Art Hag

Ryan McGinley at Team Gallery | Inez & Vinoodh at Andrea Rosen

There are two shows currently happening featuring works by some of the top fashion/art photographers working today.  The first is Ryan McGinley's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at Soho's Team Gallery.  The 32 year-old, New Jersey born McGinley is best known for his shots of friends frolicking out in nature in the buff.  Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere features crisp, black-and-white nudes of skinny, pretty, young things all shot in McGinley's NYC studio.  The photographer scouted out approximately 150 subjects from around the world and shot thousands of images of each, selecting one final definitive shot from each sitting to display in the show.  Every shot is unique in terms of the sitters' pose and personality as well as his/her level of chemistry with McGinley.  Along with the seemingly endless black-and-white nudes are four large-scale color landscapes, which according to the show's press release, "add a narrative backdrop to the exhibition." 

In 2003, when he was just 24, McGinley was the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney.  He has shot fashion editorials for W Magazine, a 2007 Oscar nominee portfolio and a 2010 Winter Olympics photo essay for The New York Times Magazine.  He followed Morrissey on tour for two years shooting the performer's young, adoring fans in the audience all aglow in ecstasy and stage lighting for his 2007 series Irregular Regulars.  And he shot a short film featuring Tilda Swinton for Pringle of Scotland's Spring/Summer 2010 collection.  Learn more at teamgallery.com and at McGinley's website Ryanmcginley.com.  Through April 17th.

Over in Chelsea, Andrea Rosen presents (in Gallery 2) Sculptographs by the dynamic, husband and wife photography duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, along with extra help from Eugene van Lamsweerde.  The small exhibit features photographs from Inez and Vinoodh's vast archive of images, reworked with some wires, strings, branches, and more, to create revised collage-like works, or Sculptographs.  It's interesting to see the artists add elements to their gorgeous, stylish photos of models and celebrities, in an attempt to give them new life.  The additions are so subtle, I'm not sure if they are entirely necessary, but I'm always happy to see anything new from the talented photographers.  Both from Amsterdam, the pair met in 1986 and broke into the fashion world in the early 90s shooting for every reputable fashion title and every major fashion house.  They've also collaborated with musicians Sigur Ros and Bjork.  The attractive couple recently shot themselves for Lanvin Men's Spring/Summer 2010 ad campaign.

Learn more at Andrearosengallery.com and at the artists' website airdeparis.com.  Through May 1st.

Ryan McGinley's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at Team Gallery

Ryan McGinley's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at Team Gallery 

Ryan McGinley's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at Team Gallery

Ryan McGinley's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere at Team Gallery

Ryan McGinley, Coco's Cliff, 2009

Ryan McGinley, Night Sky (Crimson), 2009-2010

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin, Eugene van Lamsweerde, Sculptographs at Andrea Rosen

Rosson Crow | Deitch Projects

Rosson Crow's Bowery Boys currently at Deitch Projects' Wooster Street location features bold, large-scale, oil, acrylic, and enamel paintings that "explore[s] the history of 'bad boys' in underground art and as an agent of culture in New York City," (from show's press release).  Rosson's works examine "the rebellious and lawless side of New York City history" from a "wild-style bombed" subway train and station from the 1980s to a "haunting red opium den from Chinatown in the 1880s."  More recognizable NYC landmarks that are referenced in her works include the Bowery Mission, the New Museum, MoMA, Keith Haring's Pop Shop, the East Village gay bar The Cock, and recent west-side hotspot, the Boom Boom Room.  Even Deitch Projects is referenced in a piece that prominently uses the bright colors of the gallery's logo and in another that depicts Dash Snow and Dan Colen's infamous NEST installation that was staged at the gallery's Grand Street location in 2007. 

According to the press release, the 28-year-old Texas-born artist who received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts and her MFA from Yale, "has always shown a marked interest in masculine spaces; she has previously painted saloons, gun shops, oil derricks, rodeos, stock market floors, and many incidents in the arguably male-dominated tradition of modern art."  While she "explores the idea of the 'bad boy' as fawned over by art audiences and celebrated in New York City history" with her dramatic, multi-layered, almost life-sized pieces "[H]er frank, punk, post-gender attack is more personal than political, and more imaginative than expository; or in simpler terms, more badass."  Learn more at Deitch.com.  Through March 27th.

