Art Hag

David Kramer: Essential Oils | Owen James Gallery

Time for a reality check. Artist David Kramer’s work showcases aspirational imagery juxtaposed with humorous yet sobering text, demonstrating that advertisers and social media influencers are full of crap.

David Kramer, New Meaning, 2019

“The paintings of David Kramer are full of self-deprecating humor, irony, and witticisms that question the conceits of adulthood and the artist’s own place within it,” according to the press release for Essential Oils, an exhibition of Kramer’s recent work currently on view at Soho’s Owen James Gallery. “Through a combination of text and image, Kramer melds nostalgia with disillusionment.”

Born in NYC, Kramer grew up in Westchester County. He studied painting at George Washington University in DC and received his MFA in sculpture from Pratt. He lives in Manhattan and for 16 years has worked from a studio on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. “I’m like the last artist in Williamsburg,” he joked at the opening of his exhibit last Thursday.

“At some point I found myself making sculptures that had really long titles,” he recalled of his early work. “Then I started to look around for images and I found myself really drawn to old Playboy magazines, old Life magazines, old Esquires.” Kramer’s paintings are influenced by lifestyle advertisements from the 70s, images hawking alcohol, cigarettes, and cars, “things that were all about desire.” He ultimately merged the glam 70s imagery with his trademark quips.

Since Kramer included models found in the pages of Playboy in his work, he was accused of objectifying women. “I was really just objectifying everything...money...cars. It was all about the American Dream and me not having it,” he said laughing.

“It was not really a complaint, it was really humorous and self-deprecating,” he continued. “So as much as I was objectifying all these things, I was really turning it all as a mirror on me and making fun of myself.”

David Kramer, Worst Enemy, 2019

David Kramer, Sorry. Not Sorry, 2019

David Kramer, Better In The Future, 2019

David Kramer's Clown, 2019 and Borderline Genius, 2019

Self-mocking one-liners abound in Essential Oils. Humorous phrases layered on abstract backgrounds are contradicted by “comments or opposing views that were generated through the process of resolving the paintings,” according to the press release. A colorfully splotchy canvas reading “My Own Worst Enemy” includes a tiny note on the bottom “…the moment before it starts again,” while a big bold “WRONG” centered on a leafy green backdrop features the footnote “Sorry…Not Sorry” faintly written in the lower left corner.

Text is the “starting point” for Kramer’s paintings. He begins with a series of drawings based on magazine ads or more recently, images he finds on Instagram. “These quick sketches always end up with some kind of text on them. These texts tend to be stream of consciousness comments. It is from these pieces that the texts on my larger paintings come from,” he explained. “I also sometimes hear something on talk radio, remember something from a conversation, or just luckily overhear people talking,” he added. “All of these contribute to my text.”

David Kramer, The Circus Is Running The Circus, colored yarn and burlap, 2019

Regarding his 1970s-style hook rug which features the ouroboros-like phrase “The Circus Is Running” circling continuously, Kramer explains, “I cannot fully believe that I was the first to have the thought 'The Circus Is Running The Circus,' but I did find it somewhere in my thoughts and then figured out how to use it, so I am going to say it is now one of mine. All of this swirls around somewhere in my brain and eventually ends up as the starting point for a new piece.”

A series of nine sunset images culled from random Instagram accounts also features Kramer’s sardonic musings such as: “This Is Totally A Vanity Project” and “Tomorrow…I Start My Apology Tour.”

“The sunset is kind of this ubiquitous thing that everybody puts on Instagram,” he noted. “I’m always trying to come up with these oxymorons that are kind of positive and negative at the same time, that are talking about this sort of splendid moment that is fleeting and will never be the same…. You can’t imagine how good it is because it isn’t that good. I’m undermining it.”

Works by David Kramer featuring sunset images found on Instagram

Even the title of his show, Essential Oils, is satirical. “I remember having a conversation with a friend about a person who made his fortune in essential oils,” Kramer said. “This led me to think of someone putting tiny drops of fragrant oils into tiny bottles and charging a small fortune for each bottle.”

Kramer thought of himself “spending a small fortune” whenever he goes to the art supply store to purchase “tiny tubes of paint” then “smearing all that paint onto canvases.” He reinterpreted the “idea of essential oils” and incorporated it into his “own self-deprecating machine” with the hope that his paintings will some day be “considered essential” as well.

His facetious, insightful jabs at society and himself are getting Kramer noticed, even by the fashion elite. Hedi Slimane, the influential fashion designer and creative director of Celine collaborated with Kramer on the brand’s 70s-inspired Spring 2020 menswear collection, featuring some of the artist’s graphics and bon mots on t-shirts and bags.

David Kramer at the opening of Essential Oils, January 9, 2020

“Humor is always the main ingredient in everything that I make,” Kramer insists, “even if I am the only one who ends up getting the jokes.”

Check out Artsy and Kramer's Instagram to see more of his funny and nostalgic work that will have Gen Xers pining for the good old 70s. 

David Kramer: Essential Oils
Owen James Gallery
59 Wooster Street, Second Floor, NYC
On view through March 7

Ai Weiwei | Deitch Projects

After a five year absence, artist and activist Ai Weiwei returned to New York in a major way. He was recently in town for a few weeks to open four gallery exhibitions (at Deitch Projects in Soho, Lisson Gallery and Mary Boone in Chelsea, and Mary Boone in midtown), give a talk with artist Tania Bruguera at the Brooklyn Museum (which I regrettably missed), and pick up a WSJ. Magazine Innovator Award.

Ai’s recent artwork has focused on the global refugee crisis. According to an interview with Ai provided by Deitch Projects, the focus began following the artist’s 2011 detention in Beijing when his passport was confiscated by Chinese authorities. Unable to travel, Ai kept “engaged globally” via the internet. For the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, Ai was asked to select for a book drawings created by refugees living in the Shariya camp in Iraq. In an effort to get more involved, he sent assistants to the camp to interview hundreds of people living there.

