Remember back in 2008, when Chinese art was the biggest thing going? Maybe it had something to do with the Beijing Olympics, but China-mania swept the art world up until the recession hit that September. Several major galleries opened spaces in Shanghai, and it seemed like anyone with a Chinese-sounding name could walk into a gallery and get a show booked. Prior to the art world's brief obsession with China, there were only a few internationally famous Chinese artists, such as Cai Guo-Qiang and his gunpowder paintings, and Zhang Huan and his highly varied output of performance pieces, sculptures, paintings, and prints. His solo show at PaceWildenstein's 22nd Street space, titled "Neither Coming Nor Going," shows a recent sculpture and some prints, but honestly, it could have just been the sculpture.
The obvious highlight of the show was a twenty-foot tall sculpture of the Buddha made almost entirely out of incense ash (with a few red incense wrappers and some bones stuck in it too). It's so monumental that it even overwhelms the gallery's massive exhibition space. One of the statue's hands has fallen off and sits on the ground next to its legs. According to the gallery's website, smoke is supposed to come out of the statue's head, but I never witnessed this.
Here's what I could find on the meaning behind the statue: its name, Rulai, is a Chinese translation of the pronoun the Buddha used to refer to himself after reaching Enlightenment: Tathagata. Tathagata is used to mean "beyond coming and going" because it has two meanings depending on slight variations in its pronunciation: it can mean "one who has come" or "one who has gone." Being neither coming nor going means being outside of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth - in Buddhist thought, Nirvana. (Source)
The statue of the Buddha is made out of incense ash - it's made out of the residue left behind from prayers and wishes. There are even incense wrappers embedded in the statue. One potential interpretation of the work might be that even though the Buddha reached Nirvana, humans keep bringing him back through rituals and prayers. To put it in a western perspective, maybe God is the end, not the beginning, and perhaps mankind is contributing to the construction of the divine with every prayer said, every incense stick lit, every life lived. Or, maybe you could just listen to the artist and his explanation of the work and its relationship to the economic situation in China. As I said before, I prefer to look at work by myself without the artist's intentions looking over my shoulder.
There were some woodblock prints and stuff, but seriously: GIANT ASH BUDDHA! Awesome.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
An Aside: Art Magazines
This little tangent started as part of my post about Adrian Ghenie and Romanian artists, and took on a life of its own. In the original post I mentioned that I have way too many art magazines. Every month I read the "big three": Artforum, Art in America, and ArtNews. I also read Flash Art and Modern Painters and some of the quarterly publications dealing with regional art scenes, such as Art Lies and Art Ltd.
Artforum is probably the biggest art magazine right now - it has some of the best critics out there writing for it, and all varieties of art are covered - film, installation, painting, sculpture, conceptual, you name it. Sometimes they're a bit heavy on film coverage at the expense of other media, but that's a minor complaint about a solid magazine. It's supposed to have an international view, but half of the reviews are of New York shows. It does review shows from overseas, but usually just one or two per country in each issue. Speaking of being "the biggest art magazine" and "solid," issues of Artforum tend to be really thick (like Vogue, its bulk is mostly ads, but ads can be a good way to find out about exhibitions). Also, it's like a big square, which is cool since it sticks out past the other magazines on the bookshelf.
Art in America is kind of stuck in the middle between Artforum and Art News. Last year they had a series of opinion articles written by Dave Hickey, which were great reads, but his contract seems to have expired or something by now. Art in America is one magazine I don't really have an opinion about - I read it, but nothing really strikes me as being either excellent or horrible. Recently they raised their price to $9 an issue, which is just a dollar less than Artforum. If I had to choose, I'd pay an extra dollar and get double the magazine.