Peep Land, 2010

The Dakis Joannou Collection at the New Museum, 2010

The Bang Bang Room, 2010

Bowery Station, 1982, 2010

The Pop Shop, 2010

The Nest, 2010

Untitled (opium den), 2009

Brucennial 2010 | 250 West Broadway

BRUCENNIAL 2010: Miseducation "brings together 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 discrete disciplines to reclaim education as part of an artist’s ongoing practice beyond the principals of any one institution or experience."  WHA?!  My math skills may be crap, but even I know that does not compute!  Well, that's what the press release says - brought to you by the folks from The Bruce High Quality Foundation and Vito Schnabel (Julian's son).  The sensationalist press release sets the cheeky, fun-spirited tone for the group exhibition - an anti-establishment, alternative to the Whitney Biennial (in which the BHQF have a work included).

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, according to a February 25th New York Times article, is "a five-artist collective focused on reshaping the art world as we know it by placing some of its more conspicuous functions, like education and the organizing of exhibitions, into artists’ hands."  This is the third installment of Brucennial which started with BRUCENNIAL 2008: Doing it Again in Bushwick and BRUCENNIAL 2009: Smithumenta in Carol Gardens.  Though the BHQF and Schnabel invited their favorite artists and friends to participate in the exhibit, artists who just showed up to the 5,000-square-foot Soho space were able to add their work to the presentation.  The space is filled and pieces are labeled simply by penciling in the artist's name beside his/her work.  The show is so packed that it continues at RECESS at 41 Grand Street.

Paintings, drawings, photos, sculptures, installations, videos are all represented, and range from beautiful, cool, creepy, funny, to just plain WTF?.  By exhibiting new artists alongside established ones and allowing anyone who walked in to show his/her art, The Brucennial exudes an open and very democratic vibe - a complete contrast to the elitist and snooty rep typically associated with the art world.  Learn more at Bruce High Quality Foundation's website here and read the full NYTs article here.  Through April 12th. 

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

John Mendelsohn

Bryan Harrington

PC Smith and Tony Canger

Greg Bogin

Clara Chapin Hess, Praxis Makes Purpose

Snejina Latev

Craig Mooney

Ivan Goodman

James Nares

Natalie Shook

Dan Colen

Rory Monaghan

Elliott Arkin

Superflex and David Reed | Peter Blum Galleries

The Peter Blum Galleries in Chelsea and Soho each have interesting shows up right now.  First up is Superflex's Flooded McDonald's at the Chelsea location.  Superflex is a collective founded in 1993 comprised of Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger, and Rasmus Nielsen.  Based in Denmark and Brazil, the group creates video projects that deal with political, economic and environmental issues and "aim to question power structures, agency and ownership by prodding at their limitations" (from show's press release). 

Flooded McDonald's features 3 mesmerizing videos playing concurrently in three, dark separate rooms.  Burning Car (2008) features an empty car going up in flames and slowly burning down to a sad, steel skeleton.  According to the press release, the "film can be seen as a response to the riots sweeping through Western Europe in 2005-2007, and media depictions of political unrest."  Though nothing much happens in the 9.5 minutes aside from the fire destroying the car, it's hard to tear yourself away from the bright orange flames against the dark back-drop, the close-ups of the car's exterior paint bubbling up and melting, and the occasional violent bursts from the flames.  Though I pretty much knew how it was going to wind up, I still sat motionless until the end.

The Financial Cirsis (I-IV) (2009) "approaches the current financial breakdown as a psychosis that can be treated therapeutically via hypnosis."  The 12-minute video features a hypnotist staring directly into the camera "taking the viewer through four different stages of the crisis (The Invisible Hand, George Soros, You, Old Friends)" who snaps his fingers at the end of each session to bring us out of the trance.

The centerpiece of the show, Flooded McDonald's (2009) is probably the most interesting experience involving the fast-food juggernaut I've ever encountered.  The artists "meticulously reconstructed true-to-life [a] replica of the interior of a McDonald's restaurant" which "gradually floods with water."  The restaurant replica is spot-on complete with the ubiquitous golden arches, plastic, life-size Ronald McDonald figure, Happy Meal boxes, Grimace toys, cash registers, and even an employee-of-the-month plaque.  Water begins to seep into the unpopulated restaurant through a back door (Whoops!  Someone left the tap running!) and slowly inches higher and higher until the plastic Ronald is swept off his floppy, red shoes, french fries float everywhere, and the water level reaches up to the neon menus located above and behind the counter. It's like watching a train wreck - you just cannot stop watching the destruction and remain fixated for the full 21 minutes.  Flooded McDonald's resembles a disaster movie, but unlike anything from that awful genre, it's oddly fascinating and watchable.  Learn more at Peterblumgallery.com.  Through March 20th.

At Peter Blum's Soho location is David Reed: Works on Paper, the first exhibit of the abstract artist's "working drawings and color studies."  Over 60 of these pieces are on view offering "a rare glimpse into David Reed’s process and contemplations," and demonstrating his "experiments with color, light, and form."  His in-depth notes on graph paper are incredibly detailed and meticulous, almost like the notes of a mad scientist, and "contain a biographic and personal element, chronicling events in Reed’s life, from studio visits to protests occurring outside his window."  Reed's works on paper and notes help him, "visually analyze[s] the formulas for blending paints and layering glazes by painting the color studies directly on single or multiple sheets of paper."

It's really interesting to see up close the artist's work process, notes, and even uncertainties like this comment he wrote regarding Working Drawing #295-3,  “3/19 Thought at first that this would work – no longer sure.”  Since Reed's working drawings look appealing even in their early stages, it would have been nice to see some of the completed works to get a true feel for the artist's entire work process.  Learn more at Peterblumgallery.com.  Through March 6th.

Superflex, Burning Car, 2008

Superflex, Flooded McDonald's, 2009

Superflex, Flooded McDonald's, 2009

Superflex, Flooded McDonald's, 2009

David Reed, Color Study 69, 70, 71, 2009 and Color Study 1, 2010

David Reed, Working Drawing for Painting 524-2, 2009

David Reed, Working Drawing for Painting 576, 2007

Grrrr | Swiss Institute

While you're checking out Latifa Echakhch's show at Swiss Institute, be sure to have a look at the exhibit in the gallery's foyer as well. Grrrr, or Ingo Giezendanner, travels around the world and documents his journeys with "detailed drawings, animations, and public murals," (from the press release). Currently at Swiss Institute are drawings on paper and on the walls that document the artist's travels starting with the railroad tracks in his native Switzerland and then moving on to the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbeidjan in Southwest Asia. Grrrr's drawings feature cityscapes, high rises, store fronts, outdoor cafes, traffic, as well as a few serene images of trees and nature. The Zurich native has certainly filled up his passport with many adventures around the globe, and his intricate, almost picturesque drawings are certainly better souvenirs than any old, ordinary postcard. Learn more at swissinstitute.net and see the artist's website at grrrr.net. Through February 13th.

Latifa Echakhch | Swiss Institute

French-Moroccan artist Latifa Echakhch creates sculptures and installations that address "nationality, culture, and history" and explore "society in an increasingly globalized world," (from the press release).  Her current show at Soho's Swiss Institute, Movement and Complication, references the science of measuring time.  "Movement" refers to "a simple watch," while "complication" refers "to any feature beyond the basic display of hours, minutes, and seconds.  The more complications, the more difficult it is to design, create, assemble, and eventually repair the watch." 

Echakhch's sprawling work Plaintes ("complaints") was inspired by a system of measurements created by Le Corbusier called The Modular. The artist used charcoal to meticulously apply Le Corbusier's eight measures directly  onto the walls, resulting in "hand made black strips, at varying heights [that] create an obscure pattern throughout the gallery."  For Globus, Echakhch crumpled up three flat maps into round globes and placed the balls on the floor like litter, demonstrating the act of "man manipulating theory into object."  Her small wooden sculpture series, HLM, feature brainteaser games "shown in various stages of completion."  The title HLM, refers to the housing development in the banlieue of Aix-les-bains where the artist grew up.  The small, complex sculptures refer to "the inadequacy of modernism all the while highlighting a near-unsolvable riddle of urbanism." 

You can watch Echakhch discuss some of her works in this video from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art's March 2007 opening group exhibition, Global Feminisms.  In the clip, Echakhch explains how she uses "cliche" and "banal" materials like couscous, sugar, carpet, tea glasses, official documents, and airmail envelopes, to create pieces that address her cultural heritage.  Born in El Khnansa, Morocco in 1974, Echakhch currently lives and works in Paris and Martigny, Switzerland.  Learn more at swissinstitute.net.  Through February 13th.

