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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Claes Oldenburg at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Ice Bag - Scale C (1971) by Claes Oldenburg via NY Times
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is currently featuring a Claes Oldenburg retrospective The exhibition explores Oldenburg’s early career as well as his longtime collaboration with wife Coosie van Bruggen. The retrospective details nearly five decades of Oldenburg’s work.
The sculptor is best known for his public art installations. His work tends to feature very large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. The exhibit comes to a close on September 6th, 2009. For more information visit, www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com or www.whitney.org
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is currently featuring a collection of sculptures and drawings by sculptor Tony Cragg. The exhibition, which involves three floors of the Ropac space, involves new works in bronze, stone, stainless wood and polished stained steel. Cragg’s drawings explore his ideas concerning form-- specifically how new forms can emerge from landscapes and figures. Tony Cragg won the Turner Prize in 1988. The Tony Cragg exhibit will come to a close on June 13th, 2009.For more information visit, www.ropac.net
George Condo: The Lost Civilization at Musee Maillol
‘Father and Son’ by George Condo
The Musee Maillol in Paris is currently featuring the work of George Condo. The exhibit, titled ‘The Lost Civilization’, is part of a series of exhibits that focus on American painters. Over 100 works of art by George Condo are on display.
George Condo has an impressive exhibition history. For example, Condo’s work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the at the Tate Modern. Condo emerged within the same timeframe as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and other American artists of note.
The exhibit comes to a close on August 17th, 2009. For more information visit, www.museemaillol.com
Hernan Bas: The Dance of the Machine Gun & other forms of unpopular expression at Lehmann Maupin
Mystery Bouf by Hernan Bas
The Lehmann Maupin gallery is currently exhibiting a new body of work by contemporary painter Hernan Bas. The exhibit, titled The Dance of the Machine Gun & other forms of unpopular expression, marks Bas’s first solo exhibit in over four years. A retrospective of Hernan Bas is currently on exhibit at Brooklyn Museum as well. The Brooklyn Museum Hernan Bas retrospective involves the artist’s work from the Rubell Collection of Miami. The exhibit at Lehmann Maupin will come to a close on July 10th, 2009. For more information visit, www.lehmannmaupin.com
NYAXE Gallery Representation Winners. May 21, 2009 Exhibit
Congratulations to the www.myartspace.com artists selected for representation at the NYAXE Gallery. 3 artists-- Jane Fulton Alt, Leah Tomaino, and Miles Holbert, will have their work physically represented at the gallery. 17 others will be represented digitally.
NYAXE Gallery is located at 818 Emerson St. in Palo Alto, CA. The represented members were chosen from a selective-- ongoing --competition that allows members of the myartspace.com community to compete for NYAXE Gallery representation. The gallery serves as a bridge between the online and physical art world.
The NYAXE Gallery in Palo Alto, CA marks myartspace.com as one of only a few social art sites to have a physical presence in the form of a brick & mortar gallery-- as well as the only online art community to have a physical gallery presence in the heart of Silicon Valley. The NYAXE Gallery places myartspace.com members art within reach of some of the most powerful-- and wealthy-- professionals in the United States.
Catherine McCormack-Skiba, Founder and CEO of myartspace, notes "It's very exciting to energize the creative spirit in Silicon Valley with world-class contemporary art. The blend of the technology innovation center of the world, and compelling art is very inspiring".
The competition is free for Premium myartspace.com members to enter. Standard members pay a $25 submission fee. Myartspace.com pays shipping expenses to and from the exhibit for artists who are selected for NYAXE Gallery representation.
White Cube is currently preparing for an exhibit of Tracey Emin’s work. The exhibit, titled Those who suffer Love, will feature a number of recent works by Emin including a new series that has been described as erotic drawings. Those who suffer Love at White Cube will mark Tracey Emin’s first exhibition in London in over four years.
