed into various sized loops, stuck together like a million cells at a party, or a rave. They gather, they hang off each other, and as is indicative for Donovan, resemble nothing you've ever seen before. The prosaic made profound.
This piece could be a map. The loops scale the walls and archipelegos form; isthmuses, lakes, peninsulas, all tenuously attached. The shredded coastline of Greece.
But it's not just these crazy loops. It's the light reflected into their minute interiors: the most delicate of wisps, each tracery unique.
This fragile sculpture is exquisite--but never precious--and compelling. Okay, unalloyed joy.

Fom the artist: "In a sense, I develop a dialogue with each material that dictates the forms that develop. With every new material comes a specific repetitive action that builds the work...
"I think the new fertile territory encompasses a range of practices that capitalize on the iconic identities of commercial and industrial materials by pressing them further into the realm of seduction."

Tara Donovan, "Untitled (Mylar)" at the Met
212-535-7710
through April 28, 2008
www.metmuseum.org

Tara Donovan (American, born 1969)
Detail, Untitled (Mylar), 2007
Mylar and glue
© Tara Donovan, courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York.
Photo: Ellen Labenski

Meaty, beefy, big and bouncy

2007-12-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Also big, burly, fleshy and butch.

From one wall piece to another, across a couple of centuries and seas. I spent the rest of the afternoon ogling the Baroque tapestries. Things get incendiary when Peter Paul Rubens enters the weave: the hangings come to life and the medium is altered. "The Battle of Veseris and the Death of Decius Mus" hits you like a whallop, all muscle and drama. Action in war, over-the-top musculature (17th century Chelsea boys, yeah!) flying manes, a perfect, dappled (equine, sorry) rump fore and center. Caught in mid-tumble, a horseman looks away; his steed rears among the carnage. Horrifying and thrilling and thrusting. Prior to this, the medium had been busy but somewhat stately (exception: Rafael for the Vatican). Rubens brought the full force of painting to tapestry and, in this exhibit, it howls.
The English were not to be left out. Charles I had a fine eye: "Perseus on Pegasus" evinces power and strength. Highlights are accented to the point of solarization. Then there's the Italians: the Medici favored a more naturalistic approach, augmented with a Cecil B. de Mille sensibility. Don't miss the cape of gluttonous splendor worn by Pope Clement VIII. Glittering with gold thread, it out-does Cher. (Room for altar boys, too.)
And then there is Gobelins. Louis XIV would not be denied, and this manufactury became synonymous with the apotheosis of the weavers' art. Stupendous works, allegorical and historical, astonishing even (especially?) to the modern eye. The colors are vibrant, the detail astounding; even the crustaceans in "Water" look extra-ugly. All is heightened (check out the seaweed-draped coral in that tapestry's border).
This room is overwhelming, and you will find yourself shuttling between it and the previous one (the Italians), wondering at the difference. This is glorious, unabashed excess, the epitome of the Baroque, and you will never see its like again.

"Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor," at the Met
through Jan. 6, 2008
www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

photos courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Top: "The Battle of Veseris and the Death of Decius Mus", bottom "The Battle of the Granicus"

Banksy of England

2007-12-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

All the money that's fit to print...not too shabby if you do it yourself. Banksy, that prankster deluxe, shows iconic images, tweaked. A sheet of uncut, adulterated banknotes, a sly Di replacing the Queen. Why stop there? "Banksy of England" looks good on paper. Stuffed into three minute rooms of a townhouse gallery (and hung crookedly, with prices scrawled in pencil directly on the wall), this show brims with pithy, subversive and ribald work. This street artist has been hitting the paper and canvas for several years; this is not his first show in New York, and the images aren't new. So what! They're so immediate: a girl hugs a nuclear bomb; death with a smiley face, perched on a clockface ("Grin Reaper"); a Warhol Marilyn that looks more like Kate Moss--the T shirt comes in a variety of color combos. A military helicopter with a huge pink bow ("Happy Choppers"). His substitution of bananas for guns (think Tarantino) still has me shaking with laughter. What he's not taking the piss out of he's pissing on. Sometimes both, simultaneously. Even though alot of the work is familiar, it doesn't lessen the impact. Banksy of England, we are thine.

Verdict: scathing social commentary veined with insouciance. No leg but lots of cheek.
Goes with: a fat wallet. But there's a catalogue...
This is an unauthorized show.

Banksy, at Vanina Holasek Gallery
502 W. 27 st.
212-367-9093
through Dec. 29
vaninaholasekgallery.com/upcoming.html
www.banksy.co.uk/

p.s.--Can't afford the real thing? Pull a Richard Prince...

School of art school

2007-12-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

The New Museum opened today with a burp. You've seen the building--a stack of off-kilter boxes, like in a child's room, wedged between solid, old brick structures. Besides being incongruous (but it's new!) the facade has all the appeal of a prison, its industrial aluminum mesh encasing, and ultimately strangling, the structure. Windows? A bank of them adorn the fifth floor, but you're still behind that brutal grille: purdah. The double-height galleries -- devoid of interior walls -- dwarf the art. A waste of space except where it's really needed--the one sculpture on the second floor that towered above the rest appeared cramped. The lights are bare fluorescents, symmetrically arranged in overhead tracks. Wal-Mart lighting in a warehouse. Concrete floors complete the effect.