Globus (c), (d), (e), 2009 and Plainte 183, Plainte 43, 2009

HLM series: Le Grand-Pavois - L'Artimon, 2009

HLM series: La Misaine - La Vigie - La Carene - Le Beaupre, 2009 

HLM series: La Misaine - La Vigie - La Carene - Le Beaupre, 2009

Francine Spiegel | Deitch Projects

If All Hallows' Eve can't get here quickly enough for you, a trip to see Francine Spiegel's Mud And Milk at Deitch Projects might help you get your fright on.  The RISD grad and upstate New York-based painter amalgamates "imagery from monster magazines, horror films, or her own performances" creating Frankenstein-esque canvases and female subjects resembling "gory super-heroines" (from press release).

To create some of the imagery incorporated into the seven paintings in Mud and Milk, Spiegel enlisted ten friends and fellow artists to costar alongside her in a goo-filled, slimy, messy performance she choreographed and staged at Deitch.  Judging from the large-scale photos documenting the performance currently on view in the front of the Deitch space on Grand Street, Spiegel and her volunteers had the mother of all food fights including: "10 pounds of grits, 5 jugs of pancake syrup, 10 squirt bottles of grape jelly, 5 bottles of Pepto-Bismol, 20 buckets of tempura paint, 20 cans of whipped cream; plus silly string, shaving cream, Fruit Loops, flour, Kool-Aid, glitter, pie, marshmallow Fluff, fake arms, fake blood and chocolate syrup." 

This list of ingredients was not arbitrary - Spiegel selected these items for her performance based on information she gathered from "Fangoria Magazine's behind-the-scenes horror movie ingredients" and food fetish websites.   As the exhibit's press release states, "Taking the ingredients out of the male-manipulated world of porn and using them to make feminine and feminist works of art, Fran's results were somewhere between the erotic and the horrible."  Being OCD, I didn't see the eroticism in the pictures of women thickly covered in multiple layers of ick, though I did see the B-movie horror aspect.  The final paintings are disturbing and frightening but also a bit cheeky.  And though the women from the performance who made it into the final paintings may look a frightful mess, they look nothing like victims - a welcome twist on the traditional horror/slasher flick stereotype of female characters.  Learn more at Deitch.com and read a Q&A with Spiegel at villagevoice.com.  Through October 31st.

Francine Spiegel, Alderville, 2009

Francine Spiegel, Midnight, the stars and you, 2009

Francine Spiegel, Nellie, 2009

Francine Spiegel, Westworld, 2009

Kurt Kauper | Deitch Projects

To celebrate our Commander-in-Chief's recent (and surprising) Nobel Peace Prize win, head on over to Deitch Projects on Grand Street and see Kurt Kauper's portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama. 

Kauper was born in 1966 in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Based in New York City, Kauper presents portraits of the first couple that are uncommonly very neutral, placing the president before a backdrop of bland suburbia and the first lady in a parking lot setting.  Kauper rightfully finds contemporary images of Obama "either absurdly reverent or disturbingly demonizing," so he decided to "make political paintings without didactic content."  Kauper wants to present Barack and Michelle Obama in total neutrality and let viewers see the couple in their own personal way.

The portraits are good representations of the handsome and charismatic first couple and a refreshing, human look at the Obamas.  Learn more at Deitch.com.  Through October 31st. 

Kurt Kauper, Barack Obama

Kurt Kauper, Michelle Obama

Where the Wild Things Are

If, like me, you are super excited for Spike Jonze's film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, I have a couple of suggestions that might tide you over until its October 16th release.  First off, there's the sweet and dreamy soundtrack, primarily written by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' awesome front-woman, Karen O.  You can have a listen here.

Next, there are a couple of exhibitions of Sendak's art you can check out and be reminded of your childhood dreams of fantasy lands and footie pajamas.  The Animazing Gallery in Soho currently has on view Sendak in Soho, displaying and selling approximately 200 works by the author/illustrator including lithographs, watercolors, and drawings featuring the furry, rumpusing menagerie from his classic tale.  Unfortunately, and maybe apropos, I almost had my head chewed off for attempting to take pictures, but you can see the works in the exhibit at animazing.com.  A portion of the proceeds from this show will go to the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia and the Jane Goodall Institute.  Through November 8th.

