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Miltos Manetas
Yvon Lambert
By Nicollette Ramirez Miltos Manetas is the type of jet-setting artist we hate to love. He has had significant shows in several European cities recently, and now Yvon Lambert has brought his work to New York. Founder of the neen movement that has its base in art through technology, mainly websites as works of art, Miltos is also founder of the electronic orphanage or the eo (which was first headquartered in LA and is now fully online.) This current show features paintings and websites, one of which, Jesus Swimming (2001), www.jesusswimming.com, was shown at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris and in several biannual fairs.
The work concerns itself with man’s relationship with computers. Miltos brings two major trends in 20th Century culture together here; i.e. art and technology, of which Botticelli Book With Cable (2005) is a perfect example.
Miltos has spent the bulk of his recent work exploring the relationship between man and technology and technology and art. Powerbook 1995 is a Warholesque take on the image of the top of a closed MacIntosh powerbook. Ten years later: Girls in Nike (2005) presents a complex view of four young girls lying, sitting and standing in fashionable clothes, amid coiling cords that feed into computer screens, keyboards and game sets. Viewed from above, the girls are as anonymous as the computer equipment, but the contrast of their colorful clothing against the backdrop of a black carpet makes them startlingly alive and thrusts them up and out to the viewer.
The convergence of art and technology means that certain art forms, notably web-based media, can be experienced anywhere. In this regard, the role of the gallery is more that of a social gathering place , while the intellectual reach of human expression disperses across an ever expanding universe.
1/21 through 2/18.
E-Mail This Article Gae Savannah
Dam, Stuhltrager
By Mary Hrbacek The formal architectural structure within Savannah’s sculptures supports the tangential surface decorations. Stacked cubes set on platforms add a modular subtext to the largely totemic format. While baubles, beads, and textiles are draped around many of the component forms, the works remain powerful and individualistic; they come across as secular shrines, or beacons to a universal source of tranquility and peace. As such, they elicit a feeling of Shangri-La, a place free of time and strife. The vertical design draws the eye upward while colorful celebratory tones suggest joyous reverence and meditation. The near life-sized scale gives the works a presence that hints at a “persona” whose fantasy narrative is told by the materials. In an imaginative fictional language, Savannah invents mysterious names that convey the impression that her creations are close friends. With resourceful use of materials, she constructs a hanging lantern of multi-colored drug-store hair clips that resemble straw basketry. Savannah uses sumptuous Indian textiles, brocade, transparent cellophane, and Christmas ornaments, to enhance the diverse but related segments of her towers, tents and tables. Sometimes an intermediate platform breaks the vertical movement, creating a pause that allows the eye to scan and receive the sensory stimulation of the complex and colorful details of each piece.
In the work, Shasta, the figure’s pink transparent veil permits a glimpse at internal glowing forms. Bright pink is a symbolic Chinese color associated with love, regeneration and rebirth. Shasta transforms into a metaphor for a superficially foolish female who toys with the frivolous, but she is actually a multifaceted persona with contradictory inclinations.
The titles Nui Kua, Shasta, Nanshhe, etc. provide cues to the inner narratives of the works in an idiosyncratic language that adds a sense of mystery and fantasy to the exhibition. The artist removes syllables and adds new ones to combine names from pagan and Asian mythology. Evidently, misspelling reveals the presence of “aesa” a Greek term which means “error,” thereby indicating the emotional, unpredictable nature of art. For example, while the letter “a” contains the sound of a Sanskrit or Hindi chant, “h” adds breath, and brings a metaphysical component to a title. The works Nahshhe and Nyassa might be found in an oriental garden or a domestic interior. Each piece plays a role, as if a part of a fairy tale. The hanging double lantern, Nui Kua, takes the name of a mythical Chinese Empress who could move the stars and planets in the heavens.
By using handcrafted materials, Savannah makes oblique reference to the untenable position of a craftsperson in a global marketplace. She uses various kitschy baubles, ostensibly with a view toward exploring feminine finery, but her inner compass makes her incapable of achieving true kitsch. The external array of glittery details does not succeed in masking the ultimate gravitas of many of her new works.
