December 17, 2006
While the wonderful Andy Warhol show at the Gagosian Chelsea locations, John Currin show at Gagosian Madison Avenue, and Ellsworth Kelley show at all three Matthew Marks locations have deservedly won much critical acclaim, two other current shows merit some additional attention. Atelier van Lieshout's SlaveCity at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and Allan McCollum's The Shapes Project at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery both offer fascinating visions of the dystopian evolution of contemporary society.
But first: I was astounded to have 15 minutes of quiet solitude while re-examining the Warhol show on West 21st Street late last Friday afternoon; the gallery was eerily empty. Thus, it's worth visiting this show again in its final week, for these virtuoso late works of Warhol are seldom seen in New York, not even the Metropolitan Museum's stunning dark and polychromatic Mao series. The thick brush strokes, fascinating neon-esque colors, and breathtaking contrast of dark and vibrant pigments seem additionally striking when compared with the adjacent large square Mao painting. You might just have this excellent contemplative space to yourself for a time if you visit this week.
Across the street at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, SlaveCity presents a highly cynical view of IT society, featuring models, sculptures and drawings depicting life in the fictional SlaveCity, where residents "work within a highly organized and structured set of guidelines, creating a society that is extremely efficient but without freedoms; traditional values are shifted and inverted, challenging conventional notions of community." Their regimented schedule includes "work 7 hours each day at 'office jobs', which focus on the profitable field of technology, employing the slaves in telemarketing, and computer programming. Following their office work, they labor another 7 hours as farmers or in the city’s workshops, in order to ensure the subsistence of the community, and are later allowed 3 hours of relaxation and 7 hours of rest." Most curiously, although SlaveCity offers no freedoms it is completely self-sufficient by producing "its own food, and recycles its own waste." Even more cynically, "Through the highly structured, super-efficient labor of the 'participants', SlaveCity nets 8 billion dollars profit each year, elaborating on the existing capitalist culture and taking the notion of productivity and profit to a terrifying extreme." If you can accept this very Netherlandish premise, then you are in for a rather fascinating surprise when examining the models of other essential elements this community's infrastructure. Rather clever elements include the water tower, the hospital, and the male and female brothels, as well as drawings of scenes from SlaveCity. One canvas delineates budgetary items for everything from latrines to prostitutes. Moreover, the modest amount of space required to contain this SlaveCity suggests our human future might be not much more than that of cattle or chattel. Ultimately whether the installation is deviously or deceptively cynical depends on your view of the rear gallery, which features a room-sized installation, the “Midi-Disciplinator,” a space for 18 inhabitants. This space essentially "rotates crews of six people through different stations, the work area, where the residents toil at the useless job of producing sawdust by filing logs, the sleeping area, where six people at a time pile into bunk beds, and the simple table for eating." Doubtless you will be reminded of several seminal science fiction movies during your visit.
In contrast, while McCollum's "The Shapes Project" also envisages a burgeoning human population and what might be done for it, his playful use of information technology "allows me to make enough unique shapes for every person on the planet to have one of their own." That is, with 300 parts used to construct shapes of either 4 parts or 6 parts, he has created a system that can produce over 31 billion shapes. Rather charmingly, McCollum declares, "For the time being, around 214,000,000 of the shapes have been set aside for creative experimentation." His graciousness in bestowing these shapes on humanity strike me as rather uproarious, considering that Kalahari bushmen and Bhutanese herders likely have little use for being bestowed a shape. But in seriousness, here the incredible scale of McCollum's project is apparent: upon entry into the gallery, the visitor is confronted with dozens of binders filled with calculations pertaining to the project. The scholarly exactitude becomes even more apparent in viewing the thousands of framed shapes placed on vertical risers. The contrast could not be more stark, with black computer-generated images printed on white paper, framed in black frames, and placed carefully in this all-white space. The combinative features and permutations here seem mathematically fascinating as well as artistically compelling. The final gallery contains 25 mounted wooden sculptures, which further underscores the aesthetic quality of the shapes and potential uses for them. Indeed they do fill a room quite nicely. McCollum then delineates how his project is open-ended: "actually constructing all of them is much too large for me to finish by myself, or in my own lifetime." But is he joking, half-serious, or simply playful? He seems an adherent of open-source code: "I am also making my shapes available to others, with the hope that people will come up with many interesting ways to use them." Would we could only tattoo our own personal shape on our wrist and use it as a biometric for home banking. Or were Rorschach still alive, he could have an unlimited supply of digital-age inkblots. Consequently, McCollum turns in a virtuoso performance by seeming both slyly gracious and simultaneously rather sinister in attempting to give everyone a shape. Given that McCollum has spent more than 30 years examining how objects "achieve public and personal meaning in a world constituted in mass production," this exploration of computer-generated uniqueness investigating social and spatial relationships is most captivating.