The Animazing show coincides with exhibits at The Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.  The Morgan Library exhibit, Where the Wild Things Are: Original Drawings by Maurice Sendak, which opens today, features early drafts, manuscript pages and a preliminary sketch of Max in a scene that did not make it into the final, published book.  Through November 1st.  Learn more at themorgan.org.  The Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF presents There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, featuring "original watercolors, preliminary sketches, drawings, and dummy books from more than 40 of Sendak's books, all from the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, the repository for Sendak's artwork and working materials. This major retrospective sheds light on the many mysteries of his life and art by exploring the intensely personal undercurrents in his work; and it does so using Sendak's own words, insights, and remarkable stories" (from the Contemporary Jewish Museum's website).  Learn more about this exhibition at thecjm.org.  Through January 19, 2010.

MoMA has scheduled Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years celebrating the 39-year-old artist's imaginative and creative works in film (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are), music videos (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beastie Boys, The Breeders, Bjork, Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Weezer) and even commercials (the Gap, IKEA).  Learn more at moma.org.  From October 8-18th.  Read more about Jonze from this September 2nd article from the NYTs Magazine.

If you're a serious, die-hard fanatic of the book, you can even dress like the characters with an exclusive clothing line made for the awesome boutique Opening Ceremony.  The line includes the iconic, white wolf suit Max wore (for adults), a furry K.W. dress or coat, and a hirsute vest called Judith (these items were named after the monikers given to the monsters in the movie).  See here.

And finally, you can have a peek at the official Where the Wild Things Are movie website here.

Maurice Sendak was born in Brooklyn in 1928.  He has written or illustrated over 100 books throughout his 60 year career.  Where the Wild Things Are was published in 1963.  According to IMDB, Sendak had wanted to make a film adaptation of his book since the 90's but was not able to find a suitable director until he personally approached Spike Jonze to take on the project.  The film, which was initially going to be fully animated, has been in production since 2005 (though Jonze and Dave Eggers had been working on the screenplay prior to that)!  Originally scheduled for May 2008, the film's release date was bumped back twice!  I hope all the hype and my inflated expectations for this film don't ruin it for me.  Let the wild rumpus start!!!

LentSpace

On an oddly shaped block on the north side of Canal Street between Varick and 6th Avenue (right across from the old Screening Room) is a 37,000-square-foot, temporary, free, outdoor, cultural park called LentSpace.  A real estate developer is loaning the vacant space (hence its name, get it?), which once housed an office building, to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) for about three years, after which a new building will likely take its place. 

Opened on September 18th, the east side of the park is shielded behind a wooden fence whose external upper portion is covered in shimmery, blue paillettes and inside, its lower portion features benches.  While LentSpace houses a tree nursery that temporarily holds trees that will be planted around downtown neighborhoods, the space is also currently home to a sculpture exhibition.  "The seven sculptural pieces in the inaugural lineup all, in one form or another, incorporate visual puns playing on the conventions of city-park design or on the idea of what deserves to be classified as public art" (NYT.com).  Ironically, days after opening, some jerk spray-painted "This is not art" onto a couple of the works.  Read more at curbed.com.

Adam Kleinman, the curator for LMCC, promises there will be exhibitions, films and performances in the park.  You can check out the calendar of events at the LMCC website here.  LentSpace is a pleasant, spacious oasis away from the madness of Canal Street.  LentSpace is open daily from 7:00am - dusk until January.  It will be closed for the winter from January - March.  See more at NYT.com.

East-side entrance to LentSpace

Graham Hudson, Canal St. Commons, 2009

Olga Chernysheva, Anonymous Monument, 2008

Ryan Taber, Pompey's Folly, 2006

Tauba Auerbach | Deitch Projects

Also on view at the larger Deitch space on Wooster Street is Tauba Auerbach's Here And Now/And Nowhere (Look!  The title's an anagram!).  Featuring works that are "structured around the threshold between order and randomness," Auerbach explores the state between two and three dimensionality, the past and present, being here and there and both simultaneously, and randomness versus determinism.

Auerbach's works include two large-scale, white canvases covered in black dots. Though dizzying, if studied from afar, the Crumple Paintings give the illusion of a crumpled surface.  The artist's Fold Paintings consist of six canvases varying in color and size painted with an industrial paint sprayer that gives the effect of creases and folds on the canvas and "explore the merging of a past three-dimensional state with a present two-dimensional state."  

