Chelsea Gallerista

So ... where to eat between the canvases in Chelsea?

2012-01-27T10:38:00.001-08:00

I've published my now-and-then little neighborly roundup of hidden Chelsea suggestions over here.

Stimulating the local economy, one calorie at a time!

Sleep No More NYC: Macbeth Murder Mystery Mashup

2011-10-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Guests must wear these masks ... and remain stumm. Photo by ChelseaGallerista

"I got a spare ticket to see Sleep No More tonight. Interested?"

Does a chicken have hard lips?

This über-hyped "immersive theatre" production (a UK transplant) is so solidly booked to its cobwebby rafters, I hear scalpers were having a field day until it was extended through December. Meaning, those of us slowpokes get to see it, and others with a spare $75 can return to catch what they missed first time around.

There are countless reviews of this production on the web, so what follows is Chelsea Gallerista's personal experience.

Sleep No More resembles a self-guided murder mystery. It's based on MacBeth and staged in a formerly glorious, now shuttered Chelsea hotel, The McKittrick - and fitted out to the nines with creepy conviction. I read that there are 93 rooms of garage-sale tchochkes and more in a space of 100,000 square feet, and that you will never see it all even if you labor the full 3 hours.

You enter via a cocktail lounge/bar - a period piece in itself - where we were plied with shots of absinthe. It was unclear if these were complimentary, so I abstained form the absinthe. We were then issued with white masks and instructed to wear them for the entire duration show. Why? Co-director Felix Barret's explanation is cogent to the point of pain:

The masks create a sense of anonymity; they make the rest of the audience dissolve into generic, ghostly presences, so that each person can experience the space alone.

We were also issued two playing cards - one was hole-punched by a minder, but it wasn't clear what the other one was for (a complimentary absinthe?)

Then, Adams-Family like character actors ushered us into a freight elevator and released us selectively out onto the 5 floors. We were on our own

And it really is best experienced on your own, once you get over the natural instinct to cling to your pals. One gal jumped back into the elevator in terror when it looked like she was going to be separated from her group. I read a comment by a woman whining that she was separated from her husband and thus had a "compromised experience." Sticking with your pals, who you can barely recognize in the dark behind those masks, will compromise the experience. Once your eyes and nerves adjust, you'll be better, as Barret says, "experiencing the space alone."

You were no supposed to take any pictures. My cellphone camera accidentally went off.
Honest!

Actors pop up here and there to play out cryptic, highly sexually charged scenes which presumeably nod to key scenes in MacBeth (you're talking to a computer science major here *blush*). The actors are all dancers, as you can glean from their virtuosic, wall climbing, table dancing antics.

One room is flanked with claw-foot bathtubs receding to a vanishing point; a naked woman sits in one and tries desperately to wash blood off her hands.

A couple of floors below is a giant, spooky graveyard sprinkled with stuff that crunches underfoot as you navigate across it through swirling mist. Even further below is a cavernous basement area with trees on casters that get moved around, the shifting forest.

In a restaurant, a pregnant woman (Lady McBeth) licks some liquid concoction from a plate like a cat.

In an old attorney's office, a lawyer is wordlessly arguing with, then finally kissing a client. Somewhere else a man is stuffing a pigeon, while a masked audience member gets right in his face, touching his tools.

On yet another floor, I stumbled upon a rave-like dance scene between a naked man with a giant ox head mask and blood dripping down his chest, a couple of shaved headed women (one breast was set free) and a model of a bloodied baby all carved up by squint-inducing strobe lighting and stuttering electronic soundtrack. Whew! I actually came across this scene twice; the content is performed 3 times so everyone gets a gander.

It's all very dark and largely wordless. The main noises come from the stampede of audience feet as they follow a chosen actor around the hotel. I joined one of these stampedes and that's how I got to see several acts.

You are not allowed to take pictures inside the hotel. My ever brazen comrade took my camera and shot a couple, then nipped away leaving me holding the Bagberry. A black masked aide suddenly appeared, drew me aside and hissed, "You have to delete that photo." Now when someone stands over you (I'm only 5') wearing a black mask in a blacker room while some haunted soundtrack moans from hidden speakers, does one argue? I enthusiastically deleted the shot.

As the time drew close to 10pm, upper floors were closed by security guards, until everyone was funneled to the ground floor for the drama of a Last Supper-like final scene. On this occasion a brass band suddenly piped up and people started dancing. Masks came off, the bar was open.

So what was the verdict?

"Good, though I thought it could have been more interactive," commented my friend. It does seem that immersive theater, coupled with the public's penchant for touching and rummaging, buys the creators a certain amount of "grace." They could throw anything at you - you tend to give the entire production the benefit of the doubt. Though exploring and rummaging was encouraged, it was often too damn dark to read anything.

Somewhat anally I note that if there was any pilfering of tchotchkes from drawers and dressers, it would have been easily replenished with a quick trip to a garage sale. And the only time I started experiencing a flash of deja vu was when I backtracked through rooms.

"Is it possible I've I seen everything?" I whispered to one of the shadowy minders after almost 2 hours of traipsing and stumbling. "No," came the answer from behind a creepy black Lone Ranger mask.

"Keep exploring."

Sleep No More
McKittrick Hotel, Chelsea, through Dec 31, 2011.

New York Times writeup
Women's Voice for Change
and so on.

Creator's Project 2011 in DUMBO

2011-10-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

This "nanomedia" arts event happened just a few crank turns over the Brooklyn from the home of ChelseaGallerista last weekend. http://www.creatorsproject.com

More words soon (but why blather when sound and pictures do it so much better?), meanwhile here's a few shots on my Facebook page, and here's a little whip around by day - folding bikes allowed!

James Kennedy: Where art meets architecture (and a lot of blue tape)

2011-09-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

"I go through a tone of blue tape. It takes almost as long to mask up a painting as to paint it."

James Kennedy is my latest favorite "local" artist.

I say favorite, because I love practically every piece on his website. Flipping through his work is like looking through a kaleidoscope of color, line, form and some pretty deep cuts with an Exacto knife.

I say "local," because I stumbled across him as normally I would, doing my Thursday night rounds of Chelsea gallery openings (when I can get out of work on time).

I think I must have spent at least an hour or more in his modest workroom on a high floor in a Chelsea artists' labyrinth, going from painting to painting and back again, mesmerized by the studied surface treatment of sharp cuts, raised dots and crackled textures and wonderful jigsaw-like pieces of pure color. The word "architecture" springs to mind. You can almost reach out touch the concrete dust and alabaster and brushed steel and high wires. In fact, he recently exhibited at an architecture expo, and his work can be seen in an interior design store called Nest.

So then, is this merely decorative, "furniture" art you might ask? I say nyet. Furniture art is like a curtain, a backdrop where the sofa and lamp what ever else is flanking the picture become part of the scene - your eye rests on briefly on the whole room composition before it fades into the background and the TV takes over.

James' work demands much more mental involvment, especially if you venture up close - and you must. Your eyes move over and around his shapes, diving into the incisions and cracks and drop-offs. It's absorbing, active viewing. Hey, and he experiments with such a giant palette, there's bound to be one that matches your ottoman!

These two are definitely "architectural."

James hails from Northern Ireland. His previous lives were dancing and acting. This year he was given a boost when selected as the KiptonART Rising 2011 Winner - an art initiative founded by art patron and entrepreneur Kipton Kronkite (and with a name like that ...).

To date, his work been exhibited largely in the Hamptons, that far-flung part of New York City for wealthy people with houses by the beach.

But rather than parrot-phrase, I encourage you to watch my video interview.

"I used to do these small [size of a sushi plate - LC] paintings but they take almost as much time as the big ones."

James can be found most days in his Chelsea studio, fortunately, doing full time what all artists love - making his art.

James Kennedy Online

Dramatic Monochromatic - New York Gallery Week 2011

2011-05-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

Tobias Putrih at Muelensteen Gallery http://www.meulensteen.com/

Maybe it's a reaction to all the colorful tulips and daffodils blooming in pots around the city, but I'm in a decidedly monochromatic, minimalist frame of mind.

Today, during New York Gallery Week I was taken by black and white. Well, that's what seemed to dominate when I looked over the shots I'd captured.

For example, I loved the menacing Meccano-like powdercoated, perforated panels bolted together by Czech artist Tobias Putrih in his show When Language Goes on Holiday at Muelensteen Gallery, above. Architecty and hard edge, it made me jones for an IKEA-antidote kitchen and bathroom made of it - dammit, make that the whole apartment. Check out the website of this Dutch-owned gallery (formerly Max Protech) and you'll see a special link for Architecture with all the great names - Frank Gehry doodles, Louis Khan scribbles ... and we know how much the Dutch love architecture. Read more about this show here.

Fab floorlamp by Tobias Putrih. I want one!

Moving right around the corner, the slightly scruffy, underground parking station-like Cueto Projects featured some arresting black and white work by French multimedia and public space artist Tania Mouraud. The show is called I Haven't seen a Butterfly Here. Clearly Damien Hirst hasn't hit this spot with his money-printing, crowd-pleasing foil butterflies which flew off the prefab walls at the Armory Show and remind me of very nice, very large Hallmark gift cards. My distant cellphone shot doesn't do it justice, but Mourad's "alphabet" (according to the young French gallerista behind the counter) protruded about 6 inches or more from the wall, like mini monoliths a la 2001 Space Odyssey.

Tania Mouraud "alphabet" at Cueto Projects

An entire wall of Cueto was painted thus:

And I went to Mouraud's site for an even more arresting monochromatic moment:

Tania Mouraud, IHAD, 2005, Espace de l'art concret, Mouans Sartoux
exposition: Arts de l'Islam et abstractions: Le chant rythmique de l'esprit

Side trivia - I rather like Cuerto's no-frills entrance consisting of three roughly hewn and painted concrete steps with no handrail, so watch your step. It's minimalism at it's meanest - just what you need to get from one altitude to another, and with a name like Cueto, reminds me of the ramshackle environs of Cuba and Latin America...

I then popped over to the ever-chic Phillips de Pury auction preview in Chelsea (by way of Gagosian's Picasso show, but you're not allowed to take pictures there or risk being "iced.") Here, we saw another batch of "relatively affordable" art ($5000 and up) by relative up and comers. Why, there was even a "BUY IT NOW" section by "groundbreakers" from the Whitney Art Party project, with some works starting from around $3000.

Harping on my B&W theme, this Jeff Elrod caught my monochromatic gaze:

Jeff Elrod, Tie Breaker, 2002 .

I am a bit of an Elrod fancier, having coveted some of his work in a previous de Pury auction. Of course this may well rankle the "my 6-year old kid could do that" crowd. Can't seem to find his website, but there's a bio here, thanks to Marty Walker gallery, and pasted this handy dandy Elrod elevator speech courtesy of P.R.I.N.T.'s Facebook page.

