Marilyn Minter, Green Pink Caviar, video, 8:00, 2009, courtesy of Ramis Barquet Gallery

If you find yourself trekking under the hot sun and making the gallery rounds in Chelsea on a 98°F day in the middle of July, then you are surely a glutton for punishment. However, thanks to the cool respite of air conditioning in Ramis Barquet Gallery, one can comfortably experience another sort of “Glutton for Punishment,” as this annual group video exhibition is aptly titled. Rather than a traditional video screening with a seated, theater arrangement, curator Nicholas Kilner presents each of the five videos separately,  realizing a unique exhibition format and creating an immersive video experience. As the press release perfectly describes, “each of the works included uses video as a platform to explore the body in all its physicality and its subjectivity to innocent and aggressive desire.” Continue Reading More »

It is hard to be unique in Chelsea. Enter summertime at Kravets-Wehby Gallery. Making my gallery rounds in May, I wandered in and wondered: is this the output of a kooky old reclusive woman. To my delight it was Justin Samson. His previous New York shows at John Connelly Presents were superb and this show delivered as well. It is such a joy to admire someone’s work and not know you’re walking into view their latest. Samson’s idiosyncratic works consumed the space with labor and passion for his craft blatantly visible. His “Multikulti” was one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. There were familiar shapes and colors that led you to historical references, yet his art is going in directions not visited by others. Speaking of directions not visited by others, these shows are on my best of 2011 list as well: Butt Johnson @ CRG Gallery, Nick van Woert @ Yvon Lambert, and David Adamo @ Untitled. Continue Reading More »

Roof Piece

Yesterday evening, ten dancers of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, quietly emerged after a summer downpour and scattered themselves across the rooftops of the West Village to perform “Roof Piece.” The dancers will re-emerge to re-perform tonight, rain or shine, best and most accessibly viewed on the south section of the High Line (south of 13th Street). On the 40th anniversary of its creation, this choreography of this version is new and original based on the improvisational quality of the work itself. High up and far away, one dancer, facing south, begins the movement. Another dancer further north, mimics the movement of another dancer in view, yet slightly delayed, and adapted to their own body and style. This chain of dancers continues north and crosses through the High Line, creating a sort of spiral. Half the fun of viewing this performance is filling in the puzzle pieces, searching for spots of red,  playing a game of “Where’s Waldo” for the ten dancers (I could only find seven, but perhaps you’ll find more).  “Roof Piece” literally surrounds the viewer, the High Line, and the entire neighborhood. This performance is a must see!

Performances will take place  Friday, June 10 at 7pm, and Saturday, June 11 at 5pm and 7pm.

Brendan Fowler

Alex Prager

Eleanor Cayre
, Benjamin Godsill & 
Joel Mesler
Invite you to:
May 15th – June 10th
Wednesday – Saturday, 2PM – 6PM

Greater LA is the first ever survey to take place in New York of art being made in Los Angeles right now, and its massive – but sometimes under-acknowledged – impact on the global stage.  Filling a large industrial loft space in the heart of SoHo, Greater LA gathers the work of over 50 Los Angeles based artists who are setting the agenda for conversations about contemporary cultural production around the world.  Far from being a comprehensive view, Greater LA aims to be a selection of work as varied and idiosyncratic as the landscape from which it emerges.   Greater LA makes an argument for the vitality and urgency of art made in and influenced by the largest city on the Western coast of North America.

Organized by Eleanor Cayre, Benjamin Godsill, and Joel Mesler (a collector, a curator, and a gallerist respectively), Greater LA is the first large-scale exhibition highlighting art being made in Los Angeles right now as a subject worthy of examination.  While many of the artists included have exhibited in gallery and museum settings in New York, they’ve never been contextualized as a group that shares, however subtly, an identity based upon their geography.  Greater LA aims to be this contextualization, giving physical form to the oft-heard suggestion that the work made today in Los Angeles is some of the best in the World.  Works include sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, installation, video and performance; none seen previously and many newly conceived for this exhibition.

483 Broadway – 2nd Floor – NYC
www.greater-la.com

See the list of artists HERE

Judith Scott, Untitled, 2004. Courtesy of Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland

Create, an exhibition that highlights the extraordinary contributions of three of the leading centers for artists with disabilities in the United States: San Francisco’s Creativity Explored, Oakland’s Creative Growth Art Center, and Richmond’s National Institute of Art and Disabilities (NIAD Art Center). Curated by BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder, with Matthew Higgs, director of White Columns, New York, the exhibition features over 135 works by twenty artists who have created artworks at these centers over the past twenty-five years. On view from May 11 through September 25, 2011, the exhibition features works by noted artists Judith Scott, William Scott, Willie Harris, James Miles, John Patrick McKenzie, Evelyn Reyes, Aurie Ramirez, and Dan Miller, among others. Continue Reading More »

Simon Linke Warhol, 2004. Courtesy Mireille Mosler Ltd.

(from the press release)  No one seems to be sure what the decline of modernism’s cultural influence, beginning sometime in the 1950’s and 60’s, has led to. The return of narrative and ornament in the art and architecture of the 1970’s suggested an effort to break with the immediate past, but the privileging of rationalism as a guiding social order evident in the idea of markets finding their perfect equilibrium continues to dominate economic discourse, despite the occasionally irrational results. While architects like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaas seemed to have represented “a new way forward,” the prevalence of a creeping re-modernism found in the ubiquitous Corbusier-like, double-height urban lofts sheathed in glass and filled with mid-century modern furniture confirms the continued appeal of modernism’s aesthetic essentialism. Continue Reading More »

Ann Marshall, Beige, 2011. Courtesy Subliminal Projects

The classical figure has been admired throughout history and mastering the depiction of the human figure has long been considered the cornerstone of artistic practice. To perfect their representation of human anatomy, musculature, and proportion, artists throughout the ages turned to ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. By imitating ancient precedents, the Old Masters of art developed a classical figural type that remained the predominant mode of representation for centuries. Following, the 16th and 17th centuries of the Renaissance took the classical figure to a higher level through the use of perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of an unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques. In the present day, these leading contemporary artists have a heightened ability to understand and interpret their subject, while emphasizing the mind-set and methodologies that have guided artists for over five hundred years. Their figures are influenced by characteristics of today- feelings, surroundings, beliefs, and relationships, incorporated with new techniques and mediums, while still holding true the fundamentals of the classical form, thus becoming the New Masters.

The New Masters exhibition focuses on today’s leading contemporary artists and their approach to the classical figure with works by Mary Jane Ansell, Sean Cheetham, Ron English, Benjamin Bryce Kelley, Miles ‘Mac’ MacGregor, Ann Marshall, Stephen Wright, and Jonathan Yeo.

“New Masters” On view May 7, through June 4, 2011

Subliminal Projects