The seventh floor terrace makes the building. Unemcumbered by that grating, one has the sky above and the stunning view ahead. A glass fence, high enough to deter the impromptu jump, girdles the walk. Inside, the glass-walled bare space (used as a dance floor on opening day) is comparably intimate. It's begging for an installation that expands on this, but tellingly, is "primarily" for rent.

And the art? See the title of this post. The exhibit is called "Unmonumental." "Non-Olympic," quipped art critic Julia Morton.
There's a photo of the museum all lit up at dusk. It appears eerily, but not redeemingly, beautiful.

Goes with: Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?"

"Unmonumental" at the New Museum
235 Bowery, at Prince
through March 23, 2008
www.newmuseum.org/about/

p.s.--for the unexpurgated/blasphemous/vituperative version, contact me.

Neighborhood, objectified

2007-10-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

First you sign a release form, indemnifying Creative Time against, among other mishaps, death. Well, um... okay. One enters through a narrow doorway, opening to the remains of a Chinese restaurant. Dishes are stacked on the linoleum counters. Collections of dirt edge the tile floor. It's disgusting. Past the kitchen and through a heavy door is the crux of the project--a maze of small, enclosed spaces (claustrophobic if you don't live in Manhattan), most with more than one entrance: tableaux of decay, "fictionally derelict" vestiges of the neighborhood: a delapidated tattoo parlor; elsewhere a dead end displaying a trio of baseball bats, on the floor a crumpled straitjacket. Got it.
A room leads to a hallway, there's a plethora of doors. You enter and exit (forget that ball of string) and pop into another mysterious, dusty, artifact-sporting space. Religeous overtones abound, as do bars (the kind you imbibe in). At one point a room is duplicated: exact same vestibule (different dust distribution) but its other doors are locked. The confusion is intentional. About face, and further exploration. More doors, more same faces, looks of complicity. Paging Feydeau!

The whole frustrating mess is worth it just to emerge/at last one comes upon a vast, peeling, lofty space, a skylit repository of...80 tons of sand,...ascending sand. A celebration of mass, a gift of light and space. The sound is lovely. The swish of the grains underfoot, the thrum of traffic, voices on Essex. A quiet late afternoon light augmented by two dim fluorescents in the background. Essentially, the sand conceals the built rooms. And what a wonderful metaphor for this neighborhood: an urban sphere as sand -- a constant, shifting; glass, devitrified. Cycles.

Mike Nelson "A Psychic Vacuum"
117 Delancey St. (at Essex St.)
til Oct. 28
Friday-Sunday 12-6, free

photo by Charlie Samuels, courtesy Creative Time

ROAR

2007-09-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Aah, the dulcet sounds of 10 crotch rockets revving, spinning, whining in the Armory... the smoke. Aaron Young created a ne plus ultra perfor- mance (overheard: is this the largest painting ever?), a floor piece involving the drawing power of, yes, said vehicles. 288 sheets of plywood were nailed to the floor, painted in layers of fluorescent yellow, lime green, orange, pink, topped by a couple of coats of black. The artist-choreographed skid marks left a depression of wildly colored circles, swirls, zigs, the streaks frosted with burnt rubber. Those neons swagger across the black: a loopy road map, or a snake orgy. The performance was thrilling, gorgeous, visceral, powerful, grand. Gleeful. With a salaam to Jackson Pollock, it's titled "Greeting Card;" an action painting using a Matta-Clark ethos "completion through removal." Way to go...

The performance was yesterday, the video of it, plus the painting, will be on view until 9/23. After that, twenty of the panels will be sold. The original configuration of this work will, more than likely, never again be visible after the show closes.

Goes with: cartwheels and Steppenwolf.

Aaron Young, "Greeting Card"
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
212-616-3930
through Sept. 23

your scrappy correspondant wasn't one of the invited 500 to view the event, so I saw it through the chain link fence on the Lex. Ave. side. As the lyric goes, maybe next time...

Season of Serra...

2007-06-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

...and you thought it was the summer of love. Power, thrust; gargantuan displays of steely brilliance that tilt and pitch, vertiginous when looking up (and up). Immovable and moving. Serra has taken the idea of the "Torqued Elipses" and transposed them. So we have "Sequence", two interwoven figure-8s that one walks through, perambulating in wonder and awe. Actually, the viewer walks among as well as through. A pilgrim's path. One pierces the piece by physically penetrating its open space. ("I consider space to be a material.") A vacancy filled (you know, like having sex). The action becomes the interaction.Two other mammoth pieces occupy the second floor-"Band", an undulating sweep of 70' of rolled steel plates, and "Torqued Torus Inversion." Walking the length of the former, the acolyte enters and exits the swoops (and yet there are bottlenecks). The latter is a duet of opposites.