What else? Ah, at the risk of offending someone, a couple of "Robert Motherwellesque" works:

Jack Tworkov, Untitled.

Bernar Venet, Three Intermediate Lines

And how about a B&W moment in the genre that invented it, photography. Perhaps because Warhol's Liz #5 is about to go under the hammer at de Pury for around $30M, we've seen all kind of Warhol doodles pop up for sale - shoes, cats, probably screwed up chewing gum wrappers ... I swear if someone managed to souvenir a shard of his toilet paper complete with 15 minutes of skidmarks (on a constipated day) I bet it'd be up here in matted and framed lights. Witness his odious urine paintings, for example!

But I digress - Warhol's stitched pictures are basically 6 dupes of his selected black and whites stitched together like so. The estimate for "Sweaters", a crowd-pleaser if there ever was one, is around $20,000-$30,000. Individually, these shots tend to go for $6000+.

Andy Warhol, Sweaters

Well, given it's Spring, I should try and finish on a slightly more colorful note. At 303 Gallery, established out-there artist Florian Marier-Aichen apparently waited for just the right moment for the flowers to bloom on Ven, a tiny Swedish island between Denmark and Sweden. No Photoshop here, sir! This baby will set you back around $100K+ I believe.

Florian Maier-Aichen Aus Ven [From Hven], 2011

Happy Spring! View all New York Gallery Week photos (a few more) on the ChelseaGallerista Facebook page

On Not Getting Hammered: Phillips de Pury March Photography Auction

2011-04-10T02:49:00.000-07:00

Raise you to $2M for the Cindy Sherman ... (in one's dreams)

A few more photos on ChelseaGallerista Facebook page

Today, I discovered yet another "best thing in Manhattan life you can do for free" - go to a contemporary art auction. Truly, it's like going to "the game."

"Amazing photos, we gotta go!" texted my fellow School of Visual Arts cohort Lisa, who'd downloaded the iPhone app of über-chic auction house Phillips de Pury. The app allows you to browse the "lots" - auction-speak for artwork - and seemingly, do everything short of bid on your phone. 'Cos you wouldn't want to wave it around and accidentally swipe an extra 5 grand onto your cellphone bill, now would you?

Lisa's favorite: RICHARD AVEDON, Sunny Harnett, model. Dress by Grès. Casino, Le Touquet, Paris, August, 1954. Estimate $15,000-20,000, Sold at $27,500

Our small class had become so enthused about art we have continued to meet up and case out the artsy offerings in NYC, even starting a Facebook page for the teacher, Brian Appel. Go "like" http://facebook.com/trendsinart

We'd already been to the PdP mid-season contemporary art auction at the company's Chelsea location overlooking the Highline. This Park Ave show was all about photography. Flitting between the two floors displaying the work of famous shutterbugs like Strand, Weston, Mapplethorpe, Ritts, Sherman, Frank, Lebowitz and Cartier-Bresson one noticed an overarching theme of glamor, fashion and sex - Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, supermodels, Princess Di, plenty of breasts and shots of long skinny cellulite-free legs disappearing into velveteen boots or suspenders or nothing at all.

What does an art auction sound like? Check out a piece of the action below ...

"Would you like to join in the action?" Principal auctioneer Simon de Pury knows his onions ... his sale racked up in excess of $5M, with 95% sold, "An excellent result."

We took our places on the plexiglass chairs, toying with the idea of getting a paddle - the ping-pong bat that commits you to serious retail therapy - but decided that everything would probably be way out of our reach. Actually, quite a few pieces went for below their estimate. Nothing sub-$1000, mind you, but a few not far above. Of course, the most desirable works started in the tens of thousands, and the charming and debonair Simon de Pury, chairman of the entire shebang, fielded offers from the two banks of specialists flanking the podium, their ears and eyes glued to phones and the internet - like a Previn conducting the Royal Philharmonic.

I liked this clever portrait of Keith Haring by Annie Lebowitz - sold for $27K. of the already
famous and established photographer, De Pury thinks"she's going to be big" in auction resale terms.

Although lots whizz by under the hammer, it's a rather protracted process. 200+ pieces took the better part of 3 hours to get through. You can also watching it thrillingly on http://www.liveauctioneers.com, where you can see the dollars roll like slot machine and bid yourself - from anywhere in the world.

"It's hugely exciting, like going to a game," said the young back-of-room barista Mark, charged with caffeinating the masses with excellent and free-flowing "Joe". "Apparently, caffeine stimulates the buying reflex."

Barista Mark is an artist/photographer too

The most expensive item sold for $200K - by Cindy Sherman. Add the 25%+ "buyer's premium" and sales tax and the final purchase price is substantially more than that friendly hammer tap suggests. Of course, if you're a Russian oligarch like the nationality of the company that owns the entire operation, it's all small rubles.

DWARD BURTYNSKY
Manufacturing # 10 a & b, Cankun Factory, Xiamen City, China, 2005
Digital color coupler diptych. Each 39 1/2 x 49 1/2 in. (100.3 x 125.7 cm); overall 42 x 104 in. (106.7 x 264.2 cm). Each signed in ink, printed title, date and number on labels affixed to the reverse of the mounts. One from an edition of 9.
ESTIMATE $25,000-35,000, SOLD AT $47,500

Simon de Pury isn't too high and mighty to give some words of wisdom to the non-paddle wavers.

De Pury himself was busy scribbling down lots of 0's and commas on a sheet of paper when Lisa and I plucked up courage to introduce ourselves and tell him how we'd studied the satirical Stephen Colbert portrait he'd auctioned a month earlier for charity. Read my essay on that here. What was his personal favorite today?

"I liked the Hockney," he said, of the photo collage not featuring flowers or a pool, which sold for a staggering $108K from an estimate of $35-55K. Wall Street is clearly back up and running.

What about the somewhat low-key Warhol flea market photo that went for a modest $5500, while the pop king's Liz Taylor silkscreen is slated to sell for an oligarchist price of $30-40m anytime soon?

"Warhol's stitched paintings are more popular, given the repetition," he offered and added that people who play this "sport" clearly know what they're doing. Or rather, they have so much money it doesn't matter.

STEVE MCCURRY Afghan Girl, Pakistan, 1985
Dye destruction print, printed 2006. 37 x 24 1/2 in. (94 x 62.2 cm).
Signed and numbered 12/30 in ink in the margin;
dated '02.06.06', numbered 12/30 in ink and studio credit stamp on the verso.
ESTIMATE $10,000-15,000
SOLD AT $60,000

One example of people going beserk was the above very well known and famous photo of an Afghan girl. Clearly from an edition of 30 printed more than a decade after it was taken, it nonetheless went for $60K. A social conscience lightbulb suddenly popped in my head and I put to Mr de Pury:

What if de Pury had a benevolence clause that stated the seller was required to donate a portion of the sale to the subject in the photo - the Afghan woman?

Clearly, the nameless lass with the piercing eyes will not make red Afghani rupee from this, or any future sale of her image, while on an opposite wall, the likes of Christy Turlington, Kate Moss and other superdames are utterly raking it by "not getting out of bed for less than $10,000/day" as the supermodel Linda Evangelista infamously put it. Imagine what a difference even a paltry few bucks everytime picture was sold would make to her life ... a bit like royalties for an author. Now how about that?

De Pury graciously acknowledged this groundbreaking idea for a few seconds, then, naturally, it was back to business.

Where's Warhol? Gone but absolutely unforgotten.

Upon the fall of the hammer on the final lots - a blue bedroom swimming with goldfish and a brilliant ad for astroturf studded with purple canines, it was time to check out the Shop.

The friendly Katherine Walters showed us this set of clocks by design team "Humans Since 1982." It performs an impressive ballet of hands each minute, and can be yours for $72,000:

From Brian Appel at SVA: Yesterday's Phillips de Pury & Co. "Photographs" sale totaled $5.8 million, $1.3 million more than Sotheby's.

There were 11 lots at 6 figures:

1) Cindy Sherman $242,000 (171)

2) Desiree Dolron $194,500 (cover lot 211)

3) Robert Frank $182,500 (145)

4) Irving Penn $122,500 (94)

5) Peter Beard $120,100 (50)

6) Irving Penn $112,900 (48)

7) Robert Mapplethorpe $110,500 (97)

8) David Hockney $108,100 (195)

9) Robert Frank $104.500 (33)

10) Florian Maier-Aichen $104,500 (206)

11) Robert Mapplethorpe $100,900 (95)

Art Me Up: Learning to collect & critique with the SVA

2011-03-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

Portrait 5 (Stephens) sold for $27K at the Phillips d Pury March 2011 Auction.
All proceeds went to DonorsChoose.org.
See what it was up against and my "review" below.

I've just completed my 6-week SVA Trends in Photography and Contemporary Art : What's Happening Now mini-course. It's an indulgent immersion in the art world - feasting your eyeballs on everything from priceless icons of the modern art world to the proverbial "my 6 year old could do that." (Ah, but your 6-year old, my friend, is not named"Warhol").

We got to see the galleries of Chelsea, the Upper East Side and the Lower East Side, plus attend a Phillips de Pury "mid season" auction preview and a couple of Armory Arts Week shows.

Some of us were budding collectors.

"The Confess Project": The gang check out artist Margot Lovejoy's confessions on the surreal
"receivers" at Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, 29 Orchard St - "The Confess Project

"Look, and look, and look," said our teacher Brian Appel. "You will develop a really good eye for what you like and what's good."

Some were budding artists - "send along a jpg of your work, one a week, plant the seed."

Others were established artists, exploring new avenues to share their work, like photo-collagist Jenny Krasner, cosmonaut-loving painter Lyndsea Cochrane and photographer Jada Fabrizio. I loved Jenny's work so much I blogged about it here. Bah! Who needs Warhol? Just turn to your SVA classmate!

We learned that a "unique" is almost always preferable to an "edition", if you can afford it. We even had a "term paper" to submit (at a Community Class? C'mon!) - a review of any piece of art we saw during the course.

Mine is below. Feel free to grade it, remembering that they never built a monument to a critic.

March 2011

Art Review by Lynette Chiang

Portrait 5, (Steven) – Phillips de Pury “Under the Influence”

“This portrait, the fifth in a series, is at once a celebration of the attainment of immortality through fame, and a Memento Mori, with each iteration of the portrait unveiling a step on the subject's inexorable march to death.”

The casual art appreciator could skim the above caption and noddingly accept its worthiness. A second glance reveals it as piece of utter tripe - precisely what TV comedian Steven Colbert (The Colbert Report), probably intended.