1/7 through 2/12.
E-Mail This Article The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984
The Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library
By Chris Twomey
Raucous and sprawling, this compilation of over 450 artwork (exhibited at the Grey Art Gallery and culled from the archives of the Fales Library) attempts to give geography and cohesion to a wild party of artistic ferment which exploded in New York’s East Village in the aftermath of the Summer of Love in 1974 and continued until the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984. Reacting to the strict, formal confines of minimalism and conceptualism, as well as to a distrust of big government fueled by the foibles of Vietnam and the lies of Watergate, these artists, writers, filmmaker, musicians, and everything in between, ardently experimented to subvert precepts about gender, fashion, society and politics in a cross-pollinating free-for-all. Gathering “downtown” where renting a loft was an inexpensive and novel idea, their energy is accompanied by the “punk,” and “new wave rock” music that is prevalent throughout this exhibition, serving as the glue to keep the party going.
Carlo McCormick, writer, critic and guest curator, organizes the material into eight sections. Establishing the tone with a text-based art sign by John Fekner and Don Leicht, announcing “Your Space Has Been Invaded,” the exhibitions begins at the Grey Art Gallery with the first section, “Interventions.” Here, artists take their work to the street. The striking photograph, Days End, documents Gordon Matta-Clark’s carving in half of Pier 52. Other artists such as Vito Acconci, Peter Hujar, and David Wojinarowicz engage in a biting exchange with their urban environment. The exhibition catalogue for Illegal America and posters for The Real Estate Show stay on topic.
Broken Stories examines the innovative use of narrative. Art works by Laurie Anderson, Juan Downy, Susan Rothenberg, Barbara Kruger, Nancy Spero, David Salle, John Ahearn, Robert Longo, and Christian Marclay are exhibited among others. Ida Applebroog’s 1979 story board piece Sure I’m Sure signals the resurgence of figuration. Sue Coe’s 1984 Reagan Speaks for Himself shows figuration through the filtered irony of cartoon. An early William Wegman experiments with landscape painting, using words like “hill” in place of paint.
There are videos by Michael Smith, The Wooster Group, Dara Birnbaum, and Michel Auder. A separate table displays books and publications by the likes of Kathy Acker, Eric Bogosian, Richard Kostelanetz, Spalding Grey, and Lynne Tillman. Magazines helping to shape artistic consciousness such as a Bomb and the East Villag Eye are exhibited, along with Spieglman and Francoise Mouly’s RAW, a magazine which reworked comic book tradition. Poster and flyers for films by Eric Mitchell, Charlie Ahearn, Sara Driver, Jim Lurie, Bette Gordan and Richard Hell abound.
Sublime Time is this generation’s answer to austere and reductive minimalism. Here, Sarah Charlesworth exhibits a stunning large scale photograph of what looks like a woman jumping to her death. Ross Bleckner, Laurie Anderson, Papo Colo, Jack Goldstein, Peter Halley, Tehching Hsieh, Robert Wilson, Nam June Paik, and others, use oil, paper, and photo documentations of performances. Robert Kushner’s beautifully appointed performance costume, Pink, combines pattern and decoration in its search for perfection. Here is also where the viewer begins to notice that some of this work has been donated through the courtesy of the estate. The specter of AIDS begins to cast its ominous shadow over the energetic spirit. This section also shows videos by Joan Jonas, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Amos Poe, Charlemagne Palestine, Carolee Schneemann, and Robin Winters including other related printed matter. Portrait Gallery features prominent downtown denizens as seen through John Ahearn’s sculpted busts, photographs, and a Chuck Closes fingerprint portrait of Phil. Nan Golden’s Cookie at Tim Pan Alley 1983, a haunting photograph, expresses the inevitable fallout from the drug abuse, random sex, and rock and roll life. Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe and Tseng Kwong Chi with Pucks Ball (The Gang‚s All Here) deliver esthetically satisfying classic vintage gelatin silver prints.