That Serra continually surprises me no longer surprises me.

The second floor pieces are the showstoppers (oh baby oh baby) but the sixth floor work provides the backstory, Serra's evolving interest in mass and space. Balance (and balance of power), too. The viewer enters by strolling upon that red carpet of plate steel, "Delineator". You don't have to step on it, of course, it's sited such that the consciencious museum-goer sidesteps it. Easy to miss the matching (but swiveled 90º) plate installed in the ceiling. What a sandwich (space as everyman's air?). Go to the prop pieces. Plates of lead, rolls of lead, propped. By themselves, using the wall or each other to remain upright. Studies in tension and weightlessness. They echo their times, 1969. Fascinating, and really cool to see so many of them. They keep each other fine company behind a glass fence.

Verdict: the blockbuster show of the summer. Big, beefy (grass-fed), brawny and butch; delicate, elegant: potent. MOMA's money shot.

Richard Serra, Sculpture: Forty Years, at MOMA
through Sept 10
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

p.s. It doesn't hurt that the newer stuff is stunningly beautiful. That surface of variegated rust: frozen waterfalls, lightning bolts, an araura borealis in burnt sienna. The feeling of being in the lee of an overhang, a feeling of shelter. In the sculpture garden, the texture of "Intersection II" is juxtaposed with the marble floor. One pocked, the other smooth and striated. Lovely.

Summer of...

2007-06-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

…love, lust, music, drugs, radical change, long hair, war, drugs, Warhol, and a whole lot of other stuff -- sensory amplifiers. Summer at the Whitney lasts 6 years. All the usual suspects (Yayoi Kusama, the Stones, the Beatles, Clapton, Hendrix, etc.) plus Lynda Benglis’s “Contraband,” a swirly-colored rug (aka floor piece) of latex. I wanted to remove my boots and roll around on it. Solarized color photos from Paul Himmel, one of the 20the century’s underrecognized photographers. A light show, on video, with music. Fantastic graphics -- posters, posters, and more posters. Buttons -- I liked "Mary Poppins is a junkie","Pray for Sex" and "I am an enemy of the State." A drawing by Jimi, trippy and dragony. An eye-opening video (third floor) on site-specific “inflatables” – the film is as stunning as the ideas. Sheets of acid, matted, framed and under glass. An iconic (and large) portrait of Keef doing a toot – this is instructional, as the new generation will learn that the spoon is mightier than the rolled-up c-note.

Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era, at the Whitney
through Sept. 16
800-944-8639
www.whitney.org

p.s. there are lots of films, too. Recommended: "Tonight Let's All Make Love in London", a loose doc to the sound of "Astronomy Domine".
p.s.s. This show is, alas, BYOD.

Big impact...

2007-05-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

Drawings, paintings, photos/collages utilizing performace/process: a terrific collection of The Big Guns: Rauschenberg, Klein, Matta-Clark, Borden, Pollack. Some cool new stuff by Ginny Bishton. No catalogue, no postcard, no nothin'. A fascinating, strangely unheralded show, especially when you think of the impact of the older artists on the new ones. Fuck MOMA, go tomorrow evening. But don't miss it.

Live/Work: Performance Into Drawing
www.moma.org, 3rd floor
through May 21

p.s. and now we know that David Hammons is circumcised.

___

"Completion through removal"

2007-04-19T18:11:00.002-07:00

"Making the right cut somewhere between the supports and collapse."
I am still overwhelmed by this show. I was familiar with Gordon Matta-Clark's building cuts and photos, but seeing them with the films, that was incredible. One work is astonishing: a carving into a huge, abandoned industrial shed on Pier 52: cutting an enormous slice out of one of its tin walls and a quarter-circle out of the wood floor, right through a massive wood beam to expose the murky, glittering Hudson. In the film, as the vertical cut-out is slowly removed and the daylight crescendos, quickly flooding the frame, it's an Ode to Joy moment. Those few seconds of white light transform the space into a cathedral; sunlight sponsored by God. It's summer 1975 and this is "Day's End". This piece is EXHILARATING.

"...a layered drawing the viewer participates in."
Worth the price of admission is "Office Baroque," a lyrical portrait of a building cuts' planning, revising, execution, and aftermath. It's in Antwerp, a commercial structure. His saws create "a walk-through panoramic arabesque." The camera pans up, the wide-angle lens distorting, leveling, then distorting the view. And what a view! Through three floors to a circle of grey sky, each opening different but congruent. Swoops and swirls of slices penetrate partitions, walls, floors. It's as complex as it is gorgeous. And then, to a plaintive sax, the still, swept-up space, many of the rooms roped off. This film is screened on the second floor, at approx. 3.45 pm (it's on a loop with a great deal of his films and the Whitney doesn't give out exact times, so I did some calculations), Fridays at 6.45, and only til April 29.

