Art Hag

Joe Bradley, Rob Pruitt & Nate Lowman | Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Joe Bradley's large-scale, expressionistic new works featured in Mouth and Foot Painting, the artist's first show at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, are colorful, primitive, and childlike—possibly influenced by his girlfriend's six-year-old son and the couple's one-year-old boy.  Bradley's humorous and cryptic oil paintings show crude images in heavy, intentionally sloppy, crayon-like compositions.  Strut shows a pair of long, stick-figure legs taking long strides on a splotchy canvas.  The central figure in Big Boy is a wild-looking, cartoonish character while All Duck features an abstract yellow form with a huge, gaping, beak.  A series of canvases show Bradley's unique interpretations of various body parts like male genitalia in Mouth and Foot (Cock and Balls), an eye in Mouth and Foot (Ichtus), and a pair of breasts represented by two simple circles in Mouth and Foot (Bust).  Bradley's paintings are rough, quirky, abstract explosions of color.  Learn more at Gavinbrown.biz and read an interview with the artist at artinamericamagazine.com.  Through February 19th.

Also on view at Gavin Brown is a collaborative project presented in conjuction with the neighboring Maccarone Inc by artists Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman called Bed Bugs.  The pair created mixed media works incorporating a shag rug, couches, bedding, and common household items that tend to house pesky bed bugs.  The works playfully address and taunt neurotic viewers (like me) with the current bed bug outbreak in NYC.  In Snug As a Bug In a Rug, the pair created a horrifically giant version of a nasty, little bugger using sugar, dirt, alkyd paint and a knit coverlet.  In Twinfest they painted an army of the evil blood suckers onto a bed linen that made me wince.  The timely and cheeky show created an air of itchy discomfort and paranoia that gave me the heebie-jeebies and made me want to take a hot shower.  Learn more at Gavinbrown.biz.  Also closes on February 19th. 

Joe Bradley, Strut, 2010

Joe Bradley, All Duck, 2010

Joe Bradley, Big Boy, 2010

Joe Bradley, Mouth and Foot (Cock and Balls), 2010

Joe Bradley, Mouth and Foot (Ichtus), 2010

Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman, Snug As a Bug In a Rug, 2010

Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman, Obviously (shag rug), 2010 and Metamorphosis (couch), 2010

Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman, Bed Spread, 2010

Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman, Twinfest, 2010

Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman, King Split Together Alone, 2010

Rob Pruitt | Maccarone

As promised, below are my pics from Maccarone's portion of Rob Pruitt's Pattern and Degradation show.  As mentioned in my previous post, neighboring gallery Gavin Brown enterprise is also showing work from this vast and diverse exhibition.  Pruitt's works at Maccarone are a absolutely charming.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker for panda bears and googly eyes.  Pruitt's take on Ikea art in lush abstracts are also great.  Alas, if only we could get Pruitt paintings at Ikea prices - my walls would be covered in pandas!  Learn more at maccarone.net.  Through October 23rd.

Exquisite Self-Portrait: Mickey Mouse, 2010; tbc (wallpaper), 2010

Panda Pattern: Riding The Great Wave, 2010

Panda Pattern: Lily Pulitzer Spring 2010, 2010

Left to right: Panda Pattern: Rob Pruitt Pandas Sitting on Saul Steinberg Chairs; Cardboard Monster: Massimo; Panda Pattern: Lily Pulitzer Spring 2010, all 2010

Panda Pattern: Rob Pruitt Pandas Sitting on Saul Steinberg Chairs (detail), 2010

Pjatteryd Oil Painting: Klimt Madonna and Child, 2010; Cardboard Monster: Hope, 2010

Left to right: Cardboard Monsters: Hope, Piotr, Gavin, Allison, 2010

Cardboard Monsters: Michele, Marysia, Corinna, 2010

Cardboard Monsters: Rosie, Jonathan, Tallulah, 2010

Pjatteryd Oil Painting: Graffiti, 2010

Pjatteryd Oil Painting: Klimt Reclining Nude, 2010

Cardboard Monster, 2010

Rob Pruitt | Gavin Brown's enterprise & Maccarone

Rob Pruitt's latest show Pattern and Degradation is so huge even Gavin Brown's newly (and vastly) expanded gallery can't hold it all.  Neighboring Maccarone joins GBE in presenting several of Pruitt's fun, irreverent, Pop pieces. 

