Monkdogz Artblog

Pace Wildenstein has produced another blockbuster show, this time a David Hockney exhibition spread across their 25th Street and 57th Street locations. The work is his most recent from 2006 onwards and has been inspired by his return to Yorkshire.

It is also a return to oil paintings which he has always favored but after having explored everything from water color painting, drawing, set design, photography, photo collage, printmaking, fax machines, laser photocopiers, digital renderings and even the use of Brushes the iPhone application.

The colors are pure Hockney as is the perspective which he describes as “seeing the space.” The landscape of East Yorkshire is low rolling chalk hills with deep valleys with steep sides which cut through the hills. There are few woods in this rural mainly agricultural area. Hockney explains that “it’s not just about landscape. It’s about being in it, seeing it, it’s about England. I’m painting the real England.”

He suggests that you “stand in the landscape you love, try and depict your feelings of space, and forget photographic vision, which is distancing us too much from the physical world.”

Hockney draws in charcoal to start on the canvas which he brings out doors, en plein air, working with smaller canvases which he combines to create a large-scale multi-canvas painting. He takes the canvases back in the studio to finish them, rarely returning to the site. He is a prolific painter and can create several canvases in one day.

The paintings range from $800,000 to $7million and two thirds have been sold according to the gallery with reserves on the remainder. This suggests that there might be some positive movement in the art market.

The show at Pace Wildenststein Gallery is on view until December 24th, 2009.

It was great to be back wandering around Chelsea tonight. Mother Nature smiled on both the art and fashion worlds by holding off on the rain that had been forecast to be heavy this evening.

People were out and about in reasonable numbers, but it wasn’t a heavily attended season opener compared to years gone by. The frantic craziness with people rushing from one gallery to another with their long lists of gallery openings was not evident tonight. In fact all in all, the atmosphere was relatively subdued with few galleries pumping out high octane energy. The fact that there were many galleries that were closed for the evening, whether because they were installing for later openings or were still showing their summer shows, didn’t help.

The impact of the recession was very much evident, with many shows presenting mono-chromatic, dark or washed out colors with subject matters that were equally subdued.

Having said all that, there were some excellent highlights that I will be going back to see in the next few weeks, so that I can make a really detailed study of the works, something that opening night is never really conducive towards. The following are in no particular order.

Pace Wildenstein is showing Maya Lin’s large- scale installations “Three Ways of Looking at the Earth” at their 22nd Street location. She has recreated scaled down natural topographies within the confines of the gallery allowing you to walk around and through the environment, giving you a different perspective and experience of the natural world. The main piece “2 x 4 Landscape” was created by a team of 12 people working for a month assembling 50,000 pieces of vertical wooden two-by-fours. It is an imagined terrain that swells from a skirt of four to six inches to a peak of 10 feet occupying 2,400 square feet. The work has a Zen-like purity and simplicity yet manages to instill awe in the viewer.

Another installation was Chen Qiulin’s “Sincerely Yours” at Max Protetch also on 22nd Street, although this is the tail end of a summer show that closes on September 19th. Moved by the earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in May of 2008, she has created a show incorporating papier-mâché human figures that resemble Pompeii’s last day, videos and photographs of the still devastated urban infrastructures that sit amid landscapes that are renewing and recovering faster. Interestingly, the overall image is of hope.

At the Axelle Fine Art Gallery on 25th street Philippe Jacquet’s exhibition of what sculptor Charles Schindler describes as “unlikely landscapes” was on show. The artist’s background in architecture is very much evident in the landscapes, buildings and boats. A blend of super-realism and surrealism executed with impressive skill, Jacquet builds scenes that pop out from the canvas and also deceives the viewer with landscapes and seascapes that are not quite what you expect on closer inspection. The rich yet soft colors gently draw the viewer in to appreciate the beauty that even the rusting old hull of a barge can provide.