"It was really a matter of tying different intersects together."
That might as well be a mantra, as well as a metaphor.
Matta-Clark was a punk (that's a compliment); a sculptor, photographer, filmmaker. A recycler/transformer (his tao d'art, so to speak);a deconstructor, a conceptualist, catalyst, thinker, muse. He was funny (a fried-in-oil and gilded Polaroid was a Christmas card[!?]). He admittedly did stuff just to see what would happen. His work incorporated process, performance, documentation, and artifact. He took the concept of Earth Art and urbanized it. An element of vibrancy, risk, violence ("anarchitecture") and sexy physicality ran through the pieces. And, of course, his work was, and still is, vigorously new. This compact retrospective is a stunner. You will leave the building staring up, questioningly...

"It's all about evolution." Awesome, right on, amen.

Gordon Matta-Clark, "You Are the Measure", at the Whitney
945 Madison Ave.
800-944-8639
through June 3
www.whitney.org
www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/132/selected_works.htm

p.s.--this is not a hagiography, but the knee pads are out...

Where it's at...er, was...

2007-03-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Barcelona's heyday, so far...an exhibit of a flowering of ideas. From the known (early Picasso) to a few surprises--Joaquin Mir's landscapes are lush with blobs of color; Isidre Nonell conveys a strong social conscience new to the time. Don't miss his "Young Gypsy," a depiction of silence, darkness, resignation, moodiness, introspection, and sequestered emotion. And the canvas isn't even all that large.

Like Picasso's Blue Period needs more analysis. But here goes: blue because of the color of the skin deprived of oxygen, blue being the color/metaphor for the spirit of the toilers > lives starved of leisure (such is the stuff of those that don't have to do manual labor for their daily bread. Did Picasso ever had to slog to eat?). You can say an artist reflects his/her time, or that he/she sidesteps it. It's usually the former. These three paintings are somber, morose, and grim.

Backtrack to a happier time--GAUDI. A whole room-full of his work, highlighting an outrageously terrific dressing table -- the Gina Lollobrigida of furniture. This loquacious little doodad purrs curves: from glass top to mirror (swerved to the diagonal), its frame edges melting into puddles of carved-wood ribbon, to swirls and whooshes: the eye never stagnates. There's even an itty bitty biped shelf growing out of a front leg (perdone, Signora L.). Large enough for a houseboy's derriere, perhaps? Hmmm? Such splendidness is still in the Guell family, sigh... But there's more! A section of an iron fence from the Casa Vicens (a motif of repeating palm fronds), drawings of the Sagrada Familia (completion date--2035 ["My client is in no hurry"]), a model of the ceiling of the church--much more complicated than it looks, as the construction is formed upside down and rightly viewed in a mirror (what was this guy on, anyway?)-- and fixtures and tiles from the Casa Batllo, as he designed absolutely everything for the building. It was all intensely sensory, user-friendly. Gaudi took the naturalism of Art Nouveau and created absolute, sheer, unmitigated joy. He was a genius, period.

A hard act to follow, so the Met trots out you-know-who. Three searing paintings, portraits of hard-scrabble peasants. Then Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism (some tasty Miros) and the powerful metal sculpture of Julio Gonzalez. "Head" opens up form, integrating space. By 1936 Spain was heading towards war, and the artists reacted accordingly. Dali channels Goya with "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)." Gruesome and brutal.
An enveloping, varied and comprehensive show. Perspicacious, too.
Goes with: a plane ticket to Barcelona, to see for yourself, because the work of Gaudi is as powerful as the music of Lightning Bolt. You need to be there...

Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudi to Dali, at the Met
through June 3
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

Painting trumps architecture...

2007-03-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

This show of Spanish painting at the Guggenheim looks terrific in that egotistical space. All the usual suspects--El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Picasso, the middle two reigning over it all, gloriously. In all his breadth, Goya captivates. Her Grace the Duchess of Alba is there, as are his more earthy creatures. His "A Bandit Stripping a Woman (The Bandits' Attack II)" is shocking in its content, it could be torn from the front page of any current rag. Ladling humiliation on top of violence, Goya never minces in paint. Some inspired curating (not exactly related to the premise of the show): Zurbaran's large canvas of a Nazareth interior next to (aka separated by a wall from) Velazquez's oil of exuberant peasants at table, the connection/juxtaposition discernable only from across the rotunda. Stylization next to naturalism, humanity being paramount. Another favorite--Zurbaran's full-length "St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb", the solitary, hooded figure cradling an upturned scull in both palms: gravitas, humility, finality. Subdued yet powerful.
The show is organized into themes, showing the more modern artists' source of inspiration. The paintings from Spain's Golden Age look all the better for it (and do they ever GLOW).
This is the best show of painting -- of its size -- that the Guggenheim, or any museum, has offered in years.

Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso, at the Guggenheim
212-423-3500
through March 28
www.guggenheim.org

Not your grandmother's handywork...