In a press release Emin stated that the meaning behind the title of the show is “self-explanatory” and that “Love rarely comes easily and if it does, it usually goes quite quickly.”. The exhibit opens on May 29th and will come to a close on July 4th, 2009. For more information visit, www.whitecube.com
The 2009 exhibitor list for Frieze Art Fair (www.friezeartfair.com) has been made public. According to the Frieze website-- details of Frieze Art Fair 2009, 15-18 October, have been announced by directors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover. The site explains that a fresh and exciting addition for 2009 will be the first presentation of Frame, a new section within the fair dedicated to solo artist presentations. Frame will show young galleries from around the world that have been in existence for less than six years.
Frieze Art Fair takes place every October in Regent’s Park, London. The fair provides an environment to introduce and showcase new and established artists to visitors from around the world. Frieze Art Fair features more than 150 galleries from around the world, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to see and buy art by the world’s leading artists. The fair hosts an annual curatorial programme, presented by Frieze Foundation.
Clare Stephenson -- Analysis & Reflection, 2009, framed xerox and collage on paper, 62 x 47.5 x 4.2 cm -- Represented by Sorcha Dallas
the qi peng dynasty (we are duchampions) at envoy enterprises
alexis granwell panel 1 (2009), ink on paper, 8.5” x 11" by qi peng
envoy enterprises is currently preparing for an exhibit involving the work of conceptual artist qi peng. The exhibit, titled the qi peng dynasty (we are duchampions), will involve a complex installation featuring a hybrid fusion between traditional works on paper and painting and cutting-edge new media art. The installation has been described as being based on the idea of autobiography loosely based on James Joyce’s novel “A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man” smashed with Facebook and Xerox.
qi peng combines selected “interview portraits,” which he has published through www.examiner.com as an online art project, between art professionals which he has met in real life or Facebook or Twitter or other social networking websites into a larger installation project. By delivering a cross section of the international art world, focusing on New York City and Los Angeles mostly with a small dose of his current hometown of Salt Lake City, the artist attempts to democratize how the public perceives any particular individual within this complex web of artists, art dealers, museum curators, art workers, and “slaves” who comprise this whole system of people who put together contemporary art for the audience. By displaying offset prints of these portraits like a digital version of August Sander photographs, peng attempts to humanize the art world as an antithesis to the glossy art market and blue chip players portrayed by the magazines.
edward winkleman panel 2 (2009), ink on paper, 8.5” x 11" by qi peng
This installation piece will present secondary documents that will reflect on how the artist’s first solo show in New York City became extant at envoy enterprises. Mixing together proposals, acceptance and rejection letters, critiques, as well some surprising documents that feature a Chelsea gallery, and a painting that is based on a prominent Brooklyn artist with overtones of the idea of “WWPD,” this work becomes a brave exploration of the politics of how exhibitions are created and galleries are curated.
This is a fairly dispassionate view of the artist’s subjective journey from a virtually unknown artist as a displaced New Yorker located in Utah into a slowly emerging artist as a small player within the international art world. He also highlights the challenges of an atypical Utah conceptual artist attaining both “critical affirmation” and “artistic defiance” with and against the somewhat insular New York contemporary art world reframed as the Garden of Eden.
qi peng states that there will be a surprise ending to the whole installation and a possible inclusion of the following events: an artist book signing at a table, an unexpected appearance of the Zero Dollar project by Laura Gilbert, a performance duel between Rick Herron and the artist himself, and guest appearances by famed bootlegger Eric Doeringer and collaborating artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton.
william powhida panel 1 (2009), ink on paper, 8.5” x 11" by qi peng
“the qi peng dynasty (we are duchampions)” is qi peng’s first solo exhibit in New York City. qi peng was born in 1976 in Queens, New York City. He lives and works mostly in Salt Lake City and sometimes in New York. His work has been exhibited at The Lab at Belmar, Anna Kustera, James Cohen/NURTUREART, Metro Pictures/Visual AIDS, modern8 gallery, and Projects Gallery. Currently he is represented by The Barbara Ann Levy Gallery in West Palm Beach, Florida.
envoy enterprises is a contemporary art space dedicated to the generation, presentation and promotion of contemporary visual arts practice. envoy enterprises' dynamic program of exhibitions, performances, concerts, artists' talks, publications, video and movie screenings, aims to provide opportunities for artists to exhibit their work within a context of current national and international practice. For more information visit, www.envoyenterprises.com
Emin at work. The cover image for the retrospective.