I keep all my issues of ArtNews in a basket in my bathroom. Why? In case I run out of toilet paper. In all seriousness, ArtNews isn't a total asswipe, but it's definitely the bottom rung of art magazines. The articles remind me more of Time and Newsweek than Artforum or Art in America - they seem over-generalized and written for people who don't know anything about art. I suppose it would be a good entry-level magazine for those new to the art world, and they occasionally have interesting articles, but it's really more of a news magazine than an art magazine. Their reviews are a waste of time - they never really say anything, and they tend to cover galleries from art scenes that nobody really cares about (Key West, for example).
Flash Art is supposed to have a global view of the art world, but it mainly covers Continental Europe. I've found Artforum's European coverage to be spotty, so having a whole other magazine devoted to it is nice, especially since there are some excellent artists who are big in Europe but nigh unknown in the states. The big problem with Flash Art has been finding it. The vast majority of newsstands don't carry it, and a subscription winds up costing about $20 an issue. I found one newsstand that had it, in Grand Central, but it closed down. There's another one on 42nd Street near Port Authority that sometimes has it, but they mark it up to $16 an issue, which is insane. I've occasionally seen it in St. Mark's Books, but again, not reliably. After I moved to Williamsburg this past September, though, I finally found my source: Spoonbill and Sugartown, an awesome bookstore on Bedford Ave that will probably be the subject of another post. They actually get Flash Art regularly, which seems to be a rarity. Interestingly enough, last March, I went to the Flash Art booth at the Armory Show and talked to the representative about my trouble finding the magazine - she said that they were having distribution problems, which was kind of an understatement. By the time I got there they were sold out of the current issue and all their back issues, so I guess a lot of other people have been searching for the magazine as well.
Modern Painters is a slim volume but it tends to be a good read. Despite the name, some issues contain little or no mention of painting. Like Art in America, I read it but nothing particularly strikes me most of the time. One thing about it that does stand out is the magazine itself - it's too tall to fit on any of my bookshelves, so I have to put it on its spine, which makes it jut out past the Artforums.
I also occasionally read smaller circulation magazines that deal with local art scenes. Art Ltd. covers the West Coast, but it's not all hip LA art: there's also the photorealist galleries of Santa Barbara and the terribly corny stuff coming out of Santa Fe. Art Papers has in-depth criticism, good interviews, and some excellent writing, but their focus is oriented towards installation/conceptual art, (granted, I've missed a few issues, so this might not be an accurate statement) which I appreciate, but as a painter, I'd like to read about stuff on the walls sometimes. Art Lies covers Texas, but not cowboy art - there's actually some cutting-edge stuff coming from there, which makes it an excellent read as well.
So, overall, I read a lot of magazines. I don't throw them out, either - they can be an excellent resource for looking up artists or just for inspiration in the studio... or "inspiration" in the bathroom.
Artforum is probably the biggest art magazine right now - it has some of the best critics out there writing for it, and all varieties of art are covered - film, installation, painting, sculpture, conceptual, you name it. Sometimes they're a bit heavy on film coverage at the expense of other media, but that's a minor complaint about a solid magazine. It's supposed to have an international view, but half of the reviews are of New York shows. It does review shows from overseas, but usually just one or two per country in each issue. Speaking of being "the biggest art magazine" and "solid," issues of Artforum tend to be really thick (like Vogue, its bulk is mostly ads, but ads can be a good way to find out about exhibitions). Also, it's like a big square, which is cool since it sticks out past the other magazines on the bookshelf.
Art in America is kind of stuck in the middle between Artforum and Art News. Last year they had a series of opinion articles written by Dave Hickey, which were great reads, but his contract seems to have expired or something by now. Art in America is one magazine I don't really have an opinion about - I read it, but nothing really strikes me as being either excellent or horrible. Recently they raised their price to $9 an issue, which is just a dollar less than Artforum. If I had to choose, I'd pay an extra dollar and get double the magazine.