2007-03-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

Warped visions in the needle arts. Dept. of who woulda thunk, pt. 1: two gigantic John Deere excavators have what look like oversized lances attached to them: these are the knitting needles. A guy in a cherry picker loops the yarn -- oversize strips of acrylic felt -- over one lance to start off, the other needle advances and he transfers the thread: a knitted American flag is under way. Really, you have to see it to believe it; process is crutial. Dave Cole's "The Knitting Machine" video is right next to the maquette, which resembles jousting toys. "These machines were so beautiful. And we got to play with them. For like two weeks. I have the coolest job." This artist rules--I'm laughing just writing this. Howling! Don't miss his knitted lead teddy bear. Hefty, toxic: contradictory. And now, the "Money Dress." That's right, singles sliced into 1/8" strips and knitted into a low-backed gown, size 8. How punk rock. Cole again: "I want to make art that will stand up to critical dissection, but at the same time is accessible to anyone who takes the time to look at it. I'm tired of art that makes people feel bad because they don't understand it." Bravo. Insightful, erudite, brilliant--this artist needs NY representation.
The other standout in this show is Cal Lane, who cuts steel like paper. She takes her intractable medium and, with infinite patience and precision, cuts doilies out of it. Her "Filigree Car Bombing" is a John Chamberlain via heirloom lace. Masculine/feminine, yin/yang, a fascinating juxtaposition. As stunning as it is unexpected.
Dept of oh holy shit: a pair of knitted gloves to fit, maybe, a mouse. Matches a pullover, both have designs echoing ancient Greek urns. Althea Merback makes garments to 1/12 scale, using stainless steel medical wire (.001") as needles. (Talk about extreme knitting.) A delight and a wonder. Something about absurdity, and in miniature too, cracks me up.

Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, at MAD (awful acronym for Museum of Arts and Design)
40 E. 53 st.
212-956-3535
through June 17
www.madmuseum.org
www.theknittingmachine.com
www.callane.com
www.bugknits.com
(those last three because the museum's site sucks.)

I mean this with all the love, but imagine mice really
wearing Merback's creations--with their paws properly
covered, you wouldn't hear them scurrying around the
house. They could preen, and squeak, in front of your
mirror and admire themselves in their new duds. Rodent
Runway.

blurring the fable

2007-02-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

In the fantasy land of Beninati much is cobalt, viewed through streamers of color and ribbon curtains of paint drips. Thinned but not (emotionally) diluted. Palm trees are multi-colored, they crop up in the foreground of a bathroom (WTF?). Rampant jungle flora through tinted, prismatic lenses. Allegorical and dreamlike, these paintigs are fairy tales for moderns. Each one tells such a lovely story rife with possibility, one wants to settle down with a good cognac and listen. So hark: up north, where the aurora borealis is screening, looms a naked, pink tree. Your spectacles are streaky, the light is marbelized. It's
paradise, in the cool of the evening; a classic case of the semi-awake dream. And at 80"x63", it's big enough to cozy up to and forget the rest of the rest. The nightmares are reserved for the drawings: dead rats and a hare with a goatee vegetate under the sun's radiation, on the horizon a mushroom cloud develops. Bowie's "Hunger City", bucolic version.
This is a strange, sumptuous show.

Funny about this gallery. They've been showing alot of work that deals with altered states. I like it, I like it.

Manfredi Beninati, at James Cohan
533 W. 26 st.
212-714-9500
www.jamescohan.com
through March 17

odd man (now) in...

2007-02-19T20:37:00.001-08:00

When Rube Goldberg met Saul Steinberg comin' throught the rye...Burleson was a self-taught (can we drop the demeaning "outsider" label already?) artist working in glorious magic marker on paper. Sometimes he used forms from work, which was at Lockheed. His sensibility was complex: compelling, dense, busy and strangely varied; sometimes primitive. He started in
pencil: a small drawing (#35) using wheels and a horn or two has a Monty Python air to it, a cackling whimsy. He then moved on to toucan hues. Number 20 is a fave: all screaming magentas, pinks, yellows, and oranges, with bands of green and red. The composition is supposed to be an interior, and it literally bounces with color. Manaical. Contrapuntal. J.S. Bach.

The invitation to this show doesn't do the artist justice, nor does the ad card ouside. Pity. This is one of those exhibits that gives so much once you take the time to explore it.

Thomas Burleson, "Lone Star", at Luise Ross
511 W. 25 st.
212-343-2161
www.luiserossgallery.com
through Feb. 24

gorgeous floozies

2007-02-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

The most louche flowers you could imagine. Lush color,
spilled pollen. Petals crinkled like torn tissue
paper: a gift too rapidly unwrapped. Some of these
dissolutes are garlanded with time: three Van
Gogh-yellow Gerbera daisies have petals gone vertical,
they're mute as monks. A rose, stem still erect, is
otherwise withery. The best are the images of
imperfection, not just age: the slightly scarred --
but still vividly colorful -- blooms, or maybe I
liked them best because I saw this show a day before
my (ouch! ouch! ouch!) birthday.

Irving Penn, "In Flower", at Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 E. 57 st.
212-759-7999
through Feb. 17
www.pacemacgill.com

for the skinny of ass...

