Neo Rauch- International Man of Mystery

Secrets and Art: Neo Rauch’s Narrative Enigmas

by Melissa Stern on Dec 2, 2011 • 10:22 am

I have long been fascinated by the work of the German artist Neo Rauch. From his strange, strained color palette to the scenes of modern dislocation that spill forth from his mind, he is consistently one of the most interesting contemporary painters in Europe or the U.S. His current show at David Zwirner Gallery shows Rauch painting some of his best work in years, exploring themes of both personal and political dissonance.

The exhibition, aptly entitled Sanitarium (Heilstatten in German), is a hallucinatory tour through  Rauch’s universe. Enigmatic figures emerge from architectural landscapes that are at once improbable and evocative of a mythological German past. Bits and pieces of narrative taunt the viewer to decode the paintings, only to be thwarted by twists and turns of visual plot that lead anywhere and nowhere. Neo Rauch, born and raised in the former East Germany, has always combined a sense of the social realist style of Soviet art matched by a Western psychological sense of urgency.

This is not easy work to read. Rauch’s work never has been—and that is part of its appeal. We desperately want to know what he is trying to say; that is inherent in the appeal of narrative art. What, precisely, is the story? But time and time again, Rauch’s paintings refuse to give it up their secrets.

This recent work employs a color palette that is typical of Rauch but pushed in new, more extreme directions. The colors are acid drenched, worn out and semi-industrial. The essence of the faded “glory” of East Germany is contained in these colors. The difference between this and much of Rauch’s previous work is the use of recurring hits of a toxic green and a brilliant purple. This refreshed and striking use of color is perhaps the unifying element of this show. The imagery—birds of prey, men digging holes, a fall from grace—are not new to Rauch’s world. The inhabitants of this world are forever busy, yet the goal for which they labor is always elusive. These narratives are mystery stories that the viewer never solves. I find these endless mysteries intoxicating. Neo Rauch provides all the clues, but it is the viewer who completes the story.

Heilstatten

Through Dec. 17, David Zwirner Gallery, 525 W. 19th St., www.davidzwirner.com.

 

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Rauchenberg’s Delights

An artist shows off his collection
By Melissa Stern

Nov 29, 2011 • 2:51 pm

One of the most fun things an art lover can experience is a glimpse into the private collection of a beloved artist. The current exhibition at Gagosian uptown featuring Robert Rauschenberg’s private collection leaves one giddy with delight and reeling from the sheer volume and quality of collected work.

The show has 200 works in it—a mere sampling of Rauschenberg’s 900-piece collection. Everything and the kitchen sink appears in this show, from a 3.5 x 2.5 inch portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Civil War photographer Matthew Brady to numerous and stunning paintings and drawings by Rauschenberg’s close friend Cy Twombly. Trades, purchases or gifts from friends and lovers, the pieces take over three floors of Gagosian’s flagship Madison Avenue gallery, and each room brings new revelations into the life and mind of the man who collected it all.

Many of the works in the show are by Rauschenberg’s contemporaries, and one can easily see the connection between their artistic sensibilities. Then there are the surprises: A small ink drawing, “Study of a Chicken,” by Alexander Calder, is a delightful, almost throwaway “portrait” of said chicken. A wonderful collage from 1964 made by chorographer Steve Paxton, Rauschenberg’s friend and collaborator, is a revelation into the nature of improvisation and artistic connection between men. A series of photographs by Grant Mudford of abstracted pieces of street paving relate directly to Rauschenberg’s own fascination with the connections between seemingly disjointed images.

There is a particularly delightful painting by James Rosenquist entitled “Waiting For Bob.” The story goes that it was to be a collaboration between the two artists. Rosenquist went first, painting a partial door and leaving a big empty space in the middle, presumably for Rauschenberg to do his thing. When the canvas arrived at his studio, however, he pronounced it “perfect” and refused to lift his own brush to it. The show abounds with such pleasures.

It takes time to walk thorough the collection, and there are certainly some misses; I did not feel passion for the musical scores of John Cage and Morton Feldman amassed here. But there are those for whom these works will be the best in the show. The diversity of vision is astounding. There is a wonderful mural-sized photograph on the fourth floor of the gallery showing Rauschenberg in his studio with many of the pieces in the show hanging behind him.

