I am excited about the potential of In Protest, an event organized in tandem by the Kadist Art Foundation and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, to be held Wednesday, May 9^th at 7pm.

Artists have been asked to design posters with a specific or abstract political message to be given away at this one night event. The list of artists includes many whom I instantly associate with politically charged practices such as Rigo 23, Martha Rosler, and Natasha Wheat and many whose posters may help recast their interests in a more political light.

The artists are Zarouhie Abdalian, John Baldessari, Amy Balkin, Dodie Bellamy, Charlie Dubbe, Amy Franceschini, Doug Hall, Kevin Killian, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, Shaun O’Dell, Rigo 23, Piero Golia, Jordan Kantor, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Mungo Thomson and Natasha Wheat.

Questions of art praxes’ political potentials and limitations are constantly swirling, all the more so in these highly charged times of active protest movements. The world has yet to come to terms with the revolutions recently transpired or those still afoot. And the future is less than settled in nations whose ‘completed’ revolts in the Arab Spring have left them in a terrible and dangerous state of flux. A military government is still in control of Egypt and in advance of elections, vying political factions are falling victim to massacres such as the one in Cairo on May 2^nd.  Closer to home (and much tamer despite the press’ over emphasis on its outlying criminal element) we have our local Occupy, revitalized in its May Day general strike. In each of these protests and in the more everyday ones (usually in the grand tradition of labor struggles, but also against abortion and pro or against various political personalities and parties) the arts play a major role, both as means of message production (signs, banners, et al.) and as a foothold for giving the myriad people some cohesiveness (ex. the various strains of music performed and DJed).

During a March 31^st talk at the Kadist curator Nato Thompson, whose excellent exhibition Living as Form is about to finish its satellite run in SF, discussed various ways in which art could engage with a wider audience, purpose and potential, noting (I’m paraphrasing) the worst thing we could do is commission a bunch of posters. But is such a curatorial proposal so untenable? In the introduction to Dorathea von Hantlemann’s excellent How to Do Things With Art (2010), she describes her theme as, “How does art become politically or socially significant and what preconditions must be fulfilled in order to enable artworks to attain such significance?”

In Protest will raise these questions anew, confronting Thompson’s challenge and interrogating Hantlemann’s question. Each artist will address both the specific audience in attendance and the vitality of their medium (the poster and art as a whole) in the context of the museum and the wider political conversation. And we,  the viewers,  will walk away with works of art.

(images courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art)

You probably already know about the relocation of the Whitney Museum to the Meatpacking in Chelsea. It’s a massive project that has been keeping the staff at the Whitney pretty busy for the past year. The new building is designed by the renowned Renzo Piano (the Centre Georges Pompidou is one of my favorite buildings).  Without doubt, the building will become an art piece in itself, situated at the foot of the Highline with Frank Gehry’s IAC building and The Standard Hotel looming above and behind. This new and very contemporary space will be an amazing backdrop to cutting-edge and dynamic works, that is able to use both indoor and outdoor mutli-layered spaces.  Although the new location officially opens in the Fall, this Saturday May 21st, the Whitney will be hosting a one-day fiesta to shake things up. Complete schedule of events below.

“The new building will include more than 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of rooftop exhibition space, providing long-awaited opportunities to show more of the Whitney’s unsurpassed collection of 20th- and 21st-century American art in tandem with cutting-edge temporary exhibitions.”

Spring in New York is a brief and uncertain period according to the Green Michelin Guide, but the weather held for the preview of “Anthony Caro on the Roof” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 25. The five, large-scale steel sculptures are typical of his work, with characteristic use of ground plane and prefabricated steel sections.  The English sculptor, 87, spoke to press, friends and admirers, in the midst of his playfully arranged works.  “I am very thrilled”, he said, no doubt referring to how supremely suited they were to the expansive Cantor Roof Garden, framed, no less, by blossoming trees in Central Park.