I keep all my issues of ArtNews in a basket in my bathroom. Why? In case I run out of toilet paper. In all seriousness, ArtNews isn't a total asswipe, but it's definitely the bottom rung of art magazines. The articles remind me more of Time and Newsweek than Artforum or Art in America - they seem over-generalized and written for people who don't know anything about art. I suppose it would be a good entry-level magazine for those new to the art world, and they occasionally have interesting articles, but it's really more of a news magazine than an art magazine. Their reviews are a waste of time - they never really say anything, and they tend to cover galleries from art scenes that nobody really cares about (Key West, for example).
Flash Art is supposed to have a global view of the art world, but it mainly covers Continental Europe. I've found Artforum's European coverage to be spotty, so having a whole other magazine devoted to it is nice, especially since there are some excellent artists who are big in Europe but nigh unknown in the states. The big problem with Flash Art has been finding it. The vast majority of newsstands don't carry it, and a subscription winds up costing about $20 an issue. I found one newsstand that had it, in Grand Central, but it closed down. There's another one on 42nd Street near Port Authority that sometimes has it, but they mark it up to $16 an issue, which is insane. I've occasionally seen it in St. Mark's Books, but again, not reliably. After I moved to Williamsburg this past September, though, I finally found my source: Spoonbill and Sugartown, an awesome bookstore on Bedford Ave that will probably be the subject of another post. They actually get Flash Art regularly, which seems to be a rarity. Interestingly enough, last March, I went to the Flash Art booth at the Armory Show and talked to the representative about my trouble finding the magazine - she said that they were having distribution problems, which was kind of an understatement. By the time I got there they were sold out of the current issue and all their back issues, so I guess a lot of other people have been searching for the magazine as well.
Modern Painters is a slim volume but it tends to be a good read. Despite the name, some issues contain little or no mention of painting. Like Art in America, I read it but nothing particularly strikes me most of the time. One thing about it that does stand out is the magazine itself - it's too tall to fit on any of my bookshelves, so I have to put it on its spine, which makes it jut out past the Artforums.
I also occasionally read smaller circulation magazines that deal with local art scenes. Art Ltd. covers the West Coast, but it's not all hip LA art: there's also the photorealist galleries of Santa Barbara and the terribly corny stuff coming out of Santa Fe. Art Papers has in-depth criticism, good interviews, and some excellent writing, but their focus is oriented towards installation/conceptual art, (granted, I've missed a few issues, so this might not be an accurate statement) which I appreciate, but as a painter, I'd like to read about stuff on the walls sometimes. Art Lies covers Texas, but not cowboy art - there's actually some cutting-edge stuff coming from there, which makes it an excellent read as well.
So, overall, I read a lot of magazines. I don't throw them out, either - they can be an excellent resource for looking up artists or just for inspiration in the studio... or "inspiration" in the bathroom.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Romanian Painters: Coincidence?
I'm not sure why, but lately I've been seeing Adrian Ghenie's work everywhere. Not "opium-and-shrooms-at-the-same-time-get-kicked-out-of-college-for-hallucinating-about-your-stat-teacher" everywhere - I'm talking about the major art magazines. The most recent Flash Art has a Ghenie piece on the cover and an interview inside. The most recent Artforum has an ad for a Ghenie show at Mihai Nicodim in LA (Maybe my little sister, who lives in LA, would be interested in seeing the show and reporting back about it. Hint, hint, kiddo.). And I remember seeing several more references to him in the half-dozen or so magazines I read each month, but I have so many goddamn magazines in my apartment and studio that trying to find one particular review would be a full-time job.
At any rate, you could say that I dream of Ghenie. It's no surprise - in his work, I see many things I'd like my own work to be. His paintings maintain a delicate balance of order and chaos - everything seems rational even though it's been scraped with a trowel and repainted a dozen times. His color palette frequently switches between monochrome and vibrant and it works either way. At least on a formal level, I look at Ghenie's work with envy.
One series of paintings, "The Collector," shows the infamous Nazi looter Hermann Goering looking at his collection of stolen artwork. Another series is called "Pie Fight" and depicts serious-looking suited men throwing pies at each other (like the famous deleted ending from Dr. Strangelove). Other uplifting themes in Ghenie's oeuvre include Lenin's corpse, wolves coming out of the darkness, and seemingly silent scenes of interiors cloaked in shadows. Also, roadside executions.