Tags:
Andy Warhol, friedrich petzel, gagosian, john currin, slave city, tanya bonakdar
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 12/17/2006
(
Permanent Link
)
 Send to Friend
|
December 16, 2006
Perhaps the nicest aspect of the new Education Building at the Museum of Modern Art is that it provides an additional and semi-secret entrance to the museum for members on its second floor bridge corridor. While indeed beautiful and light-filled, the same Yoshio Taniguchi design flaws that plague the main building resonate even more soundly here. The entrance has little to offer, and stairs upwards or downwards essentially define the main floor. While there would seem to be ample opportunity to display art from MoMA's vast collection throughout this building, very little is on display, though a nice wall of Andy Warhol's cows seems a somewhat feeble attempt at papering over (forgive the metaphor) this building's sterility and visually uncompelling sense of mission.
Heading downstairs to the classrooms, one gets a more hopeful sense that Taniguchi at least somewhat understood what an Education Center is all about, although the semi-hidden Celeste Bartos Theater and flawed restrooms are kinks that underscore how shortcomings gleaned from the public's use of the main building were simply ignored. Clearly this museum's mission was subordinate to Yoshio Taniguchi's rigid goal of having "the two buildings reflect one another." Indeed they do: the public spaces of this building are as awkward as those of the other building. Quite a sad departure from Taniguchi's great works in Tokyo.
American chic and excess are the hallmarks of the Met's new show on the "iconic style" of Nan Kempner, and her vast collection of extraordinary confections from Dior, Laurent, Gaultier et al fill the Met's costume institute. Perhaps the most fascinating feature of this exhibit stems from Kempner's massive color-coded wardrobe, the most conspicuous display in the Costume Institute. One learns she kept clothes for all seasons in her Park Avenue apartment, given her proclivity to jet off for Christmas to Santo Domingo and other points far afield. While contemporary couture can be fascinating—as the recent exhibit Anglomania exhibit proved—something seems a tad forced and reinforced in the repetitive ostentatiousness here. As Kempner was "perhaps one of the first women to undergo modern cosmetic surgery," it seems the museum has given her wardrobe a rather interesting facelift that ought not to undergo any further scrutiny under light.
For a sharp contrast to our current proclivity for transitory fashion costumes, proceed to the third-floor galleries, where many extraordinary examples of the tradition of using mother-of-pearl in lacquer objects can be seen. These virtuoso artesans typically from China, Japan and Korea—but also India and Thailand—created stunning examples of lacquer with the finicky yet durable glistening substance found inside mollusk shells. The objects range from the eighth to the 19th century, including a number of superb items from the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, such as a Japanese stacked food box with boats and plovers (Shibata Zeshin, 1807–1891). Two other Irving items include a breathtaking stationery box with floral scrolls (Korea, Choson dynasty, 15th century), and an octagonal dish with flowering plums and birds (China, Yuan–early Ming period, 14th century). A rectangular tray with scene from the Tale of Genji (Japan, Edo period, early 17th century, pictured above) has amazingly delicate and intricate details, as does a coffer from Gujarat (India, Mughal dynasty, early 17th century) lent by the Sackler Gallery. A full afternoon program on January 14th perhaps will unveil some of the enduring mysteries as well as (ab)uses of lacquer in the West.