2007-02-02T21:02:00.000-08:00

...and fat of wallet. Furniture as sculpture, fit for a
pedestal, fer chrissakes. Stunning stuff, of course:
this guy does with marble what others do with plastic.
The inspiration is the cellular structure, all
organic, holey, and experimental. The centerpiece is
the "Voronoi Shelf", (a variegated honeycomb on
steriods) of white Carrara marble, carved from a solid
block. Only eight of them were made, so put that
kidney on ebay now.
Process is paramount: witness the Micarta grouping of
table, chair, desk, made of layers of linen and resin,
with various layers sanded down to resemble wood
grain. The trompe l'eoil elicits a sidelong grin, of
acknowledgment and yeah, awe. Need more wow? Stagger
across the street to see his iconic Lockheed Lounge, a
sexy, sinuous fainting couch of riveted aluminum. This
1986 piece launched his career, was the star of
Cooper-Hewitt's "Aluminum" show, and last year went
for almost a million bucks, a record for furniture by
a living designer. It looks seriously uncomfortable
but oh so gorgeous. (More for straddling than
reclining?) Don't have the 2.5 the gallery wants for
it? Vitra offers a miniature model, accurate down to
the 1800 rivets, for $690. It stands 5.8" x 4.3" x
10.8". Adorable.

Marc Newson, at Gagosian
555 W. 24 st.
212-741-1111
www.gagosian.com
through March 3

also at Sebastian + Barquet
544 W. 24 st.
212-488-2245
through March 15

not an exhibit...

2006-12-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

"Our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."

from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, first published in 1949.

tasty...

2006-12-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

Portraits of produce, from an estate gardener.* Gorgeous, gold-toned prints, 106 years old; sharp. The subjects are isolated against muslin, superbly composed and lit: an unhurried elegance. A head of celery is bunched, the leafy tops forming a bouquet. Tomatoes, in a rhythmic cluster, have the lustrous skin of Mapplethorpe's black male nudes. Runner beans are lined up, 5 skis in a row.
There are flowers too: "Tulip May Flowering" is pure Margot Fonteyn.
In a side room hang related images -- Weston's sexy peppers, Blossfeldt's odd flora, Tasher's flower x-rays. A book accompanies the show, a handsome volume for $50 with a preface by -- who else? -- Alice Waters.
And now a brief rhapsody on the prints. The highlights glow, the shadows are rich -- the mark of an emulsion loaded with silver (alas, no longer available due to evironmental concerns). Vintage prints look different for exactly this reason, but the toning, AAAAAHHHHH.

*Jones was a British gardener/photographer who was recognized for only the former in his lifetime. The photos were discovered in a trunk in 1981, at an antiques shop in London. They're in a superb state of preservation.

Charles Jones at Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 E. 57 st. suite 1406
212-334-0010
http://www.howardgreenberg.com
through Jan. 6

p.s. there is no spinach.

Fruitful...

2006-12-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

"This exhibition contains graphic sexual content." Slurp. Let the show begin! (Wear roomy trousers.) Beyond the porn as usual, there's two stunning portraits of Currin's toddler son. Redolant of the Old Masters, these small canvases let the artist, no, the artist/father shine. The boy, with his luminous pale skin, his Sauternes hair, his demeanor of curiosity/impenetrability is a golden child, a Prince. Currin throws away his usual shock and irony away with the bathwater. I look forward to his chronicling the kid's growing up.

I know you want the porn. So, beyond the fucking and sucking, there's the smiling gal bearing a tray of fruit -- a ripe honeydew is placed at the level of her left breast. The melon is at least a DDD, and its navel is accurately centered.

"...Currin's paintings continue to stimulate vigorous debate."*...and a little something more.

*from the press release.

John Currin, at Gagosian
980 Madison Ave.
212-744-2313
through Dec. 22
http://www.gagosian.com

Hole in the ...???

2006-11-21T16:06:00.000-08:00

So. She cut a hole in the ceiling, and I'd thought it was supposed to be in the floor. I'd had this terrific idea (preconception?) that she'd smashed through the floor, there'd be a guard rail, and you could see people circulate in the galleries below. FAT CHANCE. There's a timid, well-behaved slice in the ceiling. You gaze up, that's it. Tidy polygons of white material (plaster, hmmm?) are carefully arranged on the floor. In a measly 10 ft. ceilinged gallery. Damn. Should she need help smashing through a floor, I'd be glad to offer my services. Her work "furnishes", according to the wall notes, "a physical opportunity, and a metaphor, for the play of the imagination." This is New York. We want more.

Monika Sosnowska: The Hole
MoMA, "Out of Time", on the second floor
through Nov. 27

ps. The equivalent if being served foam. Cool, but still foam.

These drawings snap, crackle and pop. Exploded gunpowder on paper. Vivacious and alive and oddly sepia-colored. He sandwiched the fireworks between the two vast sheets and let fly. Two arcs. Mirrored but different. Call it the best application of detonation, or of its after-effects.

Cai Guo Qiang, Drawing for Transient Rainbow
MoMA, "Out of Time", on the second floor
through Nov. 27

You can't put your arms around a memory...

2006-11-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

The beauty of decay,on a grand scale. Palaces gone to seed: marble chipped, statues de-headed, paint peeling. It's Havana, of course. The remnants of grandeur, grandeur reduced to penury; laundry hanging up to dry in an empty salon, a room populated by two exhausted club chairs and a gigantic, mute chandelier. What's it like to live in a dying house? These huge color prints (up to 60"x80") bring the viewer into the abodes of the former aristocracy. May their memories be as lush as the light is, here. Miss Havisham haunts this show. Havana, the pearl of the Carribean, is slowly being dipped in vinegar.

Michael Eastman "La Habana: Evanescent Grandeur"
www.clairoliver.com

A bunch of apes emoting. That's right, simians in front of the lens, many of them acting pros (are they union?). Individual portraits of facial expressions you're not likely to otherwise see. And they're hysterically funny. (Is that hilarity edged with nervousness?) Sometimes poignant. The monkey (okay, he's utterly adorable) in "Undecided" emits a tentative air, casting his large eyes to the side, tilting his head. "Mala Centerfold" is monkey cheesecake. Every hair is in place, every model flawlessly groomed. Most of the images have ben digitally "finished" to a plastic quality, which ends up looking horridly kitch. The pleistocene is plasticene. Most, but not all (see above). The prints are large, and the extremely matte surface adds to the eerie factor.

Jill Greenberg, "Monkey Portraits"
www.clampart.com

on elusive allusions...

2006-11-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

Moody, enigmatic, and elliptical. Dreamy and conceptual. A little, um, unusual. There's definately the "huh?" factor as you look at the first print, of a man standing in a field, a breeze-blown white shirt obscuring his face. Things clear up a bit as you read the extensive gallery notes: "To catch life in flight." From another series, "To see the light bent and confined by geometry." A sculptural ribbon, hanging in the air, casts a shadow on a stone wall: it vaguely resembles Arabic. From a known medium to one unknown. The moment is decisive, tangible; the context (and depiction -- the images are fuzzy rephotographed prints), time, is intangible. Light compounded by time.
This show is highly interpretive. As they say, results may vary. (Me, I love this twisty stuff.)

Corinne Mercadier, at Alan Klotz
511 W. 25 st. suite 701
212-741-4764
through Nov. 18
www.klotzgallery.com

X-ray vision...

2006-11-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

O joy. The light fantastic that penetrates the flesh, getting down to the bone (and the corset stays). Riffing on the old masters, these X-ray images, digitally printed on canvas, are unlike anything you've ever seen. Leonardo's "Last Supper" is upended here to a wedding banquet. Center stage, the bride wears a tiara, it balances on air: a halo. Necklaces float, bracelets are suspended. Wine bottles, too. Elsewhere, a full-length portrait of a woman reveals her heels' steel spikes and the aformentioned foundation garment. A het couple kiss but they're joined at the navel (fusion/infusion?), and a 21 st. century Venus, half woman/half octopus, is draped in pearls. Don't miss the stunning "La Sirena", an odalisque mermaid dangling a small fish above her upturned mouth. Crave more? Stay for the X-ray video of a woman pleasuring herself.
Big, bold, and assured, the work is capitulatively beautiful.
A word on the artist: Bonichi never really set out to become one. "After my classical studies came the philosophy, the ancient history, the anthropology, the philology, the paleoethnology...in 1999, after years of trial, the first X-rays are born." (Benedetta Bonichi, "To See In The Dark", (2002) p. 100.

Benedetta Bonichi at Keith de Lellis
47 E. 68 st.
212-327-1482
through Nov. 25
www.keithdelellisgallery.com
www.toseeinthedark.it

p.s. actually, I'd love to be in one of her images. Ms. Bonichi may be in for a surprise...

New work from the master of the camera obscura, this time in muscular color. The inverted facade of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, all colonnaded and honey-orange, is superimposed over a de Chirico painting, its blues complimenting the edifice. There's a ladder in the corner, perfect for scale (ha). Wouldn't it be lovely if that esteemed institution purchased this print and displayed it next to the painting? This is the best image in the show. Close second would be a b&w camera obscura, "Sunrise Over the Atlantic Ocean," where a band of white light (aka the sun) slashes diagonally across the wall onto the floor. The ocean is projected onto a blank white wall and a door. Sunrise atop a closed door. A new day on a fucking closed door...
Money, $7 million of it. A b&w cityscape of moolah, used bills banded into bricks, stacked like a child's play towers. Ka-ching.
A grab bag of a show, but in every trick-or-treat sack there's a Torres chocolate or two.

