It’s Grey, It’s Grey
Dave Hardy
March 20 – May 2, 2009
Art in General
It seems like every really great piece of art puts you in a place where it is impossible to exactly describe that point of tension between what the work is doing to you and what it is. Confronted with Dave Hardy’s towering, room length wall of chocolaty vinyl wood shingles obscuring blinding tubes of white neon light, it’s impossible not to feel that tension.
The work could easily be called an odd, post modern take on the conflict between anti-minimalism vs. minimalism: think Eva Hesse vs. Sol Lewitt or Dan Flavin. But the departure is in the way these elements of anti-minimal and minimal combine; purity of obstruction meeting purity of abstraction is such an earnest sight. Hardy has created a spectacle that mediates two ideas so perfectly that the conflict between them is equally as perfect.
One can’t help but wonder if Hardy himself is fully aware of what he’s done. The impression given by the press release is that the work exists in his mind not as an action but as a symbol. The glowing light represents an undefined interior, while the hand made plastic shingles are a metaphor for mass production. In other words, Hardy sees his visual collision as more of an idea about collision and not an action before his viewer. If he wanted us to see a representation of ambiguity, he probably should have left the neon at home. The war between light and dark alone leaves no room for uncertainty and even less room for speculation. This piece is all about the visual impact and the uninterrupted experience. It is the viewer reveling in the light of discovery and equally wrestling with the darkness of imperfection, seamlessly, in the immediacy of one on-going moment. The effect should not be explained, it should be lived.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Deeply, Satisfyingly, Unattainable
Angelina Nasso
MIWIS
February 26 – April 11, 2009
Winston Wächter Fine Art
The oil paintings in Angelina Nasso’s fourth solo New York show are not a surprise, nor are they surprising to look at. Large and sparingly titled, comprised of warm colors, blotched, blurred and streak-dripping down the paper; it is easy to see why Nasso has had so much success with her style. These paintings are easy on the eyes because they are equally reflective and dense-totally meaningful and completely meaningless. In Untitled #15 thick cascades of white paint hover around large masses of dark color, giving the illusion of depth, but the shapes are shadowy and undefined. Embers #22 is comprised of cloudy, watery patches of blue, violet and green, offset by warm red and yellow subtly draining toward the center of the composition.
Wandering around the gallery makes me feel like a child looking through windows in the rain. Nasso explains her work as reflections on the darkness of her childhood, where out in the Australian wilderness the lack of streetlights made the night into oscillating, pixilated shapes. For me, they are more like a state of deep meditation; the way the world looks when eyes are half open and the mind doesn’t bother to make sense out of the visual world. It is an area in space and time that where thoughts are still and meaning is not yet a tangible thing, only a feeling. It’s the reason Nasso’s paintings are so likable; they connect to the place that exists between consciousness and dreaming, between moment and memory. Their elusive quality is what makes them most appealing.
MIWIS
February 26 – April 11, 2009
Winston Wächter Fine Art
The oil paintings in Angelina Nasso’s fourth solo New York show are not a surprise, nor are they surprising to look at. Large and sparingly titled, comprised of warm colors, blotched, blurred and streak-dripping down the paper; it is easy to see why Nasso has had so much success with her style. These paintings are easy on the eyes because they are equally reflective and dense-totally meaningful and completely meaningless. In Untitled #15 thick cascades of white paint hover around large masses of dark color, giving the illusion of depth, but the shapes are shadowy and undefined. Embers #22 is comprised of cloudy, watery patches of blue, violet and green, offset by warm red and yellow subtly draining toward the center of the composition.
Wandering around the gallery makes me feel like a child looking through windows in the rain. Nasso explains her work as reflections on the darkness of her childhood, where out in the Australian wilderness the lack of streetlights made the night into oscillating, pixilated shapes. For me, they are more like a state of deep meditation; the way the world looks when eyes are half open and the mind doesn’t bother to make sense out of the visual world. It is an area in space and time that where thoughts are still and meaning is not yet a tangible thing, only a feeling. It’s the reason Nasso’s paintings are so likable; they connect to the place that exists between consciousness and dreaming, between moment and memory. Their elusive quality is what makes them most appealing.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder?
This Place Called Home
Matt Wilson
February 12 – March 14, 2009
I feel a little guilty for liking Matt Wilson’s photographs so much, mainly because I like them without hesitation. You see, I’ve been trained by the church of the twentieth century (and what little there has been of the twenty first) only to like art that has put me through the stages of art grief: disorientation, rejection, self doubt, re-evaluation and then finally, acceptance/like. I am trained to ignore art that gives me an immediate, pure sense of satisfaction on the grounds that anything that hasn’t been wrestled with cannot be trusted to mean something real. That very well may be true, but it also assumes that there are rules for what makes good art.