After getting his passport back in July 2015, he went to Berlin where he met with many recently-arrived Syrian refugees who inspired him to learn more and visit the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos that Christmas. The experience made Ai reflect on his own past as a refugee, when as a child, his father, the renowned poet Ai Qing, was “denounced as a ‘rightist’ and was criticized as an enemy of the party and the people.” His family was sent to a labour camp in a remote region of China where Ai learned what it’s like “to be viewed as a pariah, as sub-human, as a threat and danger to society.”

On view at Deitch Projects is Ai’s installation, Laundromat, consisting of over 2,000 items of clothing, shoes, and blankets Ai and his team collected from the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece where thousands of refugees, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, traveled through in the hopes of getting to Germany, Sweden, and other EU nations. Ai visited the camp, where he said “it rained constantly,” and spoke to many of the people there, took photos, and recorded what he saw, giving the refugees a “platform to be acknowledged.” When the Idomeni camp was evacuated in May 2016, refugees were forced out to different camps, leaving behind possessions which now make up Ai’s powerful installation.

“With a truckload of those materials, including thousands of blankets, clothes and shoes, all impossibly dirty, we transported them to my studio in Berlin. There, we carefully washed the clothes and shoes, piece by piece. Each article of clothing was washed, dried, ironed, and then recorded. Our work was the same as that of a laundromat.”

The gallery is packed with carefully categorized and neatly arranged racks of clothes, with a large section of the floor dedicated to hundreds of pairs of shoes. The walls are papered, floor-to-ceiling, with photographs Ai took at the Idomeni camp, and the floor is covered in his ongoing project, The Newsfeed, which has documented media reports relating to the global refugee crisis since January 2016 . Approximately 3,000 news items have been posted on a private WhatsApp group since January, and Ai and his team compile the daily posts, lining the floor of Deitch Projects with about 2,000 of these items. The project was initiated during the filming of Ai’s upcoming documentary about the refugee crisis, Human Flow, which will be released in 2017.

You can see the poignant Laundromat at Deitch Projects through December 23, 2016. Learn more here.

Chris Marker | Peter Blum

I loathe the subway.  I will literally walk miles to avoid having to descend into the dismal depths of the vile underground.  Chris Marker's Passengers, currently on view at Peter Blum in both Soho and Chelsea, features over 200 photographs of unwitting commuters on the Paris Metro.  Marker, also a filmmaker who produced documentaries in the 70's, frankly and vividly captures private moments of ordinary Parisians in public venues — crowded subway cars, stations, and platforms.

The photos, primarily of women (which I find slightly creepy and stalkerish and which reinforces my unease with public transport), show the subjects asleep, annoyed, lost in thought, crammed together like sardines, typing away on their mobile phones, and just going about their daily business.  The series "illustrates the various ways in which people create invisible walls and boundaries in order to cope with modern urban life," (from the press release).  The 90-year-old photographer, writer, director, and multimedia artist clearly finds and exhibits the beauty in his subjects and their actions.  Digitally tweaking and enhancing his images, Marker gives the scenes an added sense of tension and surrealness — further convincing me to put away the Metro Card and put on my walking shoes.  Learn more at Peterblumgallery.com.  Through June 4th. 

Peter Blum, Soho

Peter Blum, Chelsea

Mark Morrisroe | Artists Space

Mark Morrisroe: From This Moment On is the first comprehensive exhibition of the late photographer's work shown in the United States.  Born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1959, Morrisroe spent time as a teen hustler before attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1977 to 1981 and moving to New York City in the mid 1980s.  He was a member of the "Boston School" group of photographers (including Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Jack Pierson) and was a former paramour of Pierson's.  From This Moment On, on view at Soho's Artists Space, features a diverse selection of works by Morrisroe including Polaroid shots of himself and his friends and lovers, hand-painted prints, photograms, and cyanotypes.  "Presenting the post-punk scenes in Boston and New York through a lens of vivid and romantic degradation and decay," Morrisroe found inspiration in the "drag, cabaret, club and drug scenes," capturing himself and his cool, young subjects in "searing and frank portrayals of the display of selfhood, sexuality, illness and death," (from the exhibit's press release).

Morrisroe staged his shoots in ordinary environments like his bedroom, various apartments, night clubs, and many of his shots look uncannily contemporary—as if you could find the exact characters from these works taken in 70's and 80's walking around in the East Village or Williamsburg tomorrow.  Morrisroe is definitely the predecessor to Ryan McGinley, Jeremy Kost, and all the young contemporary photographers who snap pics of their trendy friends playing, partying and being fabulous.  Morrisroe was also apparently way ahead of all today's gossip bloggers—Issue 4 of his and friend Lynelle White's hand-written gossip 'zine Dirt from 1976 is on display and it's chockful of snarky dish on celebs.  I admittedly stood there and read the issue cover to cover.

Morrisroe died in Jersey City, New Jersey on July 24, 1989 of AIDS-related complications.  Though tragically cut short, the aritst's life and those of his many friends were vividly chronicled in his captivating photographs.  Learn more at artistsspace.org.  Through May 1st.

Self-Portrait, 1982

Untitled [Lynelle], 1981, Untitled, 1981

Clockwise from top left:  Untitled, toned gelatin silver print 1988; Untitled, C-print photogram 1987; Sailors I, gelatin silver print, photogram 1987; Untitled, colorized gelatin silver print c.1987

Untitled [Lynelle], c. 1979

Untitled [Pat], c. 1980

Untitled [Self-Portrait], c. 1980, Untitled, c. 1979

Left to right:  Untitled, c. 1981; Untitled, c. 1981; Untitled, c. 1981

Dirt [Fourth Issue], 1975/1976

Dr. Lakra | The Drawing Center

The Drawing Center currently has on view at 3 Wooster Street Mexican artist Dr. Lakra's first exhibition in New York.  A collaboration with Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, where Dr. Lakra had a terrific solo show last summer, the Drawing Center exhibit offers a pared down collection of the artist's works on paper hanging on walls covered in site-specific drawings.