The opportunity to see these works brings us closer to this brilliant artist, whose restless energy and ever-evolving personal work brought him closer to the things he truly loved. It’s inspiring.

The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg
Through Dec. 23, Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Ave., 646-453-1050, www.gagosian.com.

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Out of the Past: Peter Sekaer’s signs trace history at ICP

 CityArts on Oct 25, 2011

The stunning new exhibition at The International Center of Photography forces you to slow down, ignore the hustle of the city outside, take a deep breath and dive into a world long gone. Signs of Life: Photographs by Peter Sekaer presents the Danish-born photographer’s now obscure work chronicling America under the New Deal, portraying a land of poverty, segregation, hope and utter beauty. Like his better-known colleague Walker Evans, Sekaer traveled both the rural and urban roads of America for his photographic subjects. He created a poetic elegy to the period.

Peter Sekaer, “Times Square, New York,” 1935, gelatin silver print. © Peter Sekaer Estate, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchased with funds from Robert Yellowlees.Peter Sekaer,

With an outsider’s objectivity, using his background in commercial art, Sekaer brings an elegant sense of design as well as a great love for signs and typography to his work. It struck me how many of these “sign” photos presage later 20th-century artists like Ed Ruscha and Barbara Kruger. Delightful calligraphic swirls spell out “Jones Barber Shop.” A solid art deco font marches up a staircase labeled ”Colored.”

I think, however, that the curator has used the word “sign” in a broader context. In Sekaer’s quiet and often empty urban landscapes, these signs, posters and bits of advertising are a reminder that these were once vibrant communities.

Sekaer’s portraits of people, though posed, capture a quiet sense of loss and despair. There are not a lot of smiles in these photos, but their masterful composition and beauty dispel any sense of gloom. Most of the photos in the show were commissioned by the government to document the Great Depression. A stoic populace stares into the camera, refusing to give up or give in. Sekaer’s lush silver prints—an older, but arguably subtler photographic technology—is a reminder of just how much is lost in contemporary digital prints.

This is a powerful political exhibition. Its juxtaposition with a fluffy retrospective of photos from Harper’s Bazaar in ICP’s next room may be a sly comic statement about the medium’s diverse use. And as Occupy Wall Street marchers passed by the museum, I thought about how Sekaer’s photographs comment on the world of the haves versus the have nots from long ago.

Signs of Life: Photographs by Peter Sekaer Through Jan. 8, 2012, International Center of Photography, 1133 6th Ave., 212-857-0000, www.icp.org.

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TRAVELING LIGHT

Traveling Light

 Oct 26, 2011 

Curious Matter in Jersey City

Should we all move to Jersey City? That’s all I could think after an efficient 15 minute PATH train ride to a place that I confess I had never ventured before. A short walk through a street teeming with shops out of a time warp, and I found myself on a tree-lined avenue of Victorian brownstones so beautiful that they would make a Brooklynite weep.

It’s a perfect setting for Curious Matter, an artist-run gallery dedicated to the exploration of ideas and visual art. This eccentric and rarified little gallery is home to some of the most intellectually rigorous shows in the area. Co-founders Arthur Bruso and Raymond E. Mingst consistently curate shows that address their deep interest in science, nature, beauty and consciousness. Related to the “cabinets of wonder” from other centuries, these shows span the artistic landscape showing work of any and all materials that attempt to address these big questions.

The current exhibit, Dividing the Light Measuring Darkness, is an investigation into the properties of light and dark. According to the exhibition catalog, “from ancient myth to modern science light comes out of darkness. Light and darkness are separate entities, but dependent upon one another.“ Heady stuff coming from the ancestral home of Nathan Lane and Shaquille O’Neal. Not every piece in the show is successful—the very nature of art addressing these kinds of questions ensures that not every piece will hit the mark. But the pieces that do strike the theme are true winners.

A cardboard and drawn sculpture made by Hyun-Joon Yoon is a standout. The piece in two sections consists of layers and layers of board cut to form the silhouettes of several men receding into what seems to be infinity. Intricate tiny white writing swirls around the cutouts, like miniature galaxies. The overall effect is astounding, especially for a piece that is all of 9 by 20 inches in size.

Another bright light in the show is a luscious black and white photograph by Ken Collins. A slightly fuzzy round object sits quietly on what looks like a tabletop. A brilliant band of light delineating the horizon highlights the questions, “Is the light approaching or receding?” and “Are we about to be plunged into darkness or bathed in the light?” This fascinating exhibition sheds light on New York’s outskirts and illuminates the trek to Jersey City.