The more recent Odalisque (1984) and End Up (2010) use found objects to “eliminate references and make truly abstract sculpture, composing the parts of the pieces like notes in music”, Caro once noted. Buoys, dock bollards, and shipping chains, are examples of the unwieldy scrap he used in his transmuted sculptures. The affable sculptor worked as an assistant to Henry Moore in the 1960’s and acknowledges the influence of Americans like sculptor David Smith and painter Kenneth Noland.  In 1961, he wrote that America was the catalyst that changed his work.  Sir Caro (he was knighted in 1987) works everyday, doesn’t look back and wants to keep “sculpture moving”.

It must be true, having gleefully reported that he is working on a three city block sculpture which will be installed on Park Avenue in March 2012, described as frieze-like by the Evening Standard of London.

Courtesy of Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, gift of Helen Hesse Charash, 1979. Photograph by Abby Robinson

(from the Press Release..)

The German-born, American artist Eva Hesse (1936–1970) played a central role in the radical transformation of sculptural practice in the 1960s. Hesse belonged to a generation of artists, including Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol, who expanded the conceptual and technical possibilities for art. BAM/PFA is extremely privileged to present a group of rarely seen sculptures that show the inner workings of Hesse’s studio practice. The objects, both small and large, range from raw material experiments to works in their own right, all of them revealing process and the moments between thinking and making. Organized by The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, this unprecedented presentation of Hesse’s small-scale experimental works has traveled to London, Barcelona, and Toronto before its appearance in Berkeley.

Over the course of her career, Hesse produced a range of experimental works that until now have not been recognized as an important subject of research. In the past they have been referred to as test pieces or prototypes, and valued as models or studies for large-scale works. In this exhibition, the art historian Briony Fer reevaluates these works, renaming them “studiowork.” She considers them as “thought-experiments,” works that capture moments of experimentation, where Hesse is trying out ideas and techniques and discovering new possibilities for her sculptural practice. Neither simply preparatory nor necessarily finished works, many of the studioworks exist slightly beneath the threshold of sculpture—but also question what we think sculpture is. They dramatize and draw attention to the open-ended nature of Hesse’s work as a whole.

Eva Hesse: Studiowork features works made from a diverse range of materials, such as plaster and latex, painted wood, metal, sculp-metal (a vinyl and resin suspension of aluminum powder that could be applied over objects), fiberglass, rubber, plasterboard, cardboard, cotton, polyester resin, cheesecloth, wire, string, paper, and nets. This exhibition also includes a series of largely papier mâché works never before shown in public.

Eva Hesse: Studiowork

Curated by Briony Fer and Barry Rosen
January 26, 2011 – April 10, 2011

Courtesy of the New Museum

George Condo was born in 1957, meaning he is 53, the same age as my mother.

The artist’s newly opened retrospective “Mental States” at the New Museum, was exceptional in part for this reason. It was refreshing to see an exhibition of this weight and vitality at the New Museum. It was especially exciting considering the artist is not “younger than Jesus” but 4 decades into his mature career.

At the risk of seeming vague or trite, or both, there is something timeless about George Condo’s Work. During the 1980s, while friends like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Mary Heilmann were developing their own signature styles, Condo wasn’t. Rather, he was constructing his toolbox. The artist has become a master of appropriation, not of material but of style. He has an uncanny ability to pull inspiration and support from across art history. An avid museum visitor, the artist constantly footnotes artists as disparate as, Picasso, Bacon and Fragonard.

Courtesy of the New Museum

Mental States begins in the cavernous fourth floor gallery, the back wall is plastered with paintings. Hung in the classic salon style, one gets a sense of the history with which Condo plays. Here, accompanied by a strong dose of wry humor, are the cubist-esque jumbles, the Bacon inspired anguish, and even the brown soup of a renaissance style portrait background. Rather than feeling disconnected, the display unifies. Each painting functions, as a unique facet of the artist’s idiosyncratic, and ultimately rewarding oeuvre.

Downstairs, on the third floor, the exhibition is broken up into three galleries, loosely organized by theme. The first room, labeled “Melancholia” is home to a group of particularly forlorn couples. I was particularly struck by the characters depicted in “The Stockbroker”. Awkward and misshapen; the strain of Condo’s cartoon subjects is almost palpable. The next room, “Manic Society” is almost a relief, though the bacon-esque contortions of these paintings are hardly cheerful.