Inspired by the imagery he uses in his tattoo work, Dr. Lakra also finds inspiration from anatomy textbooks, vintage pin-up magazines, and comic books.  Sepia-toned images of wild animals, wrestlers, biker dudes, hyper-sexual babes, and Day of the Dead-like skulls and bones adorn the vast white walls.  Visitors are immersed in Dr. Lakra's surreal world - his drawings marking the gallery's pristine surfaces with sinister-ish images of sex and violence like deep, indelible stains or scars.  Learn more at drawingcenter.org and see my post from last year on Dr. Lakra's exhibit at Boston's ICA here.  Read more on the artist at NYT.com.  Through April 24th.

Cui Xiuwen | Eli Klein Fine Art

The haunting black-and-white photographs in Cui Xiuwen's first solo New York show, Existential Emptiness, represent "the woman as individual in modern China" and illustrate the artist's "examination and analysis of the woman's psyche" (from the press release).  On view at Soho's Eli Klein Fine Art, the photos show a girl/woman, the artist's alter ego, posing on snowy white mountains in Northern China with a creepy, life-size, doppelganger doll.  "Companion, reflection, and baggage," the girl and the doll are one in the same, evoking "the duality of body and soul, yin and yang, life and lifelessness." 

Inspired by traditional Chinese ink painting, Cui's large-scale photos feature vast expanses of crisp whiteness with the two figures appearing on the bottom of the images.  The interaction between the girl and the doll—embracing, wrestling in the snow, reaching out to one another—conveys their co-dependent relationship and desperate need for one another.  The girl's white, hooded, toggle coat, plaid skirt, and white knee socks suggest innocence while the unclothed, battered, scarred exterior of the doll disturbingly represent "the violence of a woman's experiences and how they impress upon her spirit."  The expansive white space, or void, in the works adds to the tension and eeriness of the images.  The title of the exhibit, Existential Emptiness seems to imply that in examining her existence the girl comes up with zilch - an emptiness represented by her hollow, lifeless doll.  A precocious, young gallery visitor voiced his astute and morbid interpretation of Cui's photos this way—"Because the doll looks like her and she's hurting the doll, that means she wants to die." 

Born in Heilongjiang, China in 1970, Cui is currently based in Beijing.  Resembling stills from a sleek, psycho-thriller film, her intense, narrative photographs are stirring and powerful.  Learn more at ekfineart.com.  Through February 27th. 

Existential Emptiness No. 7, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 3, 2009, close-up

Existential Emptiness No. 5, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 5, 2009, close-up

Existential Emptiness No. 18, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 8, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 8, 2009, close-up

Existential Emptiness No. 9, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 19, 2009

Existential Emptiness No. 19, 2009, close-up

Matthew Day Jackson | Peter Blum Gallery

On view at Peter Blum's Soho space is California-born/Brooklyn-based artist Matthew Day Jackson's large-scale sculpture The Tomb.  Jackson's work reinterprets the Tomb of Philippe Pot at the Louvre, "attributed to Antoine LeMoiturier" and "considered one of the masterpieces of the Burgundian style of the late 15th century," (from exhibit's press release). 

For his version, Jackson substituted the monks in the original piece with astronauts made from "scraps of wood and plastic" which were "compressed into a block and cut with a CNC (computer numerical control) process."  The eight hulking, cartoonish figures hoist a casket, made of glass and steel, containing a skeleton based on the artist's body.  The skeleton's hands and feet were cast from Jackson's own, or are represented with tool handles, and other parts of the figure were composed from "biomedical prototypes, various industrial materials, and found wood."  A mirror placed on the top of the casket facing the skeleton reflects both Jackson's boney doppelganger and the viewer looking up from below. As the press release states, The Tomb "explores the interconnectivity of disparate forms and narratives" and also addresses the artist's theory of the "Horriful"—Jackson's "belief that everything one does has the potential to evoke both beauty and horror at the same time." 

The massive work feels almost celebratory and the pallbearer astronauts could possibly be marching in a parade rather than a funeral procession.  The piece is like throwing a funeral for yourself when you're still alive and kicking—may as well enjoy and appreciate it while you're still around.  The Tomb is on view concurrently with another exhibit of Jackson's work, In Search of, at Peter Blum's Chelsea space.  Learn more at Peterblumgallery.com.  Through November 13th.

The Tomb, 2010

The Tomb, 2010

The Tomb, 2010

The Tomb, view from underneath, 2010

Roman Signer | Swiss Institute

"I'm no scientist, I'm a tinkerer," so says Swiss artist Roman Signer who creates much of his artwork in his studio, which he calls his "lab," and often embarks on excursions to the Swiss mountains "to conduct larger experiments" (from show's press release) which he documents in video and photographs.  Three of these films are currently on view in Four Rooms, One Artist at the Swiss Institute.  In one room, videos are projected onto three walls—Shirt (2010) shows a white, button-up shirt traveling up and down a line in a wooded area; Two Umbrellas, Iceland (2008) documents two conjoined, open umbrellas being wildly blown around on a windy, open field; and Office Chair (2010) shows a white office chair spinning around in circles while standing in a river.  In another room is Cinema (2010), an installation consisting of rows of wooden chairs lined up in front of wall showing a video of "leftover" footage or "clips of experiments" shot by Signer.  A center chair in the back row is rigged with a wire to continually rock it back and forth.  Another room features Waiting for Harold Edgerton (2010) a minimal installation showing a single red apple suspended in the center of a white room.  The piece references Edgerton, the MIT professor and photographer who was "well known for his speed photography and perpetuated as 'the man who made time stand still.'"

