Unica Zurn: Dark Spring,The Drawing Center, NYC, through July 23rd

Unica Zurn was a German artist and author (1916-1970). Already an established author in postwar Berlin, Zurn was introduced in the early 1950’s to the practice of automatic drawing, and to the Paris Surrealists with whom she would collaborate and exhibit, by her partner, Hans Bellmer.

Though largely unrecognized contributions to late surrealism, the resulting drawings and texts, the majority which were produced during an intensely productive two decades also marked by a series of mental crisis, are imbued with the movement’s fascination with the poetic force of madness and Zurn’s own vivid experience of illness.

At once playful and haunting, Zurn’s body of work in drawing evinces one of the most febrile imaginations of the past century, tragically cut short by her suicide in 1970.’
Source: The Drawing Center release for show.

If you’re a fan of Paul Klee’s whimsical drawings or simply just a great fan of art that deeply explores the private worlds of the artist and their imaginations which are wildly out of the gate, then this is a must see!  Go! See this show and be prepared to be taken completely!

Each one of the 50 ink and watercolor drawings on paper is so fascinating and intricately detailed you find yourself being pulled in at once and then wanting to seek out what exactly it is that’s going on.  She was obsessed with faces so they are many to be found here along with all kinds of creatures.  Birds, Fish, amoebas, snakes and dragon like insects morph out of human heads and bodies.

There are fossil like creatures laying just like they would be found embedded in rocks which seem to be awakened back into life by what appears to be massive amounts of cells dancing inside its body. Worlds within worlds teem with such profound and provocative imagination you will definitely feel as if you’ve been taken by her hand as she dove down into the very core of her being.

Jonathan Borofsky, Five Large Paintings, Deitch Projects, NYC, through June 20th

This was that kind of show that seriously! We both felt like we never wanted to exit! And as it was, we did hang out for some time.  Firstly, there was just a great marriage here between the space and the pieces so upon entering you already felt giddy.  I looked over and Erdal was shining with a giant smile and I all of a sudden felt acrobatic for some reason and couldn’t help but act like a ten year old kid!

Borofsky’s five playful and huge paintings all measuring 12×12 were the perfect scale for the cool white box that the gallery is. These paintings were so colorful, the palette so enticing I was quickly reminded of Matisse’s cut outs and felt just about the same sensation I feel from them which is lots of joy and energy.  I loved the compositions and also that they weren’t painted totally flat adding some depth, texture and light to them.

The white spaces are beautiful and share the same importance here as the colored forms. Barofsky infact refers to the white shapes as “light that connects us all together”.
With my own work I am so on the tail of the power of white lately I  believe I left there with the white spaces pulsating in my head just as much as the colored spaces.

About the Atist:
Jonathan Borofsky (b.1942), is an American artist who in the 1960’s sought to interconnect minimalism and pop art with his art.
Borofsky has become widely known for his large-scale public sculptures like Walking to the Sky that was installed at Rockefeller Center in 2004. Most recently, Borofsky has completed the 65-foot People Tower for the Beijing Olympics, as well as a 100-foot version Walking to the Sky for the city of Seoul. A 36-foot tall sculpture from the Human Structures series was recently installed at 555 Mission Street in San Francisco.
Prior to focusing on art in the public realm, his site-specific gallery and museum installations in the 1970s and 80s redefined the way art was installed and experienced.

The Human Structure series, which he began developing in 1999, focuses on the notion of humanity building itself. Like his complex installations of the past where all the seemingly disparate elements were linked together by his systematic ritual of counting numbers, the work in Five Large Paintings shown in this show unites Borofsky?s humanistic focus with his structural concerns to create something that is considerably greater than both.