If you haven't already seen the satirical skit that accompanies this work, it goes like this: on his show, Colbert tries to persuade famous art collector Steve Martin to buy the unremarkable Kinko's portrait, challenging him to declare it “art.”

When Martin demurs, Colbert summons three seminal artists on camera to do their magic.

First up, the “father of minimalism”, Frank Stella, whose work goes for millions on the auction block, glances at the painting and, scripted or otherwise, proclaims it “art.”

Next, street artist and creator of the controversial Obama HOPE poster, Shepherd Fairey, “repurposes” it with spray paint and his signature OBEY stencil.

Last, controversial photographer Andreas Serrano, who (disappointingly) doesn't urinate or defecate on it, simply doodles away with a sharpie - and signs it.

Is this now art? Colbert asks Martin, who doesn't budge, but concedes that the tricked-up portrait “should now do well” at auction.

It all makes great armchair entertainment, while posing a serious question – what makes something art, and more importantly, art worth buying?

Is it art because someone famous (Stella) says so? Is it art when repurposed by a pioneer of the repurposing genre (Fairey)? Is it art because it's brought to you by controversy, and the more odious, the better (Serrano)?

According to Stella, “if you look for art, you will find it,” throwing the doors wide open. Stella can make those statements – he's a stupendously rich and famous member of the “P” volume of World Book Encyclopedia.

Some will be offended by Colbert's buffoonery, others will re-think their overpriced framed limited editions on their walls and ask, “should I have paid what I did for this?”

The question – and answers - aren't new.

Street artist Banksy had the final laugh at the art pedagogy with his gilt-framed painting “I can't believe you morons buy this shit” auctioned at Sotheby's for a college education.

Damien Hirst Inc, trumping struggling anatomy students with his filleted shark in formaldehyde, now instructs his army of assistants to churn out innocuous foil butterflies by the thousands and collects his checks while relaxing in one of his rural estates.

The grand, fleeting works of Christo also come to mind, memorialized only by photos and a paper trail spanning years of background permits and negotiations.

Colbert has been satirizing the art world for quite a while, this being the fifth “art me up” project where he's known for stripping sacred cows bare to the point of being declared “unfunny.”

It might have been enough for Portrait 5, together with its mixed-media mish mash of the framed Kinko print, the skit, celebs, charity and social commentary – to be declared a work of art.

As if Colbert wasn't so sure, all proceeds of the sale will go to DonorsChoose.org, his favorite charity and one that promotes literacy in schools. Notably, the prestigious auction house Philips de Pury, which is gleefully displaying the portrait in its premier chamber, will not charge a buyer's premium on this work. In fact, the debonair chairman de Pury himself even consented to appear in a cringeworthy follow-up skit where Colbert asked if the portrait was inspiring the same kind erection as de Pury's first Renoir …

At any rate, the cause is so good, the art doesn't have to be.

UPDATE: Portrait 5 sold for $27,000 at the March 8 auction.

Terence Koh circumnavigating salt at Mary Boone

Classmate Lev with his own performance piece...

Armory Arts Week blur

2011-03-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

Developing that photographic eye early - budding photographer
snapped by Lynette Chiang in Mike Weiss Gallery

It's been an exhausting 4 days - all the art fairs - Armory Show, Pulse, Scope Volta, Independent etc collide in one short, compressed period, causing a stampede from venue to venue. Check out the list of fairs. And it rained moonsoons on the last Sunday.

I hope one day They Inc. will make the shows span 2 weeks instead of half a week, somewhat like Restaurant Week. I only got to see Pulse, Volta, the massive Armory Show. More about this soon.

Then of course, there was the Phillips de Pury auction preview which in many ways, I enjoyed most.

PHOTO GALLERY: My favorites at the Under the Influence auction and here are the results.

A few things that caught my eye:

PULSE: A Hans Kotter light tube. "Could have sold it several times over," said
the gallerist. $12,000

PHILLIPS de PURY: Heliopolis IV by Dionisio Gonzales - being auctioned by Phillips de Pury.
Sold for $8125

PHILLIPS de PURY: Contractual Disavowal (Conditional), 2006
Sold at auction for $3000

A Butoh Moment @ Ceres Gallery + Ulf Puder unearthed

2011-02-28T23:48:00.000-08:00

Vernita N'cognita lets fly in a hyper-controlled butoh fashion

In the spirit of "you learn something new every day as long as you refrain from saying meh," I learned a new word today: butoh. Butoh is a kind of mute performance so eloquently defined in Wikipedia, I've copy-pasted the definition here:

Butoh (舞踏 Butō^?) is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh (暗黒舞踏ankoku butō^?) movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. There is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legendsTatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno

I love the part "with or without an audience," bringing to mind the adage of a tree falling in a forest empty of onlookers - did it really fall? The definition frees the performer to do his or her stuff without any need for pesky, judgemental, texting bystanders.

Thus, in contrast to some of my art-loving pals who insist on heavily researching what they're going to see "in case they waste their time," stumbling around contemporary art galleries on spec never feels a waste to yours truly. Rods and cones must be recharged weekly if not daily, and there's no better way than to look at stuff unsolicited. Plus, you get to wallow in spaces you otherwise couldn't afford to rent in your wildest dreams. So it was with this mindset that I dragged my performance-art-averse beau to a performance art piece by Vernita Nemec aka Vernita N'cognita.

The venue was the feminist co-op gallery Ceres, where I recently discovered - and subsequently rhapsodized - a photo of an Osaka stripmall by photographer Masayo Nishimura. From the Ceres site:

Founded in 1983, as a program of the New York Feminist Art Institute, Ceres is a not-for-profit artist run organization dedicated to the promotion of contemporary women in the arts.

The red represents menstrual blood, hypothesized David

To some evocative noodling by guitarist Sean Carolan (electrified by a legendary Pignose travel amp I immediately coveted) Vernita wordlessly prowled the space with a white mask and initially, her plastic wine cup. She fondled some red clothing and embraced a mummy-like mannequin swaddled in red. She ended up in a small wooden room in the corner that was spattered with blood and hung with chains on the inside. I was too busy snapping away to construct a mental narrative about what was going on, and my beau sat on the edge of his chair, looking like he wanted to vacate it any minute.

On completion of the 15 minute performance, my beau utterly stunned me with a well-considered interpretation of what he'd just seen: the red scarf was menstrual blood, "you can see by the way she pushed it down the leg of her pants so it came out the bottom." There was some suggested masturbation, upon which the mask was removed, as if "that's when she is truly herself and not presenting a false face to the world." And that the whole piece "echoed the usual feminine complaints about men and a man's world."

Whether or not that was the intent, I decided I was a poor excuse for a feminist and that my beau could stand in for me at a feminist art happening anytime.

A snap frozen moment in Osaka - if you like, read about why I think this
captures one aspect of quintessential modern Japan here

Googling Vernita's site reveals a long (30+ years) history with feminist art. When you click on "About" hoping for a neat elevator speech on what you just saw that you can lazily paste in a blog, you're instead presented with a long list of links. Wait, there's a précis of her performance art here, alluding to her inspiration from the avante-garde Fluxus movement of the 60's ("a reductive gesturality, part Dada, part Bauhaus and part Zen") of which Yoko Ono is a notable associate. There was a distinct Japanese aura to the evening - the butoh, the presence of fellow artist Masayo and her show in the next room, the spectre of a Yoko Ono peer somehow transported me back to that Shimuzu Geiko theater in Hiroshima. Being a Japanophile ever since I knew I was meant to stumble in there.

Chains and blood greet you inside

I hear some factions of the art world are snobbish about "co-op" galleries, likening them to vanity press. Well, tell Justin Bieber that. This is the era of "getting everything you can out of all you got" and co-op or not, I am thrilled to announce that after an almost knock-down drag-out argument with my beau about why you should buy a piece of art (because you like it vs. because someone says you should like it) I am now the delighted owner of Masayo Nishimura's Osaka stripmall photo:

Continuing a stroll around the nabe, I popped into the Caroline Walker "Vantage Point" show at Ana Cristea Gallery, where the English painter depicts the kinds of scenes we bad bachelorettes get up given our own space. Like mincing around the living room in sheer underwear, or gazing at ourselves half naked in full length mirrors since no-one else is around to do it, or leaving the trash bag like a blue blob in the kitchen while we surf just one more website, or eating cereal over the sink at 1am (not depicted but you get the idea).

Ana Cristea and a Sarah Walker in rubber glove mode.

Ana is a delightful Romanian, who I stumbled upon when I was surfing around for paintings by a Leipzig artist you might call a "Natural Disaster Aftermathist" due to his penchant for painting collapsed buildings - Ulf Puder.

Ulf Puder – Niedrigwasser, 2010
oil on canvas
20 x 23.5 in / 50 x 60 cm

From the press release: Born in Leipzig in 1958, Ulf Puder was a member of the now-famed first generation to graduate from the Leipziger Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. Along with Neo Rauch, also a member of this first generation, Puder was uniquely successful in melding East-German neo-realism with a more imaginative, dreamlike, even surrealistic vocabulary. His work is greatly admired by and has had a tremendous influence on a younger generation of Eastern European artists.

Ulf's work is arresting - I first locked onto his rickety world a while back on spotting an entrancing painting at Claire Oliver Gallery's "The Antidote", and never forgot it. It popped up again just recently:

Claire Oliver is custodian of an Ulf Puder I've been stalking ...
Ulf Puder | Boe
Oil on Linen
23.5 x 23.5 x 1 inches

Need more Ulf? Take a look here.

The big NY Art Fairs happen this week. See you at Pulse, The Armory Show and as many more as you can stand, and of course, the hardworking galleries in Chelsea. To never miss an opening, art lover Isabelle Schneider, who I found loitering with intent in the empty corridors of 511 W 25th close to reception closing time, offered this handy cheatsheet:

artcards.cc, artslant, artcat.net, douglass kelley show list, ny art beat and wagmag (for Brooklyn). Yayah!

PS: I discovered the massive Phillips de Pury auction viewing room for the first time last weekend. O.M.G. It's like a giant, Costco-sized bag of Krinkle Kut to a Kettle Chip addict. Here's a photo from my birthday in 2009, where we sat on the Highline and watched this guy boing back and forth with a scale model (for sale at $29.99 in the MOMA shop?). More about PdP next post.

Phillips de Pury in Chelsea, Manhattan: the view from the Highline, 2009
Couldn't resist this shot!

Tom Otterness: Horse and Rider redux!

2011-02-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

Replicas of "Horse and Rider" - the full sized bronze original is at The Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

I am utterly beside myself ... I'm now the proud owner of not one, but two Tom Otterness sculptures, entitled "Horse and Rider."

