Jean Arp used seashells and blood; Jean Dubuffet, butterfly wings and glue; Bruce Conner, nylon hosiery and nails.  Joseph Montgomery uses nonesuch provocative materials in his assemblages, part of the show Velveteen, now on view at Laurel Gitlen, the polished, new gallery on the Lower East Side.  Instead, he uses what one would find in the garage of the average do-it-yourselfer–canvas, clay, lacquer, oil, sheet metal, and plastic—weaving, painting and affixing them on panels averaging 12.5”x 10.5” x 3” deep. Less noteworthy than the use of found, masculine materials, is the skill with which the artist successfully unifies disparate textures using high value colors.  His work solicits a calm and restrained response uncharacteristic of a medium which has been disturbing audiences for a century since the advent of the first modern collage by Picasso in 1912 and “God”, the first modern assemblage by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in 1918—a work which featured plumbing fittings. Continue Reading More »

Whereas Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy famously eliminated the camera altogether to make photograms by capturing light directly, Brad Farwell retains the camera, but not the lens for his ongoing series Die Transfer Process. The artist was one of twenty artists-in-residence showing at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Final Open Studios in Building 110 on Governors Island on December 9, 2011. The wall installation features about a dozen unique, 35mm transparencies shown with Polaroid slide mounts, atop custom light boxes staggered on a white wall covering approximately 6’ x 8’. White extension cords were in plain sight. Farwell gives viewers the physical object, but the images are not much more than the color field. Irresolvable in their lack of focus and reminiscent of the painterly effects associated with Helen Frankenthaler, the artist offers, “what is being photographed is not the subject of photography”. Continue Reading More »

Single-handedly, Scopophilia, the 25-minute slideshow and centerpiece Nan Goldin’s show at the Matthew Marks Gallery show generates empathy for Goldin’s subjects, those demi-monde friends appearing in alternating states of intimacy and quiet dysfunction. For about half an hour, the transgressive vulgarisms associated with her work are forgotten. Instead, viewers experience a pastiche accompanied by a liberating soundtrack and the juxtaposition of images typical of her aesthetic with ethereal masterpieces depicting eternal devotion, love and tenderness.

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At the heart of the interdisciplinary, experimental approach to art making documented in “Black Mountain College and Its Legacy” at the Loretta Howard Gallery, is a human ethology that emphasizes cooperation and interdependence.  What happened at Black Mountain College is as nostalgic as it is antithetical to western society’s preoccupation with the importance of the individual over the group, most recently highlighted with the passing of Apple’s visionary icon earlier this month. Continue Reading More »

Andrew Moore’s must see photographs in Detroit Disassembled at the Queens Museum of Art capture the ruinous state of Detroit after the collapse of the automotive industry.  The colors are lush, the light, ecclesiastical; and Moore captures the intensity prescribed by Frederick H. Evans who urged photographers to “wait till the building make you feel intensely”. Continue Reading More »

It is hard to believe that the 1913 New York Armory Show took place less than 100 years ago.  The seminal show drew laughs for its paintings and denunciations for their degeneracy, while the  medium of photography, facilitated by Alfred Stieglitz, was inaugurated as a new art form, acceptable only as measured by proximity to the extreme paintings and sculptures on exhibit.

It is Picasso’s list of suggested artists for inclusion in the show, dated 1912, that makes a case for the subtleties that make this Morgan sleeper,  “To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art”, a must-see for anyone interested in art history or contemporary art or both.  Through curatorial acumen, its 80 lists simultaneously remind us how different yet familiar at the same time the world is today from the one reflected in the exhibit. Continue Reading More »

Yancey Richardson Gallery signaled appreciation for the naturalist John Burroughs by naming the summer group show Beautiful Vagabonds, the writer’s poetic keywords for birds.   Few works exemplified a naturalist’s approach to photography, however, demonstrating fitting curatorial restraint for a subject-based show intent on catholicity. Among them Sustenance #114 by Neeta Madahar, Policeman by Jitka Hanzlová, American Goldfinches by Paula McCartney, and Terry Evans’ Field Museum, Drawer of Eastern Meadowlarks, works corresponding to what one would see in a natural history museum. Continue Reading More »