Courtesy of the New Museum

The last room is a testament to the artist’s ongoing relationship with abstraction. “Black and White Abstraction” from 2005, is a particularly aggressive reference to de Kooning’s black and white paintings from the 1950s. At first glance, this and the other paintings in the room seem masterful exercises in gesture and tone. Upon further examination, the languid cartoonish drawl of Condo’s figurative vocabulary begins to reveal itself, one eye, nose and face at a time.

This is what is so wonderful about the artist; there is a fantastic tension in each painting. Subsumed in a variety disguises, it is only after real examination that the artist begins to emerge, peeking out from an imagined past.

This film will be part of a collaboration between the New Museum and No Longer Empty for The Festival of Ideas for a New City

Take a leap, 2009. Photo by David Allison © 2010 Sheila Makhijani

Agnes Berecz’s December 2, 2010 lecture/slideshow On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, coinciding with the MOMA exhibition through February 7, 2011 and part of the Brown Bag Lunch Series gave maximum attention to the most minimal unit of drawing—the line.  On Line, explores the radical transformation of the medium of drawing.”

Berecz contrasted the simple line, aligned as it is to the intimacy of drawing (it’s close to the body) to the rambunctious line as executant of the sculptor, choreographer, and filmmaker who pulls it “off the page and (pushes it) into space and time” beginning with Ellsworth Kelly’s Pine Branches VI, (1950, Pencil on paper) an example of automatic drawing, where the hand draws indeterminately in an expression of the unconscious, effectively removing the artist from his work.  Next, she moved to Richard Tuttle’s controversial, site specific, wire constructions (automatism, yet again), which negotiated sculpture, drawing and performance all in one.  Berecz described the installation:  Tuttle drew a line on the museum wall using a pencil. Next, he attached a nail on each end of the line, then placed a wire over the pattern drawn.  Upon lifting his hands from the taut wire, it sprang into a new shape, undirected by the artist.  Shown at the Whitney in 1975 and called a “debacle” by one critic, the show was rumored to have contributed to the dismissal of Marcia Tucker, then curator of painting and sculpture in 1977.

With subsequent slides, Berecz describes increasingly radical lines.  Soon, they are unframed, off walls, and decidedly “on stage”.  Line as performance is explored using Carolee Schneemann’s 1973-76 “Up To and Including Her Limbs”, meant to subvert the maleness of Jackson Pollack’s mark-making.  Here, Schneemann used her nude body, suspended in a tree surgeon’s harness as a mark-marking tool, harassing lines into a drawing/performance/video. Also, Lygia Clark’s Caminhando, where line is performed by museum “viewers” who, rather than the artist, become the fabricators, cutting pieces of paper and “making lines”, then Piero Manzoni’s Linea, 1959 which conceptually challenges viewers to risk believing the length of a “hidden” line enclosed in a container and labeled, a kind of line-making as a secret.

Sheet of Studies (c. 1939-42), Jackson Pollock

Upon entering the MoMA’s Abstract Expressionist New York I immediately felt at home. As cliché as it may sound, MoMA’s most recent exhibition, which takes up the entirety of the fourth floor painting and sculpture galleries, is full of old friends. The show combines hundreds of paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the permanent collection, in an exhaustive effort to showcase New York postwar painting. Many of the paintings in the exhibition are gems usually on permanent display. Re-configured into a new narrative structure, the exhibition has shined new light on old favorites. Barnett Newman’s The Wild, Jackson Pollock’s Echo: Number 25, 1951 and Franz Kline’s Chief are among the most iconic of these examples.