Now before commuters familiar with the Brooklyn artist's quirky little figurines strewn around Manhattan's subway stations accuse me of grand theft with a hacksaw (um, make that a chainsaw), these are cast resin replicas. The read deal (and other objects of my profound desire) are being exhibited Feb 23 at the artist's outlet of choice, Marlborough Gallery, and will probably set you back at least $7K, last I looked.

I came face to nose with the real deal at the Armory Show, NYC, 2011

The "Horse and Rider" full-size bronze currently graces the campus of the Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The subject itself is a loose interpretation of the Texas Tech Uni's mascot, ‘The Masked Rider’. The tradition of the Masked Rider started as a dare in 1936 when an unidentified masked or ghost rider would circle the football field during home games. The Masked Rider became an official mascot in 1954. This TTU PDF explains it further, and shows some other Masked Rider sculptures by other artists.

Apparently the students loved the goofy-looking duo so much the artist got these little keepsakes made at around $27 a pop - $17 if you were a student. On discovering they haven't been available for quite some time, I wrote to Tom with an old link I'd saved and he traded me this night/day pair for one of my large Traffic Cone Bags.

Does Tom ride a bike? Given that no bikes appear in his sculptures, I suspected not ...

"I gave up bike riding after doing a cost/benefit analysis of risk- but would love to have your bag," he wrote. "I often carry bike messenger bags to drag things around town."

The 5 1/8" replicas surprised me - they are unusually heavy and dense, almost as if sculpted from plaster. I applaud Tom for making these keepsakes nice and substantial!

Tom was kind enough to "sign" the horses' handsome street shoes.

For those who haven't had the thrill of encountering Otterness' world of little bronze men, women, animals and social commentary on big bad capitalism, here's a selection I shot in the subways over the period 2009-2011, finishing with a handful of jpgs from Marlborough Gallery. Even more Otterness here.

Above and below: This little guy clearly not afraid of heights

The extra shiny money bag is due to the many hands that use it to swing down to the second flight of stairs.

Mr and Mrs Average hold tight to their retirement

The kids must love this one!

Big foot!

Ad capitalistic snake in the corner

Otterness has other sculptures on display at Texas Tech Uni, like the complex Tornado of Ideas, but not everyone is amused by his wry sense of humor.

More about the Masked Rider

Jenny Krasner+Heather Sellers: Words + Scanner + Intent

2011-02-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

Cookbooks in Bed with Lover Sleeping on the Side
9" X 6" Giclee Print, Edition of 25, $375
View series

I've just started a 6-week Trends in Photography and Contemporary Art course at the School of Visual Arts, taught by New York art critic and consultant Brian Appel. The class has a number of working artists, blossoming artists, art appreciators, and "I can't draw for the life of me but I can just see it" arteests like me. Yup, I figured it was about time I expanded on my art knowledge from the "P" volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. I confess that one of the most popular, dare I say, cliche paintings of all time, Henri Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy, still sends a little buzz down my prefrontal cortex:

Like a lucid dream: Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy
It's those toes on the footprintless sand ... the 3-D stripes of the robe ... the
beady eye of the lion ... the warped guitar strings ... brrrr!

But I digress. I just finished perusing the site of my classmate Jenny Krasner, a sculptor (picture a big welding torch and ceiling high steelworks) and more recently, digital photoartist. I was captivated by her collaboration with poet and artist Heather Sellers.

The two women live in different cities so the work was created in a truly modern manner, this, from her site:

Sellers works from Krasner’s design elements, in various stages of completion, in order to generate brief narratives addressing women’s experiences as mothers, daughters, and friends. As Sellers submits new text and revisions, Krasner manipulates and reconfigures the images. Krasner employs a computer writing tablet, enabling her to draw and copy Sellers’ prose poems directly onto the work. The images are mailed back and forth (Krasner resides in Manhattan, Sellers in Holland, Michigan), reworked perhaps a dozen times ... [a] pictorial conversation between the two artists.

Some may find the subject matter a little gritty, but it's right up my alley, particularly Cookbooks in Bed with Lover Sleeping on the Side. Oh yes, I've been there. We legends-in-our-own-lunchtime cooks understand the seduction of what so many others view as an annoying chore. From nothing you create a work of edible art from materials cheaply purchased at a local store, the colors, shapes textures like paint, crayon and found objects; adding heat like a welder, molding and pinching like a sculptor, stirring and garnishing like a painter, finally framing it on a plate and presenting it to your waiting audience as basically, ephemera. And where some art leaves you cold, a well-executed dish affords a gut-felt satisfaction. Except, unlike the above works of art, it disappears until your create all over again.
Read a spatula's eye view of yours truly as a trainee line cook.

So you could argue that while a dish might cost $10, a work of art for $1000 will lasts indefinitely - certainly 100 times longer.

First Date (like a command) is certainly no Valentine's Day Hallmark Card, but the subversive in me wishes it was. I would love to own this series as a book - it feels like it wants to be read and yes, savored at close range, rather than squinted at on a wall. This work reminds of probably the very first piece of "gritty" prose I ever encountered, the self-published monograph "BLACK" by Australian writer Neil Boyack.

Jenny regaled us with a riveting art-meets-life story beginning at her father Oscar Krasner's fine art Chelsea gallery (circa 1956), winding through many countries, mediums and experiments - wielding a welding torch in a Jersey warehouse; being flanked by a very vocal nude gay yoga studio and another strange business I can't recall such that she could barely concentrate; switching to digital art because she could do it to a background of gay nude omming- and falling in love with the medium. She has a terrific wit, staging a performance piece gently parodying the art gallery scene on a Chelsea street corner. Her tale of getting all the right permits and permissions to do so reminded me of a talk I attended in Chicago by Christo and the late Jean-Claude, where the long and arduous process of getting permissions is actually an integral part of the final work - which, as we all know of Christo, is ephemeral.

I'm including another of Jenny's pieces that caught my eye, but for different reasons:

Jenny Krasner, The Oysterman's Boat

Wood, Plaster, Oysters, Oil + acrylic paint, Found objects

4' X 6' X 5.5"

Jenny just wrote to me and furnished this heartbreaking background to the work:

I was in an artist residency called 'seaside' on the Gulf of Mexico and at least twice a week we'd get oysters from the fish store. A young man collected the oysters, and I saved all the shells for my artwork. One day, the guys in my residency who'd buy them didn't have them and told me, that the young man went out in his boat that day and the boat broke and sunk and he tried to swim to shore and died of hypothermia. ...and I had all these oyster shells that he'd touched, and brought to us. So...I made this mixed-media painting of a boat in the dark with his shells. It's really really really sad but it is one of my favorite pieces I've ever made.

I'm really looking forward to this course!

Snap frozen moments: Masayo Nishimura at Ceres Gallery

2011-02-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

Snap frozen Osaka: "Each person ... seems to convey his or her own personal life story
even thoughthey appear frozen in their action."

Continuing on my photography-ogling odyssey, I chanced upon this wonderful shot in Ceres Gallery, a non-profit artspace for women artists. It's part of a show called "Recollections: From New York to Tokyo" by Osaka transplant Masayo Nishimura, who was manning the desk when I stumbled in on a rainy, icy Manhattan Saturday. The show features largely subway shots from both countries, with a handful of above-ground moments.

Let me rant at length as to why I love this image. First, it's Japan. As of 2009, when I visited Japan for the first time under the auspices of my job as a bicycle evangelist, I'm a hopeless Japanophile. Yes I have a Maneki Neko cat (2!) and a nabe pot lugged from Kyoto. Yes I pedaled through its delirious, labyrinth-like cities, scarfed brilliant bento at train stations, surged with crowds at popular temple and museum sites and staggered about in the neon glitz of "Times Square"in Harajuku that eats New York's Times Square several times over. Check out my Japan blog.

Second, the way it captures in a frozen moment, the stultifying tenor of stripmallandia - an austere, clinical plaza in Osaka, a "working" city I didn't get to visit. Despite the hurrying citizens, there's no movement. It's a breezeless, snap-frozen moment of plastic, tile and laminate. Not a blade of greenery pushes through that sprawling grid - all has been grouted into submission. The only hint of Mother Nature is a discreet planter with one of those dubios, bombproof shrubs in it. The space is expansive yet claustrophobic, the sky open, yet leaden. You sense not a single exchange of spoken English, yet the Starbucks Coffee and Mister Donut yell across the square in that language of commerce, as if two giant UFO's from Planet USA landed and dug in.

The light is fantastic. Super-market-aisle white surfaces with no dark corners to hide and be strange. No shadows, either. My architect friend wondered if she'd merely Photoshopped entourage figures into it. "No, overcast day and fast film," said Masayo.

In the background, three austere buildings in various stages of completion rise up against that leaden sky. They are the only things in motion - onwards, upwards, graywards. And center stage, a Citizen Osaka yawns, and yawns big time. Industrialization, relentless and roaring, is frozen into every tile and coffee cup and polyester blouse. It's a drone that makes one tired.

"I just snapped it," said Masayo, simply. A MFA graduate and Hassleblad aficionado, she shot this series with a 35mm Minolta SLR but printed it herself, by hand, in a darkroom. Since Kodak recently discontinued production of color printing paper for manual printing, she as been having a "difficult time keeping going with my printmaking in the color dark room."

Below are some scenes from her subway series in Japan, using no flash or tripod. The quotes under the photos are taken from the artists' statement in the exhibition.

There's a reception for this show on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at Ceres Gallery. Check out the website - and the work of its many other women artists.

"Unlike pre-war designed, rat-infested NY subway stations, subway architecture
in Tokyo is relatively new, clean and well-maintained and filled with generally
well-mannered passengers."

SALARY MEN: "Those uniformed creatures ... blend so well into the Tokyo subway

architecture, they seem a natural fixture for the subterranean environment."

"The photos look meditative, quiet and somehow detached from reality in these
supposedly noisy places."

Not shot by Masayo: Yours truly doing the Shinkansen Shuffle in 2009 - easy with a folding bike
and exemplary train staff! My trip to Japan

Masayo's Site: http://multisoup.com
Masayo's Blog: http://nyphotoplus.blogspot.com

Ceres Gallery
http://www.ceresgallery.org
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-947-6100

International Print Center NY: For the love of pen, paper and pulp

2011-01-30T00:24:00.000-08:00

Enrique Chagoya - Return to Goya No 9 - is that Obama in a frock? Yes it is!