The Kunstmuseum Bern is currently spotlighting the art of Tracey Emin in an exhibit titled Tracey Emin: 20 years. The exhibit includes over 70 works of art. The exhibit was made possible by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art-- which compiled the first retrospective of the artist which is currently one display at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern. The exhibit marks Emin's first solo exhibition in Switzerland.
Emin is often accused of creating shocking art simply to attract publicity. However, the artist recently stated that her intention is not to be a troublemaker, stating, "I won't put up with any shit and I won't tolerate injustice, but I never make work to shock. That would be so easy. Anyone could go and shit outside parliament and put a little sign in it saying 'this is art' and it would hit all the newspapers. But that wouldn't be art. Not even if I did it!"
Tracey Emin: 20 Years will come to a close on June 21st, 2009. For more information visit, www.kunstmuseumbern.ch
Galerie Almine Rech is currently featuring the art of Aaron Young. The exhibit marks Young’s first solo exhibition in France and is aptly titled, Introducing Aaron Young. Aaron Young has received criticism in the past for what some described as “thin spectacle”. Others have described Young’s art as the embodiment of “art world decadence”. This is mostly due to a showing that involved motorcyclists who Young hired to drive over painted wooden panels.
Key figures in the art world may have not been amused, but the media picked up on the story rather quickly. That said, one of Young’s videos of a motorcyclist repeatedly cycling around the San Francisco Art Institute was bought by MoMA. Young also creates sculptures and drawings. The exhibit at Galerie Almine Rech will come to a close on June 6th, 2009. For more information visit, www.galeriealminerech.com.
Damien Hirst: The Blue Paintings at the Wallace Collection
Human Skull in Space (oil on canvas) by Damien Hirst. The painting is the cover art for the 150th anniversary edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
The Wallace Collection is preparing for a Damien Hirst exhibit titled Damien Hirst: The Blue Paintings. The exhibit will feature 25 painting by Damien Hirst completed between 2006 and 2008. The exhibited has been billed as “Hirst’s return to painting”. Sources state that Hirst’s work will be exhibited beside Old Master paintings. Of the exhibit Hirst has stated, “I’ve chosen to show my new paintings here because I love the fact that it is a family collection,”. Hirst describes the Wallace Collection as “a world away from the world.”.
According to the Wallace Collection website-- “The Wallace Collection is a national museum in an historic London town house. In 25 galleries are unsurpassed displays of French 18th century painting, furniture and porcelain with superb Old Master paintings and a world class armoury.”. For more information visit, www.wallacecollection.org.
Antony Gormley: ATAXIA II at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
Clutch II by Antony Gormley
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is currently featuring the art of Antony Gormley in an exhibit titled ATAXIA II. The exhibit involves recent drawings and sculptures by Gormley. The exhibited works explore different states of the body with ‘loss of control’ as a general theme. The exhibited work also explores how the body is influenced socially and physically by outside forces.
Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994. The exhibit at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac will come to a close on May 23rd, 2009. For more information visit www.ropac.net or www.antonygormley.com.
Dustin Yellin: Dust in the Brain Attic at Robert Miller Gallery
The Invisible Man by Dustin Yellin
Robert Miller Gallery is currently featuring the art of Dustin Yellin. Yellin is best known for his works that involve layers of ink and resin. His work has been described as permutations of natural life and form. The exhibit marks Yellin’s 3rd solo exhibition in New York. He has been represented by Robert Miller Gallery since January 2005. The exhibit, titled Dust in the Brain Attic, will come to a close on May 22nd, 2009. For more information visit www.robertmillergallery.com or www.dustinyellin.com.
111 Minna Gallery is currently preparing for an exhibit titled Berliner Unkraut,. The exhibit is curated by Gabe Scott and artist Jay Howell and will feature works by Johan Potma, Tina Zellmer, Mateo Pisa 73, and Evol. Berliner Unkraut, is scheduled to open on May 7th. For more information visit, www.111minnagallery.com.
