Monkdogz Artblog

If success is measured by the length of queues of people waiting to get in, then French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s current conceptual installation at London’s Barbican must be a huge success. With waits of over 90 minutes, visitors are still coming out of the exhibition with smiles on their faces and enthusiastic positive comments.

The exhibition is a walk through aviary housing 40 zebra finches and musical instruments such as guitars and cymbals which are connected to speakers which fill the room with sounds. The birds are landing on the guitar strings as perches and the cymbals which are filled with bird seed and water and in the process creating music with their feet.

It is a truly unique and creative installation providing much joy to many people; the visitors to the Barbican and to the nearly 750,000 visitors to the youtube video shown above.

Boursier-Mougenot says, “If you want to understand a creature then you have to interact with it. Here, I am not using the birds, I am collaborating with them.” He said the birds were happy in their new aviary and having fun, he hoped.

According to the Guardian “it is not the first time the artist has created a sound piece. Previous works include him using surveillance cameras to create sounds based on New York street life and then Harmonichaos 2000-06, an installation of 13 vacuum cleaners which have harmonicas attached to their suction nozzles.”

The exhibition continues until May 23rd.

See also the Times for more.

Born in a camp in 1942 in Germany, Ursula von Rydingsvard’s earliest memories, until the family emigrated to the United States in 1950, are of the austere wooden barracks in which her parents and six siblings lived. Today her experiences of wood are in her creations of monumental works in cedar. Galerie Lelong on 26th Street in Chelsea is exhibiting three of her large works.

Roughly cut pieces of cedar are joined to form beautiful large works that are elegant and fluid despite their organic nature and size. The wood imparts warmth to the structures that makes them feel alive and the scent adds an additional dimension to the works and the atmosphere. This exhibition is titled ERRĀTUS which means “wandering” or “roaming” in Latin.

The gallery press release describes the works:

von Rydingsvard has created three epic works in cedar, each remarkable in its vast scale and vision. Bride’s Veil rises up from the floor, unfolding into rhythmic waves. Under von Rydingsvard’s hand, the cedar feels fluid, like fabric. In Blackened Word, slight tracings serve as the foundation for a nearly seven-foot tall freestanding structure—the tentative handwriting of an elderly woman was laid on the floor, from which von Rydingsvard built upward to create a towering, undulating wall. The third work in the exhibition, Unraveling, is an elaborate, overwhelming wall “drawing” in cedar. The largest and most complex among von Rydingsvard’s works hung on the wall, Unraveling features cup-like shapes that protrude and extend downward, forming a giant’s drapery. In ERRĀTUS, von Rydingsvard displays her natural agility in drawing the intimacy, grace, and emotion out of the most primal of elements.

The exbition is open until May 1st.

The Courtauld Gallery at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London opens a fabulous exhibition of drawings and writings by Michelangelo displaying his love for the young Roman nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri who was renown for his outstanding beauty, gracious manners and intellect.  The friendship which grew between the two men was to last for 30 years.  

The center piece of the exhibition is “The Dream” which is, according to the very informative gallery press release, one of Michelangelo’s ‘presentation drawings’, a magnificent and famous group of highly refined compositions which the artist gave to his closest friends.  These beautiful and complex works transformed drawing into an independent art form and are amongst Michelangelo’s very finest creations in any medium.   Drawn at the height of his career, his skill is abundantly clear for any to see.

Michelangelo’s drawings that he made for Cavalieri have not been seen together for over twenty years and this is the first time that The Dream will be shown as part of this group. 

The Telegraph suggests that “As far as is known, that love was physically unrequited, though that does not mean it was chaste. For Michelangelo expressed his desire for Tommaso openly in letters, poems” and the gift of these drawings.    “At one level the presentation drawings are moralizing allegories intended for Tommaso’s edification. But whether consciously intended or not, their sexual innuendo must surely be seen as part of his surprisingly public courtship of the youth.

In medieval and Renaissance art, the vices were invariably personified (as opposed to illustrated), lest their explicit representation tempt the viewer to commit the very sin they are being warned against. But in representing the sin of ‘Lust’, Michelangelo departs from this convention by including two erect phalluses as well as scenes of heterosexual copulation.

This unique exhibition starts February 18^th and continues until May 16^th and is accompanied by a catalogue written by the curator Stephanie Buck.