Inspired by an unlikely source - the Amish - Pruitt's works reference Rumspringa, a term that translates to "running around" and is the name of the Amish tradition when the youth (approximately 16-year-olds) are allowed to temporarily experience the outside, non-Amish world and decide whether they want to stay there and abandon their strict culture altogether or return to their families and the community and lifestyle they grew up with.  During this period it's reasonably assumed that the Amish kids "engage in rebellious behavior, defying their culture's strict prohibitions, [and] indulging in the excesses of mainstream American culture" (from show's press release).  Pruitt basically lives in a "Permanent Rumspringa," always living freely, rebelliously, and playfully.   

Pattern and Degradation is loaded with a healthy dose of free-spiritedness, humor, and abandon.  Pruitt really out-did himself and produced several new, varied series that explore American pop culture including: spray-painted works inspired by Amish quilts; self-portraits featuring the artist in various funny and "conflicting personae;" silk-screened t-shirt paintings referencing pop culture icons like Malcolm McLaren, Mickey Mouse, Debbie Harry, and artists Dan Colen, Jasper Johns, and Pruitt's partner Jonathan Horowitz; rich abstracts based on "this season's Ikea wall art;" sculptures of giant tires stacked and filled with plants, flowers, or snackfoods like pretzels, Oreos, and assorted candies; anthropomorphized "monsters" made from bundles of flattened cardboard boxes accessorized with shoes and giant googly eyes; and of course, large-scale, patterned paintings of Pruitt's iconic and adorable pandas. 

As if creating all the diverse, whimsical and delightful works featured in Pattern and Degradation wasn't enough, Pruitt is also organizing his second annual Art Awards which will be held at Webster Hall in December.  Learn more at Gavinbrown.biz.  Through October 23rd.  Below are my pics from Gavin Brown.  I'll post my pics from Maccarone tomorrow. 

Left to right: TBC, 2010; OK?, 2010

Rob Pruitt's T-Shirt Collection: Double Double Rainbow (What Does It Mean?); Copulating Pandas, both 2010

Rob Pruitt's T-Shirt Collection: You Are Mickey, 2010 (far left); Cocaine, 2010 (far right)

Rob Pruitt's T-Shirt Collection: Snowflakes; Dan Colen; Malcolm McLaren; Jasper Johns, Green, all 2010

Exquisite Self Portrait, Cocksure, 2010; People Feeders, 2010

Back wall, left to right: Panda Pattern: The Scream; Panda Pattern: Zebra; Panda Pattern: The Climb. Foreground: People Feeders, all 2010

Back wall: Rob Pruitt's T-Shirt Collection: Cheap Trick (top left); I Love Jonathan Horowitz (bottom right). Foreground: People Feeders, all 2010

Back wall, left to right: Exquisite Self-Portrait: Princess Me; Exquisite Self-Portrait: Handsome; Exquisite Self-Portrait: The Naturalist; Exquisite Self-Portrait: The Surrealist, all 2010. Foreground: The Congregation, 2010

Panda Pattern: Woody Allen, 2010

Back wall, left to right: Rumspringa Quilt: Fire, 2010; Rumspringa Quilt: Broken Dishes (Pastel), 2010; Rumspringa Quilt: Triangles (Green, Yellow, Red, Blue, Black, White), 2010.  Foreground: TBC (wooden benches), 2010

Rumspringa Quilt: Elvis, 2010

Rumspringa Quilt: Double Double Rainbow, 2010

Jonathan Horowitz & Martin Creed | Gavin Brown's enterprise

Gavin Brown's enterprise recently expanded by taking over the real estate of former neighbor Pat LaFrieda's Meats, a butchery and meat processing plant.  To inaugurate the new 10,000 square-foot space, GBE is restaging Jonathan Horowitz's 2002 exhibition Go Vegan!  Previously presented by Green Naftali, Go Vegan! has been updated by using eco friendly materials and by housing its contents in a contradictory environment which still contains its original "decor," meat lockers, and distinctive odor. 