Andy Kehoe: Living in Twilight at Jonathan LeVine Gallery
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is currently preparing for a solo exhibition of new works by Andy Kehoe. The exhibit, titled Living in Twilight, will feature a new series of oil and acrylic painting on wood panel by Kehoe. The exhibit will include some of the largest paintings created by Andy Kehoe to date. The solo exhibit at Jonathan LeVine Gallery will mark Kehoe’s first solo show in New York and the largest collection of his work in a single exhibit to date.
Andy Kehoe’s allegorical compositions are painted in a strict palette of rich earth tones beneath a fine layer of crisp black accents. His work often involves themes of alienation and the concept of finding peace in solitude. His isolated figures are often surrounded by the majestic grandeur of nature. Kehoe’s body of work draws inspiration from folktales and mythology. In his work the viewer observes visual narratives of the fantastic and grotesque. The exhibit opens May 16th, 2009 and will come to a close on June 13th, 2009. For more information visit, www.jonathanlevinegallery.com
Signal Gallery is currently preparing for an exhibit, titled Domestic Science, that will feature the art of Russ Mills aka Byroglyphics. The exhibit will feature large mixed media canvases that explore movement and the figure. It should be noted that Byroglyphics launched his career independently online by producing a series of prints that quickly captured the imagination of the public. The exhibit will be open on May 22nd at Signal Gallery in London. It will come to a close on June 13th, 2009. For more information visit, www.signalgallery.com.
Matthew Barney: Ancient Evenings: Libretto at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in Brussels
Matthew Barney’s ‘Ancient Evenings: Libretto’ (installation view) via Gladstone Gallery
Barbara Gladstone Gallery is currently featuring the art of Matthew Barney. The exhibit, titled ‘Ancient Evenings: Libretto,’ involves a series of drawings from a seven act opera that Barney is developing with composer Jonathan Bepler. The Barney & Bepler collaboration focuses on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings-- a novel set in ancient Egypt that chronicles the journey of the dead. Thus, the opera explores the seven stages the soul passes through after bodily death according to Egyptian mythology.
Barney adds a twist by focusing on a 1967 Chrysler Imperial rather than the human body-- Egypt has been replaced by a contemporary industrial setting. The exhibit will come to a close on May 9th, 2009. For more information visit, www.gladstonegallery.com
Sophie Calle: Take Care of Yourself at Paula Cooper Gallery
Sophie Calle, from “Take Care of Yourself,” French Intelligence Officer, Louise (2007). Via Paula Cooper Gallery.
Paula Cooper Gallery is currently featuring the art of conceptual artist Sophie Calle. The exhibit involves Calle coming to terms with a lover’s breakup via email. Calle has used the traumatic experience as a way to explore issues of intimacy clashing with mass technology. In the past Sophie Calle has explored similar themes. For example, she once hired a private detective to follower her at her own request in order to document the experience. The exhibit will come to a close on May 22nd, 2009. For more information visit, www.paulacoopergallery.com
Rosson Crow: FOCUS: Rosson Crow at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Queen’s Butcher Shop, 1910 by Rosson Crow
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas is currently featuring an exhibition titled FOCUS: Rosson Crow. The exhibit involves a small collection of Crow’s grand-scale paintings. The exhibit marks Rosson Crow’s first solo exhibition in a museum. In the past her work has shown at Deitch Projects, New York and White Cube, London. The exhibit will come to a close on May 17, 2009. For more information visit, www.mamfw.org.
Kunstmuseum Basel to exhibit ‘complete survey’ of Vincent van Gogh landscape paintings
Trees in the Asylum Garden by Vincent van Gogh
Kunstmuseum Basel is preparing to open an exhibit billed as the "the world's first complete survey of landscape paintings" by Vincent van Gogh. Though barely known during his lifetime van Gogh’s surviving paintings, groundbreaking painterly technique, and life continues to captivate viewers. The exhibit involves a collection of over 70 landscape paintings by the Dutch legend and will also feature landscape painting by a handful of his contemporaries-- including, Henri Matisse and Camille Corot.