There is a lot of geometric work in Chelsea at the moment. It often happens that galleries in Chelsea end up having similar styles of work at the same time, despite the fact that forward planning cycles differ between galleries and most don’t tend to discuss detailed scheduling with each other. It must be just one of these mysteries of the universe.

The wealth of geometric work is very diverse in quality and one of the best of them is Jack Tworkov “True or False” at Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery on 26th street.

Born in Poland Tworkov immigrated to the United States when he was 13. He grew up to become one of the founding members of the New York school which was the home of the abstract expressionist movement which included at the time, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Arshile Gorky. He taught art at many universities, colleges and schools, including the Pratt Institute, Queens College, Columbia University and Yale University. At the latter he was Chairman of the Art Department from 1963-1969 influencing many young rising stars including Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Nancy Graves and Brice Marden.

Although originally he was known for his very bold, gestural brush strokes and flame colors, in the 1960s he moved into more analytical and geometric form paintings. These are the works being displayed in this exhibition (1960-1975). The title of the show, according to the press release comes from a 1968 Tworkov quote: “True and False. Blind man’s bluff, hands outstretched in the darkness feeling, wondering what is true and what is false, because our life depends on knowing the difference.”

Standing in front of the canvases, I found myself drawn towards a hypnotic quality of the works. There is a depth and emotion to these abstract works that is very compelling. They appear very simple at first glance and perhaps a little mesmerizing, but I found them catalytic and refreshing the longer I stood in front of them.

This exhibition continues until February 20th, 2010.

I walked into the gallery and saw drawing after drawing of feet.  Fifty eight of them to be exact!   Somebody obviously has a foot fetish.  It actually looked like a collection of studies that you’d find in an art class in the neighborhood.  Some of them were actually quite good.  Others were a bit “eh” (a technical art term just in case you didn’t know – usually accompanied with a shrug of one shoulder, a raise of the eyebrows and maybe a raise of the upper left lip too – I hope you get the picture.)

This artist obviously knows a lot of people with flat feet and very few with pretty feet – although that probably goes without saying for the general public.  I spend quite a lot on pedicures, but I’m not sure that I would want to subject them to this sort of scrutiny!  Or maybe the artist took some artistic license?

These feet which are drawn with a wide range of plants, objects and patterns provide a “whimsical and intimate glimpse into the artist’s private life, while also testifying to his compositional wit and poetic hand” according to the press release.  These sketches were done by Andy Warhol between 1956 and 1961. 

The sketches have been taken from Warhol’s personal sketchbooks.  I wonder if he knew that these would be publicly shown?  Would he have minded?  Probably not.  This is the man who coined the term everybody gets to be “world famous for 15 minutes”.  

Would these sketches have been in a Chelsea gallery if they were anybody else’s?  Probably not.  They’re there because they’re Andy Warhol’s.  The interest in the minutiae of celebrities probably started around this time.  I suppose that’s why memorabilia of celebrities including dirty laundry, household items and everything else that they ever touched (or didn’t) sell and stories about their personal lives keeps magazines and “news” outlets alive.    

The exhibition which was organized in conjunction with the Andy Warhol Foundation is only open until February 6^th, but a full illustrated catalogue is available at the Paul Kasmin Gallery and their web page has a comprehensive slide show if you missed it.  

N.B. The above image is by Andy Warhol, courtesy of the Paul Kasmin Gallery.

Chelsea is really quiet in January. Many of the shows have been up since the end of last year. Group shows proliferate and often they are just a jumble of the gallery stable artists. So it was good to come across “Stripped, Tied and Raw” at the Marianne Boesky Gallery on 24th Street.

It’s a group show of artists who have worked by stripping, ripping, twisting, draping, stretching, stitching and painting canvas; thereby expanding the definition of a painting. The artists are Jorge Eielson, Donald Moffett, David Noonan, Steven Parrino and Salvatore Scarpitta.

The gallery press release state that these “five artists have broken free from the dimensional confines of the stretcher while remaining true to painting, material and form assuming equal weight as content.”

It’s an unusual concept and a great theme for a group show. The styles are very different and yet work well together. It’s a well curated show and continues until February 13th.