Ghenie's work also ties in nicely to an exhibition I saw last night. I had been in Chelsea working with a friend on some changes to his website, and once we were done I decided, since it was Thursday, to try and score some free wine at gallery openings. I peeked in a few galleries but didn't see anything amazing until, on 25th street, something caught my eye - a cat.
A brief aside: my little sister, who lives out in LA, loves cats. A lot. Like, way more than most people. She and her fiancee have two of them, and her neighbors (who are practically part of the family) have six. Anyway, here in Williamsburg, there are a lot of cats. Most convenience stores have at least one on the payroll as a mousetrap. Recently, I started taking pictures for her of all the neighborhood cats that I could track down. I saw the cat in Chelsea as an extension of this little project, so I went into the building to snap a few pictures of the little guy.
The little bastard who started it all...
After I had finished photographing the cat, I looked up and noticed some wine bottles on a table down the hall. Finally, an actual opening reception! I followed the smell of cheap wine to a small gallery, called "Slag", hidden in a back hallway. The gallery was, indeed, having an opening for a group show that had just gone up that day. It just so happens that one of the four artists in the show is, like Ghenie, also Romanian.
I don't want to make hasty assumptions, but if these two are any indication, then damn, there's some good art coming out of Romania these days!
The Romanian artist in the group show "Realm" at Slag Gallery is named Sergiu Toma. One wall of the gallery was devoted to his work. Like his countryman Ghenie, Toma's work is mainly monochromatic with touches of color. The childlike figures look like they were taken from old photographs, but the faces are all blurred or otherwise distorted, like curse victims in The Ring. The nostalgic colors and subjects coupled with the fuzzy rendering brought to mind themes of forgetfulness - forgetting the faces of lost friends from long ago. One large painting, called "Time Machine," had a boy peering into a strange green machine that appeared to be a combination water cooler/drill press. Like the other paintings, the coloration was bleak, save for the viridian green machine. A smaller version, without the boy, was also in the show. I know there have been many times in my life when I wish I had a time machine, or at least the ability to go into a coma at will to sleep through stressful situations.
The forgetfulness that accompanies the endless march of time... and the fact that there are many situations in our lives we would like to forget. Given some of the settings in which Toma placed his characters, I imagine there are things they would like to forget as well.
UPDATE 1/27: Here's another excellent Romanian painter I found. I'm seeing Romanian painters everywhere... someone call Health Services, I think I just saw Szabolcs Veres on my toast!
At any rate, you could say that I dream of Ghenie. It's no surprise - in his work, I see many things I'd like my own work to be. His paintings maintain a delicate balance of order and chaos - everything seems rational even though it's been scraped with a trowel and repainted a dozen times. His color palette frequently switches between monochrome and vibrant and it works either way. At least on a formal level, I look at Ghenie's work with envy.
One series of paintings, "The Collector," shows the infamous Nazi looter Hermann Goering looking at his collection of stolen artwork. Another series is called "Pie Fight" and depicts serious-looking suited men throwing pies at each other (like the famous deleted ending from Dr. Strangelove). Other uplifting themes in Ghenie's oeuvre include Lenin's corpse, wolves coming out of the darkness, and seemingly silent scenes of interiors cloaked in shadows. Also, roadside executions.
Ghenie's work also ties in nicely to an exhibition I saw last night. I had been in Chelsea working with a friend on some changes to his website, and once we were done I decided, since it was Thursday, to try and score some free wine at gallery openings. I peeked in a few galleries but didn't see anything amazing until, on 25th street, something caught my eye - a cat.