According to Wikipedia, The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the largest and most significant public art collection in Switzerland, and is listed as a heritage site of national significance. Its lineage extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet purchased by the city of Basel in 1661, which made it the first municipally owned museum. Its collection is distinguished by an impressively wide historic span, from the early 15th century up to the immediate present. Its various areas of emphasis give it international standing as one of the most significant museums of its kind. These encompass: painting and drawing by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600 and on the art of the 19th to 21st centuries.
Fellow www.myartspace.com member Carrie Ann Baade is currently involved with a group exhibit at Dabora Gallery. The exhibit, titled Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists, features 15 female artists who explore surreal / mystical worlds within their art.
I interviewed Carrie Ann Baade for myartspace.com in 2006. Since that time Carrie has helped me with one of my youth art education fundraisers. In my opinion, Baade's art is a perfect example of what a surrealistic painter can accomplish today. Carrie's paintings have been called "Imaginative Realism" due to her strong skills in traditional painting. Her body of work captures the essence of Master works while embracing the heart of surrealism. This mix of 'old and new' comes together to create images that are both beautiful and alarming at the same time.
There is a mysterious beauty about Carrie Ann Baade's work. In my opinion, the world she creates is one of harlequins and jesters cloaked by a shroud of danger that can be observed just beneath the surface. When viewed as a collection, Baade's paintings become a masquerade: Anger, fear, humor, sadness, humility, and joy all wear their respected mask. They beg for the viewer to peer beyond their guise. Will you be so bold as to take a look?
Dabora Gallery and Phantasmaphile's Pam Grossman are proud to usher in the spring season with the group show "Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists," on view from March 14th through April 12th, 2009.
In literal terms, a fata morgana is a mirage or illusion, a waking reverie, a shimmering of the mind. Named for the enchantress Morgan le Fay, these tricks of perception conjure up a sense of glimpsing into another world, whether it be the expanses of an ethereal terrain, or the twilit depths of the psyche. The artists of "Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists" deftly utilize the semiotics of mysticism, fantasy, and the subconscious in their work, thereby guiding the viewer through heretofore uncharted realms - alternately shadowy or luminous, but always inventive.
About the Curator: Pam Grossman is the creator and editor of Phantasmaphile (www.phantasmaphile.com) the premiere online destination for art aficionados with a passion for the surrealand the fantastical. An internationally beloved art and culture web log, it features daily spotlights on artists and events, as well as interviews with such visual luminaries as Thomas Woodruff, Nils Karsten, and Richard A. Kirk.
Phantasmaphile was written up two years in a row on the Manhattan User's Guide Top 400 New York Sites list, and has also fostered rich relationships between Pam and numerous artists who have been promoted on the site. "Fata Morgana" is Pam's first curatorial effort.
Joanie San Chirico at The Ocean County Artists' Guild
Zona #2 by Joanie San Chirico
Fellow www.myartspace.com member Joanie San Chirico will be having an exhibit at The Ocean County Artists' Guild this April. The Ocean County Artists' Guild is a non-profit organization working to promote the arts in Ocean County drawing in artists and patrons from around the region. Their mission is to serve the artists and community; to provide an outlet and training for artistic talent, to enhance the quality of life for the residents and thereby attract newcomers, and to provide an attraction to draw tourists to the community. For more information visit www.ocartistsguild.org or www.joaniesanchirico.com.
Joanie San Chirico's work is unique in that it incorporates painting on canvas, photography, or stitching on textiles in such a way that challenges the viewer to decipher how the work was made. More than simple paintings, she combines these media to portray natural surfaces using imagery of this planet's fragile beauty. The work depicts ordinary objects, perhaps some lichen, rocks on a beach, dead vines; images from the artist’s travels or even her back yard.
Quoting the artist:“These little things are beautiful, and I never know when I'll find an interesting image or texture that I'll save for use in my work at some point. Please take care of these little things, as they will eventually affect the BIG things. My art is about raising awareness of the fragility of our environment.
Since 1982, a two-phase Superfund environmental remediation project has been ongoing at the Ciba-Geigy Site, now owned and operated by Ciba Specialty Chemicals, in Toms River, NJ where I live. As a result of the spill into the drinking water in the 1970’s, a cancer cluster developed which affected some children in the area. It is essential that we prevent incidents like this in the future.”