Chagoya's cheeky seal

I recently discovered the wonderful International Print Center NY, a shrine to all things pulped, pressed and printed - in ways that a camera or traditional brush and canvas are not. The center is non-profit and relies the support of annual auctions and some very generous artist benefactors. For example, the above etching, an edition of 50, was donated by MOMA-lauded printmaking lecturer from San Francisco, Enrique Chagoya, featuring his signature wit and irreverence - in this case, Obama in a frock, and executed in the style of Goya. The Denver Post featured this story of a woman who smashed her way into Chagoya's show in Loveland, denouncing what some locals felt were blasphemous images. Well, as they say, better to be talked about than not talked about ...

My surge of interest in printmaking was inspired by a friend, Kate Holoka, a recent and promising graduate in the field, and a preparator at the University of Michigan Art Museum:

Young printmaker Kate Holoka readies an etching for a waiting customer

So what is a print? Here, we're not really talking about a giclee - a scanned image pumped out of a computer and sold as a "fine art reproduction." You can think of a giclee as a high-class poster with prices ranging anywhere from $25 to $250 and more, and though it can be legitimately employed by artists - especially digital artists - as the medium of execution for their work, it can also be inflicted on unsuspecting buyers who think they are getting something "original".

Read this hilariously disturbing article about being an "Art Target" by Alan Bamberger.

According to the useful glossary on the IPCNY site:

Technically, a print is any image that is transferred from a matrix. A matrix is a physical surface that can be manipulated to hold ink. Most, though not all, matrices are able to print the same image many times.

Kate's printing press - no "push button stuff" here!

It's the hands-on process we're talking here. At Kate Holoka's new studio, I saw the young artist's investment in her own press, from which she produces etchings painstakingly scratched into a metal plate. A few mouseclicks this ain't!

Below are some examples I liked from the IPCNY's current show.

"Wintering the Snow" really resonated as I dripped NY slush from my gumboots all over IPCNY's polished concrete floor:

Grainne Dowling - Wintering with Snow - etching

The tiny print below deserves a mention. Donated by über famous printmeister Jasper Johns, this 24/35 edition is priced at 10-20 times most of the other work in the show: $7500. Why? He's a Big Name; my
Sotheby's past auction catalog with at least two commas in the hammer price of his work says so. My closeup shot (because it isn't much bigger than this jpg) gives little clue as to what it actually is. Who cares? IT'S A JASPER JOHNS.

Jasper Johns - Untitled 2008 - what the hell is it?

War? The Afghan desert? The Big Dipper?
Who cares - it's a JASPER JOHNS!

Distinctly map-like, the evocative little print below reminded me of an aerial view of say, the Gowanus Canal, famously the most polluted little confluence in all of New York. I keep staring into the murky black depths and picture submerged cars, pieces of crane, basketball shoes with laces tied together ...

John Willis - Blackprint VI 2010 - like a map of an industrial waterway near you

Still in a New York state of mind, I thought the image below must be the Brooklyn or Manhattan or one of the many New York bridges magically lifted from the earth and jettisoned into deep space with some kind of reference to a space station. Perhaps it was all that talk of Sputnik moments in Obama's recent State of the Union address ...

Maya Malachowski Bajak - Bridge - etching.

Finally, the darkly cheerful comment on the demise of cities below is by an artist who works at Nickelodeon, I was told. "OH", clearly the antithesis of "HOLLYWOOD" and all its glitz, features peak hour traffic at a standstill, a shaky city skyline (shades of 911?) and most poignantly, a wolf carrying off some Chelsea Pomeranian or Chihuauadoodle or whatever is the latest mutt mutation favored by the modern Manhattan metrosexual ...

Kit Boyce - Oh - hand tinted woodcut

Prints enable you to start collecting art at a more reasonable pricepoint. Most of these works start around the $300-400 mark. If you consider how many hours you work to earn that amount, and more importantly, what you achieve in that time, you might start to see what a labor of love art is. Even if a work is $5000 (a "lot" of money for most people to drop on something non-essential to staying alive), if an artist is lucky to sell one a month, giving half of that sale price to the gallery, they are still only $30,000/year before tax. Think about that next time you look at a piece of art and say, "that's too expensive!" But make sure you read that "Are You An Art Target?" article above before you spring for a 300 edition Warhol screenprint.

The IPCNY is s non-profit entity, and in many cases, ensures that the artists take all of the profit. So if you're thinking of supporting such a worthy organization, that Jasper Johns (and others) await you!

International Print Center New York
www.ipcny.org
508 West 26th Street, Room 5A
New York, NY 10001
(212) 989-5090, (212) 989-6069 fax, contact@ipcny.org

Matt Straub: "I'm Hit, But I Think I Can Make It" at Lyons Wier Gallery

2011-01-16T23:20:00.000-08:00

There Ain’t Time To Argue! Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 58 x 52 inches. This is my favorite. It's a huge work.

Right now, it couldn't be more politically incorrect for me to "like" this exhibition. Congresswomen Gabrielle Gifford lies breathing through a tube somewhere in Tucson, recovering from a point-blank gunshot wound to the head. Pro and anti-gun squabbles are loud and vocal. So is psychoanalysis, as authorities try to work out how to spot nutjobs before they crack. So, it's with great trepidation that I even dare to blog about it - although the vivid poster-like images caught my eye sitting in Lyon's Weir gallery caught my eye long before the tragic incident.

Trouble Ahead

Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 22 x 22 inches, $2500.
I love the highly textured, thick blue thought bubble.

Matt Straub hails from Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he "spent his early years hitchhiking and hopping freight trains across the western states," according to Lyons Weir press release. He now lives in Brooklyn, NYC, but ahhhh, it's comforting to think that the artist has a swaggering background to match the theme he paints. The press release goes on better than I can paraphrase:

Featuring classic Western iconographic images of cowboys, cowgirls, guns and horses, Straubʼs paintings and collages depict the humorous and violent narratives and sentimental mythologies of the American West – a landscape defined by melancholy sunsets, badlands, gunfights, outlaws and

red-blooded heroes. His references include Hollywood Westerns and the Comics and Pulps of the 1940ʼs-50ʼs.

Hell Cat,

Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 58 x 58 inches

$ 9,500

A sample of Straub's smaller series using cardboard mounted on wood. Acrylic, spray paint, enamel, Krink, cardboard mounted on wood panel 12 x 9 inches, $ 800

Business for the Undertaker, 2010,

Oil, spray paint and enamel on canvas, 52” x 54”

You could simplistically call this "Pop Art meets Western." Lyons Wier defines it more significantly as "the period of transition between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art." I found it arresting (pardon the pun) and immediately wanted to hang "There Ain't No Time to Argue!" on my wall. Most of these works are huge - which makes them larger than life, just like in the movies. From the big picture windows Lyons Wier Gallery's corner spot on 7th Ave and 20th the images literally pounce on you and wrestle you to the ground.

But yes, I can't help but look at these works and have the current events immediately spring to mind. The gun is such a cold, inanimate device, invented wholly and solely to kill people. It been romanticized by the arts (film, TV, comics) to the extent that it's now officially make-believe - like a toy gun. I even teach a yoga pose I call the Charlie's Angel Stretch because you hold your hands in a gun-like position. Every time I explain it to my students I fluff and fumble about for a better term, but that's the one that spills from my lips. Have I finally become as 'merican as a .22?

Matt with one of his smaller works on cardboard mounted on wood. What is the Indian saying? You know already, says Matt! $600-$800 each.

Only with an event like the recent shooting does it bring it all home - a gun is real, not a pair of clasped hands in a yoga pose; it's metal and menacing, not plastic and lego-blocks colored; it's heavy, not light; it's deadly, and not a mere ping of a rubber band.

For me these paintings do not glorify the gun and violence at all, but emphasize just how absurd the invention is, how man, desperately unable to use his words instead of violence to resolve his issues with fellow man, resorts to silencing his adversary once and for all. Is that what these wordless, black and bullet-ridden speech balloons are all about? When I asked Matt, he simply shrugged.

"We all know what they're saying. There's no need to spell it out."

Well, in case it's been a while since you saw "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" or "Unforgiven", the titles spell it out for you, loud and clear.


Then Things Got Worse, Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 52 x 36 inches $ 4,800 Deanne (left), gallery co-owner, and Matt Straub's wife (right)

Deanne Shashoua
Lyons Wier Limited
175 Seventh Avenue (@W.20th St)
New York, New York 10011
www.lyonswiergallery.com
Please note that we have TWO locations:

Lyons Wier Limited: 175 Seventh Ave (@ W.20th St), New York, NY 10011
Lyons Wier Gallery: 542 W. 24th St. Ground Floor, New York, NY 10011

Gallery Hours: Mon. - Sat. 11 - 7pm

Serious Holiday Snaps: 7 Galleries at 511 W25th talk turkey about photography

2010-12-12T22:01:00.000-08:00

I CONFESS that a week ago, I didn't give much thought to collecting photographs. Perhaps due to the push-button instant gratification of the camera, it always seemed the "easy way out" compared to artfully splashing about layers of paint or fashioning grand canyons out of core ten steel (a la Richard Serra). I've since done a 180-degree about face, partly due to a friend's recent purchase of a vintage photo that led me to "real deal" photo gallerista Deborah Bell, enthusiastic art consultant Brian Appel, and a fascinating series of mini-talks entitled "511: Holiday Focus on Photography" this past weekend.

The 20-minute talks by the seven galleries were excellent but scheduled a bit too tightly, leaving no room to browse before you had to beat it to the elevator to see the next. (A 30-40 minute window, leaving time to ponder the just-discussed work, would have made more sense). One thing I noticed was how affable and friendly this bunch of gallery owners were. I didn't detect any of the big gallery Armani clad 'tude you experience in some galleries, and no one was hiding behind their oversize iMacs avoiding questions from ignoramus frametappers (my artworld equivalent of "tirekickers".) Is it the nature of photography, where the camera's gaze accepts people, things, situations "as they are," that makes them so?

Here's a brief roundup:

ALAN KLOTZ GALLERY (Suite 701) The Redoubtable Anonymous, The Reasonably Famous

First off the rank was a great talk by Alan Klotz, who showed how you could get your paws on a wonderful bargain - "a real photo, not a phony thing out of a computer" - because his expert paws had already trawled the web and glommed them for you. For example, a photo signed by Josef Sudek "might be $7800", but Klotz had sleuthed a bunch of high quality limited editions printed by one of Sudek's contemporaries (Petr Tausk), which he could sell for a remarkable $275. Why? asked a disbelieving onlooker.
"Because they didn't cost me very much!"


The no-so-pseudo Sudek: a nice piece at a nice price


Close up of "Bohemian Landscape" - "really nice" says Klotz

Present was popular local photographer Harry Wilks who submitted some striking and gritty, "bridgy" New York studies for the show at around $500. He explained that the were lower due to a more modest size of around 10"x8", and "a generous holiday discount." In a bin I spotted a photo montage of the moon (I think) by the artist NASA, which seemed a little steep at $400, because we all hallucinate that it's government footage we're paying for via taxes anyway. Perhaps the underfuselage droid that took it was unionized ...