Abelardo Morell "Furthermore", at Bonni Benrubi
41 E. 57 st.
212-888-6007
through Dec. 2
www.bonnibenrubi.com

A fitting conclusion to the afternoon--the accepting landscapes of Gregory Conniff. Large-scale and b&w, shot at the edge of "managed" areas. A link, a segue:an interregnum. A very 19c. feel, very Constable. A quality of stillness, even when the wind blurs the leaves. Sensory, in a delectable way. Romantic, with the occasional bout of a gorgeous, warm tone. The affectionate vegetation of the South (Miss.) stirs up more empathy than the solid and stony regions of Wisconsin, but that may be just my own predilection.

Gregory Conniff
(sorry, show's closed. Visit: http://webpages.charter.net/gconniff/

just say yeah...

2006-10-31T11:30:00.000-08:00

"LSD has colonized part of my brain" admitted Tomaselli. Uh, indeed. A veritable satiation of visual stimuli, these paintings gargle with color. Over a black background, you've got the kaleidescopic mandelas, the birds made up of photo-collaged eyeballs and flowers (Archimboldo of a different feather), the signature ropes of pills. Dried fig leaves (they're huge! enough to cover even a Mapplethorpe model) punctuate "Migrant Fruit Thugs". - Ooh, he's good with titles. "Hang Over" boasts the Mardi Gras profusion of the aformentioned strands of pills -- substitute pearls and think Maharajah -- draped from tree branches. 'Scuse me while I have an acid flashback. There are also garlands of hands, Rolaids, flowers. On the ground, a meadow of grass, petit blooms, and weeds--some painted, some pressed. This 2-panel piece is gigantic; the elements ensconced in layers of resin about 3/4 inch thick. So 3-D, so trippy: flora & fauna & Jimi & Syd.

It's odd to see all these disembodied heads, spotlit, spiked at the neck and pedestalled. Few heads have noses, some are devoid of mouths. The destruction is grotesque. There are, however, a handful of intact beauties. (Hey, the Met can't put a wreck on the cover of a booklet, can they?) "Face of a Youth" (cat. 23) is lovely, with a delicate mouth and a look of consternation. By the hair, I think he's a monk (I sure can pick 'em.) Conversely, a 15c. ceiling boss (cat.45) has a face with distorted eyes, pug nose, and lips drawn back to reveal machicolated teeth. The oak has aged to the texture of lizard skin. Monsters are eternal. A few more things I really loved-- "Head of a Grotesque"-- this creature's lower jaw sports a monotooth, the viewer stares directly up its rodent snout. "Prudence and the Ages of Man" is a 3-headed bust: youth, middle years, old age. Some wake-up call. Accuracy in facial depiction had come to be crucial in the Middle Ages, it was the mark of the sculptor. But since it was mostly saints and kings, they got a double dose of destruction between ther English Civil War and the French Revolution. (History repeats itself vis a vis Bamiyan and the threats from Iran/q.)
p.s. On my way out, I wa hopelessly distracted by a rock crystal ewer on an enamel base dosed with diamonds. In the vitrines were cooingly beautiful pendants. I favor the one in the "form of a gondola with a youth," he's playing a lyre and riding an elephant. As default, the one in the "form of a mermaid." Both drip pearls. On one wall, a 17c. oil by Jan Steen: "The Dissolute Household." The eye is drawn to a pair of spectacular (displayed and depicted) globes. Diane Brill, eat your heart out. This is all in the tiny Gold Room, part of the Linsky Galleries.

Here are my notes from the Matthew Ritchie show:
bombast of boom
apocalyptic, sort-ofscience fiction equations (one painting uses these textually in theimage)lenticular painting 42" across (actually a c-print onDuratrans mounted on lenticular panels), how suitable for the concept, because seemingly the adversary shifts/ is altered, but is constant [see "1984"]
paintings are a little obvious, w/ battleships &explosions, palette rust- brown, fire orange & yellow.

ashes to ashes
dust to dust
die you may
but bleed you must

the universal adversary is, of course, despair.
This is a gallery-wide instalation and will take some minutes to be absorbed.

Fred Tomaselli at James Cohan Gallery
533 W. 26 st.
212-714-9500
through Nov. 11

Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, at the Met
212-535-7710
through Feb. 19

Matthew Ritchie "The Universal Aversary" at Andrea Rosen
525 W. 24 st.
212-627-6000
through Oct. 28

major juicy bits...

2006-10-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

An exhibit titled " Nothing and Everything" suggests a combo platter of minimalism and the Emperor's kitchen sink: Robert Gober's "Drains" is a veritable part of a real-life one (a real drain, new, installed on the clean white wall). Adam Fuss shows a daguerreotype photogram: the concentric circles created by water momentarily disturbed. It gleams in its transmittance. There's a transcendant Sugimoto. The more you peer, the more you see. Yves Klein's fire painting is fierce by its inception, it stares back in warm tones. This show aims to "navigate the intersections between nothing and everything in several ways." Depending on your blood sugar/blood alcohol level, that could be almost anything (or inherently contradictory?). And since each artist is represented by only one piece, we don't know how the work fits into the artist's oevre. A roomful of inviting enigmas.

Nothing and Everything, at Peter Freeman Gallery
560 Broadway # 602/603
212-966-5154
through Oct. 28