Deborah Leigh’s “Perilous Vacations #12” (2009) (via flickr.com/migrainechick

After a busy week that included two major events (our sold-out “Star Wars & Modernism” event Wednesday night and last night’s PBR Tour) we are taking a vacation. Blogging will resume Monday, August 2. Until then please continue to visit Hyperallergic LABS for more bite-sized chunks of art and our Twitterfeed for art-related news and chatter.

And for those who may not yet know, we’re very happy to announce that our PBR Tour raised $1,400 for the Jersey City Museum. WOOT! We will post photos on our Facebook Page soon. We want to say a special thank you to Hyperallergic intern Dylan Schenker who played a pivotal role in initiating the PBR Tour, all the staff at the Jersey City Museum — particularly curator Christina Vassallo — and Silverman for donating the food and drinks for the event. And thank you to all the great people who donated their time to help out, particularly the PBR Tour’s official grillmaster (and my awesome brother-in-law) Garen Gueyikian. THANK YOU!

Photo credits: homepage, flickr.com/thirddesign; above, flickr.com/migrainechick.

The person who took this photo labeled it “Colors” with the following description: “Spectrum V (Ellsworth Kelly, 1969) + Tourists (2009)”(photo via flickr.com/abdijstraat)

It’s summer in New York and the focus of the city’s art fans shifts from the commercial galleries and nonprofits to museums, as many stage large tourist-friendly shows and turn up the air conditioning during the sweltering months. Visiting the museums I encounter people — often tourists — who discuss or react to art with refreshingly unfiltered opinions about what they are seeing. On a recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I overheard some very interesting commentary from the museum goers; commentary that sparked confusion, insight, and humor. The gallery space for whatever reason often lends itself to a different dialogue, one where the visitor feels a necessity, and sometimes a pressure, to respond to the work as if its stillness generates an uncomfortable and awkward silence.

Tourists galore in the Metropolitan Museum’s Great Hall (via flickr.com/esthereggy)

Being on almost every Top 10 list of “Must See” things in New York City, the Met is home to every kind visitor. The Museum welcomes a whopping five million visitors a year. This is not the crowd you will see at the Neue Galerie, or the Whitney Museum of Art, or even the more adventurous visitors of MoMA for that matter.

I don’t want to pick on the tourists and I don’t want to imply that all tourists are ignorant to art but the most interesting and out-of-left-field comments did come from the out of towners, particularly those decked out in white sneakers and Hawaiian-themed tops et al. They certainly add a different flavor to the museum going experience.

Listening to the tourists’ commentary was insightful, in regards to how art and artists are perceived by the masses, so I decided to write it down — and add some commentary. Thinking about it I realized that they tend to have a very 19th century outlook on what constitutes a work of art (usually something resembling paint on canvas hung on a wall). Sure their reactions to art can be naïve but they are also genuine. Part of me envies them for being able to look at art with fresh eyes — a blank slate. The world is a different place from that standpoint and informs my own ideas about art.

Robert Rauschenberg, “Canyon” (1959) (click to enlarge)

For my experiment, I chose to station my wanderings to the Modern Art department, because even though this time period is closer to us, and in my opinion more relatable, it is often the hardest kind of art to “get,” as it were.

On a crowded Friday, walking around the mezzanine level of the Modern Art wing I noticed the you-are-too-close alarms were going off every other minute. But the problem was, that one, no one noticed the noise — they probably attributed it to some annoying ringtone — and two, none of the guests realized that they were stepping too close to works of art, or that they were even art for that matter!

One woman was leaning on one of Rachel Whiteread’s white “Untitled (Pair)” (1999). Maybe confusing them for some high-class contemporary New York thingamajig made for leaning?

For example, Mother and daughter duo walk up to Rauschenberg’s Canyon (1959), daughter takes one look at it, shoots mother a look of shock and anger and storms off.

Mother:

Aw, well honey, I’m sure he didn’t kill the bird himself! (She squints at the painting) But … you never know …

Animal cruelty! A component of the work that I never realized! I know that the eagle was collected from a trash heap by a friend of the artist, but how are they supposed to know this? Are they even supposed to know anything? Let the art speak for itself! Right? The woman was clearly already very wary of the artist. You know those artist types, if anyone is going to kill an animal and lacquer him up it would be an artist! Freak.

A view of the “Masterpieces of French Art Deco” show at the Metropolitan Museum.

“Is this art?”

… or did you just walk into Ikea?

Wassily Kandinsky, “The Garden of Love (Improvisation Number 27)” (1912)

“Kandinsky? He did like, crazy amounts of art right?”

“Yeah, but, like, this is his early stuff, I think … but yeah, like so much art. What I wanna know is how he found the time to like, do it all, you know? Like geez.”

What was it, like his job or something?

Francis Bacon, “Head I” (1947-48)

“Here is that Bacon fellow. The one who took the painting of the Pope and mutilated it or something … changed it.”

“What a sick, sick man.”

Bacon is probably doing cartwheels in his grave!

Bridget Riley, “Blaze 1” (1962)

“That right there looks a mess. I’m sure he had some cleaning up to do after.”

“Which floor has ‘Starry Night’?”

“Wow! This one will throw you for a loop!”

“Yeah, take a look at it, Ron! It’s famous! This one’s famous!”

This comment was in regards to a Bridget Riley painting, but it seems strange that sitting next to this was a Warhol and Lichtenstein and this was the famous, the recognizable one. Maybe they have a copy of this on the coffee table at home? And good luck finding “Starry Night.”

Yves Tanguy, “Fantastic Construction” (1949)

“Oh my gosh, Dali! I love him. Oh wait. Tanguy? Isn’t this copycatting? Is that allowed?”

I wonder what they’d think of Sherry Levine … or Richard Prince … or Mike Bidlo … or, hell, a lot of people.

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Homepage image via flickr.com/onlyforward

"Der Rundegelbenimmersatt" from “Theater of The Arcade,” part of the Game Play Festival Pictured: Hope Cartelli, Stephen Heskett, Josh Mertz, Robert Pinnock and Fred Backus (Photo by Jeff Lewonczyk) (click to enlarge)

“Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Performance Art” takes place July 9-25, 2010 at Williamsburg’s Brick Theater

Video games appear to be making oddly pervasive cameos across fields as varied as architecture, art (1, 2), cinema, criticism, and now theater. Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted for the Stage is exactly that, a series of five plays that Jeff Lewonczyk wrote and Gyda Arber directed at the Brick Theater in Williamsburg through July 25.

The premise of Theater of the Arcade is to take the characters from an iconic video game — let’s say “Frogger” — and insert those characters into a world that operates according to the logic and stage vernacular of an equally iconic 20th century dramatist — let’s say Samuel Beckett à la Godot: so, the meaninglessness attempt to get anywhere significant using anything, especially the arbitrary ability to move back and forth or side to side. The result, at least for the first few minutes, is a startlingly suggestive scene.

The technique yields a broad range of results. An uncomfortably misogynistic Donkey Kowalski Kong [videogame] comes home to a crippled Princess Wingfield and destroys the Alabaster symbol that is her one source of happiness. “Pac Man” is recast as the antagonist in a didactic, anti-capitalist Brecht-and-Weill-styled musical. “Asteroids” becomes a Mamet-like display of profanity and chauvinism that culminates in both corporate down-sizing and seduction. And then, of course, we have our lovable, immigrant plumbing duo unclogging their father issues and throwing psilocybinin induced fireballs over the same princess-like lover in a mode that feels both familiar and contemporary, but nowhere near as notable, iconic, or instantly recognizable as the others. Perhaps this lack says more about contemporary theater than anything else.

"The Alabaster Nymph" from “Theater of The Arcade,” part of the Game Play Festival. Pictured: Shelley Ray and Kent Meister (Photo by Hope Cartelli) (click to enlarge)

Each piece stumbles onto several jokes — a consequence of having to justify the presence of things like giant fruit from Pac Man’s labyrinth in Brecht’s world or invent some narrative reason to splinter the asteroid belt to smithereens and dust. The silliness and the pace of the plot (or the “arrangement of incidents” to get Aristotelian about dramatic structure) is more than enough to carry an audience through all five, lighthearted pieces. Arranged discretely, the experience even mimics the way a gamer might spend a few minutes wandering from machine to machine, complete with a bathroom break in the middle. Still, it might be more provocative to see what an effort to stitch them all together would look like, or how the five pieces could hang as a unified investigation into both the importance of interaction and the assertion of agency to the two genres (How about a combination of “Minesweeper” and Augusto Boal? “Tetris” and Tony Kushner?).

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though, Theater of the Arcade is one cockeyed option in a curio cabinet called Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Performance Art that’s full of intriguing collisions between the virtual and the theatrical.

Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Performance Art is taking place at the Brick Theater (525 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn) until July 25. Theater of the Arcade will be staged on the following dates and time: Thursday, July 15, 9pm; Friday, July 16, 7pm; Saturday, July 17, 7pm; Sunday, July 18, 7pm; Wednesday, July 21, 8pm; Friday, July 23, 9pm; and Sun July 25, 2pm.

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Mini-golf, beer & hot dogs … what more could you want? (source photo by Dylan Schenker)

This Thursday we would love for you to join us as Hyperallergic and friends will be heading to the Jersey City Museum’s Golden Door mini-golf course for a night of golf, beer, and hot dogs (and veggie dogs) on Thursday, July 22 (7-9:30 pm).

Assure your spot today as tickets are selling fast and we may soon reach capacity and not be able to sell tickets at the door. Tickets are ONLY $15 and they support the Jersey City Museum directly.

What does your $15 donation get you? A night of all-you-can-play mini-golf exclusively for Hyperallergic readers, friends, and contributors, a brief talk by the curator about the mini-golf sculptures & unorthodox exhibition concept, beer and soda galore, and yummy hot dogs, sausages, and veggie dogs.

Golf may cause you to wear plaid pants, wear trucker hats …

The course is located at Hamilton Square in the heart of Jersey City (232 Pavonia Avenue, between McWilliams Pl. & Erie St. — MAP), which is conveniently located by the Grove Street PATH stations — so all New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief, yes, there is subway service to the course!

If you’re scared to venture to Jersey City solo, you’re welcome to join us at Hyperallergic HQ in Williamsburg (181 N11th Street, Suite 302) where a group of us will be gathering at 5:30 pm and leaving for The Golden Door at 6 pm sharp!

The event is generously being sponsored by SILVERMAN Developers of Hamilton Square, who will be providing the food and refreshments for the event, which means that ALL the money we raise will go directly to the Jersey City Museum.

So, get your tickets today! It will be a blast and you will take comfort in knowing that you will be putting the night away with Tri-state art fans eager to support a great cause … ’cuz we all know that Jersey needs some New York love.

If you want to learn more about Jersey City Museum’s Golden Door artist mini-golf course, check out our articleon the course.

Among those included in the show were Christopher Lee Sauvé, Scooter LaForge, Olek, Brian Kenny, Inbred Hybrid Collective, Gio Black Peter, accomplished fashion illustrators Marcos Chin and Fernanda Cohen, as well as, famed photographer and Warhol Factory veteran Christopher Makos.

The art show included a video exhibit featuring the work of Nick Hooker, SUPERM (Slava Mogutin + Brian Kenny), Desi Santiago, Deryck Todd, Julia Oldham, Christian Weber, J. G. Zimmerman and more.

T Minus 20 is organized by IGNITE, the artist representation and licensing company founded by Jason LeBlond and Ves Pitts

T Minus 20 continues until August 1 at Christopher Henry Gallery (127 Elizabeth Street, Manhattan).

SO - IL, “Pole Dance” (2010) (photo by Wade Zimmerman, courtesy MoMA/PS1) (click to enlarge)

We perceive architecture, Walter Benjamin thought, in two ways: by look and by touch. Optical and tactile. Our optical perception of something develops over time: looking at something for a long time leads us into contemplating it. Black scratches become letters become an idea. But Benjamin didn’t think there was a tactile analog to this process. There is no ‘contemplation’ when it comes to perceiving something through touch. Tactile perception begins and ends at the fingertip. It’s surface-based, superficial. We come to know buildings, he continues, and, by extension, architecture not just by looking but also “by a way of habit.” A way of habit that develop as we sleep, work in, or repeatedly walk through the spaces created by architecture, day after day. It’s through the repetition of this tactile, getting-to-know-you-by-touch that we learn how rough the concrete is, how soft the hammock is, how sticky the inflatables are on humid days. Our perceptions of architecture based on touch unfold over time and through memory as a kind of spontaneous “casual noticing,” which seems to me like  the ideal way to get to know the strange collection of shapes and materials spliced together by Brooklyn-based design firm Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL) for their PS1 courtyard installation: “Pole Dance” (2010).

The setting is the walled-in concrete and gravel courtyard of PS1. Here, alongside those attending the PS1’s Warm Up summer concert series, an equally spaced matrix of PVC poles does a lot of the dancing.

White mesh netting stitches the poles together, forming a dynamic, stretched and stretchy geometric grid that caps the space at ceiling height. Inflatable rubber balls, rest like clouds suspended on top of the netting in shapely pale clumps of purple, orange, and green. (Possible cloud formation: cumulus inflatabilis?). Throughout the installation are different ‘activators’ — a rope, a hammock, holes in the mesh — that taunt visitors to tug on a string, nap in the sun, or try to pull one of those orange inflatable clouds back to the gray gravel earth from the white mesh sky.

***

SO - IL, “Pole Dance” (2010) (photo by Wade Zimmerman, courtesy MoMA/PS1) (click to enlarge)

SO – IL was one of three firms asked to submit proposals for the final round of MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP), now in its eleventh year. Each year some 20 YAP contenders must travel a long way before a design question even gets asked. After nomination by a panel of architecture school deans and glossy architecture magazine editors, and after a portfolio review that whittles twenty down to three and is in part overseen by art world arbiters like MoMA Director Glenn Lowry, the challenge is to take $85,000 worth of mostly repurposeable (read: not so sexy) material, and spin it all with a bit of spit, insight, and sweat into a maximum of fun and chic that fills the triangular PS1 courtyard.

Responding to PS.1’s call for “a much-needed refuge in an urban environment” as well as Pole Dance does is great for a firm like SO – IL since it adds another big, fat institutional stamp of approval from MoMA/PS1 to the firm’s list of accomplishments. What’s more, their concept for “a participatory environment that reframes the conceptual relationship between humankind and structure” actually gets built, too.

***

SO - IL, “Pole Dance” (2010) (photo by Wade Zimmerman, courtesy MoMA/PS1) (click to enlarge)

In their concept write up, SO – IL talks about a “choreography of situations rather than object making.” And this explicit focus on “choreography” over “objects” lends Pole Dance the appearance of a gumball machine, smashed to pieces and scaled up to the size of a fever dream, rather than the more straightforward appearance of a conventional structure or building.

The choreographed objects are mostly cheap, pre-made stuff — rubber balls and PVC, stretchy string, some fasteners and joints – but their arrangement makes them elegantly  shift and sway in sequence. Pole dancers and museum goers alike will  quickly recognize that even resting in a hammock affects the dynamics of the structure as a whole (an apt lesson for any audience). Instead of becoming detached from the action because of a nap, a person in search of refuge who climbs into a hammock creates system-wide sag that ripples out through the white mesh sky, broadcasting to all that someone has hopped into the hammock while simultaneously causing all the other pieces of Pole Dance to bristle in a series of actions and reactions that plays out like — well, it might be a stretch to call it a dance — but in this case, purpose bolsters the metaphor since the commission is based on a concert series.

The restriction of sound-play to those present creates both an incentive and a focus on people actually in the courtyard. Aside from this there-or-not distinction, though, Pole Dance lacks partitions, rooms and internal barriers (beyond the big green pool where the white mesh sky touches the ground – but that’s different). There’s no clear or segregating focus beyond PS1′s concrete walls. So the free flow from space to space is consistent with the design’s emphasis on participation and Pole Dance makes offers instead: here are some balls, pull on this cord if you’re bored, lie down over there if you’re tired. It bundles sticks and string and cheap tech gadgets to create an environment where something is always happening.

The always on feeling evokes an arcade, full of suggestions blinking in neglect, waiting for their spontaneous “casual noticing” with a token and another, higher score. Simple geometry and the bright monochromatic elements further reinforce Pole Dance’s video game feel since they call to mind the digital primitivism of early arcade landscapes circa Asteroids or Tron or Tetris or Pac Man. Pole Dance is appealing the way one of these games is appealing; as Steven Johnson has observed of the most successful video games, Pole Dance lacks a “fixed narrative path” or one proper solution to its suggested uses so it rewards “repeat play with an ever-changing complexity.”

We play the game because there is no story; there is no surprise ending because there is no ending. Push or be pushed. Play or be played. The premise of Pole Dance is simple: the whole pole-and-mesh structure is a giant game where the only rule is interaction. Tug the string, redistribute the clouds, dance for a while, rest in the hammock, get up, do it again. We play the game as long as there’s music.

A view of Greg Barsamian’s installation at Pierogi Boiler (mobile phone photo)

Greg Barsamian at Pierogi Boiler

I’d never heard of the New York-based Gregory Barsamian but now I’ll definitely notice his name. His kinetic sculpture “Artifact” (2010) is the main attraction in his solo show at Pierogi’s industrial Boiler space, and it was originally commissioned by the very odd — in that millionaire-opens-contemporary-art-museum kinda way — Museum of Old and New (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania. The resulting work is a head that seems to have toppled from some monumental ancient sculpture and landed in Williamsburg. The metal sculpture is lit from inside and light spills out of the carefully placed crevices and holes on the exterior.

Only when you peer inside the massive head do you understand how special this sculpture is. In what I can only describe as a 1920s version of a dreamscape on acid, birds, hats, eggs and other forms whirl around inside to create the illusion of three-dimensional animation. The movement creates a sound like a film projector and its syncopated rhythm.