Go Vegan! consists of Horowitz's internet downloaded portraits of 200 celebrity vegetarians including The Dalai Lama, William Shakespeare, Siouxsie Sioux, Yoko Ono, Kate Winslet, k.d. lang, Nico, Merv Griffin, Bea Arthur, Margaret Cho, The Beastie Boys, and more.  The show also includes a series of animal portraits divided into the groups Pork, Lamb, Poultry, and Beef; video footage featuring longtime vegetarians Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda, as well as footage showing commercial animal slaughter; and Horowitz's famous Minimalist piece Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery (which was also on view at his P.S.1 exhibit last summer).  The exhibit "explores vegetarianism and sustainability" (from press release) and examines "the troubling contradictions" involved in the meat industry including "astonishing cruelty, environmental and health risks, economic imbalances" and equates them with social issues "ranging from civil rights to war."

GBE's new space is definitely an effective and powerful venue for Go Vegan!  Be sure to check out the table by the entrance offering information on animal sanctuaries and copies of Peta's Vegetarian Starter Kit.  See more at Gavinbrown.biz.  Through June 19th.

Also on view is work by 2001 Turner Prize recipient Martin Creed.  Creed has created a site-specific installation, Work No. 1051, consisting of laying out over 100 marble stripes in varying colors and styles on to the gallery's floor.  Surrounded by bare, white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, the immersive piece is a quiet and elegant statement.  In a dark section of the former Pat LaFrieda Meats space is Work No. 1029, a new black-and-white, silent film projected onto a wall documenting the progression of an erection.  In the same room is Work No. 990, a large, dark curtain that automatically opens and closes before the tall window, completely darkening the room at short intervals and then lighting it up again as you watch the penis on the wall.  In what was previously a smallish freezer is Work No. 1037, a four-part, acrylic on canvas piece.  On the exterior wall of the gallery is Orson & Sparky, a billboard showing a tiny dog (a chihuahua?) trailing behind a larger one (an Irish Wolfhound?).  (Be forewarned - just a few feet west on the wall along the way to Horowitz's Go Vegan! exhibit is a jarring poster of skinned dogs hanging in a marketplace.)  In 2003, when GBE moved into the Washington Street location, Creed created a permanent installation on the facade of the gallery.  Work No. 300 consists of the phrase "the whole world + the work = the whole world" painted in black letters wrapping around the upper corner of the white building.  You can see Work No. 300 and more of Creed's work at Gavinbrown.biz.  Through June 19th.

Horowitz - Go Vegan! (part of 200 Celebrity Vegetarians Downloaded From the Internet), 2002-2010

Horowitz - Go Vegan! (part of 200 Celebrity Vegetarians Downloaded From the Internet), 2002-2010

Horowitz - Green Einstein, 2002-2010

Horowitz - Pork and Lamb, 2002-2010

Horowitz - Poultry and Beef, 2002-2010

Horowitz - American Gothic, 2002-2010

Horowitz - Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery, 2002-2010

Horowitz - If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls, wall text, 2002-2010, "If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls, Everyone Would Be Vegetarian. - Linda and Paul McCartney"

Creed - Work No. 1051, 2010

Creed - Work No. 1037, 2010

Creed - Orson & Sparky, 2010

Silke Otto-Knapp | Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Silke Otto-Knapp's current show Interiors at Gavin Brown's Enterprise features "rooms, screens (partitions, windows, paintings within paintings) and stages [that] together form a picture of what painting could be as a space of appearance: spaces become screens; screens become paintings; paintings become stages" (from show's press release).  Her soft, whisper-like images depict ballerinas, Victorian era ladies, and elegant salons accessorized with billowy curtains, lush lounges, and many paintings.