Piano (2010) consists of a grand piano with its top removed and ping pong balls placed on top of its strings.  Two oscillating fans sandwich the piano and the breezes they emit move the ping pong balls around causing them to strum the piano strings "creating ambient music."  This playful piece is a perfect balance of Signer's curious "tinkerer" and fun "scientist."  As Four Rooms, One Artist's curator states, "Roman Signer has been creating unique sculptures for over 30 years, earning praise and recognition all over the world.  And he does not seem to run out of ideas."  Learn more at swissinstitute.net.  Through November 12th.

Two Umbrellas, Iceland, 2008

Office Chair, 2010

Cinema, 2010

Waiting for Harold Edgerton, 2010

Piano, 2010

Greetings from Mochimochi | Gallery Hanahou

Prepare yourself for cute overload!  Greetings from Mochimochi is an adorable, whimsical world imagined and entirely hand-knit by Brooklyn craft artist Anna Hrachovec.  Gallery Hanahou has on display Hrachovec's 8-foot "weird world of fun and chaos" (from gallery's website) influenced by Japanese Kawaii and meticulously handmade from 200 balls of yarn and over a million stitches. 

Cloud-shaped signs line the gallery walls providing brief descriptions of the various quirky characters populating Mochimochi, from the tiny, troublemaking, namesake Mochis to Self-actualizing Snowmen, candy corn-producing Gnomes, Hypo-Hygenic Hippos, Rolly-Polly Pandas, Mushmallows, Twees, Imposter Santas, and more.  Hrachovec has created a detailed, colorful, wooly world so charming that even the Ants, Zombies, Ghosties, Aliens, Sailboats, Bulldozer, and Rat-infested City are painfully sweet and cute, however, Mochimochi isn't all sunshine and lollipops.  There are slightly dark and cheeky undercurrents seen in the Elvis-pompadoured God perched on a raincloud with Smoking Angels; a Unicorn-eating Swamp Monster; mob connected Mochis; and a black market of Gnomes selling beards to Imposter Santas. 

Several pieces from the installation were based on designs in Hrachovec's book Knitting Mochimochi.  On Saturday, October 30th (the day after the exhibit's closing) from 2:00-4:00, Gallery Hanahou will host a tea party and trunk show, selling most of the pieces straight off the installation.  This will be your last chance to see the wonderfully imaginative, witty, and smile-inducing Mochimochi landscape as a whole but you'll be able to take some of the cuteness home with you.  Learn more at galleryhanahou.com and at the artist's website mochimochiland.com.  Through October 29th.

Snow Mountains and God on Cloud set (background)

Self-actualizing Snowmen on Hill, Rat, Sailboat, Mochi fishing, Mochi on String

Self-actualizing Snowmen on Hill, Imposter Santas on Hill, waterfall, swimming pool with Mochis

Zombies, Ghosties, Twees, Ropin' Cowboys, Gravies set (4 graves and 1 zombie)

Train, Aliens, Desert set, UFO

Aliens, Rainbow, Unicorns

Swamp Monsters

Ants, Baby Rainbow Slugs, Twee, Mochi, Mushmallows

Mushmallow set with Gnomes

Rolly-Polly Panda Cornfield

Rat-infested City

Bulldozer and cow

Objets d'Art | News

~Butoh at the Joyce - I've never been very interested in dance performances, but when a friend invited me to see the Japanese Butoh dancers Sankai Juku perform their 2008 piece, Tobari As if in an inexhaustible flux, at the Joyce Theater last week, I figured "What the hey?  Why not?", and I'm so glad I did.  Performed by a troupe of eight, bald, male dancers whose bodies are entirely powdered in white (sometimes resembling marble sculptures, sometimes resembling ghosts, and sometimes stupidly reminding me of that movie Powder), the performance was beautiful, emotional, and powerful.  Everything from the graceful and controlled movements (which often released snowy wafts of powder), the gorgeous costumes, the dramatic lighting, and the music (which reminded me of a low-fi version of The Knife), was perfect and merged to create a poetic and hypnotic experience.  I know this description won't do it justice at all, but it's like a mixture of modern dance (minus the jazz hands), kabuki, tai chi, and slow-motion kung fu, mime, and vogue poses.  I know that sounds down-right awful, but the choreography is complex, fluid, and disciplined, and the overall production, that explores life, death, and rebirth, was elegant, evocative, and haunting - almost moving me to tears a few times.

Founded in 1975 by lead dancer, director, choreographer and designer, Ushio Amagatsu, Sankai Juku introduces a new work approximately every two years (!) and has performed in 41 countries and over 700 cities around the world.  According to the Playbill, Amagatsu's works present "an abstract vision of the infinite, evolutionary movements, the relationship of the body to gravity, and the relationship of gravity to the earth and the environment."  Butoh emerged in Japan after WWII and is attributed to two dancers - Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno (who died June 1, 2010 at the age of 103 and is featured on the cover of Antony and the Johnson's 2009 album The Crying Light).  Whether you're a fan of dance performance or not, go see Tobari performed by Sankai Juku before it ends October 17th.  Learn more at Joyce.org.

~Levi's Photo Workshop pop-up - Levi's just opened up in Soho a Photo Workshop - a "community-oriented space" that will host photo exhibits, classes, events and parties.  Open through December 18th, the space has a small shop area selling books, jeans, and jackets and more importantly has a fully equipped photo studio available for rent, vintage cameras available for rent, and rows of Macs and assorted printers for visitors to use free of charge!  Check it out at 18 Wooster Street and learn more at workshops.levi.com.