The next battle to be overcome in this epic of my star-crossed art love, is photography. This medium seems unsettled in the art world; no one is sure what it is supposed to do, or how it should be handled. I don’t trust Matt Wilson’s farmhouse sitting on a grassy windswept hill in the warm twilight of a summer evening-I know it’s my nostalgia he has captured—but the fact that it's a photograph makes me want to believe it anyway. The images are small, and looking at them feels a little like peeking curiously through glowing keyholes: these images are innocent, there is nothing about the hardness of living in them. Cars veer around midnight corners in a blur of happy adrenaline, children pull brightly colored shirts over their faces to hide from things they don’t like and laugh while the world spins behind them, youth stands in the warm light of a sweaty street corner, and the texture of the rooftops is reflected in the texture of the street. I want to live in Wilson’s mediated reality, where he uses photography to pretend things could feel this perfect in life.
Show me this again in two months and my cynicism may seep back in and remind me to disregard Matt Wilson and call him sappy or pointless. But like anyone who has just fallen in love at first sight, it feels too good to be talked out if it.
Matt Wilson
February 12 – March 14, 2009
I feel a little guilty for liking Matt Wilson’s photographs so much, mainly because I like them without hesitation. You see, I’ve been trained by the church of the twentieth century (and what little there has been of the twenty first) only to like art that has put me through the stages of art grief: disorientation, rejection, self doubt, re-evaluation and then finally, acceptance/like. I am trained to ignore art that gives me an immediate, pure sense of satisfaction on the grounds that anything that hasn’t been wrestled with cannot be trusted to mean something real. That very well may be true, but it also assumes that there are rules for what makes good art.
The next battle to be overcome in this epic of my star-crossed art love, is photography. This medium seems unsettled in the art world; no one is sure what it is supposed to do, or how it should be handled. I don’t trust Matt Wilson’s farmhouse sitting on a grassy windswept hill in the warm twilight of a summer evening-I know it’s my nostalgia he has captured—but the fact that it's a photograph makes me want to believe it anyway. The images are small, and looking at them feels a little like peeking curiously through glowing keyholes: these images are innocent, there is nothing about the hardness of living in them. Cars veer around midnight corners in a blur of happy adrenaline, children pull brightly colored shirts over their faces to hide from things they don’t like and laugh while the world spins behind them, youth stands in the warm light of a sweaty street corner, and the texture of the rooftops is reflected in the texture of the street. I want to live in Wilson’s mediated reality, where he uses photography to pretend things could feel this perfect in life.
Show me this again in two months and my cynicism may seep back in and remind me to disregard Matt Wilson and call him sappy or pointless. But like anyone who has just fallen in love at first sight, it feels too good to be talked out if it.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Conflict Between Fun and Serious
Nick Cave – Recent Soundsuits
January 8th – February 7th
Jack Shainman Gallery
It’s important to see Nick Cave’s work with the expectation that you will not be able to make sense out of anything you see; but see it anyway. Insane clusters of jumbled branches fitted with items like the ceramic birds, fake flowers, or tops in every shape and size, surround the heads of garden gnome-like African American figurines and heavily patterned, fabric clad mannequins. More mannequins in various contraposto stances, don bright, one piece outfits with large head enclosures that project upward and are made of material that is either shaggy, bejeweled or knitted together like a collection of macramé tea cozies in clashing designs.
The overwhelming submersion in kitsch and craft makes these Soundsuits very entertaining. Like fairytale monsters, there is something dark in the playfulness of them; their covered faces and frozen bodies send fun house shivers down the spine. Trying to find a deeper pattern in the patterns, however, is a lot trickier. There seems to be an effort to address the history of slavery in America through various imagery (especially in a side room that has little in common with the rest of the show) but it’s impossible to sort through all the clutter of decoration and arbitrary juxtapositions to come to a solid conclusion about what Cave might be trying to say. It tastes like a half-baked attempt to give the work more political credibility when it doesn’t need it. The spectacle is enough.
January 8th – February 7th
Jack Shainman Gallery
It’s important to see Nick Cave’s work with the expectation that you will not be able to make sense out of anything you see; but see it anyway. Insane clusters of jumbled branches fitted with items like the ceramic birds, fake flowers, or tops in every shape and size, surround the heads of garden gnome-like African American figurines and heavily patterned, fabric clad mannequins. More mannequins in various contraposto stances, don bright, one piece outfits with large head enclosures that project upward and are made of material that is either shaggy, bejeweled or knitted together like a collection of macramé tea cozies in clashing designs.