Bob always encourages artists to get out of their comfort zone and try new concepts, media and techniques; not to change their art and who they are but to develop and refine their own particular style and skill.

Banners of Persuasion is an arts commissioning organization set up in 2008 by the owners of The Rug Company, Christopher and Suzanne Sharp. They contacted an international selection of artists, commissioning each of them to design a tapestry, a medium and skill foreign to them. They gave them free rein in terms of size, style and subject matter. The result is the exhibition “Demons, Yarns & Tales” which started in London, moved to Miami Basel and is now in New York.

All the designs were handmade in the same manner as the famous Renaissance tapestries, using the traditional Flemish weaving techniques used in Aubusson, a French village that has been manufacturing tapestries and carpets since the 15th century. There are so few experts in this technique today, that they had to travel to a rural community north of Shanghai, China to find a team of women who still possessed the necessary skills. The designs are translated into pixels on graph paper where each square is assigned a color. It becomes a little like a very detailed pixilated painting by numbers. Yet the skills of these women are so great, that according to an essay by Sarah Kent included in the exhibition catalogue, they were able to “produce clean, sharp outlines that, to the naked eye, appear absolutely fluent – not a zig-zag in sight!” One of the few difference between this project and those from centuries passed is that they used synthetic hues to allow for a greater variety of colors and avoid fading.

The result is amazing.

I walked into the James Cohan Gallery on 26th street in Chelsea today, looked to my left and thought…digital pop art, a collage of magazine images printed on gloss paper and I nearly dismissed it all. Then something about it pulled me forward; a feeling of substance and spirit ( some may suggest that I’m becoming whimsical or even ask me what I’m smoking – but I have to tell you something made me look closer!) The individual stitch was suddenly visible. The months of work, effort and skill was plain to see. The three dimensional effect was palpable. The design by the anonymous artists’ collective avaf (assume vivid astro focus) which was founded by a New York based Brazilian artist, combined with the skill of the Chinese team created a totally different work of art that is greater than the sum of the two, with the added bonus, that it’s hard wearing, easy to hang and can just be rolled up and transported or stored. What a gallery director’s dream!

All of the 13 pieces are impressive. I could have stood in front of each of them for hours. Another great piece is Kara Walker’s “A Warm Summer Evening in 1863” which is based on an image published in Harpers Magazine during the American Civil War of a scene of racially motivated violence and has an additional black silhouette of a lynched female figure in front of the scene. It is the largest of the works and took a year on the looms to create.

The works are all for sale in editions of 5 ranging from $30,000 to $200,000 each.
The exhibition runs until February 13th.

As a footnote, I have to applaud the team who man the reception desk at the James Cohan Gallery: today it was Alison. They are always exceedingly polite, friendly, knowledgeable and willing to research and help further, regardless of who or what you are. Bravi!

With the significant advancement in computer software and in particular image manipulation software such as Photoshop, I often find myself having to suspend belief when looking at digital art and in particular digital photography. I’ve also caught myself looking more often at the technical skills than the overall artistic impact of the work itself.

So I was excited to come across the Canadian Pascal Grandmaison’s first solo exhibition “The Inverted Ghost” in New York at the Jack Shainman Gallery on 20th Street.

Two diptychs “Hoping the Light Will Save Us I and II grace the first wall as you come into the gallery. Both are inverted images, the first of a man’s eye and the other of a hand extended holding or bracing a rock. They images have been brushed with a green tint and is inspired by Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Color” as well as nodding acknowledgement to science fiction. The press release suggests that “this constant pull between reality and fiction and dichotomies is typical of Grandmaison’s work which grapples with the complexity of our physical and psychological existence. Whatever the rationale, I found myself drawn towards both in part due to the simple yet creative process of inversion and coloring. 

These two pieces then lead very easily into the main gallery where six diptychs of abstract lava like forms made of viscous black oil split in two on a pristine white background are displayed. Grandmaison explains that this is “an exploration of reality and truth, how we deal with the transformation of fact, and how subjectiveness can create an illusion of the real.” I found what could easily be just another example of abstract work start to take on very definitive shapes, meanings and ideas. Grandmaison “reminds us that we are the architects of our own perceptual limitations and that the creative instinct in bound only by the limits of our own imaginations.”

It was a very refreshing experience. 

The exhibition continues until February 6th 2010.

