Speaking in Tongues

February 8, 2011 · View Comments
By Melissa Stern

Bigger really is better. This was my thought as I left the Causey Contemporary Gallery after watching John Clement and crew erect an 18-foot-tall welded steel sculpture titled Oiler. Clement, already well known for his large and ambitious sculpture, became smitten with the idea of building one of his pieces using industrial-sized pipe originally manufactured for the oil industry. Several trips to the American Pipe Bending Company in Tulsa, Okla., one of only two places in the country that manufactures 22-inch diameter steel pipe, some fancy talking to a factory used to manufacturing for Big Oil rather than Big Art, a monster truck trip across the country and a willing gallery owner all coalesced into the wild scene I witnessed in Williamsburg.

Clement invited the public to watch him and his crack team wrangle 8 tons of steel pipe and turn them into art. It was an impressive ballet of man, metal and torch, with a variable-reach forklift thrown in for fun. Donning my hardhat and ear protection, I watched as Clement maneuvered the smaller of the two arced pipes into a standing position. By “smaller,” I mean 12-feet by 12-feet and weighing 1,800 pounds. He engineered the piece into place with a crane in such a way that the steel looked effortlessly balanced, a graceful and sexy swoop gesture reaching high into the air.

This is what makes Clement’s work so lovely. No matter how big and macho the metal, the gesture conveyed is always like a bit of elegant calligraphy. He usually paints his pieces in absurd, wonderful colors. One series was painted in colors that were plucked from the palate of Starburst candy. This use of color steers the work away from the macho-man welder myth and conveys the lighter side of the man of steel. No word yet as to the future color of Oiler, but I’m voting for pink.
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Through Mar. 6, Causey Contemporary Gallery, 92 Wythe Ave., Brooklyn, 718-218-8939.

Kristin Morgin- Chelsea Mornng Part Three 2009

orig. published December 15, 2010 by CityArts

I can only assume that the title of Kristen Morgin’s New York debut exhibition, New York Be Nice, is a plea for a kind review, because it bears no relation to the work itself. It’s an odd title for a body of work that references neither New York nor niceness. Rather, this is a show that seeks to conjure a kind of nostalgia for American pop culture that owes little or nothing to New York City.

Zach Feuer Gallery has been populated with Morgin’s meticulously made, unfired clay sculptures of old comic and schoolbooks, toys and other images of childhoods past. One piece, “The Repeating Table,” is a long arrangement of objects. Set up on a roughly made wooden table, the faux objects on one side precisely mirror the real ones on the other. These tableaux of objects are technically fascinating and impressively crafted, but the effect is static and dead feeling, like specimens
in a laboratory. After one marvels at
the workmanship, there’s not much
else there.

Other sculptures repeat the conceit. Kid-sized tables littered with the refuse of childhood are quiet and empty feeling. The work could be seen as sad—where have all the children gone?—but instead there is a pervasive sense of numbness to this show. As objects, rather than as art, one can’t help but like the faded colors and nostalgic objects that Morgin has made. They’re like finds at a flea market or junk store in Williamsburg. But, sadly, that’s where they stop.

The parodying of pop culture, even when technically skillful, still must pack an ineffable punch in order for the work to transcend as inspired or inspiring art.
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Through Dec. 18, Zach Feuer Gallery 548 W. 22nd St., 212-989-7700.

Wangechi Mutu - mixed media on canvas 2009

Originally published November 10, 2010 by CityArts

Wangechi Mutu makes some of the most unsettling and potent drawings in recent memory. Her debut New York show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery is both haunting and disturbing—and I mean that as a compliment. The exhibition, titled Hunt, Bury, Flee, is a dazzling series of giant drawings, each portraying the African woman, writ large, in a state of raw conflict.