Nancy Pirri at Lillstreet Gallery and Serene la Femme
Fellow www.myartspace.com member Nancy Pirri is currently involved with an exhibit at Lillstreet Gallery in Chicago, IL. Pirri also has an upcoming exhibit, May 29th, at Serene la Femme. She will also be involved with a charity event on April 17th-- check her website for updates-- www.npgraphx.com.
Nancy Pirri (b. 1963) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and currently lives in Chicago, IL. She has dabbled in every art form since childhood, discovering clay to be her true passion in 1991. For the fifth year, she is represented as a House Artist in a local Michigan Gallery and also Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. She exhibits at many different venues including charities, and even curates her own group shows.
Her work is about women and how they survive through time. She works in several different clay bodies utilizing techniques that result in 'aging' textures. Ceramic print techniques continue this 'antiquity.' She fires her work in atmospheric kilns including soda firing… transpiring her art further into history as if her pieces were buried underground for centuries.
The Ceramic Print is an exhibition of work by artists who integrate traditional printmaking techniques like etching and silkscreen printing into ceramics. Exhibiting artists include Eric Jensen, Matt Harris, Nancy Pirri, Paul Wandless, Thomas Lucas, Marcia Adler and Nancy Anderson. Paul is also the author of Image Transfer on Clay, published by Lark Books. Lillstreet Gallery • 4401 N. Ravenswood • ChicagoReception: Saturday, March 28, 5 - 8 pm
Serene La Femme This collection of work is a contemporary twist on the timeless beauty of the female form as a muse, featuring innovative techniques in platinum photography by Ted Preuss, ceramic methods and figurative sculpture by Audry Cramblit and Nancy Pirri, and paintings by Mary Qian. Show will exhibit for 10 days.
Percentage of sales will be donated to The Union League Civic & Arts Foundation which develops and promotes programs that support education, civic responsibility and the arts for children and young adults in the Chicago Metropolitan Area.
For more information please visit serenelafemme.com or contact Nancy Pirri.
Andres Serrano declared himself the champion of fecal art in 2008. However, his play on human excrement is not very groundbreaking when you consider the 90 cans of ‘Merda di’Artista’ by Piero Manzoni. Manzoni ‘produced’ the contents of the cans in 1961. Manzoni priced the cans based on the weight of gold. The artist died a few years later-- a few months short of 30 years of age. Since that time the individual cans have sold for as much as $80,000. The Gagosian Gallery is currently holding the first major United States retrospective of Manzoni’s work. While Manzoni is best known for his canned feces the retrospective shows that there was more to Manzoni than 90 cans crap.
The exhibit at Gagosian ranks Manzoni as one of the first major artist critics of the art world-- art world criticism via means of creation. His radical brand of conceptualism took jabs at the art dealers and collectors who supported him. At heart Piero Manzoni was a critic of the commercialization of the art world-- one could say that he loathed it. The irony being that art collectors still pay larges sums of money for his visual criticism today.
I’m pleased to announce that Laurie Lipton, a fellow www.myartspace.com member, is currently displaying art with Santa Monica’s Copro Nason Gallery at the Pulse Art Fair in NYC. A piece by Lipton has sold to a museum for $38,000. If you visit the art fairs in New York be sure to check Lipton’s work out at the Pulse Art Fair. You can view Laurie Lipton’s art on myartspace.com, HERE .
I interviewed Laurie Lipton in 2007. The price of her work has drastically increased since that time. Lipton was born in New York. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986.
Inspired by the hyper-realistic paintings of the 15th-Century Flemish masters, Laurie's drawings are known for their intense detail. In a sense, pencils are her paint and paper is her canvas. Her work is smooth and appears to be almost photographic at first glance. However, a closer look reveals the intricate detail of her work. From thousands upon thousands of distinct, precise, cross-hatched pencil-strokes, Laurie builds up rich, monochrome tones. It is rare to find an artist who can draw as she does- I consider her to be a contemporary master.