 

Dividing Light Measuring Darkness

Through Nov. 6, Curious Matter, 272 5th St., Jersey City, N.J., www.curiosmatter.blogspot.com.

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Portraits of Time and Place- Lisette Model Photographs

Oct 12, 2011 •

Lisette Model showing in Chelsea

There are few galleries in New York City that approach their mission as thoughtfully as Bruce Silverstein Gallery. Silverstein’s exhibitions are curated with consistent care and intellectual rigor. The current show, Self-Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model, is a stunning examination of the relationship between Model and the German expressionist painters of her era. The show also seeks to link Model’s fabulous photographs of cabaret musicians to her aesthetic relationship with the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Personally, I could have done without the constant, somewhat grating record of Schoenberg that plays in the back gallery, but it ultimately doesn’t detract from the glowing vintage photographs.

Model’s photographs were taken in parallel to the great, politically radical visual artists of the 1930s. Max Beckmann, George Grosz and Otto Dix are but a few of the brave artists who portrayed Germany and its coming nightmare in their work at the time. The pairings in this exhibition are sublime—Grosz’s ironic drawing “People Are Basically Good,” portraying three block-headed thugs sitting around a table, cigarettes clenched in their teeth, double chins hanging over their collars, is perfectly matched with three Model photographs of overfed German gents of the same era in various stiff, clench-jawed poses.

Such parallels repeat throughout the exhibition. The very large man in a striped shirt that Model photographs in “Circus Man: Nice,” could have stepped right out of the adjacent drawing by Karl Hubbuch entitled “On The Beach in St. Malo.” By making these connections, the gallery has placed Model’s photographs in a historic, political and visual context that grants her work a sense of place and an enhanced level of resonance. This is a gorgeous show. The luscious gelatin silver prints remind us of everything that digital can’t do, and their juxtaposition to potent and vibrant political drawings makes this a valuable art history lesson as well as an aesthetic delight.

Self-Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model
Through Nov. 12, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, 535 W. 24th St., 212-267-3930,
www.brucesilverstein.com.

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A Tree Grows in Manhattan

 September 13, 2011 ·

Landscape architecture brings majesty, rebirth to 9/11 memorial site

“We’re sometimes dismissed as the guys who put the trees in,” says David Walker about his firm’s seminal role in the design of the 9/11 memorial site. The 50-year-old Walker, who co-led the project for Peter Walker & Partners, his father’s renowned landscape architecture firm, is in equal measure self-effacing and self-assured, both traits that served him well throughout the seven-year odyssey that lead to this week’s opening of the site. Moreover, he is also part of what, by all appearances, is an extraordinary design accomplishment.

Walker’s design, a stately and ever-evolving grove of majestic oak trees, is coupled with architect Michael Arad’s deeply symbolic but severe memorial pools. This design pairing and the inherent tension between life and death, historic memorial, and future renewal at the heart of it will likely be seen as the foundation of the success of this challenging and exceedingly high-profile site.

A rendering of Peter Walker & Partners’ design for the 9/11 memorial site. Rendering by Squared Design Lab, Courtesy of PWP Landscape Architecture. A rendering of Peter Walker & Partners’ design for the 9/11 memorial site. Rendering by Squared Design Lab, Courtesy of PWP Landscape Architecture.

The Walker concept was a simple one: “We said that you need a forest to represent renewal,” David Walker says. “The basic notion is that of a forest in downtown Manhattan to communicate rebirth.” The “forest” evolved into the now largely complete installation of 400 swamp white oak trees and over 40,000 tons of new soil on the 7-acre memorial site and surrounding streets. In effect, the Walkers brought ground back to ground zero.

The layout of the trees themselves is at once cultivated and naturalistic, formal and organic. Viewed east-to-west, the oaks are arrayed along a tightly defined grid punctuated by granite slabs to create a boulevard feel. Viewed north-to-south, however, the planting is randomly placed, as in a natural forest. The oaks, cultivated in a New Jersey nursery for the past four years, are now 25-feet tall and pruned to enhance their 15-foot high canopies. Over time, the trees are expected to reach 65 to 75 feet, with their soaring canopies growing together to create “a cathedral-like appearance” when viewed east-west and a fulsome forest from the north and south. Approached from either direction, the site channels visitors through an urban forest to the solemn reflecting pools at its center. “The species of tree we chose creates a vaulted ceiling structure, evoking a religious architectural feel,” Walker explains. The effect also evokes the archways or tridents of the first three stories of the fallen World Trade towers themselves. As the trees mature, the archways will rise once more.