~The Simpsons Meet Banksy - I've gotten into the habit of only half-watching The Simpsons since the last few seasons haven't been as good as they used to be (though it's still a heck of a lot better than most anything else on television), so when I glanced up mid-way through last night's couch gag showing a dank and miserable Chinese sweatshop producing cheap Simpsons merchandise I thought, "Huh?"  Then when I noticed during the end credits that Banksy created the politically-scathing sequence it all made sense.  Had I seen his name tagged throughout Springfield during the opening sequence I would have saved myself some confusion.  This airing is very apropos to further irking China alongside Liu Xiaobo's recent Nobel Peace Prize win.  Anyhoo, you can see the show's opening below.

 

 

 

 

Objets d'Art | News

~Alex Prager Directs- Los Angeles-based photographer Alex Prager has directed Despair, a vibrant and surreal four-minute short film starring Bryce Dallas Howard (doll-like daughter of Opie Cunningham, nee Ron Howard).  Inspired by the classic suspense film, Night of the Hunter (1955), and the 1948 ballet The Red Shoes,  Despair is set in LA in the 1960s and "was conceived as a living, full-sensory version of her photographic work."  Prager states, "I'd like to show the before, now and after of one of my images--that's really the concept of the film."  Directing films seems like a natural step for Prager since her photographs tend to be cinematic, dramatic, and bursting with color.  A still taken from Despair has been selected for MoMA's New Photography 2010 group exhibition opening on September 29th.  Learn more and watch Despair at Nowness.com.  Click here for my post on Prager's terrific show Week-End that was at Yancey Richardson early this year.

~Ryan McGinley Directs Again- Another photographer who has dabbled in short film is Ryan McGinley.  His latest, Entrance Romance (it felt like a kiss) stars an amorous dog, some unlucky goldfish, and model and very good sport, Carolyn Murphy.  Again, you can watch the film at Nowness.com.

~Scott Campbell Collaborates on New "It" Bag- Tattoo artist and fine artist, Scott Campbell, has teamed up with one of his A-List tat clients, Marc Jacobs, the Creative Director for Louis Vuitton, to help design bags for the brand's Spring 2011 menswear collection shown in Paris yesterday.  Read more about the collab at elle.com and check out the Vuitton collection at style.com.  Several of the boys were sporting skin-art on the runway and a couple of the bags towards the end were embossed with Campbell-like art.  Click here for my post on Campbell's first NYC gallery show, If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long.

~The Hole Opens- Former Directors for Deitch Projects, Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman are opening a new gallery called The Hole at 104 Greene Street in Soho.  Officially opening on June 26th, the gallery space will also house a retail shop - Holey Books, a cafe, and an artists' dating service called Hole Lotta Love.  Until The Hole's official opening, they currently have on exhibit Not Quite Open for Business, a show featuring unfinished art, poems and symphonies created by 20 artists.  Sounds like The Hole will be a fun place and a welcome addition to the Soho galleries.  Learn more at flavorwire.com. 

~Shoot the Piano Player- British artist Luke Jerram has teamed up with Sing for Hope to install 60  pianos in parks and public spaces all around the city in all five boroughs from June 21 to July 5th.  The installation titled Play Me, I'm Yours, started in Birmingham, England in 2008 and has traveled to cities around the world.  According to Jerram, the project aims to "provoke people into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape", and encourages Liberace wannabes to tickle the ivories and post pictures of themselves with the pianos at nycstreetpianos.com (where you can also find more info on Jerram, Play Me, I'm Yours, and piano locations). 

~A Bell For Every Minute- A shitload of angels are going to be getting their wings thanks to artist Stephen Vitiello's A Bell For Every Minute, a Creative Time sponsored, site-specific work created for the High Line.  The multi-channel sound installation takes place on the High Line in a "semi-enclosed tunnel between West 13th and 14th Streets, with sound recordings of bells taken from all over New York City and beyond" going off every minute and a "chorus of the selected bells" chiming every hour on the hour.  A map is available to help visitors identify the original location of each bell.  Learn more at creativetime.org.  Throughout the summer.

~Last Chance for Key to the City- This weekend is your last chance to pick up a Key to the City and explore and unlock 20 "secret" and unusual sights throughout the five boroughs.  Sponsored by Creative Time, the project is the brainchild of artist Paul Ramirez Jonas.  I really wanted to check out this project but June really flew by quickly and the temperatures have become uncharacteristically hot for this time of year and I've been characteristically lazy for any time of year.  If you're willing to brave the heat and humidity this weekend, pick up one of the 25,000 keys at the kiosk in Times Square by Sunday.  Learn more and see some of the things you can check out with a key at flavorwire.com.  Check out creativetime.org for more info.  Keys available at Times Square through June 27th (though the locks will be available through Labor Day).

~Northside Festival-  The great, free weekly L Magazine has organized a festival in Williamsburg and Greenpoint that's so huge it needs 4 days to fit in all the events including more than 250 bands playing at over 40 neighboring venues, 25 gallery shows, and 9 film screenings.  Among the bands playing are the hipsterific Les Savy Fav and Liars.  Learn more at northsidefestival.com.  June 24th through 27th.

~Inez and Vinoodh Celebrate Silver Anniversary- Dutch photography duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are celebrating their prolific 25-year career with a retrospective called Pretty Much Everything at the Foam Museum in Amsterdam.  The exhibit showcases 300 of the pair's innovative and sleek images taken between 1985-2010 and will be followed up next year with a book published by Taschen featuring over 600 of their photographs and an original piece written by author A.M. Homes.  Learn more and read a brief interview with van Lamsweerde at wwd.com.  Pretty Much Everything is on view through September 15th.  See my post on Inez and Vinoodh's Sculptographs show at Andrea Rosen this past April here. 