Chief (1950), Franz Kline

When I heard news of this exhibition, I couldn’t help but think “here we go again”. Since its critical acclaim in the 40s and 50s Abstract Expressionism, and its attendant art historians and critics have been exhaustively revisited, re-imagined, and critiqued. Though most of what has been said is true, to launch an exhibition from this era is now, indeed a daunting task. Several notable critics were quick to lambast the show. It is true, all the big names are there, large rooms are dedicated entirely to Pollock, Rothko, and Barnett Newman who have long dominated the spotlight of this age. It is far from the revolution I know many critics, and art lovers would have liked to see. If not a revolution “Abstract Expressionism New York” is progressive and sensitive. While much of the fourth floor has been dedicated to the art of eight or nine of the most famous artists of the generation, there are paintings and sculptures by lesser known painters. While the exhibit doesn’t address the exclusion of female and minority painters, it does include examples of both. Works on paper and canvas by sculptors like Herbert Ferber and David Smith are also on display. Though far from perfect the broad scope of artists, mediums, and works in this exhibit make it a must see.

Personage, with Yellow Ochre and White (1947), Robert Motherwell

Artists and fashion designers collaborated last month to create a remix of pre-Halloween fun at PS1 MoMA. A nice and unexpected mix of crowds showed up, especially for the free hair, make-up, and clothes sponsored by a whole chain of brands. My favorite show was the Olaf Breuning X Cynthia Rowley collab. It’s nice to see the entire creative process as the stream of audience moves along. From outfit selection and being dumped with a bucket of paint by Olaf, to being photographed and displayed instantaneously on the walls, to finally reaching the hallway where the painted collection is displayed neatly in a row.

Terrence Koh X Italo Zucchelli did a piece that was quite impressive and deeply mesmerizing. Two lost souls (presumably men) were pacing back and forth butoh-like toward and away from each other infinitely. The single source of light that was piercing through the fog seemed to be feeding life into them. I was hypnotized by a familiarity and could’ve stayed on longer. Organized by V Magazine’s Cecilia Dean and style journalist David Colman, the two-day fashion meets art event was definitely a cool show for all ages, bringing back some of that former school building’s funky flavor.

Terrence Koh X Italo Zucchelli

Cynthia Rowley and Olaf Breuning

Cynthia Rowley X Olaf Breuning collection

Portrait: (Self) #1 as Control + 11 Alterations by Retouching and Airbrushing, 1974 (© John Baldessari)

When I walked into Pure Beauty, the new retrospective exhibition of John Baldassari’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was skeptical to say the least. As an international art star, Baldassari’s most famous images are ubiquitous. His colored dot paintings have graced the pages of innumerable auction catalogues, art magazines and exhibition advertisements. Quite simply, I had become numb to them. Furthermore, I appreciate the effort that the Met has been making of late to exhibit contemporary art, but have not been remotely impressed by their offerings. Past exhibitions like “The Pictures Generation” have been impressive in scope, but seemed dull and over historical.

Falling Cloud, 1965 (© John Baldessari)

To the credit of both the artist and the institution, “Pure Beauty” was a pleasant shock. For the first time, I gained some much-needed perspective on the entirety of the artist’s oeuvre. The show begins with several paintings from the 1960s, the rarity of these works is understandable considering he cremated and buried nearly all of his early paintings from 1958-1966 for a piece called “Cremation Project.” These early works show Baldassari to be a consummate painter, already the master of tongue and cheek humor. These early paintings are semi autobiographical. As an art teacher in LA, he produced several stereotypical painterly reproductions of diagrams from a variety of painter and photographer’s reference books. His reaction to this source material serves the foundation for much of his later work. Baldasarri’s interaction with often dogmatic art school training manuals serves as a departure point for the viewer of this exhibition. From beginning to end one can see the artist continues to push the boundaries and context of what it means to make and view art.

Prima Facie (Fifth State): Warm Brownie / American Cheese / Carrot Stick / Black Bean Soup / Perky Peach / Leek, 2006 (© John Baldessari)

Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966-68 (© John Baldessari)

“Six Colorful Inside Jobs” is a video work, and in my opinion the most successful work in the show. The video records one of the artist’s students painting the inside of a room one complimentary color a day for six days. There are obvious sardonic references to action painting, but what is most interesting is that despite the artist’s foregrounding of the conceptual, his work is often both aesthetically sensitive, and visually stunning.

(all images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum)