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Leeza Ahmady, Paradox
in the Polarity
Bose Pacia New York
By Natane
Tadeka
F eaturing the work of fourteen Central Asian artists, this
group show, The Paradox of Polarity, both covertly and overtly
offers information about the artists’ own history as
well as contemporary life in Central Asia. Curated by Leeza
Ahmady, the exhibition is part of an ongoing curatorial project
called The Taste of Others, which aims to promote emerging
artists from Central Asia; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. During the Cold War these nation
states were isolated from the rest of the world. In this exhibition,
however, the artists’ come out of their shell, and we
glimpse a once hidden history as well. The artworks, which
range from sculptures and video installations to photography,
the show serves to remind us that great art often originates
from catastrophe.
There is a juxtaposition of everyday-objects in works by
Elena and Viktor Vorobaeva from Kazakhstan. In Winter Sublimating
Subject, 2004, a series of fifteen photographs documents a
frozen-ice-teapot on a bonfire. A huge sculpture, Knife, 2003,
made by the specific stone in the country, is situated in
the front of the photographs. The grayish marble-like stone
is rough in some parts. In both, the subject matter and materials
are raw and the items themselves are common. Like Arte Povera’s
artists, by using something relevant to all of us, the couple
focuses on the alchemical process. In Winter Sublimating Subject,
needless to say, the ice is melting in the last photograph,
which might suggest a universal law; everything is in transition.
At the same time, the work seems to reference the end of a
painful history and the hope of a new beginning.
At first glance, the photo collage, Paradise, by Alexander
Ugay, (Kazakahstan of Korean descendant), looks like a painting.
The work speaks in loud colors. The mountainous and nomadic
landscape of Kazakhstan appears in a long horizontal shape,
which suggests a narrative thread. Local figures, mostly males
and also a bird and some objects, dustbins, are randomly inlaid.
The work appears to be a picnic scene on a peaceful day. However,
upon closer inspection, the viewer notices that everything
is out of context. For instance, dustman like figures with
their faint smile stand next to the dustbins in the vast green
field. Why are they here? There is something of the absurd
here. The vivid colors exaggerate the sense of detachment
from nature, and even the modern world. Fantasy versus reality,
or nature versus modernity, the work is a perplexing paradox.
There are eight video works in the show. More or less, they
are all informed by regional and cultural references. In Apa,
2003, by Almagul Manilibaela, six naked women are embedded
in the snowy landscape; each woman is situated in a mole’s
hole-like snow mountain, which looks like a white skirt. The
naked women are waving their hands, dancing and shouting “apa.”
Train Art, 2005, by Ulban Japagrov from Kyrgyzstan, utilizes
photography and performance-based video to show everyday-life
in the region. The video captures a narrow aisle on a local
train car. In one scene, we see some young men sitting cross-legged,
meditating in the small space. Without being distracted by
the train’s bumpy ride, they seem to be totally in a
world of their own. With the local music and the rhythm of
train’s movements, the video hypnotizes. These two video
pieces compliment each other, symbolizing a the difference
between the disposition of men and women in the region.
The Paradox of Polarity is a cohesive and didactic show,
encompassing regional issues from a historical perspective.
Each artist resurrects the old customs and transfers them
onto a contemporary template. Despite the regional nature
of the work, the subject matter is relevant to social structures
around the world. Life is, after all, a paradox.
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Cosmologies
James Cohen Gallery
By Ola Manana
This ambitious show, comprised of sixty-five works spanning
six centuries, represents the actual cosmos, as we know it,
with a plethora of starry objects and paintings that reminds
us of our vulnerability with respect to the solar system.
Social constructs, political hierarchies, means of religious
and spiritual enlightenment come into view here. All of these
pieces begin at a single point, and surrounding them there
is the cause and the effect; the star, and the audience. A
thought and the pounding thoughts and images that follow from
the thought; first a raindrop, then a flood.
The Tibetan Gilt Copper Repousse representation of Chakrasamvara
as the 10 Syllables of Power from the 18th Century is one
of the more powerful works in the show. It is a singular and
weighty object. One wonders about an object of such visual
weight depicting the Bhuddist ideals of Breath and "the
Clarity of Emptiness." This object is like a golden tombstone.
A stopping point. Indeed, the repetitious quality of meditation
is in effect a repeated cancellation of the one that went
before with its replacement, the same sound, the same syllable.
Death is the same. Meditatative breathing suggests a similar
repetitive breath. The same breath over and over, the same
word, like death is the same. Life is what mutates changes
and clutters. This object perfectly describes the ideal of
breath; so still and so focused it is like death, un-distractable,
unchangeable and so connected to universe.
Anselm Keifer's large scale lead book, Buch: The Secret Life
of Plants (2002) is displayed in the round like a reverse
panorama. Apparently, he takes the known dates of the life
and death of stars and gradually morphs them into poppies.