I climbed the stairs to the Highline on 20th Street in Chelsea today and wandered amongst the dried grasses watching the winter sun set over New Jersey. I found myself alone along the southern most stretch and marveled at finding solitude in Manhattan. It was a serene experience.

Descending onto Washington Street as the lights started to twinkle in the stores, restaurants and bars of the Meat Packing District, I wondered where Chelsea ends and the Meat Packing District starts these days. Originally it was supposed to be 14th Street, but galleries are starting to migrate southwards and restaurants and fashion houses (anchored by early pioneers Balenciaga and Comme des Garçons) are starting to move northwards. In 2007, The State Register of Historic Places determined 16th street to be the boundary which encompasses the indoor Chelsea Market, so you can understand why it’s starting to get a little uncertain.

Gansevoort Market was the original official name of the area which housed 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants at the start of the last century. Today, the cleaned up and very fashionable area has 8 galleries (as far as I can work out) as well as the third major auction house in New York, Phillips de Pury & Company which states on it’s website that it is located in the Meat Packing District in Chelsea. You may be getting the drift.

Wherever I was I came to see Leo Kesting Gallery at 812 Washington Street on the corner of Gansevoort Street. Tonight was the opening reception for Donna Cleary’s first solo show “The X Spot”.

Donna Cleary’s charcoal drawings are on paper are a walk through of human emotions expressed through the physicality of the human form.

“For me,” explains the artist, “these images explore modern relationships in the context of contemporary communication, which plays havoc with the notion of identity and intimacy. In an increasingly digitalized world, communication is instantaneous, fragmented, illusory and often anonymous. It is free of the body language and interpersonal engagement present in these images. While celebrating the classic techniques of cross-hatching and sumi ink painting, these images live in the present. United with contemporary issues and technology, they remind us that despite the frantic pace of technological discovery, some things transcend time.”

The bodies are strong and well defined with expressed vulnerability more than sexuality despite being more or less undressed. They reach out for a human connection and yet seem to be just out of touch.

Enjoy the show which continues until February 7th while you also explore the Meat Packing District/Chelsea Neighborhoods.

We ascended into Tony Shafrazi’s to find a rare and heavenly art treat: “Conceptual Realism – In the Service of the Hypothetical” by Robert Williams, the founding father of ‘Low Brow’.  This genre is the use of underground cartoon figuration executed in psychedelic colors in illustrative work, which was originally rejected by the fine arts world, but seeing the extemporary technique and wonderful creativity, it rightly deserves its place in the fine arts category today.

Williams’ defines conceptualism as “a unique premise or medium for the impossible”, an “escape from the rational realm, a departure from the object mind – a subjective departure.” His works are a first class representation of this definition. Looking at some of his early influences such as Caravaggio, Hieronymus Bosch and El Grego it is possible to understand the direction that his work starts from, but the destination is purely original.

At first glance the works reminded me a little of Escher’s work, which at first looks probable, but further examination reveals the impossibility in the rational realm. Williams’ work on the other hand looks impossible on first glance, but on careful examination, there is a rational development of a premise or concept leading you to suspect it all to be quite probable. All that it requires is multiple universes that intersect at the juncture of his paintings and drawings. The scale of creativity and originality in each piece of work is mind boggling. I would suspect the use of psychedelic narcotics, except for the outstandingly immaculate technical renderings of the finished works. Personally, just looking at the works for any length of time makes me feel rather buzzed and high, which suggests that I’m obviously a cheap date or Williams’ is that good.

The hypnotic wallpaper that accompanies this show and supports many of the paintings and drawings are clever. However it’s the two sculptures in the show which bring the conceptual realism to 3D life. Created in fiberglass and steel armature painted with acrylic enamel auto paint, these larger than life sculptures are perfect and look ready to move if you even give them a blink of a chance. My favorite is shown above, ‘Diamond in a Goat’s Ass’ which he very kindly explains as “a lyrically poetic euphemism for pretension’. I thought it was Robert Williams’ definition of the fine art’s establishment – but maybe I got that wrong.

This is Robert Williams’ first solo exhibition in over five years and let me assure you that the founder and executive editor of Juxtapoz did not disappoint. I’ll need to go back for another fix soon. The show is open until January 23, 2010 at 544 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001.