The London-based Otto-Knapp was born in Osnabrück, Germany in 1970 and studied at the University of Hildesheim in Germany and Chelsea College of Art and Design in London.  She paints in watercolors on canvas, "which allows her to repeatedly wash down her images, reworking them layer by layer, and therefore create pictures of great translucency and delicacy" (from tate.org.uk).  Her images appear faint and gauzy, giving them a haunting, ghostlike quality.  Her color palette ranges from barely-there muted to electrically vivid.  

Otto-Knapp's paintings beautifully explore "the settings in which women have appeared and performed throughout the history of modernity," and elegantly represent "the moment and motion of appearance itself: the way spaces open up, and how figures make their appearance on the stage of these spaces" (from press release).  From salons filled with over-stuffed furniture, to figures snugly cramped into tight frames, to large, open stages, Otto-Knapp creates entrancing, inviting scenes.  Learn more at Gavinbrown.biz.  Through February 20th.

Group (walking), 2009

Three Sisters, 2009

Red Room, 2009

Every Afternoon, 2009

Interior (purple and red), 2009

Interior (West 40th Street), 2009

Quartett (with frame), 2009

Verstarker, 2009

Best in Show | Margarida Correia at White Columns & Paulina Olowska at Metro Pictures

I'd make a terrible mother.  I really would.  Not only am I incredibly selfish and immature, I have a tendency to choose favorites.  Coming from a family of 5 sisters, I should know how unfair and basically uncool this is, but I  can't help myself.  I still play favorites.  I always feel a twinge of guilt when I go to group exhibitions and find myself giving more time and attention to one artist over the others.  It happened to me yesterday when I went to check out the Registered group show at White Columns.

The show features the work of four artists "selected from White Columns' online Curated Artist Registry."  The artists, who are currently not affiliated with a NYC gallery, include Elena Bajo, Margarida Correia, Gregg Evans, and Claudia Weber.  Bajo works with found materials and presents an installation with a slide projector pointing at a tall stack of white papers.  Correia presents two series of photographs taken from an ongoing project called Things, "in which she photographs the interiors of friends' homes in Lisbon, Portugal."  Evans presents photos from a series called The Things I Once Owned that include images of an old Christmas Card, a day planner containing autographs from the band Le Tigre, and a picture of his father.  Weber "recontextualizes materials and forms within existing architectural spaces" creating abstract, mixed media installations.

I was really drawn to Lisbon-born/New York-based artist Margarida Correia's photos of her friends' collections of heirlooms, family photos, childhood pictures, adolescent possessions, books, antiques, and tchotchkes.  I liked her juxtaposition of  "images from past and present... to establish a continuity of the subject's personal history."  Correia's images are packed with details and offer up several, vivid stories about her friends' lives, then and now.  Learn more about the Registered show at whitecolumns.org.  And check out Correia's website at Margaridacorreia.com.  Through October 24th.

I also found myself bitten by the favoritism bug about a week ago when I went to see the group show at Metro Pictures.  On view were Polish-born/Berlin-based Paulina Olowska's large-scale collages; Los Angeles-based Stephen G. Rhodes' multi-media, twisted take on the Disney ride "The Hall of Presidents," featuring video, painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing; and Chicago-based Catherine Sullivan's new, single-channel film LULU - Or: To What Ends Does the Bourgeoisie Need Despair, inspired by the 1978 love affair between silent-film siren Louise Brooks (also known as Lulu) and the creator of Oh! Calcutta!, Kenneth Tynan.   Sullivan's work combines footage from Brooks' classic film Pandora's Box, a 1971 televised production of Oh! Calcutta!, and original film created by the artist.

Again, I found myself drawn to one artist's work - this time Paulina Olowska's five, poppy, autobiographical collages.  The pieces feature "a young couple riding in a vintage Volkswagen convertible under a large umbrella that shields them from the dynamic and dangerous: taxes, former loves, desires, doubts and the past."  I was first drawn to the large, silk screened collages' punchy graphics and campy imagery, and was further reigned in by their sardonic, cryptic messages.  Learn more at metropictures.com.  Closed October 17th.