Despite it's grand proportions (each page is 77 x 57 x 1 inches)
the book seems cumbersome, lethal and foreboding. There is
no taking into account of the size differences between stars
and poppies; instead, there is a seamless transformation from
a blob of white paint, to a blob of pink paint. The story
is appealing though.
Ad Reinhardt's piece, Portend of a Yhung Mandala (1955) takes
a break from the serious questions of the cosmologies of the
universe and brings us his version of the hilarious cosmology
of the art world in the form of a mandala. He astutely places
"The Glorious Past" across the way from the "The
Glorious Future," and places "The Sick Present"
and "The Sordid Present" between them (so we can
see where the conflict lies), and offers a key to the various
types of artist personas to be wrangled with in the art-world,
among them, "The artist as One Man Show-Biz Demon"
and "The Artist as Poetartcritic Divining Rod Tool."
This work is both charming and attractive and can be helpful
to for those in the art world who are trying to find a phrase
that describes their identity.
Speaking of identity, Matt Mullican offers us a look into
his personal cosmology, a mish-mash of personalized signage
intermingled with the questions that seem to be bothering
him, such as "What will Be my Eternal Fate?" In
Untitled, (2006) it is not quite clear whether or not he takes
these questions seriously, given the gestural cartoonish nature
of his depictions of the devil and angels (a cartoon devil,
is, well, obviously always a cartoon devil) nevertheless,
he takes time to graph out the various possibilities relating
to this theme, to touching effect, describing the paralyzing
poetic desire to know fate and the inability to be equal to
the task of prescriptive righteousness. "The space between
two halves of a distant heaven becoming like the soul stretched
between demon and angel."
This trend of mixing narrative language in visual art is
used in many of the other artworks in the show too; Mark Lombardi's
Inner Sanctum:The Pope and His Bankers. (1996). This indictment
of the subjects in question links with paranoid precision
the Vatican, Nicaraguan Drug Traffickers and even Chase Bank.
Brought together by sordidly delicate, illuminated lines and
text, the recognizable places, people and events are so breathtakingly
peculiar as to make one wonder.
In a somewhat similar looking visual entitled Portrait of
Marjorie, (1995) Fred Tomaselli charts his friend Marjorie's
drug cosmology. Interspersed between well delineated stars,
on a dark background ground (unique photogram) the names of
substances from chocolate to Cannabis to Nyquil to Nicotine
float in the sky. Another of the three Tomaselli pieces, entitled
Box For Your Head (1990-96), is an experience in sculpture.
One must stick one's head into this sculpture to fully get
it. On the outside, it’s a lovely box of precisely lacquered
golden brown leaves on wood. A black hole, front and center
with the neck hole of a black T-shirt stretched in front of
it offers a clue. When I stuck my head in the box I experienced
a kind of vertigo. Little pinholes stuck in the midnight blue
paint and filtered light in tiny quantities. It’s like
floating in the sky.
Juxtaposed next to this is the excellent animated film CHOPPERLADY
(2005), by Laleh Khorammian. Only nine minutes long, this
film is an original, specific world of tiny animated figures
that jump around acrobatically between seasons through what
appears to be a portal created through a leaf that has been
chewed through by an insect. The soundtrack is wonderful;
dramatic music. Applause, as a tiny figure tumbles down the
hill, imbues the scene with a Svankmeyer like weirdness. Somehow,
after a few minutes, the mutable landscape of gold forests
and prussian blue skies become believable, perhaps because
its elemental bursts of happiness and sadness coexist, just
like in real life.
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Art Miami 2007
In The First Person
By Rachel Hoffman
Our series of first-person accounts of art
world events, as told from the perspective of individual artists,
“In The First Person” presents this third installment
of Rachel Hoffman’s unedited narrative of the art scene
in Miami. This month, the focus is on Miami’s “other”
contemporary art fair, Art Miami 2007 which took last place
last month in the swirling tailwinds of the previous month’s
Art Basel Week.
5. 01. 07
I am skipping down Ocean Drive in a lightweight flowing cotton
sundress and a pair of high heel sandals with lots of straps.
The sky is a deep jewel blue, but the sun is beginning to
beat down. Reaching the Miami Beach Convention Center, it
feels nice and cool inside; South Florida has the best air
conditioning systems. This is the first day of Art Miami,
the contemporary art fair that takes place about a month after
Art Basel Miami Beach. I decide to take a look around. When
I first enter the exhibit hall I see tons of paintings on
plywood by the artist, Pervis Young. He has been selected
as this year’s Director’s Choice artist. His monumental
Wall of Peace will be the first thing that greets each visitor
to the fair.