A brief aside: my little sister, who lives out in LA, loves cats. A lot. Like, way more than most people. She and her fiancee have two of them, and her neighbors (who are practically part of the family) have six. Anyway, here in Williamsburg, there are a lot of cats. Most convenience stores have at least one on the payroll as a mousetrap. Recently, I started taking pictures for her of all the neighborhood cats that I could track down. I saw the cat in Chelsea as an extension of this little project, so I went into the building to snap a few pictures of the little guy.
The little bastard who started it all...I don't want to make hasty assumptions, but if these two are any indication, then damn, there's some good art coming out of Romania these days!
The Romanian artist in the group show "Realm" at Slag Gallery is named Sergiu Toma. One wall of the gallery was devoted to his work. Like his countryman Ghenie, Toma's work is mainly monochromatic with touches of color. The childlike figures look like they were taken from old photographs, but the faces are all blurred or otherwise distorted, like curse victims in The Ring. The nostalgic colors and subjects coupled with the fuzzy rendering brought to mind themes of forgetfulness - forgetting the faces of lost friends from long ago. One large painting, called "Time Machine," had a boy peering into a strange green machine that appeared to be a combination water cooler/drill press. Like the other paintings, the coloration was bleak, save for the viridian green machine. A smaller version, without the boy, was also in the show. I know there have been many times in my life when I wish I had a time machine, or at least the ability to go into a coma at will to sleep through stressful situations.
The forgetfulness that accompanies the endless march of time... and the fact that there are many situations in our lives we would like to forget. Given some of the settings in which Toma placed his characters, I imagine there are things they would like to forget as well.
UPDATE 1/27: Here's another excellent Romanian painter I found. I'm seeing Romanian painters everywhere... someone call Health Services, I think I just saw Szabolcs Veres on my toast!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Chautauqua: A Continuum of Creativity at Denise Bibro
First, a disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the kind of work usually shown at Denise Bibro. It's a gallery that shows C-grade artists who are smart enough to stay away from the vanity galleries, but their work isn't contemporary enough to be noticed by any of the more respected cutting-edge spaces. The work in question is the sort of work that isn't self aware - it's work that seems to be done for its own sake, which was a justification that worked back in the days of modernism and before but doesn't quite fly today. It's work that doesn't connect to art history, or to contemporary discourse, or to anything outside of the canvas. That said, I'm not going to deny that there's a market for this sort of work, and I'm not trying to disrespect the artists who show at the gallery - I'm just trying to make known my expectations going into this show. Also, on my way to the opening the elevator I was in almost crashed and I had to help pull people out of the stuck car, but that's another story.
The only reason I went to this show is because a friend of mine had a piece in it. The show itself was divided into two rooms: one room had work by the faculty of the Chautauqua school, and the other room had work by the school's alumni (including my friend). Most of the work in the student room was, to put it politely, assballs. A few pieces stood out as being decent: my friend's piece (and I'm not just saying that to be nice; it would have been one of my favorite pieces even if I didn't know it was his), a two-panel oil, latex, and ink on paper painting of highly stylized islands, was one of the best pieces in the show. It's the kind of painting that's really hard to describe, so here is a link to a whole page of them (the one in the show is "Island Series 1".)
Another piece that stood out was a large Rococo-style porcelain sculpture, "Paradise" by Chris Antemann. It had a degree of finish and Jeff Koons-like professionalism that seemed out of place next to awkward student paintings and toilet-brush sculptures. It's one of the better pieces in the show - the gallery is using it on all the promotional materials. Surprisingly, it was done by an alumnus, not a professor.
Few of the professors' pieces really stood out to me - one memorable piece was "Premise" by Don Kimes: a large photograph printed on canvas of what might have been a microscope slide or maybe someone licking a camera lens. Whatever it was, it was (to me) the strongest piece among the teachers' work. Another piece that caught my eye looked like intestines or maybe saucy spaghetti ("Plot" by Tom Butter). There was a lot of predictable and average work (an academic nude, some geometric abstraction, a couple portraits) and then there was one piece that looked like it came straight from my grandma's living room. This sort of work is the norm at Denise Bibro, and not surprisingly the artist actually shows at the gallery; I imagine that she had a hand in getting this show set up. If she did, I'm thankful, because my friend has another notch on his resume and I had a chance to conquer my long-running phobia of dying in an elevator crash.