Borofsky continues to express the most integral theme in all of his work-that everything is connected, and that all is one.
Source: http://www.deitch.com

Francesco Clemente: A History of the Heart in Three Rainbows, Deitch Projects, NYC through May 30th

This has always been one of my favorite galleries; it’s enormous, with incredible natural light and always feels charmingly raw to me.  We walk in and I see these extra large watercolors and at first I feel overwhelmed and go sit on these cool little bleacher stairs they put in in the middle of space and I am able to relax and focus more from this point of view.  I love the idea of these watercolors because watercolor is simply impossible to correct so you know there’s not much in the way of doubt or insecurities -as Clemente cites one of Ginsberg’s mantras, ‘First thought – best thought’.  I think the choice of medium is perfect here not only because they are so spiritual but because you feel like you can enter in easily with the airy and lucid qualities of the watercolor.

There is much to feel from these as they take you on a journey into his mind where we see the heart is the lead character, a generative power that brings a proliferation of images and luminosity.
In Clemente’s narrative the heart goes from isolation to fragmentation, to entanglement and then finally to freedom, transformation and metamorphosis and it is his belief that one should only follow paths that have a heart.  I am so grateful I caught this amazing show.  I have always been intrigued by Clemente since the 1980’s.

Francesco Clemente (born 23 March 1952) is an Italian painter.
In this show, A History of The Heart in Three Rainbows, a monumental suite of large-scale watercolor paintings by Francesco Clemente, wrap around the perimeter of the gallery, creating an atmosphere of contemplation and ritual.  The work continues the artist’s ongoing project of transforming spiritual life experience into art. The lightness of the rainbow represents a breakthrough from the darkness, from the long night of the artist’s darker palette.

For Clemente, the rainbow is a bridge, a structure to bring things together, like religion in its original sense. The rainbow represents the necessity to connect different worlds. The translucence of the rainbow connects with the translucence of watercolor. The rainbow unmasks the nature of light and watercolor brings the light out of paper. In watercolor, the artist does not build the highlights – they are the parts the artist does not touch. The light is behind the paint.

The artist considers his paintings to be ritual implements. They function as mnemonics, keys to remembering the practice of daily ritual. The harlequin that appears in the narrative is an icon of the fragmentation of self, a surrogate for the artist and a link to man’s primeval nature. The artist notes that the earliest image of a harlequin is a man covered in leaves. The webs, cages and fences in the paintings may mean confinement, but they also connote the interrelationship of all things, and ultimately, freedom.
Source: http://www.deitch.com

www.florencebiennale.org

I have just received an invitation from the Internal Committee to participate in the next International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Florence Italy 2009.  This is very exciting! I am very honored to be invited, the thing is though, artists are expected to cover the expenses of their exhibit through private or public sponsors plus their own funds, because of this I am seeking sponsorship in a big way!  The private and public sponsors names and logos will be printed in the first pages of the general cataloque as well as on their website.

The Florence Biennale is a very important exhibition held in the historical Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy that was started in 1997 and takes place every two years.  At the last Biennale, 816 artists in 73 nations with different ethnic, linguistic, and religious traditions, found through art a common language with which to communicate their cultural values in perfect harmony.

During the Biennale of 2003 David Hockney was awarded and in 2007 Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Richard Anuszkiewicz were awarded with the Lorenzo il Magnifico award.

]]> http://www.miccicohan.net/blog/news-invited-to-the-florence-biennale-2009/feed/ http://www.miccicohan.net/blog/of-sound-and-vision-the-passionate-fury-and-the-mixed-tape/ http://www.miccicohan.net/blog/of-sound-and-vision-the-passionate-fury-and-the-mixed-tape/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:39:06 +0000 Micci Cohan http://www.miccicohan.net/blog/?p=378 OK, it’s time to jog that memory of yours! remember that beautiful invention called the cassette tape, the feel of it, shopping for it, what it felt like to put it in the stereo and push play, rewind etc. What it felt like to make a mixed one? How you could so intensely express yourself with it and give it to someone and it being the best gift ever because time and heart were put into it.

My mixed tapes for Mugsy's Chow Chow Restaurant,East Village,NYC

How about the feeling you had when you got one from a friend, their imprint being on those chosen songs forever.  How cheap and easy it was to carry around or throw around or at certain times unknowingly stomp or spill on it and the thing still played.  And lastly, who can ever forget their very first mammoth, gigantor size Walkman ? Darn! I wish I’d kept that one! I definitely would pay homage to it somehow, someway.