Tags:
education building, florence herbert irving, lacquer, met, moma, mother of pearl, nan kempner, sackler gallery, tale of genji
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 12/16/2006
(
Permanent Link
)
Send to Friend
|
December 01, 2006
The final year of Warhol's life before his untimely death at New York Hospital in winter 1987 saw the production of some rather mundane as well as some rather brilliant oversize paintings, perhaps both the apotheosis as well as a bland summation of the 30-year career of America's greatest commercial artist. While we may never again here see such a range of Warhol's artwork in one museum as we did during that grand 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, you could opt to visit Andrew Warhola's hometown, Pittsburgh, and visit the Warhol Museum. And for the next several weeks at the Gagosian Gallery Chelsea on both West 21st Street and West 24th Street, you can view many oversize late works of Warhol.
Much has been written about the symbolism of Warhol's final year: the meaning of so many skulls; the repetitive use of camouflage in his silkscreens; and the primary subjects he chose (Josef Beuys, Lenin, Beethoven, the Last Supper, himself). Some question how much of this work he actually did versus how much the assistants did. Some have posed the tedious question: Was Warhol obsessed with issues of life and death at that point in his life? If you have read much of Andy Warhol's own writings—in particular, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol—the conclusion you might reach is that Warhol was always obsessed with life and death, with success and money, and with famous figures. So was this final year some sort of transformative experience? Highly doubtful; after all, Warhol had no idea he would die after relatively uncomplicated surgery.
When exploring the paintings currently on display, I noticed two observers wondering aloud what to make of this lifelong, devout Catholic who repainted the Last Supper in various forms. Let's first recollect the prior exhibits of these canvases: Some years ago, the now-defunct Guggenheim SoHo displayed little more than Warhol's Last Supper series. In addition, Dia showed a number of Last Supper paintings for nearly a year. In particular, the truly memorable one includes images of "Dove soap 59¢" and "GE" superimposed over the disciples. That monumental spaces so adroitly displayed such monumental paintings led numerous observers to decry and find disgust with this collusion of commerce and religion; nevertheless, this "Last Supper" as well as the earlier "Raphael I—$6.99" (1985) seem uniquely Warhol and uniquely American. For Warhol here playfully pays homage to these famous artists while displaying the evolution of his own painterly genius and bravado. For an artist who once said that paintings should be displayed and sold in department stores, this nexus of crass commercialism and high and low culture could not be better encapsulated than in such works. Consider the implications of a commentary recently appearing in China Daily about the record prices fetched at auction for a Mao silkscreen (of course, replicated multiple times in different colors). As both Walter Benjamin and Warhol had much to say about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, were he alive today to see the sale prices of his own works, Warhol would surely publicly pontificate in his pseudo-childish and oracle-like manner while secretly commenting to his close associates on the insanity of the market prices these canvases fetch.
What about the skulls? I cracked open The Work of Andy Warhol (Dia Art Foundation/Bay Press, 1989) just now for the first time in several years, turning to the chapter on Trevor Fairbrother's essay "Skulls": Created during the Bicentennial year, Warhol's "Skulls" belong to the now benighted heyday of disco, drugs, and sexual promiscuity. From our current perspective, they seem to mark the resurgence of skull imagery that accompanied punk culture, escalating threats of nuclear and ecological disasters, and the AIDS epidemic. (93) Fair enough, perhaps. But in this age of Homeland Security during which we presently are experiencing another massive skull revival—this holiday season it seems skulls are on all sorts of clothing and miscellany from plates to scarves to ashtrays—maybe we could also simply view the skulls as the outlaw or the pirate? Indeed Fairbrother has all sorts of other ideas; in reprinting the famous Richard Avedon photograph of Warhol in 1969 that shows the scars from S.C.U.M.'s assassination attempt on Warhol, Fairbrother doesn't exaggerate when he writes, "The shooting of Warhol in 1969 brought him close to death, and changed him for ever." On the other hand, who wouldn't be changed by such a transformative experience? Maybe I should instead focus on the distinction between the 1970s early punk-era skulls and these mid-1980s skulls, for these late skulls, like the late dollar signs, portraits and self-portraits, show additional and enhanced bravado despite decreased bravura. In other words, if the 70's canvases were polychromatic and big, these 80's canvases were merely more polychromatic and bigger. The canvases took on more neon-like tones and exaggerated aspects. How much more impressive—after having served forth so many commissioned portraits—to feature portraits with the faces in camouflage! Bigger is indeed better, something Warhol knew all too well. I could be overly tedious and declaim Warhol's own playfully camouflaged and multifaceted personality at work here, but that's just too obvious. Similarly, the late Lenin, Frederick the Great and Beethoven portraits, though utterly genial and innovative at the time, strike me rather differently 20 years later. In this age of Photoshop, those latter-day silkscreening techniques seem ever-so-slightly humdrum. Fortunately I did not hear anyone gasp, "My teenager could do this on our PC!"