The only reason I went to this show is because a friend of mine had a piece in it. The show itself was divided into two rooms: one room had work by the faculty of the Chautauqua school, and the other room had work by the school's alumni (including my friend). Most of the work in the student room was, to put it politely, assballs. A few pieces stood out as being decent: my friend's piece (and I'm not just saying that to be nice; it would have been one of my favorite pieces even if I didn't know it was his), a two-panel oil, latex, and ink on paper painting of highly stylized islands, was one of the best pieces in the show. It's the kind of painting that's really hard to describe, so here is a link to a whole page of them (the one in the show is "Island Series 1".)
Another piece that stood out was a large Rococo-style porcelain sculpture, "Paradise" by Chris Antemann. It had a degree of finish and Jeff Koons-like professionalism that seemed out of place next to awkward student paintings and toilet-brush sculptures. It's one of the better pieces in the show - the gallery is using it on all the promotional materials. Surprisingly, it was done by an alumnus, not a professor.
Few of the professors' pieces really stood out to me - one memorable piece was "Premise" by Don Kimes: a large photograph printed on canvas of what might have been a microscope slide or maybe someone licking a camera lens. Whatever it was, it was (to me) the strongest piece among the teachers' work. Another piece that caught my eye looked like intestines or maybe saucy spaghetti ("Plot" by Tom Butter). There was a lot of predictable and average work (an academic nude, some geometric abstraction, a couple portraits) and then there was one piece that looked like it came straight from my grandma's living room. This sort of work is the norm at Denise Bibro, and not surprisingly the artist actually shows at the gallery; I imagine that she had a hand in getting this show set up. If she did, I'm thankful, because my friend has another notch on his resume and I had a chance to conquer my long-running phobia of dying in an elevator crash.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
What I Would Buy
My boss at the library I intern at has been giving me old auction catalogs lately, and while reading them, I can't help but wonder what kind of art I would collect if I had scads of money. Here are a few thoughts I had:
Francis Bacon: His large paintings are really expensive, and I personally think they should be in public collections. If given the chance, it would be nice to have one of his small triptych self-portraits.
Balthus: Unless it was a small piece like a drawing, I'd probably buy it and give it to a museum -- Balthus wasn't particularly prolific, and I think his work deserves to be more widely seen.
On Kawara: It would be awesome to have Kawara's date paintings for important events in my life (birthdays, etc).
Jean Fautrier: I love the "Hostages" series of paintings he did after WWII.
Henri Michaux: I'm not a huge fan of abstract work, but I appreciate its place in history and some of the formal elements, like the caligraphic brushwork in some of Michaux's ink drawings.
Gregory Crewdson: I love his large-format photos, but I'm not a huge fan of the "gritty Americana" look some of his work has, so I'd have to be selective.
Gerhard Richter: I don't like his abstractions much, but I love the blurred photographic paintings, so I'd try to get one of those.
I actually have an opprotunity to buy some Araki poloroids for $300 each... I'm still toying with the idea of buying one.
My art collection is already off to a great start! I have a Jacob Hashimoto (one little kite), a Jerome Witkin (an unsigned in-class painting demo he was going to throw away), some Joshua Kaplan pieces, and an early Bradley LaMere I rescued from the garbage. And, of course, my own paintings that take up most of my studio space...
Francis Bacon: His large paintings are really expensive, and I personally think they should be in public collections. If given the chance, it would be nice to have one of his small triptych self-portraits.
Balthus: Unless it was a small piece like a drawing, I'd probably buy it and give it to a museum -- Balthus wasn't particularly prolific, and I think his work deserves to be more widely seen.
On Kawara: It would be awesome to have Kawara's date paintings for important events in my life (birthdays, etc).