The works are meticulous in composition and craftsmanship. Mutu uses a wildly diverse group of materials including glitter, inks, paint, paper and beads in her work. In addition, she mines a far-ranging array of photographic sources, from fashion magazines to pornography to documentary content, to create richly layered images. The drawings are both subtle and boldly disquieting. Viewed up close, one is able to pick out the meticulously collaged photographic elements. Backing away we see that the entire surface coalesces into one unified image. Difficult to describe, they simply must be seen to feel the full depth of color, texture and meaning that is so very alive in these pieces.

The content of many of the drawings is seductive and terrifying. This is a cool and carefully calculated artist. She portrays both the beautiful and the horrible. Undercurrents of violence and sex are palpable throughout Mutu’s work. Her women are fighting, copulating and fleeing from a variety of creatures. Snakes and birds abound, playing on all of the mythological and psychological aspects of their interactions with women. The levels of image and meaning are mesmerizing.
These portraits of the modern African abound in the contradictions of living in several worlds simultaneously. The women are sex objects, enslavers, victims and oppressors all at once. The gallery press release makes a hard case for the political, neo-colonialist and economic discourse of Mutu’s work, but for me, the complexities and psychological content of her vision transcend issues of race and nationality. They dare to address deeper and more intimate questions of the female psyche. This is a daring show that warrants serious attention.
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Through Dec. 4, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, 515 W. 24th St., 212-206-9300.

CK Wilde- Healthcare 2009

Originally published October 28, 2010 by CityArts

Money, money everywhere, but not a buck to spend. That was one of the thoughts running through my mind as I viewed Tender by C.K. Wilde at Pavel Zoubeck Gallery. The exhibition is a giddy cacophony of currency from all nations, painstakingly dissected and used as collage material. The resulting pieces are at once strong political statements and beautiful compositions.

Wilde has certainly benefited from the European nations’ switch from their native currencies to the Euro. Worthless kopeks, lira, guilders and francs now dance across the page (or “spring from the register”) of Wilde’s imagination. The array of colors is staggering; who knew that money could be so beautiful?

But the message beneath these gorgeous bits of paper is serious and provocative. Wilde has carefully used the money from specific countries to illustrate the political points he seeks to make. In the collage “Destroyer of Worlds,” the mushroom cloud of Hiroshima is depicted as a wild swirl of Asian currencies, beautiful and deadly.

In other works, Wilde takes on famous art from history. His use of the currency collage in reimagining Goya’s “Disasters of War” underlines the ways in which money and war go hand in hand, always resulting in disaster.

Wilde inhabits an interesting niche. His method is part of a long-standing collage tradition, but his sensibility is that of a narrative painter. This combination is not often seen in the collage genre. More often it’s the importance of an image in and out of context that drives the power of collage. Here, we see the importance of narrative take precedence over the material. His technical ability in creating these ambitious narratives out of tiny little bits of paper is staggering. But it is the stories that he chooses to tell that give the work its true artistry.
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Through Nov. 13, Pavel Zoubok Gallery, 533 W. 23rd St., 212-675-7490.

Willie Cole- Burn marks on paper 2009

Originally published October 28, 2010 by CityArts

Willie Cole is one of the most innovative artists working today. And what makes his work so special is that he chooses to focus at any given time on a highly limited range of subject and imagery. Like a dog gnawing at a bone, Cole devotes himself to an image or object and mines it for all the depth of meaning it can yield. It is a mode of work that continually reveals surprises in the most mundane of subjects.

This exhibition at The James Gallery located in the CUNY Graduate Center is billed as sort of a retrospective of Cole’s works on paper, but it centers mainly on the work that he produced using a collection of old steam irons as a source of both imagery and actual marks on paper. The result is rich and layered in meaning and surprisingly diverse.

Cole has a collection of 12 steam irons from various eras of the 20th century, and each has its own distinct burn pattern of vents and holes on the bottom of the device. Cole has applied these patterns, in conjunction with photography and various printmaking techniques, to singe sheets of paper to produce a range of images that reference everything from masks to flowers to tribal shields. The effect is a brilliant rumination on the power of common objects to transcend their original purpose and take us to unexpected places. Several of the works are powerful comments on race, the slave trade and colonial views of Africans.