Walker has little to say of the well-publicized head-butting and conflicts of personalities that surrounded the project. “It was an ego-driven process by everyone involved,” he admits, although one detects little of his own. “But it was all driven by a desire to create a lasting statement, and the net result is a design that will endure.”

And in one last study in contrasts, David Walker makes clear that part of the core concept of the memorial is that it actually becomes less of a memorial over time. “There was a lot of discussion about the fact that this will always remain a memorial, but as 9/11 fades beyond living memory, it will serve increasingly as an urban park more so than a memorial,” Walker predicts. “It may feel less like a grave site over time and more like a living, growing park. This is how we thought about it from the very beginning.”

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Marfa and El Paso

A few pictures from trip to Marfa and El Paso, two very strange places- each in their own special way……

The movie theater, owned by Mr. Donald Judd  of course. DJ ( as I like to call him ) seems to have bought up most of the city of Marfa. It is now all one giant shrine to a guy who actually seems to have been a bit of a tyrant in his personal  life ( take the tour, they’ll tell you all the dirty secrets)

Got to admit, there’s something about that big Texas light that’s pretty seductive.

Chianti Foundation. The shadows are better than the art.

Part of the shrine dedicated to DJ. Hold on to your hats, ready for this- these were the actual stoves that DJ had in his studio complex. Profound.

Amazing HUGE wall mural in El Paso dedicated to all of the Hispanic boxers in the world. Now this was truly awesome

 

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Ring of Fire

This gallery contains 3 photos.

My favorite ride at the county fair, or anywhere in life-                 Because when you’re in The Ring of Fire there’s always a well marked EXIT-

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Artist in Residence at The Washington School of Glass!!

I spending two hot, sweaty, intense and fun weeks hanging with the crew at The Washington School of Glass. Generous with their knowledge they are helping me take a crash course in warm glass techniques. Check out some process pix-

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is, of course hotter than HELL here in DC. That’s why I decided to spend two weeks in a place with 7 glass kilns that fire almost non-stop!!!

 

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Chris Marker- Passeges at Peter Blum Gallery

Originally posted on May 17, 2011 in CityArts

While viewing the gigantic exhibition of photographs by Chris Marker at the Peter Blum Gallery, I was struck by one question: How much of a role should context play in understanding and appreciating an artist’s work? To explain, Marker is a legendary figure in cinema history, having made the movie La Jetée, from which countless filmmakers have derived inspiration. He’s kind of an insider guy, an underground artist whose unique vision has endured through decades of changes in the art world. Yet if I did not know any of this, how would I feel about the 200 or so photographs currently on exhibit at both branches of the Peter Blum Gallery?

Passengers is an exhaustive show of digital photos of people on the Paris Metro, taken from 2008-2010. Capturing his subjects by what appears to be a spy camera, Marker then plays with the images, using Photoshop to tweak color and tone. He plays with textural aspects of the images, many of which look grainy, as if the film had been “pushed’ in an older film developing process. The majority of the images are of women—old, young, lost in thought and sleeping. The overall effect is of a world of disconnected people and environments. Marker’s subjects stare off into the distance. Very few of his subjects are looking at the camera, subverting the very notion of portraiture.

Chris Marker "Passengers"Chris Marker “Passengers” 

A student of Marker’s history recognizes the exhibition as another step in his visual evolution. However, without this context, the show might read as a little tedious. There are some knockout individual images, but the sheer volume of pictures of essentially the same subject becomes somewhat numbing. The collective effect is that of a collection of film stills, a group of studies of its subjects, rather than a cohesive narrative about them. As if looking through the windows of a passing subway car, we register briefly the small dramas within and then quickly move on to the next window. Knowing Marker’s eccentric cinematic vision, perhaps this is exactly what he has in mind.

Through June 2, Peter Blum Chelsea, 526 W. 29th St., 212-244-6055 and Peter Blum Soho, 99 Wooster St., 212-343-0441.

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