I’m pleased to announce that Fernando Mastrangelo, a fellow www.myartspace.com member, is currently involved with a solo exhibit at KUMUKUMU-- a contemporary art gallery in New York. The solo exhibit, titled ‘LoVE is a smoke made with the fume of sighs…’ will be open until March 22nd 2009.
I interviewed Fernando Mastrangelo in 2007 shortly after being introduced to his worke at SCOPE. Since that time Mastrangelo has been exhibited widely in the United States, South America, and Europe. Mastrangelo recently exhibited at Moti Hasson Gallery in New York. His work will be exhibited at Volta this month. If you visit the art fairs in New York be sure to check his work out. You can view Fernando Mastrangelo’s art on myartspace.com, HERE .
Fernando Mastrangelo From the KUMUKUMU press release:
“KUMUKUMU is proud to present New York artist Fernando Mastrangelo's first solo exhibition, "LoVE is a smoke made with the fume of sighs…" The title comes from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Pursuing his overarching mixed media investigation of society, history, politics, and literature through conceptual precepts, the artist here transforms the gallery into a three-room replica of a sea vessel, including a corroded anchor, a fragment of a battered raft, and a sculpture of the lower half of a woman's severed body, made of cast sugar. The black heart carved into a sugar wall in the gallery's back room shores up the show's lovelorn underpinnings.
Overall, the installation evokes a lost-at-sea, wreckage-of love ethos, simultaneously romantic and dangerous. Positing the three elements of art as death, life, and love, Mastrangelo plays the dual role of the broken-hearted and sensitive lover and the macho, tattoo-sporting seafarer. The show includes a series of love tattoo drawings set in circular frames of cast sugar. Together, they dot the side walls of the gallery like portholes. Here again, the inevitable evaporation of love's sweetness is reiterated.
Conceived of as part of a continuum, "LoVE is a smoke…" draws on past projects in which the artist has used other symbolic materials often dealing with commodity culture. Staples like sugar, rice, coffee, and corn, as well as coal from regions of Kentucky, have been deployed in his work to specifically address energy issues as well as the wider abuses of political power. Through his metaphoric use of material, Mastrangelo is able to evoke myriad universal references as well as the particular relationships of objects and meaning across different strata of place and time.”
Hitch Hiker, a 1989-90 painting by Peter Doig on display now at the Schirn Kunsthalle via Tate Modern.
A Peter Doig retrospective is currently on display at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The exhibition features examples of Doig’s work spanning the last two decades. Included are 130 painted posters, 50 paintings and a few works on paper. The retrospective includes some of Doig’s most celebrated landscapes. This will be the third retrospective for Peter Doig this year. Earlier this year there was a Peter Doig retrospective at the Tate Modern and the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The current Peter Doig retrospective will come to a close on January 4, 2009.
Peter Doig has been very active in the last two decades. In 1993 he won the first prize at the John Moores exhibition with his painting Blotter. This brought public recognition, cemented in 1994, when he was nominated for the Turner Prize. From 1995 to 2000 he was a trustee of the Tate Gallery.
Portrait of Poitr Uklanski (1996), Elizabeth Peyton via NYTimes
The Elizabeth Peyton exhibit at the New Museum features over 100 works by the artist. The exhibit, titled “Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton”, will be open until January 11th, 2009. Her work can be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris
Elizabeth Peyton emerged in the early 1990s along with painters such as Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin. Her portraits are often characterized by elongated, slender figures with androgynous features which at times resemble fashion illustration. These portraits generally portray individuals that Peyton has established personal rapport with or portraits linked to her imagination-- individuals she wished she had known. The exhibit at the New Museum involves examples of Peyton’s work from the last fifteen years.
Peyton’s celebrity subjects have included Liam Gallagher (Oasis), Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), John Lennon (The Beatles), and Eminem-- among others. Her portrait of John Lennon sold for $800,000 in 2006. Peyton is often credited for having revived the tradition of portrait painting during a time when portrait painting was considered by many to be “dead”.