Margarida Correia, Eduardo Benamor, 2008

Margarida Correia, Tipi, 2008

Margarida Correia, Espingarda (Rifle), 2008

Margarida Correia, Estante (Shelves), 2006

Margarida Correia, Luis Nobre III, 2006

Paulina Olowska, Ambiguity could have been avoided here, 2009

Paulina Olowska, Car Mobile Collage, 2009

Paulina Olowska, Few chances of going wrong wrong, 2009

Paulina Olowska, People disliked him because he had no patience with those who held different opinion from his own, 2009

Parsons 2009 MFA Photography Thesis Exhibition

Parsons is currently hosting an exhibition of MFA Photography thesis work from the class of 2009.  Fifteen graduates display the fruits of their labor after completing 3 intensive eight-week summer residencies and 2 years of independent studies. 

The works on view are impressive and definitely display fresh and exciting talent.  Some of my favorite pieces include Lauren Pascarella's Photographic Sculpture, Daniel Durtsche's T.F. (Rotated 3,600 times) and Spectrum (Moved, scaled, and rotated 4,096 times), and Erik Madigan Heck's Fur Dries Van Noten.  See my pics of these works below.

Head over and have a peek at the works from this fresh crop of talent so you can say you "remember them when" after they've established themselves as photography world darlings.  Learn more at newschool.edu.  At the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries (66 Fifth Avenue) through September 11th.

 

Lauren Pascarella, Photographic Sculpture

 

Daniel Durtsche, Spectrum (Moved, scaled, and rotated 4,096 times) on left, T.F. (Rotated 3,600 times) on right

 

Erik Madigan Heck, Fur Dries Van Noten

Gavin Brown's Enterprise and Gagosian Uptown

"A long time ago was [is] a long time ago. Now is now.

So the question is not so much 'when?' but 'where?'”

That's basically all the press release for Gavin Brown's The Living and the Dead group show tells you, aside from listing the names of the 50+ artists whose works are on view.  Dan Colen, Hope Atherton, Jonathan Horowitz, Mirabelle Marden, Rachel Feinstein, Rob Pruitt, and many, many others are featured in this massive, mixed mediums show.  See my pics below.  I labeled items as best as I could.  It was difficult because nothing was marked and I didn't see a list at the gallery.  Better hurry - this ends August 7th.  See Gavin Brown's website here.

Also, you should make a trip to Madison at 77th Street for the very posh and uptown satellite of the Gagosian Gallery to check out Richard Prince After Dark. Featured is a series of 8 recent, large-scale canvases in dark, saturated colors depicting sinister-looking scenes in various cities "after dark."  The paintings are done on top of pre-printed text in usual Prince fashion and slightly resemble pulp fiction covers.  Through August 28th.  See Gagosian website here.  See my pics below.

There is also a group show happening up in the 6th floor gallery.  Go Figure features works by all male artists depicting the human figure.  Along with Prince, featured artists include Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Eadweard Muybridge, Gerhard Richter, and more.  Through August 21st.  See more here.

Left to right:  Haim Steinbach, Untitled (Hulk), black shelf on back wall displaying Hulk figure and Kong dog toys; above Steinbach to left, Elizabeth Peyton, Alex; Ara Dymond, Ok Ok; Dave Choi, Squirrel at Gavin Brown.

Left to right:  Michael Caputo, Just Trying to Break the Ice with Nothin' but a Bunch of Hot Air... (yellow balloons); Josh Kline, Box #6A: Extra Phones and Box #8A: Extra Ballpoint Pens (two white boxes on floor against wall containing exactly what titles suggest); Matthew Ronay, Seep, (scorpion sculpture) at Gavin Brown.

Richard Prince, Vegas After Dark, 2009 at Gagosian Madison Avenue

Richard Prince, Berlin After Dark, 2009 at Gagosian Madison Avenue

Richard Prince, Moscow After Dark, 2009 at Gagosian Madison Avenue