At Kim Foster Gallery on 20th Street, Sherry Karver is exhibiting “Private Stories / Public Places. Karver has taken the excellent pastime of people-watching and into art with a wonderful combination of oil painting, digital imagery, oil glazes, resin and text. The images of people are intriguing, but it is the addition of her very witty and often poignant commentary of their intimate personal details which are placed over the people and dogs which really draws you in. She explains “I superimpose biographies on top of figures about the person; their hopes, their dreams and often something personal that they would rather not reveal.” You cannot fully appreciate her visual art without reading the text. This exhibition definitely requires some additional time in the schedule.

Finally if you haven’t been to see it yet and can get there by September 19th, “Naked!” at Paul Kasmin is a summer group show featuring an illustrious roster of artist and their contribution of figurative work. Included are Pablo Picasso, Kenny Scharf, David Lachappelle, Duncan Hannah, Cecily Brown, Man Ray, Tom of Finland, Mel Ramos, Andy Warhol and many many more.

Wishing you a new season of great art discoveries.

We went to see the Chuck Close, Paintings and Tapestries from 2005-2009 at PaceWildenstein on 25^th street in Chelsea today.  

 What can I say?  The man does magic.  

Most of us take our sight for granted; even if we have to wear contact lenses or glasses.  We don’t often think of how the light hits our cornea, goes through the aqueous humor, then through the iris and as it passes through the lens, the image gets inverted while travelling through the vitreous and hits the rods and cones of the retina at the back of the eye.  It then proceeds up to the brain, where it all gets put right side up and we see what we see in a blink of an…..eye!  How often do we think about all that?

Chuck Close breaks down the process of seeing images and then rebuilds them in his very own way making us aware of what magic there is in sight.

When you see his oil paintings from afar, especially at a slight angle, they look like photographs; perhaps a little blurred, but none the less, photos.  As you get closer and closer, the image starts to break down into individual works of abstract organic geometric shapes in a precise pixellized grid with the occasional exception.  Each block is a work of art in its own right; concentric circles, squares and other forms, with differing orders of what may seem like random color.  How this can reform at a distance into a recognizable face is a mystery that I can see with my own eyes, but cannot fathom, even with the help of the maquettes that he creates and shows us.  On the other hand Close has become more and more intimate with the answer as the years have gone by.  A true genius.

I would have been happy just looking at the paintings, but Pace Wildenstein in their infinite wisdom married them with his Belgium Jacquard loom woven tapestries.  Using a computer, Close specifies thousands of strands of colored thread to recreate near photographic images of the faces for which he has become so famous.  A 400 year old technology which has been updated and given a new lease of life.  Magic.

The show unfortunately closes this Saturday.  If you have the time, it’s really worth the visit.  

For more info about Chuck Close read a previous post on this blog.

Also watch a video by James Kalm for Saatchi online TV & magazine.

It was almost like the old days…..25th street was thronged with people. Openings at Pace Wildenstein and Marlborough, drew people down the street and a very cosmopolitan mix of chattered as they came in and out.

Richard Tuttle’s new show “Walking on Air” was simple and beautiful as expected. It achieved the “expression of elation for the potential for a new beginning, the possibility to rebuild and discover a harmony for existing in the world today” that he was looking for.

Half way through the evening, 8 of the 12 pieces had either been sold or reserved a good sign in these times. The price point of $150,000 was obviously well pegged and I watched a young collector coming out of the back room, obviously very pleased with his purchase.

I would have liked to have chatted to Tuttle, but he was there one minute and gone the next, dragged away with excited potential buyers. After all these years, I wonder if there is still an excitement to attending one of your own solo show openings.

The Pace gallerinas were as usual friendly and informative. They all seemed cautiously optimistic, although I had a feeling that some of it was a little bit of posturing, but I would not have expected any less. At least people are back looking around. It has to be the first step to getting people to buy artwork again. I felt a collective sigh of relief and I don’t think it was just the warmth of the evening.