Meat After Meat Joy, curated by Heide Hatry Group exhibition
Group Exhibition runs October 16 - November 15, 2008 The flesh is weak but the spirit is strong. Using meat, as a material is most certainly an interesting concept with predisposed associations and references. Once passed a slightly sickening sweet scent at the opening there are interesting levels to investigate. The material is life and death symbolically of course but it is also a signifier something was and is no longer itself. Though it is almost impossible to get around the “spectacle” of the material, Heide Hatry plays down that aspect in order to dig deeper into the collection of works.
(c)Betty Hirst, American Flag 2008, Meat and lard on panel, 33 x 60 inches, courtesy of the gallery
Betty Hirst’s works are visceral chunks formed into sculptures. In Hirst’s“American Flag” piece she creates horizontal lines of meat and lard sprouting maggots deteriorating before your eyes within its frame. Possibly, we have come to this collectively, a carcass of ideals left to fester.In her work “Dried Baby” the meat infant is a basic figure with minor details alluding to gender. Faceless lying on a light pink satin material under a single hanging gallery light, small stains have begun to settle into the fabric. The disturbing warmth of the yellow light washes over the work as in a strange hatchery... (C) Betty Hirst,Baby II 2008, Meat, 14 x 8.5 x 3 inches, courtesy of the gallery
In Zahng Huan’s video “My New York 2002 – Performance Whitney Biennial”Huan’s meat suit is as bulked up as any contemporary super hero. He is now publicly fully exposed, vulnerable without the most basic protection of his own skin. (c) Zahng Huan - My New York 2002, Performance, Whitney Biennial, courtesy of the gallery
Carolee Schneemann’sMeat Joy (1964) performance in which both men and women roll around biting raw chicken unleash unabashed desire bound to the body but not exclusive to it. They roll and slide, playfully confident in their “being” without concerns of social or sexual pre-conditions and judgment.
Curious by nature, I oddly found myself wanting to touch the work to experience its texture first hand. Would it really feel different because of its placement in a gallery and presence as art object than preparing it for dinner?This is where the brain kicks in to add its two cents to the experience.
HeideHatry wearing a black jumper with thin slices peeking through cut outs invited me to touch it. Naturally, I did hoping to find an unexpected reaction. Still supple with a slightly dried thin layer, the meat against her body gave way as if I were touching something deeper. She had given me something which felt very personal, a moment to see beneath the layers of skin through the cut outs of the jumper. What she had given was a rare experience.
DANEYAL MAHMOOD GALLERY 511 WEST 25 ST, 3FL NEW YORK CITY 10001 phone: 212 675 2966 Tues.-Sat. 11am to 6pm www.daneyalmahmood.com
Artist Richard Serra poses for photographers during the unveiling of his new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in London October 3, 2008 viaReuters
Richard Serra is exhibiting in London for the first time since Weight and Measure at Tate Gallery in 1992. The two concurrent exhibitions at the Gagosian Galleries on Davies Street and Britannia Street in London. The Davies Street gallery houses new works by Serra on paper. The Britannia Street exhibit, titled ‘Sculpture’, involves three new large-scale steel installations and four smaller wall hanging pieces. The Serra sculptures at the current Gagosian exhibit weigh over 300 tons and can be viewed at the gallery until December 20, 2008. Born in 1939, Richard Serra is considered to be one of the most significant artists of his generation.
Ice Bag - Scale C (1971) by Claes Oldenburg via NY Times
Clare Stephenson -- Analysis & Reflection, 2009, framed xerox and collage on paper, 62 x 47.5 x 4.2 cm -- Represented by Sorcha Dallas
Kaye Donachie -- Every mornin' our love is reborn, 2004, Oil on canvas, 24 5/8 x 35 3/8 inches -- Represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery
Stef Driesen--Untitled, 2008, Oil on linen, 70.875 H x 59 W inches -- represented by Marc Foxx
Joel Croxson-- Echo Balls, 2009, Acrylic on Linen with wooden strip, 130 x 68 cms -- represented by Dicksmith Gallery
edward winkleman panel 2 (2009), ink on paper, 8.5” x 11" by qi peng
william powhida panel 1 (2009), ink on paper, 8.5” x 11" by qi peng
Fernando Mastrangelo