Three large photographic prints use chipper advertising slogans for irons as titles. “Loyal and Dependable,” “Quick as a Wink” and “Satisfaction Guaranteed” describe the portraits of fierce mask-like irons. Like the heads of cruel robots, they dare the viewer to see them solely as domestic objects.
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Through Jan. 8, 2011, The James Gallery of the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 5th Ave., 212-817-7392.

Originally published September 28, 2010 by CityArts

In my years of reviewing art, I have seen an extraordinary range of exhibitions from the utterly pretentious to the drop-dead gorgeous. I’ve heard more absurd justifications for shallow art than I care to count. Every so often, I find a jewel, a show in which not only is the work fascinatingly original, but the back-story adds a level of rich meaning.

Mark Hogancamp, a self-taught artist, began his creative journey after a gang outside of a bar in Kingston, N.Y., attacked him. Beaten senseless, he emerged from a coma with severe memory loss and cognitive impairment. After relearning the rudiments of reading and writing, he undertook the process of rebuilding his imagination itself.

Scrounging scrap wood, he began to build a one-sixth-scale model of a fictional World War II-era town in Belgium. He populated the town with an army of Barbie, Ken and G.I. Joe dolls exhaustively customized to look like his friends, family and even his attackers. They populate his ever-evolving tale of his capture, imprisonment and torture by the Nazis, culminating in a triumphant rescue by a bevy of saucy Barbies with guns. The work is neither camp nor a joke. It is a view into one man’s painstaking attempt to reclaim his brain and his life. In Hogancamp’s words, “They broke the connection—they broke the camera in my mind’s eye.”

Hogancamp began documenting his war stories in 2002 with a digital camera, and it is these 13-inch by 17-inch digital prints that are on exhibit at the Esopus Foundation art space in the West Village.

The back-story is amazing and heart-rending; however, these photographs stand on their own as terrific, emotional and deeply affecting contemporary art. Hogancamp has captured the fleeting moments of intimacy, cruelty and humor in his narratives in his images. Some cause a double take when one realizes that they are altered dolls. The effect in the faces and postures is arresting. In others, the overt “doll” qualities themselves can make you look twice. The images work on several levels at once, as does the mind of their creator.

In one photo, a Nazi cuddles a teddy bear while contemplatively smoking a cigarette. In another, a disembodied Nazi hand holds a gun to a woman’s head. Framed like movie stills, but more artful in their composition, these photographs are simply gorgeous. The role of women as rescuers and as the ultimate heroes of Hogancamp’s stories is particularly surreal, as Barbie dolls play the brave partisans. “Captain Hogancamp” himself is the central character in all of his narratives. Rugged, scarred and steely jawed, he photographs the narratives of which he is a part. Art within the art. It’s an astounding world, documented in mesmerizing photographs. Add the wrenching story of the work’s origins and one comes away shaken by the power of the artist’s newfound imagination.

In conjunction with this exhibit, a documentary film about the art and the artist will open at the IFC Center Oct. 8. Shot over the course of four years, the film documents Mark Hogancamp’s life inside his imaginary world as well as his tentative steps to reenter the “real” world, one that had battered his body but did not defeat his mind.

Through Oct. 28, Esopus Space, 64 W. 3rd St. #210, 212-473-0919.

orig. published September 28, 20010 by CityArts

Throughout the weekend of Oct. 9, Creative Time will mount its second two-day seminar that attempts to address the gigantic issue of the relationship between Art and Society. Over 40 artists, curators, critics, scholars, anarchists and activists will travel from around the world to show their projects. Presenters will attempt to cover global issues of politics, gender, and food production in a flood of words and ideas. “We will talk and provoke,” says Creative Time Chief Curator Nato Thompson. “Although many believe that politically engaged art speaks to the choir and operates in a naive consensus, we are aware that there are numerous forms and numerous politics.”

