New Museum's 2015 Triennial; Wave and Particle at Feldman

Komar & Melamid, Super Objects: Super Comfort
for Super People, 1977

Eva Kotatkova, Not How People Move But What Moves Them, 2013
Photo: Susan Yung

The New Museum's triennial, entitled Surround Audience, culls art by more than 50 creators from 25 countries. It's far too dense to absorb in one visit, but even if that's all you do, you'll come away with a snapshot of what's happening around the world, and some strong impressions of work that concerns the global environment as well as political, social, and economic issues. Here are a few that stuck with me. 

Antoine Catala's Distant Feel is a mesmerizing sculptural installation comprising sea creatures living on the characters "E3." The plumbing and filtration are integrated into the piece, lit by deep blue neon.

Antoine Catala, Distant Feel, 2015. 
Photo: Susan Yung

Eva Kotalkova's nostalgic room-sized installation of objects and artifacts that slide between function, torture, and whimsy. Performers demonstrate some of the pieces at work. (I was unavoidably reminded of Komar & Melamid's series of Super Objects from the 1970s.)

Shreyas Karle's installation of relic-like objects, in a separate room, felt related to Kotalkova's work. This repository of small objects made of copper, plaster, and other assorted materials keyed off of both sexual and religious fetishes.

Juliana Huxtable's inkjet print series, Universal Crop Tops for All the Self Canonized Saints of Becoming, feel like surreally accurate depictions of sci-fi fiction, with their hyperreal, idealized women amid unfamiliar environments.

Eduardo Navarro, Timeless Alex. Photo: Benoit Palley

Frank Benson's Juliana is a partner piece, by intent or proximity, that occupies front and center on the second floor. It's a lustrous, life-sized sculpture that parallels Huxtable's women; its media is listed as "painted Accura ® Xtreme Plastic rapid prototype," for what it's worth.

Onejoon Che's installation depicts a series of heroic monuments in Africa, built by a North Korean company. They could be in a number of locations where propaganda has thrived, recording some kind of universal language for terrible public art.

Eduardo Navarro's Timeless Alex combines a sense of poetry in its title as well as the concept—a costume that replicates an extinct Galapagos tortoise, which performers will don and move about in. 

Brian Knep, Healing #1. Photo: Feldman Gallery

Wave and Particle, a group show at Ronald Feldman Gallery through March 21, showcases work by artists funded by Creative Capital. It's a terrific survey of artists who may not be brand new names, as many in the Triennial are (to me, in any case), but their inclusion in such a show means they have earned a number of accolades. 

A number incorporate video or photography, such as Brian Knep's Healing #1, an interactive floor piece that you can rearrange by walking across.

A few other highlights: Shih-Chieh Huang's Nocturne-II, a joyous mixed media mechanized sculpture whose plastic sleeve arms inflate like a comical octopus; Jason Salavon's eerie Rembrandt and Velasquez sin rostro portraits; and Ken Gonzales-Day's haunting wallpaper photograph of a tree, After the Crowd. With art fair madness about to begin, this show is well worth a visit.

Glorious Notorious, A Chronicle of Dance Artists

Cristina Moura (2007)

Peggy Jarrell Kaplan's exhibition at Ronald Feldman Gallery in Soho, Glorious Notorious (through Dec 21) chronicles the choreographers and performers who have defined our near-past and current cultural lives. Rather than focus on the body in motion, instead the 50 photographic portraits peer into the artists' psychological states as seen through their piercing gazes, or playfully posed with a prop or in a gesture or movement. A densely packed corner installation features artists shot in South Africa earlier this year. Several videos play, including of Trajal Harrell and Daniel Linehan, bright stars in the current dance galaxy.

1993—So Near, So Far

 Daniel Joseph Martinez, Museum Tags: Second Movement (Overture) or Overture con Claque – Overture with Hired Audience Members 1993 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1993. Metal and enamel on paint, 12 x 15 in (30.5 x 38.1 cm). Courtesy the artist and Simon Preston, New York 

How can 1993 be 20 years ago? Doesn't it seem like the stylistic differences between decades has slowed down, or is it just a side effect of getting old? Think about the difference between 1950 and 1970; 1960 and 1980; 1970 and 1990.... and then around the millennium, it seems to hit the brakes. Maybe it's because the electronic revolution had a one-generation "blast" effect; maybe because 9/11 just arrested everything... maybe there just isn't enough distance yet. 

In any case, the New Museum's NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (through May 26, 2013) focuses on that year, and on a number of artists who were included in that Whitney Biennial, which was among the most controversial in memory. (Remember Daniel Joseph Martinez's I Can't Ever Imagine Wanting To Be White buttons?) Activism was still extremely strong, riding on the previous decades' successive waves of civil, women's, and gay rights, and in reaction to the AIDS plague. But the early 90s also seemed to be a segue into a slicker, more commercial period: factory or guild-style production and large-scale photography gained prevalence, plus a move away from issue art. 