Few galleries in New York have the enormous spaces necessary to mount such a show, and fortunately the Gagosian's Chelsea locations seem the ideal spaces to show Warhol's multiples, because the multiplicative effect is so essential to enjoying Warhol's work. Stated differently, if one Mao looks great, five look even better. The context and evolution of Warhol's portraiture—in particular, his self-portraits—may not be in evidence here so much as the various aspects and techniques of reproducing silkscreens. Consequently, all these hammers and sickles, skulls, Mona Lisas and guns may strike the observer as both audacious and ultimately rather satisfying. Warhol became so many things to so many people, and was consistently seen all over town at so many places, it seems a natural evolution that his later canvases represent a restatement of his well-known theses. This December, the question arises: is Andy's genius once again being co-opted for crass commercial purposes, this time by the Barney's holiday gift card promotion and holiday windows as well as Juicy Couture jeans at Bloomingdales and tote bags at Urban Outfitters? Hardly; were he alive, Warhol would be thrilled by the attention as well as the lucrative licensing fees. To repeat: given Warhol's claims that artwork should be sold and displayed in department stores, he again has the last laugh with the notion that these "limited edition" gift cards have some intrinsic value. Just as the reopened Mausoleum of Modern Art's membership cards reproduced "Gold Marilyn Monroe" on the verso, the idea that everyone could have a remnant of Andy—reproduced by the thousands and in credit-card size format no less—surely would have pleased America's greatest commercial artist.
photo credit: Gagosian Gallery
Tags:
andy warhol, barneys, bloomingdales, dia foundation, gagosian, last supper, mao, museum of modern art, scum, trevor fairbrother, walter benjamin
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 12/1/2006
(
Permanent Link
)
Send to Friend
|
December 01, 2006
Wandering around the former Dia: Chelsea building two weekends ago at the New York Art Book Fair, I couldn't help remark what a sad loss it is for this city that Dia evacuated its West 22nd Street building for a "renovation" that became a permanent closure. While the Fair itself was terrific, the now-empty space with the beautiful Jorge Pardo lobby and orphaned Dan Flavin light installations seems a pathetic shadow of its former self. (Meanwhile, do go see the great Flavin exhibit on at the Paula Cooper Gallery a block away.)
With recent news that the Whitney instead of Dia will move into the Washington Street space that abuts the High Line, Dia's three-year homelessness seems all the more needless and drawn out due to organizational dysfunction. Jerry Saltz has a great article in this week's Village Voice that neatly synthesizes the various forces at work here. He additionally pontificates on the future of the New Museum, currently somewhat present next door to the West 22nd Street Dia building while its future home shoots up like an urban weed tree on the Bowery at Prince Street. I've taken a number of photos this past month of the construction site, and the progress has been rather breathtaking during this extended stretch of splendid weather.
Saltz makes two key points about Dia that merit more discussion: "Dia has the credibility and pockets to do anything it wants" and "It could even move back into its 22nd Street space." When the renovated space reopened in early 2000—with the bold Pardo project—Dia reinvented itself as the fresh-faced pioneer of Chelsea. As the crowds swelled to bloated Chelsea with its countless galleries, Dia seemed too small; ergo additional renovations allegedly commencing three years ago. Despite the tiny elevator and narrow staircase, the space has worked and could still work—were only the initiative there. Meantime, Dia's permanent Manhattan installations the Earth Room and Broken Kilometer remain open.
photo: New Museum, 235 Bowery, copyright (c) 2006 NYC.com
Tags:
broken kilometer, dan flavin, dia chelsea, earth room, jerry saltz, jorge pardo, new york art book fair, paula cooper, village voice, whitney
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 12/1/2006
(
Permanent Link
)
Send to Friend
|