I shot a very short video with my mobile phone only because I knew it would be near impossible to describe it (it is posted above). The true power of the work became evident to me a few days later when I couldn’t stop thinking about the animation inside and the sensation of wonderment I experienced staring at the scultpure, something I rarely encounter nowadays.

Greg Barsamian’s Private View is on view at Pierogi Boiler (191 N14th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn) until July 31.

Shari Mendelson at Sideshow Gallery

A view of Shari Mendelson’s carefully crafted objects at Sideshow Gallery (photo by the author) (click to enlarge)

One of Mendelson’s impressive large scultpures covered with what may be melted wax. (photo the author) (click to enlarge)

You’ve got two days left to see the Translations in the Ubiquitous Largesse show with Paul Baumann and Shari Mendelson at Sideshow Gallery, so you better run. While the whole show is intriguing, Mendelson — as always — stands out. She has taken plastic refuse (mostly disposable bottle parts from what I can tell) and created rather intricate objects that resemble Roman, Byzantine or early Islamic glass or rock crystal vessels. But beyond what could be construed as an environmental gimmick, Mendelson’s objects don’t only provide eco-commentary but feel more attuned to a futurist sensibility that is not weighed down by doom and gloom.

Her small sculptures remind me of African folk objects that are fashioned out of tin cans or other unorthodox materials on hand. Some of the pieces are covered with wax (or resin? not sure) that hides the seams of its construction. Mendelson’s objects are tapped into some skewed pseudo-futurist vision where trash will be revered for its beauty — a form of neo-punk utopianism that we don’t see enough of today.

In an esssay that accompanies the show, Matthew Seidman accurately describes the objects as, “Vessels warty, monstrous, elegant.” He goes on to make an interesting observation:

Two things are said to be the sign of human cilivization: the handmade vessel and organized waste. The womb and the asshole. Our hole life. And human desire is said to bend around itself. In speech.

I know, I can’t stop laughing at the “hole life” part but — while it obviously simplifies civilization for poetic effect — it seems accurate. There’s a yin-yang in these objects that make them fascinating.

Shari Mendelson is showing in Translations in the Ubiquitous Largesse at Sideshow Gallery (319 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn) continues until THIS SUNDAY JULY 18!

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience 30 beautiful, provocative, and poetic avant-garde films that are part of “21st Century Limited: Experimental Films 2000-2009” on July 18th and 25th.

Drawn from Film Comment magazine’s best-of-the-decade poll, six Sunday programs in July will showcase some of the most memorable experimental works from the first decade of the 21st century.

Published by The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Film Comment magazine has long championed film from the avant-garde in its pages and through an annual series it presents, Views from the Avant-Garde. For this year’s “21st Century Limited,” the magazine tapped a 46-strong international group of curators, critics, and artist/educators to generate a list of the best of the first decade of the 21st century.

In this powerful and wide-ranging selection of avant-garde favorites, you’ll see work by Peter Hutton, Stan Brakhage, Cannes-winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Bruce Conner, Robert Beavers, Miranda July, Lewis Klahr, Peggy Ahwesh, Peter Kubelka, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jeanne Liotta, David Gatten, Peter Tscherkassky, Michael Robinson, Phil Solomon, Daichi Saito, Jennifer Reeves, Ben Russell, Tomanari Nishikawa, Pat O’Neill, Ben Rivers, Laida Lertxundi, Janie Geiser, Travis Wilkerson, Jim Finn, Kevin Everson, Leslie Thornton, The Speculative Archive, Stephanie Barber, Vincent Grenier. Plus, enjoy in-person appearances by film artists David Gatten and Jeanne Liotta.

21st Century Limited
Experimental Films 2000-2009
July 11, 18 & 25
Presented by Views from the Avant-Garde and Film Comment

SEE THE COMPLETE PROGRAM AND BUY TICKETS >>

See below for how to save $2 on your ticket!

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Stay Connected

Keep up-to-date on upcoming avant-garde films from the Film Society of Lincoln Center throughout the year:

• Sign up for their mailing list at filmlinc.com/signup
  (All new subscribers the avant-garde/experimental list will also recieve a code for $2 off tickets)

• Follow @filmlinc on Twitter,
  (Tweet about the 21st Century Limited series and include @filmlinc and you’ll get a DM with a code to save $2 off the price of a ticket)

• Become a Fan of Views from the Avant Garde on Facebook

Entering its 14th year, Views from the Avant-Garde is an annual celebration under the auspices of the New York Film Festival, screening the best and boldest experimental film and video from around the world.

CONNECT TO THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

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