It is sometimes hard to merge politically conscious art with one that is also aesthetically noteworthy, but Creative Time has never been afraid of tackling hard subjects. The emphasis will be on art and art forms that relate to immediate social concerns, as well as tackle the aesthetic implications of this type of artwork. The marathon of presentations will be back-to-back for two days, culminating in the presentation of the second annual Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, honoring an artist who has committed her/his life’s work to social change. This year the award will be given to Rick Lowe. It is bound to be a heady and provocative weekend.

Oct. 9 & 10, The Cooper Union School of Art, 7 E. 7th St. For a complete schedule, visit www.creativetime.org/summit.

Originally published June 16, 2010 by CityArts

Viewing the photographs of Renato D’Agostin is like stepping backwards in photographic history. In fact, I was convinced that it was a show of vintage prints, until the gallery told me that is a completely contemporary show.

Renato D'Agostin- Tokyo

It is a show of works about Tokyo, capturing those fleeting moments of observation and composition that were a benchmark of photography in the 1970s. Partial views of the body, architecture and the all-defining role of light combine to make these prints exquisite jewels.

The silver prints glow like photographs used to glow. The photographs are composed and printed with a care and craft that we see all too rarely these days. Each one, hand printed, helps you remember the luscious tones that “old school” photography conveys. It was not a surprise to discover that D’Agostin is a protégé of Ralph Gibson, whose influence is obvious in the younger man’s work. The presence of the mentor, however, is in no way a bad thing. It used to be that young photographers would work for a master, absorb their influence and then set off on their own. D’Agostin has done this, and while there is homage to the master, he has forged ahead with an entirely personal vision.

Describing these photos is challenging because they are at once deceptively simple and complex. “Number 8,” for example is a fuzzy partial view of a man’s head in profile, a stretch of empty white and then a bird flying out of the picture frame. The image captures a simultaneous sense of motion and stillness. The man and the bird are each dynamic, moving in opposite directions out of the picture frame, and yet each is caught in a moment of elegant, eloquent stillness.
This is a very special exhibition for anyone interested in photography. Contemporary, yet reminiscent of the past.  Perhaps the proper word is timeless.

Through July 3, Randall Scott Gallery, 111 Front St., Ste. 204, Brooklyn, 212-796-2190.

Originally published June 3, 2010 by Time Out New York: Own This City

A box factory that was built in 1900 along the Gowanus Canal seems an unlikely place to celebrate the Age of Enlightenment. But at Observatory (543 Union St between Bond and Nevins Sts, Gowanus, Brooklyn; observatoryroom.org. Thu, Fri 3–6pm; Sat, Sun noon–6pm; free), enlightenment occurs on a regular basis. The gallery and event space was founded in February 2009 by a group of seven artists who aim to transport visitors back in time. “[The space is] inspired by the 18th-century notion of ‘rational amusement,’?” explains cofounder Joanna Ebenstein. It’s also part of a broader artistic renaissance that has transformed the area around the Gowanus Canal from a toxic wasteland to a budding home for urban pioneers: Observatory shares a home with other eclectic groups, including the Museum of Matches and Proteus Gowanus.

The idea for Observatory grew out of two earlier exhibits curated by Ebenstein and artist James Walsh; “Arcane Media,” one of the projects, showed off antiquated methods of capturing images on film. After the success of those shows, they gathered together like-minded partners to form Observatory. The group’s mandate is to be a home for “kindred geeks,” says cocurator Pam Grossman. Each of Observatory’s members curates one show per year that features their own work, or that of artists with a similar archaic bent. The current exhibit, “The Secret Museum” (through Sunday 6), was assembled by Ebenstein and features images of odd items from museums across the globe.

But what’s most notable about Observatory is its lectures: If you have a hankering to learn about poisons or how to preserve plants, this is the place to be. The events are alike in that they occupy the intersection of history, science and art. The Observatory celebrates the eccentric and nurtures the curious; its oddities delight the eye as well as the mind.