The overwhelming submersion in kitsch and craft makes these Soundsuits very entertaining. Like fairytale monsters, there is something dark in the playfulness of them; their covered faces and frozen bodies send fun house shivers down the spine. Trying to find a deeper pattern in the patterns, however, is a lot trickier. There seems to be an effort to address the history of slavery in America through various imagery (especially in a side room that has little in common with the rest of the show) but it’s impossible to sort through all the clutter of decoration and arbitrary juxtapositions to come to a solid conclusion about what Cave might be trying to say. It tastes like a half-baked attempt to give the work more political credibility when it doesn’t need it. The spectacle is enough.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Eternal Photographs
Hiroshi Sugimoto: 7 Days/7Nights
Gagosian Gallery
November 6, 2008-Saturday February 14, 2009
Trying to make time into a visual experience is tricky because it isn’t something we usually visualize in ways that aren’t symbolic. So how do you make something about time that isn’t overly symbolic and isn’t over the top kitsch? That is exactly the question Hiroshi Sugimoto answers with his series of Seascapes in 7days/7Nights. The vastness of both the idea of time and the content of each photograph is exactly what works about these large silver-gelatin prints.
The exhibition, designed by Sugimoto himself, is made up of two rooms: the front room is a bright, sun-drenched space with a high, sky lighted ceiling and the back is pitch black and sparingly lit. In each room the long back wall holds seven of the massive Seascapes placed evenly next to each other in succession. Each is a misty morning or night of sea and sky that runs out of the frame and in toward the middle horizon at the same time. Everything about these photographs is silent. Not a sound comes out of them or can be heard around them. They absorb the moment like a sponge.
The back room is utterly iconic and yet reveals the cheap parlor trick that photography is. It’s part magic and part hoax, part insight and part visual game. The track light above projects a concentrated beam onto seven dark, large scale photographs surrounded by a white background. The room is completely black and the white seems to radiate light like an intense aura around an icon. But, if you get too close to the photographs it’s easy to see how fragile the illusion really is. The white margins of reflected light only work from a distance and once you walk up to examine them the illusion is quickly revealed and the world returns to normal.
These are photographs in which time has stopped and yet nothing has ended or begun within them. Only slowly and in no particular order does the horizon make itself out between sea and sky. Most of the time it is too misty to find the exact point they differentiate from each other; an easy metaphor for time itself. Each moment fades into the next generally without much definition. It is endless, like the sky and the sea. The simplicity of this idea is refreshing and scary. It’s nice that in a world where so much is complex that this one thing could be so easy to grasp, but the fear of the unknown always lurks over the horizon.
Gagosian Gallery
November 6, 2008-Saturday February 14, 2009
Trying to make time into a visual experience is tricky because it isn’t something we usually visualize in ways that aren’t symbolic. So how do you make something about time that isn’t overly symbolic and isn’t over the top kitsch? That is exactly the question Hiroshi Sugimoto answers with his series of Seascapes in 7days/7Nights. The vastness of both the idea of time and the content of each photograph is exactly what works about these large silver-gelatin prints.
The exhibition, designed by Sugimoto himself, is made up of two rooms: the front room is a bright, sun-drenched space with a high, sky lighted ceiling and the back is pitch black and sparingly lit. In each room the long back wall holds seven of the massive Seascapes placed evenly next to each other in succession. Each is a misty morning or night of sea and sky that runs out of the frame and in toward the middle horizon at the same time. Everything about these photographs is silent. Not a sound comes out of them or can be heard around them. They absorb the moment like a sponge.
The back room is utterly iconic and yet reveals the cheap parlor trick that photography is. It’s part magic and part hoax, part insight and part visual game. The track light above projects a concentrated beam onto seven dark, large scale photographs surrounded by a white background. The room is completely black and the white seems to radiate light like an intense aura around an icon. But, if you get too close to the photographs it’s easy to see how fragile the illusion really is. The white margins of reflected light only work from a distance and once you walk up to examine them the illusion is quickly revealed and the world returns to normal.
These are photographs in which time has stopped and yet nothing has ended or begun within them. Only slowly and in no particular order does the horizon make itself out between sea and sky. Most of the time it is too misty to find the exact point they differentiate from each other; an easy metaphor for time itself. Each moment fades into the next generally without much definition. It is endless, like the sky and the sea. The simplicity of this idea is refreshing and scary. It’s nice that in a world where so much is complex that this one thing could be so easy to grasp, but the fear of the unknown always lurks over the horizon.