The Mock Shop was a roving “store” concept created as an alternative market place to sell counter culture multiples, fashion, and accessories. Cheap and subversive, stand-outs from this mélange of objects, books, magazines, posters, and fashion are Tom Otterness’ Untitled display stand with early prototype human figures going about their daily business of sleeping, eating, defecating, and having sex. Becky Howland’s ceramic series smolders with overt outrage with titles like Love Canal Potato or Lung Cancer Ashtray.
Salon de Refuse celebrates trash culture while flaunting everything else, especially high art. Grouped here is David Hammons Elephant Dung Sculpture, retrieved from real elephants and painted with gold leaf. Keith Haring, a presence throughout this show, has graffiti-ed a found baby crib to great effect. Maripol has her own vitrine containing “Like a Virgin” Madonna fashion memorabilia. A Judy Pfaff piece is here too, with plastic and mixed media on mylar. And Julian Schnabel lets it all hang out with Drawing a Family a fragmented painting of a dysfunctional family. Videos by Ann Magnuson, Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanbourn and others, expand on the theme.
The Fales Library completes the Downtown Show with De-signs and Body Politics. Posters and flyers for bands are mounted to the entrance wall of this section, while music wails from an overhead speaker. The Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, the B-52’s and Blondie pave the way for the graffiti and signage strategies of the artists grouped in De-signs. Stencils, postcards, offset printing and silk-screen on enamel are all utilized to make scathing social statements.
Body Politics features sexually explicit artwork displaying a combustive mix of sexuality and identity politics. Ana Mendieta‚s film, Alma Silueta en Fuego, depicts a white body shape lying prone on the ground. Flames burst at the crotch and eventually engulf the entire figure. Hannah Wilkes kneads erasers into shapes, posing provocatively with them stuck to her naked body in a poster entitled, Marxism and Art: Beware of Fascist Feminism, for high camp commentary. Carolee Schneemann’s famous Interior Scroll is displayed for the viewer to read for themselves.
Ambitious in scope, there are many tacts to take in viewing this exhibition. Some of the material is simply interesting as history; some is meritorious in foreshadowing the roots of post modern sensibility. Some of the work is still achingly raw and resonant. Is this show definitive? No. It is a work in progress and the artists of this generation continue to contribute.
1/10 through 4/1.
E-Mail This Article Richard Greaves, Mario del Curto
Andrew Edlin Gallery
By Nicollette Ramirez Mario del Curto has spent the last twenty years documenting outsider artists and their work. In this series of black and white gelatin prints he captures the work of Canadian artist Richard Greaves and conveys something of the strangely compelling remote landscape in which this artist lives, both physically and mentally.
Greaves has been called the “Anarchitect” because he has constructed about twenty shacks, cabins or small houses out of a collage of found objects, recycled fixtures from abandoned barns and other types of "trash" (some items date back 150 years.) Magazines, book covers, television and computer parts, bicycle wheels, porcelain plates, shoes, paper cups, plastic baubles, metal signs and wood are sturdily but asymmetrically held together by ropes, plastic cords and very little else. These structures, some built as much as fifteen years ago, at first glance seem not much more than tumbling down shacks, but upon closer inspection they are in fact built strong enough to withstand the elements and safe enough for the neighborhood children to play in; the neighborhood children have at times contributed to the cabins by painting on the doors and on the glass of the windows.
Two videos accompanying the exhibit give the viewer an insightful peek into the mind of the artist. In Philippe Lespinasse's film Greaves talks about the continuous cycle of energy in all matter, the unity of mankind and the proposition that man is his own god. As he ties and reties the chords that bind his cabins together the artist reiterates time and again how lucky he is, and it is obvious to the viewer that he is happy with his place in the world.
Curated by Sarah Lombardi and Valerie Rousseau, this exhibition has traveled from the Fonderie Darling in Montreal and will be on view at the Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne and then on to the Pulperie de Chicoutimi in Quebec. This is a show not to be missed.
Through 3/4.
E-Mail This Article The Photography Show’06
AIPAD 2006 >>
By Joel Simpson After many years of trying, AIPAD finally managed to move from its familiar Midtown venue in the Hilton Hotel to the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street. The new venue is certainly more spacious, and the added cachet of the Upper East Side location doesn’t hurt. We cannot say the same for the price, however; booth rental went up by more than half, so it was perhaps not surprising that the show tended to be more conservative this year.