DEBORAH BELL PHOTOGRAPHS (Suite 703) G.P. Fieret: Women and Self Portraits

Deb reads about a meeting between G.P. Fieret and a buyer

Deb Bell had just put away her last exhibition: "Andy Warhol's Street Diary", which was what actually brought me to her door. While romancing the near impossibility of owning one, I listened to her talk about the current show by Gerard Petrus Fieret, an eccentric Dutch photographer who was so paranoid about people stealing his ideas, he curiously stamped big purple copyright notices all over his works - "in artful places, of course," said Deb. He died a couple of years ago - does that make him instantly collectible? "Not right away, but possibly, eventually," I think the answer was. To meet the utterly charming Deb is to meet your favorite piano teacher in the world - I'm sure everyone who encounters her instantly wants to adopt her. More about Deb in my next post.

An out-of-print book by the late Mario Cravo Neto

1500 GALLERY (Suite 607): Claudio Edinger - Sao Paulo Ambiguous

"If you have to remember just 2 names that are influencing Brazilian photography now, the first one is Mario Cravo Neto."

I didn't get hear the second as I had to duck out to hear the next talk [update: gallery co-director Andrew Klug just Facebooked me that it is Miguel Rio Branco], and I should insert "the late", for Google tells me that sadly, the son of the famous Brazilian sculptor of the same name died last year of skin cancer. Cravo Neto hailed from "the most African" of all states in Brazil, Bahia, and his work was deeply influenced by the rituals he observed. You can see a rich panorama of his photos if you simply Google Image his name - arresting black and white narratives involving chickens, eggs, blood - to put it somewhat simplistically.

Gallery owner Claudio seemed surprised and pleased at the small but enthused gathering, remarking that he "didn't know if anyone would be interested in Brazilian photography." Perhaps he didn't know that we've all read about Brazil being the new "it" nation, having scored the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, thanks in part to its wildly effective president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva who we watched on 60 Minutes last night. (Great take out from the show: "Why would Brazil want war? Psssh. There's too much sun and fun to be had.")

Daniel Cooney with a "bid for this now" photo by Matthew Nighswander: a great gift for a soccer and aeroplane lover rolled up in one!

DANIEL COONEY FINE ART (Suite 506): Buying Photos Online

Next taxi stop was a talk about the real "iPhoto", specifically Daniel Cooney's own "Holiday Emerging Artists Auction" at igavel.com. Here, you can score a really nice, big shot like the one above for a starting bid of $200 plus buyer's premium ($40), though hopefully you won't get away with that.

"The highest we got at one auction was $2000, which is great for a new artist, the average is around $500-800."

Cooney has a lot of experience in the auction house world, the name Sotheby's popping up on his creds, and spends countless hours trawling student shows for emerging talent. While collecting via "artbay" is convenient, he says people are still wary and want to come in and see that he is a real person with drawers of prints that open and close. Whether a gallery owner can truly be freed of the tyranny of bricks-and-mortar rent remains to be seen. As a social media person, I say, video, video, video! Show that you're the real deal and people will come running. I hope my video here convinces you that Dennis, and the others, are "the real deal".


Small Double Spiral: A photogram by Maureen McQuillan at McKenzie Fine Art

McKENZIE FINE ART (Suite 208): Maureen McQuillam Photograms

This talk was about a revivalist photography technique called the photogram. No camera, no stuff - just a piece of photopaper, a light source, and whatever you want to capture in between. Camera shy gallery owner Valerie (perhaps I could have persuaded her to stand in front of some photo paper) explained how Maureen McQuillam made these shots - a stack of transparencies - like the kind our teachers use to put on overhead projectors - artfully doodled with say, a Sharpie, then placed on the paper and a lightbulb switched on. In the picture above, the whitest lines are "closest" to the photopaper. The effect is somewhat like scribbling the air with a sparkler or laser pointer in the dark space under your bed. (Note to creative self: "Closet Laser Pointer Series" by Lynette Chiang. Moving right along ... ). Prices ranged from around $1500 upwards, and one could say these are true, vintage one-offs - no reprints from negatives here, because the photogram "is" the negative, and the positive. I also couldn't help but notice the fun paper mache book sculptures in another room by California artist Jean Lau, this one being my favorite, but of course!

At this point, and due to the tight scheduling, I ran out of time and could only run and peek into the two remaining galleries:

RICK WESTER FINE ART showing large and interestingly desolate photographs by Hearst 8x10 Winner, 2011, Jonathan Smith.

DEAN PROJECT (Suite 207) showing work by an international potpourri of artists (Spain, Netherlands and Korea) although their image of a chocolate dipped polar bear by Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers had me running out to the nearest Jacques Torres.

It was a terrific, low key interlude of photography education and appreciation on a Saturday afternoon I just hope they schedule the itinerary it a little looser next time - and make sure their email dispatch is in a bigger font. It was like try to read individual pixels. I bet it was sent via Windows!

Nowhere near Chelsea: Sticks 'n' Stones by Paul Alan Bennett

2010-12-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

One of Bennett's many works featuring his famous "knit stitch".

"What's a Oregon painting doing in the blog of Chelsea Gallerista, New York City? Well, it's my blog, so I'll finagle the GPS if I want to ...

Sticks and Stones" by Paul Alan Bennett is sitting on a friend's wall in Eugene, Oregon, waiting to emigrate to the Coast where I am currently loitering with intent.

It may well have heralded the end of my wandering days as a solo bicycle adventurette. The print, one of an edition of 250, is about as big as the biggest flat screen TV turned sideways. It's framed - not the sort of thing you should be buying if you're in the move! I'm still trying to decide if I should just gift it to him - the shipping of this very large painting will probably warrant just buying it again ($275) and re-framing it.

Something captivated me about this picture, when I saw it in a flyer on a notice board. Probably because it's quasi abstract - the accessible narrative appeals to my left brain, the odd Picasso/Van Gogh mashup appeals to my right.

The strange "knit stitch" you see in the "water" is Bennett's signature stroke. I read where as a fledgling artist he was looking for a style to distinguish himself from others, saw a large, woolly knitted glove and bingo! Knitted up a storm.

Here are a few more, available through the High Desert Gallery in Sisters, Oregon. Paul really captures the rugged, yet curiously delicate environs of the High Desert Region of Oregon.

The painting below, Starry Night, is actually available as a $750 woollen tapestry blanket from Pendleton Woollen Mills. I nearly sprung for this, and I still might on e day! "Paintings and blankets. You're settling," quipped my friend Jerry Norquist.

Chris Doyle: Waste Generation

2010-11-30T21:52:00.000-08:00


"Bird Void", a still from Chris Doyle's video installation Waste_Generation

Andrew Edlin gallery, "the middle one" of the 10th Ave trio of Lori Bookstein, Andrew Edlin and Alexander & Bonin is currently showing a captivating multimedia work by Chris Doyle, an artist famous for working with projected images in public spaces.

Here's my favorite work in the exhibition - a duotrans movie still called "Bird Void" from his trippy floor-to-ceiling video projection screening in an adjacent room. Illuminated as a lightbox, it features a kaleidoscopic digital backdrop overlayed with smokestacks reminiscent of the artist's hometown Brooklyn, surrealistically etched by the negative silhouettes of menacing crows.

Though the artist demurs that this is a save-the-planet message or political message, that's the overarching sentiment. It's best summed up by the Edlin team on the gallery's site:

... In it a dump site for outmoded tools of production, such as computers and oil drills, dissolves into a paper mill whose smokestack generates paper money. The currency condenses into the pulsating plant life of a jungle, where falling trees shape themselves into a bleak factory silhouette that belches pastel clouds. Black crows fly out of them, only to divide and metastasize into the replicating patterns of Victorian wallpaper and oriental rugs. The rugs frame a suburban development of homes with Islamic domes, as seen in on TV in a flash that brings the cycle back to its beginning.

"Smokescreen", featuring smokestacks, nature, a quaker quilt pattern against a background of money.

The video reminds me of the projections at some great warehouse raves I've been to - though I doubt those held a message than lasted more than a few beats - and the throbbing, soaring soundtrack by acclaimed cinematographer Joe Arcidiacono is haunting and addictive. I'd like to buy the video on DVD but currently you'd have to pay $22K and then you'd want to throw one big barbie and devote the entire windowless side of your house to it.

Several stills from the movie have been made into small, bill-sized prints you can buy for $100 a piece, as an alternative to the $5K duotrans (1 of a limited edition of 5). The bills are meant to resemble currency belched from those smokestacks - or somewhat expensive postcards. Still, it's commendable that the average Joe can take home a piece of the artist's work for the price of a mass produced, packable rainjacket (the least expensive item at Eastern Mountain Sports in Soho where I work).

A still from the video projection: discarded refrigerators and washing machines and smokestacks belching money imprinted with smokestacks ...

The affable and very knowledgeable gallery director Laura Higgins came out from behind her workstation - where she was no doubt negotiating with a big gallery to take on the $22k video - to explain that Doyle is a Master of Architecture for Harvard. This could explain why he's apparently particular about concealing the white electricity cable powering the lightboxes with a strip of white tape. Personally, I'd rather see a gnarled cable with three deadly wires poking out of frayed holes at intermittent intervals to complement "Bird Void" and mentioned one of my favorite pieces of all time, Michele de Lucchi's Oceanic Lamp, probably the art world's biggest celebration of a cord and switch since Claes Oldenberg's Giant Plug.

Speaking of hardware, another work in the show called "Evergrow" is made from a little lightbox "book": two hinged panels that ooze and crawl with more kaleidoscopic imagery excepted from the video. While not wanting to fixate on the frame rather than the painting, I wondered about Doyle's architectural thinking behind this, because unfortunately it reminded me of the window strips that obstruct the view from my apartment downunder:

How do architects deal with this? Like Oldenburg and de Lucchi, get mighty creative with them thar windows, as described to the n+1th degree by Architakes in this exhaustive 4-part discussion, "Windowflage".

But I digress (and is that the most useful phrase invented for the ADHD-gifted ever?). I'm scoping out a space on my wall for "Bird Void" - I'm looking for a nite light with substance!

Andrew Edlin Gallery
134 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
Telephone: 212-206-9723
Fax: 212-206-9639
ae@edlingallery.com

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11-6

NY Comic-Con 2010: A Pandemonium of Polyvinyl 'n' Plush

2010-10-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

While not technically in Chelsea - more like Midtown - I just attended the massive adult toy ( G-rated) extravaganza, Comic-Con, at the Javitz center. Read about it on my Galfromdownunder Upover blog. It's worth it - there's a movie!