2010 Great LGBTQ Photo Show | Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation

Along with lots of other events celebrating NYC Pride this month, the Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation in Soho presents The 2010 Great LGBTQ Photo Show.  Showcasing the work of over 80 photographers from around the world including Lola Flash, Jess T. Dugan, Katie Koti, Molly Landreth, Greg Mitchell, Grace Moon, Eric Rhein, Robert Siegelman, and Lars Stephan, the show features a variety of photographic styles - portrait, narrative, stylized, erotic, documentary, and photo-journalistic.  Some themes the artists focus on include "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," same sex marriage, love, gender reassignment, sexual identity, sexuality, and more.  As the press release states, "The 2010 Great LGBTQ Photo Show provides viewers with a broad survey of what contemporary queer photographers are working on today."  See some of my favorite selections below.  Learn more at Leslielohman.org.  Through July 10th.  Happy Pride!

Thom Adams, Don't Ask Don't Tell Lt. Dan Choi, Arlington National Cemetary, Oct. 2009

David J. Martin, Faint Trace-1, 2010

Jade Yumang, Picnic on a Bit of Grass, 2005

Sophia Wallace, Ena and Sine, 2009

Robert Bianchi: The Estrangement (top left); Opposition (bottom left); Vortex (top right); The Supplicant (bottom right), 2010

Angela Jimenez: Same-Sex Ballroom: Petra & Caroline Chicago (top left), 2006; Same-Sex Ballroom: Bradley & Socer Chicago (bottom left), 2006; and Taschka Turnquist: Queerback (top right), 2008; Crybaby No. 2 (bottom right), 2008

Larry Schulte, Another Luncheon on the Grass, n.d.

Cynthia Warwick, Madame Clifford's Apartment, 1993

Amanda Morgan, Eye, 2008

Clayton Patterson at Esopus Space | Ron Galella at Clic Gallery

Two current photo shows feature pictures documenting another era of New York City, when glamour, creativity, and legendary parties were de rigour.  Clayton Patterson: Pyramid Portraits on view at Esopus Space on West 3rd Street, features never-before-seen photos taken during the mid-80s at the East Village's Pyramid Club.  Patterson (scroll down for my October 2009 post on his L.E.S. Captured show), a long-time photo/video/audio documenter of the Lower East Side and its inhabitants, took countless portraits of the drag queens who performed in Whispers, a weekly cabaret night at the Pyramid.  As Patterson states, "Up to that point, drag had been about referencing movie stars like Bette Davis or Judy Garland... but the queens at the Pyramid Club invented entirely fictitious characters" (from the exhibit's press release).  These characters (usually costumed on shoestring budgets) included "everything from space aliens to goth punks to suburban housewives" and were the colorful creations of performers like Tabboo!, Hapi Phace, Sun PK, John Kelly, Maze, John Sex, Sister Dimension, and International Chrysis.  The portraits, taken in the Pyramid's dressing room, showcase the performers' artistry, imagination, and innovation.  As the press release states, "these photographs document—and celebrate—the denizens of a dynamic, radically diverse Lower East Side, a community that would soon be decimated by the AIDS epidemic (and in the ensuing years, by relentless gentrification and development of the neighborhood)."

Esopus Space is an intimate, nonprofit exhibition and performance space located in an office building at 64 West 3rd Street.  Founded in 2003, the venue "provides an accessible and noncommercial arena in which creative people and the public can connect in meaningful, productive ways."  Learn more at esopusspace.org and learn more about Clayton Patterson: Pyramid Portraits at esopusmag.com.  Through July 15th.

Down at Broome Street's Clic Gallery is Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella.  Galella, the self-coined "bandit of images," is the original, pre-TMZ paparazzo, having shot countless, glamorous celebs since the 60s, most infamously Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis whom he regularly stalked and who ultimately got a restraining order on him.  Along with pics of smiling and/or partying stars, his candid shots capture Jackie O and her children off guard, Sean Penn punching another lensman, and Mick Jagger flipping the bird.  The photos on display seem to be primarily from the 80s, many showing Andy Warhol hanging around NYC and at Studio 54 with his famous friends.  According to the show's press release, "In the past few years, Galella has become recognized as one of the foremost chroniclers of twentieth century America" with many of his photos added to the permanent collections of many major institutions.

Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella is on display in conjunction with the premiere of Leon Gast's documentary on the photog's career, Smash His Camera, which debuted on HBO on June 7th.  Learn more at clicgallery.com.  Through June 30th.

Lypsinka, Sun PK, Olympia, Audrey White

Mr. Fashion, John Sex, Tabboo!

Sun PK, Maze, Alexis Del Lago

Exhibition view of Clayton Patterson: Pyramid Portraits

Photos of Andy Warhol (with Chris Stein and Deborah Harry; Bianca Jagger) at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photo of Warhol and Truman Capote at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photos of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photos of Michael Jackson with Madonna, Brooke Shields, and Janet Jackson at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photo of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photo of Penelope Tree at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Photos of Halston with Bianca Jagger; Lauren Hutton with Richard Avedon; Marlon Brando; Robert Redford; and Catherine Deneuve at Smash His Camera: The Notorious Photographs of Ron Galella

Leon Golub | The Drawing Center

The Drawing Center in Soho currently has on view a great show, Leon Golub: Live & Die Like A Lion? featuring the late painter's drawings made between 1999-2004.  Leon Golub was born in Chicago in 1922 and studied art history at the University of Chicago before serving in the army during WWII.  After the war, Golub returned to Chicago and studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his M.F.A. in 1950 and met his wife of over fifty years, artist Nancy Spero.  The pair created works that delivered strong, controversial messages opposing political and social injustices.  After living in Paris from 1959-1964, the couple settled in New York where they continued creating politically charged works based on current, global events until their deaths (Golub in August 2004, Spero in October 2009).

The Drawing Center is the first institution to exhibit Golub's late drawings and presents "approximately 50 oil slick and ink on Bristol board and vellum drawings" (from show's press release).  The exhibit also features an unfinished painting of two lions started in 2001, "preliminary 'background' drawings," and a selection of the artist's source materials and images collected from various magazines.  Golub's late drawings "mark a stylistic and thematic shift" showing "abstraction and representational forms... such as animals, species composites, and highly-sexualized females in dialogue with skeletons to expose his interest in human virtues, attributes, and shortcomings."  The textural and colorful drawings featuring lions, dogs, skeletons, erotic nudes, and text, focus heavily on death and mortality and are sharp and oftentimes humorous.  As the press release states, "The results are candid examples of an aesthetic immediacy and newfound freedom in the artist's late work."  Learn more at drawingcenter.org.  Through July 23rd.

 

Above:  Live & Die Like A Lion?, 2002



 

Above:  Post Modernist Bimbo, 2002

Szabolcs Veres | Spencer Brownstone Gallery

I thought I'd missed Szabolcs Veres' first solo U.S. exhibit Hyle at Spencer Brownstone, so I was excited to see it was still up when I passed by the gallery yesterday afternoon.  As the Spencer Brownstone blog states, the 27-year-old Romanian artist "turns the genre of portraiture on its head with wild, expressionistic, and monstrous works."  Veres' vibrant and violent pieces reinterpret "art historical themes of classical portraiture" and "break[s] them down in paintings that dramatically collapse distinctions between subject and object, and push his work toward a sumptuous, often disturbing visceral resolution" (from the show's press release).  His oil paintings "merge landscape, human and animal" creating nightmarish mutants.  The artist seems to have torn into his subjects and twisted them inside out, exposing their guts and innards for all to see.

According to the press release, the title of the exhibit Hyle in Ancient Greek translates to "matter."  For Aristotle the translation of "hyle" was "a more conceptual reading than a physical one" making "matter" relative and "one that is more informed by abstract thought processes than by the stating of clear, simple facts."  This reading definitely explains Veres' non-literal representation of his subjects and really makes you wonder what goes on in the artist's subconscious.  While his multi-layered, richly colored works display some warped, grotesque images, they aren't necessarily scary.  Through their ugliness, the figures appear vulnerable, weak, flawed, and human.  Learn more at Spencerbrownstonegallery.com.  Hyle was already extended to May 29th, so I'm not sure when it closes.  Check with the gallery first if you plan to go.

Porthunt 11, 2009

Porthunt 9, 2009; Porthunt 15, 2010

Untitled Hyle 1, 2010

Porthunt 16, 2010

Porthunt 18, 2010

Untitled Hyle 2, 2010

Untitled Hyle 4, 2010; Untitled Hyle 3, 2010

Shepard Fairey | Deitch Projects

Deitch Projects' final exhibit, Shepard Fairey's May Day is certainly a crowd pleaser.  From the throngs overflowing onto Wooster Street on opening night to the heavy daily traffic through the gallery, Fairey is helping Jeffrey Deitch bid adieu to NYC with a bang.  

The show's name not only refers to its May 1st opening date and  a "celebration of spring and the rebirth it represents" (from show's press release) but also references International Worker's Day  or Labor Day which is observed in almost 100 countries as a day of "political demonstrations and celebrations coordinated by unions and socialist groups."  With his large-scale, black, white, and red portraits of icons including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Deborah Harry, Nico, Iggy Pop, Joe Strummer, Muhammad Ali, The Dalai Lama, Cornel West, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Fairey presents revolutionary figures whom he admires for their political and cultural contributions.  As the artist states, "These people I'm portraying were all revolutionary, in one sense or another.  They started out on the margins of culture and ended up changing the mainstream." 

The term "Mayday" is also a "distress signal used by pilots, police and firefighters in times of emergency."  With this show Fairey is sending out a distress signal to call attention to the "political, environmental, economic, cultural" problems that exist globally.  As the artist behind the Barack Obama "HOPE" poster states, "By now we thought we would be in post-Bush utopia, but we're still having to call attention to these problems.  Like any mayday call, however, the sound of the alarm also brings hope for help on the way... If we stay silent, there's no hope.  But if we make noise, if we put our idea out there, then maybe we can make a change like the people in the portraits have done."  Learn more at Deitch.com.  Through May 29th. 

Parking lot across from gallery

Scott Campbell | OHWOW

Housed in skate shop Supreme's former storage space on Crosby Street, Miami's OHWOW Gallery has set up a pop-up hosting Scott Campbell's If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long.  The Williamsburg-based artist's first solo show in New York City features his signature "cut currency work and three-dimensional pieces," along with a few prints and hologram paintings bearing ghostly and glittery images of skulls, roses, and spiderwebs that remind me of much nicer versions of the AC/DC and KISS mirrors amusement parks used to give away as prizes.  Campbell's works made from layered, uncut sheets of U.S. dollar bills acquired from the Treasury are amazing and need to be seen to be believed.  Carefully cutting into the currency, the artist has created incredibly detailed 3-part models of a heart and human skull along with a series of framed, 3-dimensional images of elaborate patterns, hearts, butterflies, the grim reaper, or slogans declaring. "Ass Gas or Grass."  The intricacy of his designs and the precision of his cutting and sculpting is intense.  According to the press release, Campbell's "imagery alludes to mortality, yet sculpted from the currency with which we trade our time and energy" and that's typically equated to power and potency.  Campbell's painstakingly complex works remind me of Zane Lewis' collages made from pages and pages of fashion magazine advertisements.  The two artists create meticulous and stylish works using materials of cash and commerce.

One look at Campbell's skillfully composed pieces and there is no doubt he has a ton of patience and a steady hand, two necessary traits for his other craft - tattoo art.  Opening Williamsburg's Saved Tattoo in 2004, Campbell is a talented tattoo artist who has inked celebs including designer Marc Jacobs, model Lily Cole, and late actor Heath Ledger.  Campbell happened to be visiting the OHWOW pop-up the afternoon I dropped by.  The artist is heavily illustrated himself and very amiable.  He admitted to not sleeping very much when I commented on all the detail in his currency pieces.  His loss (of sleep) is definitely our gain.

Learn more about If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long at oh-wow.com and read more about Campbell at nowness.com.  Through May 30th.

 

Matt Campbell | Gallery Hanahou

As a kid, I was always more drawn to stuffed animals than to Barbies (though I always desperately wanted a Barbie make-up head), so it's no wonder I was so fascinated by Out of the Black at Gallery Hanahou. Artist/creative director Matt Campbell explores "the attraction/revulsion dichotomy in our disposable environment" (from the press release) by taking "creatures [that] have all been created, loved, abandoned and finally entombed in a symbolic black rubber skin. Wrenched out of the blue (the natural living world) and thrown into the black (the artificial or “dead” world that we create)" (from Out of the Black website). 

Campbell's sculptures of formerly soft and fuzzy friends transformed into tragic, darkened symbols of our shameful, destructive consumerist culture are adorable, eerie, and melancholic.  As Campbell states on the show's website, "They are sad but also, simultaneously, shiny and attractive.  I am struck by their iconic beauty — saddened by their bedraggled state. They’re Cute yet Dark — whimsical but cynical..."  He compares the creatures' contradictory appearances to human's paradoxical nature to create and destroy.

The little, blackened critters are sweet and ominous - each possessing a unique personality and oddly expressive, little plastic eyes.  Campbell's stuffed creatures look a lot like the disturbing images of wildlife you sometimes see on the news - when animals are the unfortunate victims of oil spills.  As the artist states, he titled his show Out of the Black because he is "hopeful that we’re now collectively heading somewhat in a new direction away from our dark past."  Let's hope he's right.  Learn more at galleryhanahou.com and outoftheblack.org where you can see a white, fuzzy-wuzzy stuffed bear being dipped into black rubber.  Through April 30th.

Black Teddy Iconic

Shiney Black Teddy

Black Moggy

Black Monkey

Offbeat Bear 

Droopy Black Bear

Shaggy Black Pup

Lil Black Bear

Black Teddy Ewok

Lil Black Koala

Tiny Black Dog

Blackened Dog

Jules de Balincourt | Deitch Projects

Jules de Balincourt's Premonitions on view at Deitch features paintings "ranging from laptop size to mural size, and dealing in text, abstraction and figuration," (from the press release).  In this series, the Paris-born, Brooklyn-based artist "responds to the changing cultural landscape with respect to technology and our collective imagination.  What ways do technology bring us together but also what ways do they alienate and isolate us?" 

Some of his figurative paintings, ie: A Few Good Men, Out of the Darkness and Into the Light, and US: As in You Me and Them, show groups of people congregating in outdoor spaces for unspecified and mysterious reasons - are they simply hanging out and enjoying nature or are they uniting for something more serious?  As the press release states, in de Balincourt's "world there is a very fine line between a promised utopia and an impending disaster, the works perhaps treading a line that we all unknowingly walk in real life."  The artist's abstract works consist of "fiber optic" arrangements with "chunky, taped-off execution" achieved with de Balincourt's "technique of thickly applied paint ripped apart by areas of tape [that] keep the frank and handmade element ever-present..."

The artist uses text in his works in a centralized way as in a command, ie: Move Together, or by using the words as a sort of frame as in Temporary Wellness and Speculator.  In contrast, in Dismounted, a horse stands amidst whited out spaces covering up once were thoughts the artist wrote onto the composition and later edited out.  Whether his Premonitions pieces are figurative, abstract, or textual, they all come together nicely to form a stylish and colorful series depicting today's youthful, techie world.  Learn more at Deitch.com.  Closes April 24th to make way for Shepard Fairey's May Day, which will be Deitch Project's last exhibition.  (Fairey will reportedly begin painting a new mural on the wall at the northwest corner of Bowery and East Houston today.)

Four years ago, de Balincourt started STARR SPACE, an arts space in Bushwick that hosted art and music performances, special events and parties.  Unfortunately, STARR SPACE is temporarily closed as de Balincourt deals with zoning issues.  Learn more at starrspace.net. 

Not Yet Titled, 2010

Dismounted, 2010

Hawks and Doves, 2010

Speculator, 2010

A Few Good Men, 2010

Power Flower, 2010

US: as in You Me and Them, 2010

Eyes of a Fortune Teller, 2010

Out of the Darkness and Into the Light, 2009-2010

Move Together, 2010

Ouroboros | ISE Cultural Foundation

If, like me, you steer clear of cineplexes and big budget, overblown, 3D flicks like Avatar and Clash of the Titans, you can still don a pair of goofy, cardboard glasses and get some impressive digital effects at Ouroboros: The History of the Universe at Soho's ISE Cultural Foundation.  Video artist Ali Hossaini teamed up with SWEATSHOPPE artists Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy to produce over 30,000 images that "combine to tell the story of cosmic evolution from the Big Bang to Lady Gaga in an immersive 3D video environment generated by SWEATSHOPPE's own software," (from exhibit's press release).  The "animated holograms, created by seven channels of video, within a 2,000 square foot gallery" were inspired by Hossaini's studies of "the psychology of vision" and SWEATSHOPPE's "interest in the hypnotic, meditative and mind-altering potential of the moving image." 

The dark gallery features one long, floor-to-ceiling projection flashing varying images of the solar system, war, hospitals, numbers, dinosaurs, and much more while three slightly smaller scale videos show colorful, kaleidoscopic, morphing shapes shooting off the walls.  The dizzingly trippy videos successfully deliver SWEATSHOPPE's "hypnotic, meditative and mind-altering" moving images that you cannot take your 3D bespectacled eyes off of.  Ouroboros is a cool, mesmerizing acid trip minus the drugs.  Learn more at iseny.org, Hossaini's website at artlab.tv, and at SWEATSHOPPE.org. Through April 23rd.  Extended through April 30th!