The Magic of Peter Callesen
Peter Callesen – Folded Thoughts – Perry Rubenstein Gallery
December 11, 2008 – January 17, 2009
There is something uniquely whimsical about Peter Callensen’s paper cut outs. By uniquely, I mean unique to the loud, ultra modern, and primarily abstract vibe of the Chelsea gallery district. Even the art that creates a quieter atmosphere is generally bogged down in obtrusively demanding theoretical noise. Not the work of Callensen. Walking into the Perry Rubenstein gallery is almost like walking into a library. There is an air of reverence and appreciation, the kind that can’t help but accompany a manifestation of simplicity that does not tax a person’s mental presence, and instead invites it.
If there is a theme to Callesen’s work it is the relationship between positive and negative space. Each of the constructions is a dialog between a sheet of paper and the space that has been removed from it. The cut out portions of the paper make a positive image and the constructions from these cut out portions make a three dimensional image that has some sort of direct relationship with the negative space it is composed of. The gallery is filled with these intricately detailed forms under titles like fall (2008), a constructed skeleton lying as if ejected from a tree composed of negative space and, human ruin (2008), the intricate miniature of the ruins of a castle in the shape of a human body. While the forms are always easily recognizable, it is the consistency of the relationships between positive and negative space, or between constructed and subtracted space, that is rewardingly congruent. These are big ideas: life and death, history and existence, built and taken away; that aren’t generally easy to address in way that always makes visual sense. Some how Callesen does it though, with a childish sincerity that tugs at the heart strings and quickens the mind. It is a reminder that art can be complicated with out being complex and that beauty only exists when it is half present and half imagined.
December 11, 2008 – January 17, 2009
There is something uniquely whimsical about Peter Callensen’s paper cut outs. By uniquely, I mean unique to the loud, ultra modern, and primarily abstract vibe of the Chelsea gallery district. Even the art that creates a quieter atmosphere is generally bogged down in obtrusively demanding theoretical noise. Not the work of Callensen. Walking into the Perry Rubenstein gallery is almost like walking into a library. There is an air of reverence and appreciation, the kind that can’t help but accompany a manifestation of simplicity that does not tax a person’s mental presence, and instead invites it.
If there is a theme to Callesen’s work it is the relationship between positive and negative space. Each of the constructions is a dialog between a sheet of paper and the space that has been removed from it. The cut out portions of the paper make a positive image and the constructions from these cut out portions make a three dimensional image that has some sort of direct relationship with the negative space it is composed of. The gallery is filled with these intricately detailed forms under titles like fall (2008), a constructed skeleton lying as if ejected from a tree composed of negative space and, human ruin (2008), the intricate miniature of the ruins of a castle in the shape of a human body. While the forms are always easily recognizable, it is the consistency of the relationships between positive and negative space, or between constructed and subtracted space, that is rewardingly congruent. These are big ideas: life and death, history and existence, built and taken away; that aren’t generally easy to address in way that always makes visual sense. Some how Callesen does it though, with a childish sincerity that tugs at the heart strings and quickens the mind. It is a reminder that art can be complicated with out being complex and that beauty only exists when it is half present and half imagined.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Question of Taiste
John Wesley Question of Women
Fredericks and Freiser December 6, 2008 – February 7, 2009
I think it is impossible to trust an artist who has been working in the same style for nearly five decades. While you could argue that John Wesley has spent this time refining and cultivating his selective cropping, heavy handed formalism, and large bright spans of pop-art color, to me it resonates of a person who really doesn’t have much to say.
Question of Women unites old pieces with new and all of the above with work that has remained unshown from the artist’s collection. The conglomeration is shockingly impossible to differentiate between. Nothing is developed, nothing is really quite commented on and all suggestions are so suggestive that they never really articulate an actual idea. Since the subjects of these linear paintings are primarily women, the implication of intense sexuality and total formal idealization is obsessively unavoidable. These paintings are insulting, both because they say nothing and because they say it with all the trappings of a perverse, comic book obsessed fifteen year old boy. The only interesting thing about the show is the question of how one man managed to get away with making these insipid, unnecessary paintings for so long.
Fredericks and Freiser December 6, 2008 – February 7, 2009
I think it is impossible to trust an artist who has been working in the same style for nearly five decades. While you could argue that John Wesley has spent this time refining and cultivating his selective cropping, heavy handed formalism, and large bright spans of pop-art color, to me it resonates of a person who really doesn’t have much to say.
Question of Women unites old pieces with new and all of the above with work that has remained unshown from the artist’s collection. The conglomeration is shockingly impossible to differentiate between. Nothing is developed, nothing is really quite commented on and all suggestions are so suggestive that they never really articulate an actual idea. Since the subjects of these linear paintings are primarily women, the implication of intense sexuality and total formal idealization is obsessively unavoidable. These paintings are insulting, both because they say nothing and because they say it with all the trappings of a perverse, comic book obsessed fifteen year old boy. The only interesting thing about the show is the question of how one man managed to get away with making these insipid, unnecessary paintings for so long.
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