Lyons Wier Gallery: More beaded wonderment by Jan Huling

2010-10-05T20:23:00.001-07:00

Back in February I blogged about the amazing seed-beaded Munny dolls by Jan Huling.

Popping by Lyons Weir Gallery recently I spotted her latest effort - a violin.

It struck me that this would make the most wonderful prize for a student violin competition - it's Stradivarius on steroids!

To remind you of Janet's original bead-breaking work, here's also a new item in her catalog - a beaded Kewpie doll. I'm just waiting for her to do a beaded Smartcar, then for someone to actually drive it ... or perhaps a beaded bicycle?

Read my original post about Jan Huling

Affordable Art Fair 2010: Even I could afford it

2010-10-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Shroomie by Scott Scheidly

Twenty years ago, when I was a youngish yuppie of sorts, I bought a couple of paintings by Aussie artist Basil Hadley for about $2500 each. That was the last time I bought a piece of "original" art and they are now gracing the walls of my ex's home in Sydney. Admittedly they were, shall we say, "decorative" - unchallenging modern landscapes setting off my black leather sofa and seaweed green carpet beautifully.

Since then, pursuing a largely traveling life, I've not been able to collect anything so unportable as art, apart from a very unportable print entitled Sticks and Stones by (Sisters, Oregon) artist Paul Alan Bennett - currently parked on the wall of a previous beau in Eugene, Oregon! What is this I have with ex's and art I wonder?

But just recently, thanks to the affordable "free look" night at The Affordable Art Fair in NYC, I bought my first piece of original art, a tiny painting called "Shroomie" by Scott Scheidly, pictured at the top of this post.

You can see how tiny it is in the picture below, partly obscured by Bold Hype gallery co-director James Kellogg, with me brandishing my purchase slip.

The price? A relatively affordable $150. Yes, I know I could have bought a similar painting on the streets of Soho for $50, but come on, people gotta eat, including the gallery who no doubt paid a princely sum to bring this artist to my attention. In the above shot, you can see another of Scheidly's trippy works peeking out from behind James, priced at around $1000. Most of the works at the fair ranged from $100 to $10,000, so I did indeed buy at the very bottom of the range. So for serious art collectors who might drop multiple millions on a Damien Hirst, $10,000 is probably like buying a rolled up poster with those awful footers brandishing the exhibition details from the MOMA store ...

Surfing around Scheidly's personal site called flounderart, I found the companion "shroom" that sold earlier at the fair:

The eyes on this one evoked a vision of a saguaro cactus with holes drilled by nesting birds...

Scheidly calls himself a "lowbrow" artist, and initially I thought he was using the term in the same way I describe this blog. A dose of wiki enlightens:

LOWBROW describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s ... origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures ... often known by the name pop surrealism. Lowbrow art often has a sense of humor - sometimes the humor is gleeful, sometimes impish, and sometimes it's a sarcastic comment.

More surfing around Scheidly's site and I found myself utterly drawn to this surreal number, from an large number of largely SOLD paintings that feature "noseless" women:

An artist friend of mine was quick to point out that, in his opinion, this painting showed a "lack of understanding of anatomy" and that "noseless motif overstays its welcome." Ah, art is so subjective. Ethnically, the noseless one above reminds me of me, right down to the way-too-short, tattered Cherry Lane skirt I can't seem to Goodwill. I have to say if I had the $700 asking price in my hot little wallet right now I'd probably "add to cart".

Bold Hype is a young Florida gallery specializing in anime, street, tiki-pop, and other forms of non-stuffy art, and recently opened up a location in the home of Chelsea Gallerista: Chelsea, NYC.

"We've sold 75% of the current show, and it still has 10 days to run," said the impossibly young co-director and designer James. "People are really responding to that fact that our artists are affordable, and really different!"

One of the artists I almost sprung for was Dolla, a graffiti king now quite a street celeb in Miami, but who puts a lot of painstaking work into his made-for-gallery-sale work. There were a couple of striking works on the wall for $200 and $300. Pictured right, from his MySpace page, is a nifty painting featuring an integrated matching spray can. The cans alone were selling for $35 at the fair.

"People think his work is just vinyl transfers stuck down, because it looks so clean and precise, but it's layers and layers of spray paint, fastidiously applied," said Kellogg.

I can only imagine some of these artists dream of making it big like Banksy, but for now, we can all afford to hang a little of their young life's work above our IKEA sofas.

Why did I buy Shroomie? It's an obvious magic mushroom reference, and while I'm not into hallucinating beyond my own delusions, the little picture simply made me smile. And not only was it affordable and portable, it is the perfect size for a Manhattan 479 sq ft studio.

A little bio about Scott Scheidly:

Scott Scheidly - Ohio Born. Graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and moved to Florida, where he currently resides. Scott Scheidly’s work, with its realistic renditions of the surreal, often with pop culture references, is the very definition of "pop-surrealism". Scott's work is regularly shown in galleries on the west coast while represented by Bold Hype Gallery on the east coast. Scott is also well known in the Tiki pop art scene by his pseudonym "Flounder" under which he creates modern Tiki art and designs. - "The truth will set you confused” http://www.flounderart.com/

Bold Hype Gallery
547 W 27th St, 5th floor
New York, NY 10001
(click here for google map)

Gallery Hours: 12 - 6 PM, Tuesday - Saturday
T. 212 868 2322 F. 212 868 2323
info@boldhype.com

Michael Albert: The Snap Crackle Pop Artist

2010-09-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

While strolling around Chelsea on an off-gallery night, I noticed a panel of light coming from under a darkened alcove. There, I discovered Michael Albert, a self-styled post Warhol artist who calls himself a "Cerealist". The joy he takes in doing his art, a love of igniting the imagination of children, and his astute business acumen and juice business make him one artsy entrepreneur whose enthusiasm is infectious ....

Watch the movie ...

Cerealism, according to Albert, is the name he gives to his collages, largely made from cut out letters and images from cereal boxes.

The letters are painstakingly arranged into large works "spelling out" manifestos like the Constitution, the Gettysburg address, the streets of Manhattan, the states of Connecticut ... the latter two geographically correct too. Each collage takes several months to finish, and the exhibition represented over 10 years of hard cut and paste.

And curiously absorbing they are, once you get over the the initial glaze-over from the visual cacophany of Letraset gone mad. It's also the "Where's Wally?" allure - the Manhattan map features little hidden secrets like "the star of the Rockefeller" or the tow pound where illegally parked cars are hauled off to.

"People might not ever read Shakespeare, but when they recognize "to be or not to be" in my collage, they get excited - particularly kids. I can make these words come alive for them in a way the original text might not."

Another technique he uses is to simply fracture a cereal box and reassemble it like crazy paving. "You can still recognize the identity," said Albert, displaying a mosaic'd Frosties box.

One work features every animal of popular advertising and media culture you can think of.

"What about the Geico lizard?" I said, half joking.

"Here he is," said Albert, pointing to a corner. "Now, do you have Geico insurance?"

"Uh, no, I just know the lizard."

"Interesting how people know and love these characters but don't want to buy the product," said Albert, uncovering an insight that marketers would do well to explore.

The animal kingdom represented in that collage was staggering - and grouped in their respective genuses too. Chewbacca was thrust into the top right corner as he was deemed neither man or ape, but a hybrid of the two.

A collage featuring only numbers seemed like the perfect gift for your favorite actuary.

"It's the first 777 digits of the number pi," said Albert. He's waiting for a savant to come along and point out an erroneously transposed pair ...

Maybe it's a word geek thing, but I glance at Michael Albert's "Cerealism" poster of the US Constitution on my wall every morning and it really gives me a buzz - seems to synch left and right side of brain immediately and is super fun. I recommend getting one from him, the posters are very reasonably priced.

Albert is a busy man. Apart from being a fanatical artist, he runs a juice business, Sir Real, currently stocked by high profile grocers like Wholefoods, and homeschools four children with his artist wife.

All I can say is, his smile spread from ear to ear - perhaps fueled by creativity, a love of educating children, and lots of Vitamin C.

Check out Michael's latest workshops and vey affordable posters: www.michaelalbert.com

Chelsea Art Walk: Eat, Drink, Play

2010-07-29T13:35:00.001-07:00

Marla of micro-desserterie The Three Tarts - a favorite of Oprah - offers 15% off lemonade and their signature artsy ice cream cake sandwiches tonight. See you there on 20th and 9th Ave!

I just got an email about the Chelsea Art Walk tonight.

Here's the official page: Art Walk Chelsea

Ice cream, cold drinks, the coolest art - what more could you want if you're surrounded by a scorched concrete while your hedge funding acquaintances have all fled to the Hamptons with their Barackberries for the summer?

It turns out I'm actually the FourSquare Mayor of this and a number of establishments in this area. For the uninitiated, FourSquare is a mildly addictive little game you "play" on your GPS-enabled mobile phone. It detects your location, and you hit a button to "check in". It awards you "badges" - a bit like Brownie Guide/Boy Scout emblems - for various levels of participation. The person who's been loitering in an establishment for an indecent amount of time gets awarded "Mayor" status. It seems to be something like 4 times in any one month, or once a week. Which means nothing, really, unless a business wants to anoint you with a freebie or whatever.

It's a complete waste of time but does give you something reckless to do with your hands while walking across a busy street - and yet another reason to make people think you're rude, distracted, ADHD etc.

So here's where I'm the Mayor, until my orb and scepter are wrested from my grip ...

The Three Tarts, the Oprah-endorsed micro-desserterie I wrote about on my Cheap'n'Choosy blog. No 'tude! Corner 9th Ave and 20th St.

Nest, a little treasure trove of homewares, where the urge to touch is unbearable, just up a few doors from Three Tarts.

Lingo, on 19th St between 7th and 8th Ave (close to the 8th Ave corner), is probably the most original clothing shop in the entire neighborhood. I've bought 4 things there and I wear them all, all the time.

Chelsea Recreation Center, only because I teach yoga there as part of ShapeUpNYC

Then there are all the galleries in the schedule and the ones I've been raving about in this personal blog.

Looking forward to meeting my Aussie pal Jennifer Weiley at Three Tarts and reciprocating her for my stay in her divine Fortitude Valley apartment - the Brisbane equivalent of the "village" Downunder.

Chelsea Art Walk Schedule, 29 July 2010

Pop-Ups and Open Houses: New collaborations to ride out the recession

2010-07-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Mixed media artist Rodney Durso, founder of Artbridge, and partner Donna Dupuy with a collage-in-progress.

Last week I found myself in a couple of small, personal Chelsea art events that signal the alternative ways art is being "done" these days - largely due to the economy.