If one imagines a cartesian graph of photographic content, with the x axis extending from the political or engagé on the left to the purely aesthetic on the right, and the your vertical axis extending from the literal above to the altered (including staged) below, then the preponderance of the images (vintage or not) fell in the upper right quadrant. Although photography is the ideal medium for reporting on the underreported, able unobtrusively and cheaply to bring back images from remote or dangerous locations, one would be hard put to imagine that a real war was raging in Iraq,
right now, or that a genocide in Darfur continues unabated,
or even that similar events have taken place in our recent
past; no, you wouldn’t know this based on a stroll through
these wonderful aisles. To be sure, preserving and venerating
the rich history of photography is a fine thing, making important
prints available to individual collectors, but we’ll
never know the enrichment that more contemporary works, more
imaginative works, more disturbing works would have brought
to the show.
The 2006 catalogue gives a somewhat more adventurous impression
of the galleries than their booth offerings indicated, suggesting
a collective hesitation to display works that were not probable
sellers. Also, a number of member galleries did not show up
at the Armory, though they are represented in the catalogue,
galleries such as John Stevenson of Chelsea and the surrealist
Galerie 1900/2000 of Paris. There was a lot to see of August
Sander, whose pioneering work was done in the 1920s, and at
least two copies of the striking 1925 Movement Study by Viennese
photographer Rudolph Koppitz (at the Galerie Johannes Faber,
from Vienna, for example). The most impressive vintage works
to see, however, were brought to light by Washington D. C.
gallery Gary Edwards, who presented a substantial series of
anonymous hand-colored salt prints from the 1860s. These full-length
portraits resembled naive painting of the previous 100 years
(such as one finds hanging in the Brooklyn Museum). At first
glance, they look like Maggie Taylor’s contemporary
surrealist take-offs on 19th Century photo portraits. The
colors are more saturated than conventional photographic hand
coloring, and the work is meticulous.
Counterbalancing the tilt towards the historical were a number
of striking works that deserve mention. First off, there was
the original work by Lalla Essaydi, depicting women dressed
in flowing white robes and surrounded by a background of the
same material, relentlessly covered in (surrounded, overwhelmed
and drowning in) Arabic verses. Laurence Miller and the Aperture
foundation had introduced it to the New York scene last year.
Miller featured this work at AIPAD, along with the Lisa Sette
Gallery from Scottsdale, AZ. The latter gallery and the Vision
Gallery from Jerusalem both featured work by the Russian team
Rimma Gerlovina and Valery Gerlovin, whose highly stylized
long-tressed, farded woman with the receding chin seems to
do magical things with attenuated rice. She casts it down
to take the shape of a book; or she holds an egg made of it
in one hand, while another hand made of it holds a real egg.
One senses the presence of myth, without exactly grasping
the meaning.
A somewhat more readable and frankly surrealist work was that
of Australian photographer Samantha Everton, represented by
the Sandra Byron Gallery of Sydney. Everton’s witty
digital montages gently mock their subjects while alluding
to classical painting and poetry. Her Ingres-like odalisk
lies nude on a Second Empire divan before a full-length horizontal
mirror, holding a hand mirror that reflects her face next
to the reflection of her face in the large mirror. Then there
is the nude woman standing before an open wardrobe; inside
are hanging three masks of her face, each with a different
expression (smiling, distressed and neutral), while the mirror
inside the door reflects her as clothed. One can almost hear
Eliot’s line from Prufrock “...to prepare a face
to meet the faces that you’ll meet.”
A palpable mini-trend this year was the presentation of astronomical
photographs as art. The Tartt Gallery of Washington D. C.
featured the famous 1896 portrait of the moon, as well as
a 1971 NASA moonscape in extended panorama. But it was Howard
Schickler of Brooklyn who made the biggest commitment to this
genre, by devoting almost his entire wall space to the deep
space platinum-palladium photographs of astronomer David Malin.
Schickler tells of how he had to convince Malin, who had been
collecting the photographs for years, that they would work
as art, and they are indeed stunning.
The most captivating work was that of the inimitable Martin
Parr in the booth of the Chicago-based dealer, Stephen Daiter.