Curators Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, Jenny Moore, and Margot Norton have chosen a multitude of artworks with a message. On a personal note, I worked at Ronald Feldman Gallery then, and was moved to see works by Ida Applebroog, Suzanne McClelland, Hannah Wilke, and Pepon Osorio included in 1993. They all have had a connection with Feldman, which generally speaking shows conceptual or thoughtful issue-oriented work, or art that's based on scientific research or experimentation.

 Ida Applebroog, Kathy W, 1992. Oil on canvas, 110 x 90".

 Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, New York. 

Photo: Dennis Cowley 

Included is one of Applebroog's Marginalia series, comprising small panels in shades of dried blood that form fractured portraits of odd characters, and Kathy W, one of the artist's tamer paintings, of a Santa surrounded by figures. McClelland's painting, Alright, Alright, Alright, is a fine example of how she works on many levels, playing with language, swooping abstract forms, and variegated surfaces. And Wilke's two photo self-portraits—one taken when healthy, the other after undergoing treatment for cancer—show the same indominitable spirit that powered her work til her early death, only in vastly differing states.

There are major installations by Felix Gonzales-Torres, Cady Noland, Jason Rhoades, and Pepon Osorio, the latter two with a predeliction for apparent chaos. The work of Gonzales-Torres, who died in 1996, elegantly bridges the wonkiness of 80s' conceptual work and the slickness of the late 20th century, often using mundane items to raise questions of consumerism, capitalism, ownership, and originality. Rhoades, who also died relatively young, made primarily abstract 3D works using found materials; these items had the added bonus of imbuing associated meaning to be accepted or discarded. Osorio is known for his elaborate installations, and here, The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?), is wedged into a corner, forcing the viewer closer to inspect the elaborate interior and police detritus. 

Janine Antoni shows a large installation of busts made of soap and chocolate. Like Gonzales-Torres, her work managed to encapsulate both issues and slickness in a way that very much represented the time. Robert Gober, Charles Ray, and Mike Kelley, conceptual pranksters with a slick side, could fall into this group. And Nari Ward's installation of abandoned strollers is at the annex on the Bowery.

Art will always be of its time and contain issues and statements. 1993 gives one pause for reflection on the swift passing of time, the compression of generations, and provides a quick stroll down Memory Lane. 

Soho Galleries: From Josef to Jason, 4/13/10

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Soho Gallery roundup.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/visual-art/soho-galleries-from-josef-to-jason/826/

A sampling of galleries in Soho last weekend showed some very different trends and traditions, and some intriguing coincidences. At Peter Blum is Josef Albers’ Formulation : Articulation, 1972, a suite of 127 silkscreens paired off in folders. Essentially an overview of his body of work, it is displayed in vitrines that line the gallery’s walls. Most familiar are the three nesting squares in varying shades of one hue, alongside organic shapes emphasizing positive/negative, and his powerful interlocking grids of bars and squares.

Down Wooster Street is Premonitions, a show of Jules de Balincourt’s paintings at Deitch Projects. These colorful oils range from representational scenes that feel either post-apocalyptic or celebratory; to some more akin to symbolism or propaganda posters. A bunch of people on motorbikes exit a huge tunnel—escapees? participants in a race?; nearby are temporary tents like the kind set up for galas, and an out-of-place modern apartment house. In another, crowds of people line a beach. Are they recent evacuees? Clambake partygoers? The potential dual narratives are fascinating. (I don’t know when Deitch turned into a wannabe “Gossip Girl” location shoot, but one painting in particular, Power Flower, became the contemporary art equivalent of sticking your face in a cutout hole over Superman’s body, with a line of people waiting to have their picture taken at the painting’s exploding center. Vanity amid apocalypse, why not.)

Armory—The Personal Touch Prevails, 3/7/09

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The Armory Show.

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/performance/armory%E2%80%94the-personal-touch-prevails/681/

Art fair fever grips the city this weekend. In addition to the smaller Pulse, Scope, and Bridge fairs, there is the mega Armory Show, which has added modern art to its contemporary focus, with more than 250 exhibitors. The Armory is located on two piers this year, with 94 (at 53rd St. on the Hudson) housing a majority of the contemporary galleries, and 92 modern work. The piers are connected by a soaring temporary staircase that holds 20 people, adding an element of daredevilry to things.

There are several tactics for galleries to follow. The most common is to bring a sampling of the gallery’s artists, generally mixing known names with unknowns. Going one step further, you can curate your booth along a unifying theme, by color or concept. Still another, and by far the most successful for me, is to go with one artist in an installation.

A standout is Ronald Feldman Gallery’s booth, #951 on Pier 94. For the past several years, they have featured one artist at the Armory, including large installation work (remember Mierle Ukeles’ mirrored sanitation truck? if you saw it, you do). This year’s work is by performance artist Christine Hill, entitled The Volksboutique Armory Apothecary. It is not only an apothecary in the old fashioned style of those found in Europe, but Hill staffs the counter to hear of your maladies and administer advice—“which path to travel, which salve to apply, which wisdom to seek.”