Jean Fautrier: I love the "Hostages" series of paintings he did after WWII.
Henri Michaux: I'm not a huge fan of abstract work, but I appreciate its place in history and some of the formal elements, like the caligraphic brushwork in some of Michaux's ink drawings.
Gregory Crewdson: I love his large-format photos, but I'm not a huge fan of the "gritty Americana" look some of his work has, so I'd have to be selective.
Gerhard Richter: I don't like his abstractions much, but I love the blurred photographic paintings, so I'd try to get one of those.
I actually have an opprotunity to buy some Araki poloroids for $300 each... I'm still toying with the idea of buying one.
My art collection is already off to a great start! I have a Jacob Hashimoto (one little kite), a Jerome Witkin (an unsigned in-class painting demo he was going to throw away), some Joshua Kaplan pieces, and an early Bradley LaMere I rescued from the garbage. And, of course, my own paintings that take up most of my studio space...
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sue Williams at David Zwirner
Sue Williams's current exhibition at David Zwirner, called "Project for the New American Century," was one of the most thought provoking shows I've seen in a long time. The show's main content consists of several very large oil and acrylic paintings that, from across the room, look like mundane ab-ex works.. Upon closer examination, the paintings depict a lacy web of guts, gore, and entrails.
Although the imagery depicted is visceral and shocking, the paintings themselves are more fun and playful than they are disgusting. Part of their playfulness comes from the lowbrow-inspired color and linework. The paintings have only a few colors each, and although they were done in oil and acrylic, they look like they were silkscreened or otherwise printed onto the canvases. There aren't any visible brushstrokes or areas of impasto or anything to suggest a connection to "traditional" painting. Although they use the scale of masterpiece paintings, they look like they would be more comfortable in the pages of a Robert Crumb comic or painted on the side of a motorcycle. Comic books, particularly underground comics, are known for their depictions of violence (like Fritz the Cat being murdered with an icepick), and these paintings take that stereotype and blow it up to be wall-sized.
While looking at the paintings, I began to deconstruct their possible meanings. One of my first thoughts involved ancient divination rites in which priests would gut an animal and tell the future from the patterns in the entrails. What if, in the tradition of Francis Bacon, these paintings were a memento mori telling the viewer that he or she is simply made out of meat?
On the way out of the gallery, I took copies of everything on the reception desk and stuffed them in my messenger bag. One of the papers I took was a document explaining, down to the most minute reference, the artist's intended meaning of each piece in the show. Apparently the artist wanted to critique the Bush Administration's foreign policy, but the paintings didn't make that view explicit enough, so the gallery printed up a little cheat sheet.
I liked the paintings before I found out what they were about. The whole idea of printing up a sheet explaining what the paintings are about is awfully patronizing to the gallery-goer. I like looking at art and coming up with my own critical interpretations -- that's why I write these reviews. The revelation of the artist's "intentions" has poisoned my ability to view the work from my own perspective. The paintings were great on their own, but the artist stepped in and ruined everything for me.
Although the imagery depicted is visceral and shocking, the paintings themselves are more fun and playful than they are disgusting. Part of their playfulness comes from the lowbrow-inspired color and linework. The paintings have only a few colors each, and although they were done in oil and acrylic, they look like they were silkscreened or otherwise printed onto the canvases. There aren't any visible brushstrokes or areas of impasto or anything to suggest a connection to "traditional" painting. Although they use the scale of masterpiece paintings, they look like they would be more comfortable in the pages of a Robert Crumb comic or painted on the side of a motorcycle. Comic books, particularly underground comics, are known for their depictions of violence (like Fritz the Cat being murdered with an icepick), and these paintings take that stereotype and blow it up to be wall-sized.
While looking at the paintings, I began to deconstruct their possible meanings. One of my first thoughts involved ancient divination rites in which priests would gut an animal and tell the future from the patterns in the entrails. What if, in the tradition of Francis Bacon, these paintings were a memento mori telling the viewer that he or she is simply made out of meat?