The traditional way: An established gallery in a prime location which is never open Sundays, and in fact, shuts promptly at 6pm weekdays, thus winnowing out the tire kickers. Staff, of whom you see only the very top of their heads behind the high reception desk, basically ignores you if you wander in without an appointment, because they are busy dealing in cyberspace ...

The new way: slap up, pop up, anything goes. Let's look at three different "recession suppression" slants:

THE POP UP

Rodney Durso and Blair Bradshaw: Together Again Press Release

Blair Bradshaw flanked by "Burr" and "Hamilton"

Rodney Durso (NY) and Blair Bradshaw (SF) showed their work in a small pop-up space on 526 West 26th St orchestrated by Reaves Gallery.

As I understood it, Sharon Reaves, the gallery director, recently moved from San Francisco and is establishing her business here in this flexible and low-key manner: renting a space ad-hoc in an existing space. It makes sense - like a pop-up window on a website, you're invited in to step inside and look around, and then the window closes. Next time, a different space, a different artist, a different gallery. But the connections have been forged; the space is now irrelevant, particularly with the internet being its own defacto gallery space.

Rodney Durso is a mixed-media artist who weaves a visual narrative with the things he clearly loves - architecture, design, politics, graphics, intense color, community. I met him while scarfing tiny little cookies at Three Tarts, the Oprah-favorited micro-desserterie he co-owns with his sister, Marla. We found we had a mutual background in advertising, and friended each other before there was this thing called Facebook.

Now over to Blair: ever thought what fun lives those artists must have, who do the whimsical full-page magazine illustrations for articles about monkeys or oil spills or anti-depressants? Blair Bradshaw is one of those lucky peeps, a graphic artist with creds including New Scientist, the NYT and Absolut Vodka. We all postured over his diptych depicting a speed-dying version of the Burr-Hamilton Duel. From Wiki:

Hamilton did fire his weapon intentionally, and he fired first. But he aimed to miss Burr, sending his ball into the tree above and behind Burr's location. In so doing, he did not withhold his shot, but he did waste it, thereby honoring his pre-duel pledge. Meanwhile, Burr, who did not know about the pledge, did know that a projectile from Hamilton's gun had whizzed past him and crashed into the tree to his rear. According to the principles of the code duello, Burr was perfectly justified in taking deadly aim at Hamilton and firing to kill....

The panel features strips of stained wood neatly stamped with the death dates of both men, respectively. No, the wood was not from the tree above and behind Burr's location, but we all pretended it was ...

Detail of Blair Bradshaw's "Untitled (Hamilton)"

Rodney also founded ArtBridge, a sustainable art innovation in itself: it commissions artists to do their darndest on otherwise uninspiring scaffolding, thus transforming the streetscape into an overhead, tree-level gallery. When it's time for the art to come down, it's made into sturdy and chic tote bags which are sold at Three Tarts among other places from around $32 and up. And who couldn't do with another sturdy, chic tote bag?

THE STAGING

Open house showing of a renovated studio with art exhibition
(Photo from www.reneefishman.com)

Staging an apartment to show it in its best light isn't new. But having an art exhibition with the gallery director, interior designer and real estate agent all present and lubed with wine and crackers is a perfect example of a modern day real estate marketing mashup.

The apartment: a $399K studio in the "post-war" Victoria building on East 14th Street.

The estate agent: Renee Fishman for Halstead Property, was apparently awarded Rookie of the Year in her industry for her imaginative approaches to real estate marketing using social media - no doubt like this, and with her professionally shot video tours. The willowy Renee's commentary rolls off her tongue like melted butter on a piping hot scone and I devoured even though I'm not in the market right now for a new cave.

The interior designer: Stephen Alessi, whose name immediately evokes those amoebic stainless steel accoutrements from the famous design house on everyone metrosexual's wedding list. He did a great job "on a tiny budget", showing the difference a nice thick cream rug and a pair of Japanese-inspired curtains can do.

The Gallery Director: Jessica Porter, of the enigmatically named RAANDESK. She selected several art works for the apartment, with several benefits:

1. You get to see art as it might look in your own modest living room.
2. The apartment looks sharp, tattered Jim Morrison posters no doubt rolled away in the broom cupboard
3. You get to know about another great gallery in Chelsea.

Seeing the three pros in one place gave the visitor plenty to do - admire the could-be-mine home, pick the interior designer's brains for the latest trends and file him away for a future project, and gaze upon some fresh new art that wasn't a series of lame art gallery framed posters with the date-time-location info along the bottom.

And so, from affordable caves (well, relatively) to affordable art (since this is Chelsea Gallerista):

Raandesk's selling point is its focus on affordable art - from $100-$5000. It even has a special section called Art2Gift - works under $500. You can actually select art from the site based on price range and other categories, like buying a rainjacket from REI.com. Even more amazingly, you can click a button to "make an offer" on several works.

Jessica is clearly thinking ahead, getting young art lovers into collecting and starting a lifelong and potentially profitable relationship with them. She's also opening things up for that people who might never have thought they could afford an original. Though I have zero room for art (as I lamented last post), I found myself again, seriously contemplating becoming the owner of not one but two works on the wall behind the carefully staged sofa. Someone hold me down!

Thanks to Marie Wiltz for introducing me to Renee and Raandesk.

"POCKET" ART

Ian Mack Studio, Ellen Shire

Fragments by Ellen Shire - a perfect little pocket painting, at just 16cm x16 cm (just over 6" x 6")

I mention these two artists briefly because I stumbled across their tiny little artworks - a real recession suppression idea.

Ian Mack, who I met at the aforementioned Reaves show, is famous for his giant bold paintings, but he also creates "credit card paintings". Priced at around $100 each, they're about the size of a credit card.

"It's art to carry with you," he says.

None are shown on his site - you can try emailing him about his next showing.

I stumbled across Ellen Shire, who divides her time between New York and France, some years ago at Chelsea Open Studios. She had this one tiny little painting - actually a paper mache collage that I wish I'd bought back then, because now, she can't seem to find it. She's produced some marvellous, wonderfully textural little works for somewhere around the $100 mark.

And wandering past Leo Kesting Gallery in the Meatpacking, I noticed the walls covered with tiny little paintings and constructions, some just over the size of coasters. I have no idea if they are for sale or if they're part of the interior decor, but they screamed "take me home in your pocket!"

I see a great market for art to wear, have and to hold, at a price more people can afford to have lots of.

Louise Kruger @ Lori Bookstein Fine Art

2010-06-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

"She learned shipbuilding techniques," says Gallery Director and artist Lauren Bakoin, of the Louise Kruger and her enigmatic art. (View in YouTube if this video is truncated at the right).

If you live in a tiny studio in Manhattan, you can't possibly entertain the idea of hoarding sculpture of any significant size - even tabletop pieces have to be carefully curated between your fruit bowl, magazine stash and cellphone charger. But on this occasion, I came close to dropping serious rent money on a Louise Kruger original.

Being a yoga teacher myself, I was drawn into Lori Bookstein Fine Art by this sculpture in the window depicting Pincha Mayurasana, or Forearm Stand:

Actually, it's somewhere between a forearm stand - the head should be off the ground - and a headstand - the hands should be cupped behind the head. Who cares? It's a fantastically dynamic piece, and I've been coveting it ever since. The decision to own it was mitigated by coveting practically every piece in the show.

Kruger's work - chunky wood figurines of people and animals as well as whimsical tapestries which could have floated right off the pages of a children's story book - has been described as "folksy" and "naive" and all these other words applied to art rendered with mallet, chisel and a large darning needle.

Yours-lowbrow-art-appreciator truly was captivated as much by the spaces around the figures as the works themselves. Oh, how I longed to reach out and grab the forearm of those rough-hewn gentlemen steadfastly frozen in motion - running, walking, raking hay. How she captured the tilt and weight of womanly hips, And the animals - the green glass eyes of the lion engaged and held your gaze, beckoning a serious stare-off (and he wasn't going to bite).

Kruger is an LA artist, now in her eighties and residing in New York. She studied woodworking and joinery with a ship builder in New Jersey, and traditional metal-working techniques at foundries in Pistoia, Italy and Kumasi, Ghana. In 1953, she was included in the “New Talent” show at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

There is certainly a global feel to her work. A piece featuring a woman with pinafore and hand raised behind her head, was reminiscent of reminiscent of "Fayum paintings," said gallery director Lauren Bakoin, herself an artist, i.e. Egyptian mummy portraits.

Lauren even showed how the jaw of one soldier with a brass pit helmet moved up and down like a traditional ventriloquist's puppet, a legacy of Kruger's shipbuilding training. Another women with a protruding hip, almost Picasso-like yet in 3D, stared out from eyes made of embedded bronze slits.

The works all date from the 60's and 70's, and compared with the über-now, flickering, humming multimedia installations in nearby galleries, it's a breath of nostalgic air. If you can't come up with the $6000 (as at June 2010) for a Kruger original, at least it makes you want to grab a hunk of wood or clay and the nearest chisel and do your darndest with it.

Lori Bookstein Fine Art | 138 Tenth Avenue | New York, NY 10011 | 212.750.0949

NEST: The Metrosexual's Martha Stewart

2010-06-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Along 9th Ave in Chelsea are some eclectic little home decor stores that have every right to be called galleries - they sell eye candy you can actually afford - and display in your own gallery at home.

One store I always enjoy popping into is NEST. It's perfectly sited to catch the loft-proud gay neighborhood, selling objets d'art and jewelry that you find yourself gazing for longer than usual, and turning over and over in your hands. It actually feels like a little sparrow's nest, full of treasures plucked from around the traps - not too minimalist, not too maximalist, not too ethnic, new agey, or mass produced, not too self consciously hip. Just plain interesting. You can tell that each and every piece has been selected with thought, then placed in the tiny shop like it was your tiny studio apartment.

It's curated by owners Lana Sexton and Henry Stozek, a refreshingly 'tude free duo who don't hide behind a billboard-sized iMac pretending you aren't Sting or Angelina Jolie like in most galleries, but actually look up and talk to you.

There are some expensive things in here. And there are some really affordable things. Like the above $15 tape measure pebble carved from a piece of wood I bought today. Now who doesn't need a tape measure? I need one to attach the snap closure dead-center on my Traffic Cone Bags, and this beats dragging out the unsexy 100 ft long Stanley. It has great palm-feel.

Then there are these bugs in plastic. Around the same price. Yah, you can buy them online cheaper, after all, they ARE made in China, but why not patronize people who are trying to bring creativity to you doorstep? Otherwise, one day they won't be there. Bed, Bath and Beyond will. Shudder.

Now here's something else I liked - but this is neither cheap nor choosy ...

NEST
172A 9th Ave, New York, NY, 10011
www.nestinteriorsny.com