The central piece in the show (and my favorite) is The Auerglass, a massive, wooden, two-player, pump organ designed by Auerbach and Cameron Mesirow from the band Glasser.  "The instrument cannot be played alone.  It requires two people to play.  One player has to pump in order for the other to play and vice versa. "  Auerbach and Mesirow played a specially created composition on The Auerglass at the opening of Here And Now/And Nowhere on September 3rd, and Glasser will perform at the gallery on September 11th at 8:00pm, and at 5:00pm daily from Tuesday - Saturday until the exhibit ends on October 17th.  Learn more at Deitch.com.

Fold Paintings, 2009

Untitled Fold Painting III, 2009

 

The Auerglass

 

The Auerglass close-up

Kehinde Wiley | Deitch Projects

Deitch Projects on Grand Street currently has on view 17 glorious photographs by Los Angeles-born/New York-based artist, Kehinde Wiley.  Black Light showcases Wiley's highly stylized photographs which "thrust[s] the black male image, captured by means of light manipulation and digital technology, into focus." 

Wiley's subjects are distinctly contemporary and all (except the subject in Sleep) don hip-hop/urban wear (LOVE the Etch-A-Sketch and Lego belt buckles!) whilst reenacting poses from classic, historical paintings.  Using vibrant and busy patterns pulled from 1950's home decor magazines and Martha Stewart's 1999 home collection as backdrops and/or borders for his otherwise serene and regal portraits, the photos are given a slightly campy twist.  The juxtaposition of the stately subjects with the colorful, flowery patterns is jarring but better illustrates what the show's press release says the works convey, "an intimate study of embattled psychologies whose adherents are at once flawed and majestic, canonized and misunderstood."

Wiley successfully reinterprets historical portrait painting by "imposing the contemporary black male figure onto an awe-inducing pictorial heritage replete with narratives of power, wealth and hierarchy," creating powerful and memorable images.   See more at Deitch.com.  Through September 26th.

After Sir Anthony van Dyck's King Charles I and Henrietta Maria, 2009 - See the inspiration here.

 

After Albrecht Durer's Self-Portrait, 2009 - See the inspiration here.

 

After Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' The Virgin with the Host, 2009 - See the inspiration here.

 

After Jean-Bernard Restout's Sleep, 2009 - See the inspiration here.

The Wild Horses of Sable Island | Soho

I'm admittedly like a little girl when it comes to horses - I just love them!  I really, really do!  So you can imagine my joy when I came upon the spacious Soho gallery filled with Roberto Dutesco's oversized, sepia-toned and black-and-white photographs of The Wild Horses of Sable Island.  Dutesco was born in Romania in 1961 and relocated to Canada in the early 80's before opening a studio in New York in 1992 and becoming a successful fashion photographer.  He first traveled to Sable Island, Nova Scotia in 1994 and captured the spirit of the beautiful, majestic, noble wild horses there via photographs exhibiting their strength and athleticism, sense of family and camaraderie, and their deep, expressive eyes.  The next 14 years repeatedly brought Dutesco back to Sable Island for more photographs and/or film footage for a black-and-white short film, Sable Horses (2000) which inspired a feature documentary for Bravo titled Chasing Wild Horses (2008).

Notes for the show state that Sable Island is approximately the length of Manhattan and the width of Central Park.  It's been the host of 275 shipwrecks since the early 17th-century, whose only known survivors were the horses - who now happen to be the only living mammals on the island.  Somewhere between 175-450 of these horses live on the island today in bands consisting of 2-10 members of varying sexes and ages, though many males are known to wander in "loosely structured all-male groups" or "bachelor groups" and older stallions are said to wander solo (as loners... rebels).  The horses are on the smaller side, with males weighing between 270-360 kg (595-790 lb) and measuring about 140 cm (~ 4.5 ft) from the withers (shoulders).  Females tend to be smaller.  They are said to most resemble the Spanish barb and/or the Acadian horse.

In 2006, The Wild Horses of Sable Island, photoworks by Roberto Dutesco curated by Peter Tunney opened at 13 Crosby Street in Soho, showcasing over 125 gorgeous, large-scale photos of these wonderful creatures.  You don't have to be a little girl to swoon over the breath-taking photographs of these magnificent animals.  To learn more about Dutesco and The Wild Horses of Sable Island, go to dutescoart.com, where you can also see his pictures of the horses (my iPhone pics below don't do them any justice.)  Through 2010. 