On the way out of the gallery, I took copies of everything on the reception desk and stuffed them in my messenger bag. One of the papers I took was a document explaining, down to the most minute reference, the artist's intended meaning of each piece in the show. Apparently the artist wanted to critique the Bush Administration's foreign policy, but the paintings didn't make that view explicit enough, so the gallery printed up a little cheat sheet.
I liked the paintings before I found out what they were about. The whole idea of printing up a sheet explaining what the paintings are about is awfully patronizing to the gallery-goer. I like looking at art and coming up with my own critical interpretations -- that's why I write these reviews. The revelation of the artist's "intentions" has poisoned my ability to view the work from my own perspective. The paintings were great on their own, but the artist stepped in and ruined everything for me.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
"Heavy Light" at the International Center of Photography
Kenji Yanobe's "Blue Cinema in the Woods" is the first piece you encounter upon entering -- since part of it is video with audio, you can hear it from the lobby and the bookstore. The piece consists of a small building (the aforementioned cinema) that rests on the back of a metal elephant. Standing on a barrel next to the elephant is Torayan, a ventriloquist's dummy wearing a radiation suit with a Geiger counter. Inside the cinema is a video that parodies children's television shows. The video, which also plays on a monitor beside the sculpture, follows the artist's father and his dummy Torayan as they search for a mythical elephant in Thailand. The narrative evolves into a pastiche of nuclear paranoia, including a "duck and cover" cartoon starring Torayan, and ultimately the childlike utopia of the Blue Cinema is revealed to be a specially constructed bomb shelter for the viewers.
Yanobe's piece treats one of the darkest subjects imaginable with a childlike innocence that makes the apocalyptic themes seem all the more creepy. The dummy, Torayan, is also unsettling in that it has the features of both a child and an old man.
Another artist who forces the viewer to examine his or her expectations is Yukio Nakagawa. Most of his photographs look gory, meaty, and biological. "Fountain" looks like the result of a Jello mold filled with with congealed blood. "Destiny" appears to be a ceramic shoe filled with entrails. "Spinabifida" has the appearance of a leathery, decomposed animal phallus. It turns out that Nakagawa's main artistic practice is Ikebana, the art of flower arranging and one of the most traditional Japanese arts. Nakagawa's photographs do not immediately suggest any connection to Ikebana -- rather, they appear to be most connected to gory shock-art and a far cry from flower arranging. It's hard to believe, but "Fountain" is actually tulip petals rather than blood and gore. None of his photographs bear any resemblance to traditional Ikebana. In fact, some of them don't resemble flowers at all. "The Island of Death" is supposed to consist of 20,000 red tulips, but the photograph appears to be an island of ash in a sea of smoldering embers.
Yanobe's piece treats one of the darkest subjects imaginable with a childlike innocence that makes the apocalyptic themes seem all the more creepy. The dummy, Torayan, is also unsettling in that it has the features of both a child and an old man.
Another artist who forces the viewer to examine his or her expectations is Yukio Nakagawa. Most of his photographs look gory, meaty, and biological. "Fountain" looks like the result of a Jello mold filled with with congealed blood. "Destiny" appears to be a ceramic shoe filled with entrails. "Spinabifida" has the appearance of a leathery, decomposed animal phallus. It turns out that Nakagawa's main artistic practice is Ikebana, the art of flower arranging and one of the most traditional Japanese arts. Nakagawa's photographs do not immediately suggest any connection to Ikebana -- rather, they appear to be most connected to gory shock-art and a far cry from flower arranging. It's hard to believe, but "Fountain" is actually tulip petals rather than blood and gore. None of his photographs bear any resemblance to traditional Ikebana. In fact, some of them don't resemble flowers at all. "The Island of Death" is supposed to consist of 20,000 red tulips, but the photograph appears to be an island of ash in a sea of smoldering embers.
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