I think mine was made out of kryptonite and  sometimes felt like I was carrying around a wee little babe.  I would have lugged that thing around though if it weighed 10 pounds quite frankly, because I was such music addict and still am one!

Over the last couple of years I’d be cleaning out my ‘goodies from the past’ trunk and get so stuck when I’d see my giant bag of mixed tapes I had made over the years bursting out of their bag and would question whether to keep them or not because wow! It would be nice to have all that extra space in there.

Now though, as time has trickled on a bit I’m shocked that I could have even meditated on such a thought!  What was I thinking!  All those hours and hours creating them, not only recording them but making the covers too, after all, these were souvenirs of that chapter in my life and I just had this gut feeling that one day I’m going to have the chance somehow to play them again and be really grateful I kept them after all.

Mugsy’s Chow Chow Menu Cover 1994

My love for mixed tapes hit a peak when from 1994-2001 I became a co-owner of a restaurant, Mugsy’s Chow Chow in the East Village.  I’d pretty much say I was slightly addicted to making them but who wouldn’t have been when all of the sudden you have a venue to have them be played and heard! Keep in mind it was to say the least, a little wilder down here and that went for dining too.

From the start I approached the restaurant business with the idea every detail matters as I knew it to be the key in making a place successful so I focused hard on that fact, music being of course one of those GIANT details.

Mugsy's Chow Chow, East Village, NYC

I spent hours and hours trying to create the perfect mixed tape for the customers.  I always had in my mind the notion, –OK, now they will sit and wine and dine for about an hour or two so choose a mix that’s eclectic and will make that time memorable to them and hopefully keep them coming back.  It was a challenging and satisfying feat! along with being the best outlet besides painting to relieve some of the stress which came from having a restaurant.

The making of one 120 minute tape would consume me for an entire night.  Once started it had to be finished for the next day and with all urgency I passionately went at it until it was done.  Yikes! I now cringe at all the ciggs smoked during this time but hey, not wasting time going there, no regrets here, such is life and happy to say that addiction went out the door two years ago.

After coming from painting in my studio for hours I’d sit on the floor in my 5th St. railroad apt. right in front of the stereo and rock out tirelessly, having the best time ever taping tune after tune, recording everything from Punk to Soul to Rock to Jazz, World, Blues, Trip Hop, and so forth.  This was the early 90’s when you could still blast your music and nobody would freak out because everyone doing the same.  Having the best music store around the corner on 4rth St., Other Music, which is still there, helped loads because they carried an awesome array of rare imports and just an amazing selection.  Music stores and their demise and the dying out of the actual experience of going shopping for music-that’s another blog all together.

Mugsy's Chow Chow Mixed Music Tapes, East Village, NYC

In terms of creativity, the whole process was very similar to collaging with my art but I was now using various music to collage with, music became the medium.  I was putting songs next to each other back to back, different genres, trying to make that magic relationship between them while also taking people on a rhythmic journey just like I’d try to do with color and form, hoping all the while, ears besides mine will also dig these tunes.

Micci Cohan's Mixed Music Tape Cover

Here are a couple of Titles of the mixed tapes: Flat 5, Mugsy’s Mania Main Dish, The Sugar Baby Slush Mix, Stuff It, Booty and Risotto, Chow Chow Chunk Vol.1,Toro Mix, Where’s Brian? Mix, Late Nite Lucky Lady Mix, Hotel Hote Mix, Hot Swank Mix, Stuff it, Slippery Eel, Baltic 97, The Turkish Oval Mix, The Suite Bombay,Wagon Bar Mix, Kit-Kat Mix-

Mugsy's Chow Chow Mixed Music Tape Covers East Village, NYC

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Stingwray, Baby Blue - Fine Art Necklace

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Deuce - Fine Art Necklace

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Topkapi Palace VI - Fine Art Necklace

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Seated Nude,(Egon Schiele study)-Original Fine Art Painting ,2009

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