This large, 41x50 inch print depicts a fashionable young brunette
in high heels and head scarf, high heels and coordinated outfit,
pumping gas into what is presumably her (American) car (a
Buick?) at a Gulf station, while a US flag waves above her
and the near distance against a deep blue sky. The color and
composition are perfect. Does this represent the latest chapter
in documentary photography? Alas, no. The model posed for
a fashion shoot, and the show it’s from is called Fashion
Show (the other images in this show favor parts of the outfits
of models, while a well-dressed jockey, visibly shorter than
the model, stands in another part of the picture). The reading
is not terribly esoteric, though if it were more explicit
then some might take offense: the head scarf and dark hair
lend the woman an Islamic air — an attractive, compliant
Muslim pumping (Persian) Gulf gas into an American car under
an American flag.
The edition of five at this size sold out at the show (for
$8500 each) after the Chicago Art Institute bought one. Lee
Friedlander, Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand, Helen Levitt, Walker
Evans, Bruce Davidson — where are you when we need you?.
2/10 through 2/12.
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This Article
Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain
(FIAC) 2005
Paris
By
Laetitia Chauvin
Like a conniving wink to New York City, the cover of the
Fiac 2005 catalogue shows the model of the Statue Liberty
that can be seen from a boat ride on the Seine in Paris. The
visual suggests a subliminal welcome to international collectors.
Indeed, this year’s installment of the Fiac had all
of the the spirit of a big fair: an extravagant after opening
party that was held in the newly restored Crystal Palace,
a warm and carefully planned welcome, private visits around
Paris.
The fair is traditionally divided into two halls; there is
space dedicated to young international galleries coined "Future
Quake", - referencing André Breton "every
artwork is a future quake". Here you find a lot of buyers
with prices under $ 6,000 for work by new artists.
It seemed that many dealers offered drawings by artists; so
many in fact that we might even call this a trend. Perhaps
the focus on international collectors led to a greater emphasis
on the pictured language; of course it is also true that drawings
are easier to transport, but then that has always been the
case. Some galleries dedicated their whole booth to drawings.
Valerie Cueto (Paris) hid drawings in a cabinet, covering
all four walls with framed drawings by gallery artists.
Miss China Beauty gallery (Paris) did much the same, hanging
drawings on the wall like mural paper. These drawings revealed
the conversely violent and tender verve of women artists.
And there were drawings in the Videos as well. Tomoko Konolke’s
Mimi-Odyssey at Mizuma Art Gallery, an 11 1/2 minute DVD held
viewers spellbound with it’s animated drawings of dancing,
doll-like figures that bob and weave amidst an alluring swarm
of flying daggers in the night. Dominique Fiat gallery (Paris)
showed work by Camille Henrot, who drew directly on films
of old motion pictures. The raw effects of her lines, characters
appearing and disappearing, gives the found footage a fantastic
varnish.
Roman Ondak at gb Agency (Paris), presented 24 drawings made
by Ondak's friends and relatives based on his description.
The viewer has the feeling of getting into twenty-four dreamed-up
corridors, disturbing nowhere, empty doors and windows, where
nothing ever happens.
Changing gears, Hauser and Wirth gallery (Zurich/ London)
were selling Richard Jackson's preliminary sketches, which
are actually much more accessible for a collector's living
room than the finished piece which is enormous though it looks
nice in a large space devoted to it.
An other big hit this year was an original idea that had the
energy of an art happening. This was a prefabricated stock
of ready-to-carry artwork by the artist: Raphaël Julliard,
for Art and Public gallery (Geneva). The gallery ordered 1,000
canvases that Chinese workers painted in red. Only one was
visible and the others, packed, were sold for $120 to buyers
in hurry. On the first night of the fair, the 1,000 canvases
had all but sold out. The artist applied the economic rule
of outsourcing the production to low wage countries, and then
importing the "art goods" made in China. A series
of identical red canvases were made cheaper because of the
economy of scale. Fortunately, the art market has its own
speculative economy; the day after, one collector was offering
$300 for one canvas.
10/6/05 Through 10/10/05.
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