As I turn the corner I notice a swarm of news
reporters and television cameras around a painting by Kate
Krez in the Chelsea Galleria booth. The work depicts the actress
and celebrity, Angelina Jolie, as the Virgin Mary surrounded
by her three children, Maddox, Shiloh and Zahara. They float
on a heavenly cloud like angels above a check-out line at
Wal-Mart. I would like to take a closer look, but I am more
interested in the spectacle than the work itself. It kind
of reminds me of when I spent a summer abroad in Paris, studying
Art History. I spent my days wandering and mostly getting
lost in the corridors of the Louvre. I used to like to hide
in the corner of the room with the Mona Lisa, not to look
at the painting itself, but instead to watch the tourists
react to the painting.
I have fallen in love with something smaller.
In the booth of the Contessa Gallery, I notice an erotic etching
by Picasso. It is a self-portrait as a Minotaur raping a beautiful
female figure, which I am guessing to be Dora Maar. The sensuality
in each mark makes me weak in the knees. It is no wonder to
me that Picasso had so many girlfriends. I imagine what it
must have been like to be conquered by him. What an experience
it must to have been to feel delicate and exposed beneath
him. I romanticize about looking into his deep brown eyes
in the same dream that I fantasize about possessing the etching.
A haunting painting by the artist John Kirby
in the Flowers Gallery booth intrigues me. The figure in the
painting is so stiff, dressed in a suit. He holds masks in
his hands. He seems almost like a wooden puppet, but there
is a presence. The palette is muted, cerebral, and cold. The
eyes call to me, there is life inside. There is an aura. It
is as if I have seen a ghost.
I notice Michiyoshi Deguchi's works in the Gallery
Sudoh Japan booth. These mixed-media sculptures are about
and record the process of drawing. By combining photographic
documentation of the drawing process with the “real”
objects being represented, the artist connects the past with
the present. Illusion and reality crosses. I enjoy the artist’s
concepts, and visually the work is uplifting.
There are galleries from all over the world
here in the exhibition hall, but many that are here are local
to Miami. Among them is the Steve Martin Studio, a gallery
that relocated to Miami from New Orleans. I take some time
to chat with Martin about New Orleans, the big hurricane and
the work that he is presenting in the fair. Martin still represents
artists from New Orleans. His gallery is also a studio work-space.
I like the idea of that.
There is a nice selection of the bright colored
toy-like sculptures of Venezuelan artist Carlos Enriquez being
shown at Gallery Praxis International Art, which has locations
in the Wynwood district of Miami as well as New York and Buenos
Aires.
I stop for a moment to take in a painting by
Cuban born artist, Leonel Matheu, in the booth of a Miami
gallery called Dot Fiftyone. It hacvfdewq21`s the playful
quality of a childhood drawing. I appreciate the simplicity
of the design, as well as the artist’s harmonic triadic
color palette.
The news crews have now abandoned the Katie
Krez painting of Angelina Jolie and are now wandering the
exhibition hall looking for other items of interest. I realize
that I have suddenly become one of those items as I have caught
the attention of a news reporter. He asks to interview me,
and I feel shy. I agree to answer his questions. He asks me
to name my favorite work. I am totally drawing a blank until
I see behind him one of the eye-catching sculptures of Marta
Klonowska represented by the Lorch and Seidel Gallery. I tell
him that my favorite is her red monochromatic poodle crafted
out of sharp and pointy sparkly glass. He then asks me why
and I give him a silly answer. I tell him, “I like anything
that glitters!” He directs the cameraman to follow me
around for a while as I admire Klonowska’s red poodle
some more.
He tells me to watch the news tonight. I am
going to be on television. Luckily, I will be too busy to
see my embarrassing interview. Instead, I will be doing a
performance called The Story of the Eye, which will take place
at a party/reception at Edge Zones Art Space in the Wynwood
district of Miami this evening. Tonight I will be glittering
also, and dripping in luxurious red satin tentacles, which
are adorned with white satin eyeballs where the suction cups
should be. My costume looks something like a Japanese sea
monster, but this performance is also a love ritual. I have
hidden small vials of artificial blood, a sort of love nectar,
in the vein-like tentacles my costume, which will be dripped
and then consumed. It is very sweet. I will be kissing sugar
crystals. Starting up the magic seems a perfect way to end
the day in Miami!
Although the fair is a lot smaller than last month’s
Art Basel Miami Beach, there are a lot of good things to see.
I have met a lot of really great people. Art Miami is well
attended and a lot of fun; it’s a positive experience.
I return to the Hotel Whitelaw on Collins Ave.
The inside of my room is painted a loud lipstick pink. I eye
the mini-bar. Among the huge selection of tiny potent bottles
for mixed drinks are boxes of condoms, passion fruit lubricant
and massage oils. This definitely is South Beach, and the
hotel bar is popular among Miami Beach locals as well as tourists.
I resist the urge to spend any time down there; at least not
tonight.
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