 

Cory Arcangel, Guillaume Pinard, Jon Routson at Team Gallery

Team Gallery in Soho has group video show featuring Cory Arcangel, Guillaume Pinard, and Jon Routson going on until July 31st.  Read more about it at Team Gallery's website.

Arcangel, a bit of an "It" Boy in the digital art world, shows two colorful, large-scale prints he made using PhotoShop.  He also has on view downstairs a video projected on to a large screen in a dark gallery with a cushy couch.  Unfortunately, the footage didn't make me want to stay and get comfortable.  It's basically a montage of shaky, jumpy YouTube clips featuring piano-playing cats with Schoenberg's Drei Klavierstucke playing over the audio.  You can watch the video(s) at Arcangel's website here.

Marseille-based Pinard shows three Flash animated videos. The one in the main gallery, Provisional End, features the adventures of a fly and his frenemy, a stork.  It was cute and funny.  More info on Pinard here.

Baltimore artist, Routson, features his Spinners series - digital projections of round images rotating on black walls.  Seeing a spinning nipple projected on a wall was eye-roll-inducing, but it was definitely better than seeing spinning images of Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin.  This gallery could have better served as a shooting gallery.  Also in the main room, Routson has a sculpture composed of two speakers sitting atop a wooden beam.  The speakers continuously play books on tape.  More info on Routson here.

Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe at Deitch Project

It's sultry here in NYC, and since "sultry" isn't a term I like to use to describe the weather, I decided not to venture far today and stayed south of Houston. 

I checked out Black Acid Co-op at Deitch Project at the 18 Wooster Street location.  Created by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, this show is a continuation of their two previous projects, Hello Meth Lab In The Sun (for Ballroom Marfa) and Hello Meth Lab With A View (for The Station Miami).

The pair created a cavernous series of interior spaces spanning 3 levels within the gallery.  Before entering you are asked to sign a release form.  Once inside, you are greeted by crumpled up Chinese newspapers strewn on the floor.  You enter and exit each connected space through a large, jagged hole in the wall that seems to have been kicked in for a quick escape.  I took my first left and entered a startlingly bright white room lined with wigs.  Next stop, I walked up a set of precarious stairs that led to a dimly lit attic space that housed shelves of jars filled with pictures, a sink full of dishes, various fossils, and a taxidermy wolf.  The only things missing were the stink of patchouli and the ponchoed hippies smoking pot on the pillows in the corner.

Back downstairs, I followed a hallway that led to the scariest kitchen and bathroom I ever did see.  I felt like I stepped into the home of Buffalo Bill, the serial killer from Silence of the Lambs!  Beside the kitchen was a burnt out trailer that was very dark and just as eerie as the previous rooms.  Further through, I walked into a large, dark, empty blue room with litter on the floor and paint peeling from the walls.  Through another hole in the wall you step into a pristine museum-like space with red carpeting and odd photos hanging on the walls.  Through another hole is a control room lined with a wall of books and video monitors showing the comings and goings down in the basement.  Beside the control room is a small room containing a burnt bed and then there's the kitchen/meth lab.  No detail was forgotten in this room. There was so much going on in there.  See my pictures below.

Past the kitchen/meth lab, another set of stairs led downstairs to the basement where a Chinese market sold mysterious items with packaging written in Chinese alongside t-shirts emblazoned with porn prints.  The video monitors back upstairs in the control room showed shoppers walking along the store's counter.

According to the press release, Black Acid Co-op focuses on the themes of "alchemy in a modern context and community, ritual and psychosis."  I think all that went right over my head but I enjoyed the show nonetheless.  I often appreciate set design or in this case, environment design, especially when the fabricated settings are well executed, painstakingly created, and authentic feeling.  Black Acid Co-op is on view until August 15th.  Read more at Deitch website.

Both Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe live and work in New York City.  Freeman was born in 1975 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and has had his photography, film work and installations shown internationally.  Lowe was born in 1976 in Dayton, Ohio and has been exhibiting his installation "environments" since 2000.

The wig room

The sink in the attic

Scary kitchen

Scary bathroom

 

Kitchen/Meth Lab

Kitchen/Meth Lab